#i'd rather have like a specific project to work on and just happen to be with a bunch of people my age

[teenagefeeling]

so i had a falling out with a friend last night (i mean. it wasn't good but like we just need some space. i hope, anyway.) and obviously the world is also on fire but for some reason i am feeling a renewed sense of hope today

i've been trying to look for volunteer opportunities centered around either the arts or historic preservation/education/etc and while im struggling to find much that fits me currently in this moment, i am just kind of seeing a lot of things and realizing how many options and opportunities for the future there are if i just do a little planning. there's this program i found where you can go to a historical site for 6 days and help with a preservation effort and while that sounds mildly terrifying.... all the people in the pictures looked so nice and happy and they reminded me of the people i met in ND while my friend was working there, who were mostly just fun young people who like the outdoors and care about conservation and they were all so nice to me then and like i wanna be a part of something like that. i wish it was easier to do locally but my local park district just has drop-in invasive species removal volunteering and while that could be fun, it's not like a thing with a specific scheduled time and group you just make an individual appointment with a ranger

[cologona]

The thing about Bruce making Dick Robin is that it can be read as empathy. Bruce and Dick both lost their family in the same way, and so Bruce tries to help Dick by giving him what he wanted as a young orphan. Justice, closure, power, meaning. Something to make the world right again, some way to move forward, someone who understands.

But that same reading is not as easy to apply to Jason

If I were to read Bruce in a particularly unflattering light, I'd say Bruce fundamentally saw Jason as more expendable than Dick. He was so afraid of losing Dick that he totally sabotaged that relationship, but he's fine with this much younger kid playing the same dangerous role? Jason is a tough street kid sure sure, but is he tougher than 18 year old Dick motherfucking Grayson??? No.

If I were to read Bruce in a more sympathetic light, I'd say that in Bruce's mind orphan = craving-for-justice-that-can-only-be-satiated-with-vigilantism, and since he found out Jason's father was dead he was trying to give Jason the same guidance and empowerment Dick got. He genuinely thought it would work. He did this at the same time that he was actively hiding the death of Jason's father, because this intense self-projection is happening at the subconscious level. He simultaneously wants to comfort the orphan and prevent the orphan from becoming "real" by hiding the truth. It is not logical but it is well-meaning.

(This self-projection is also the source of Bruce's bizarre assertion that Jason has anger issues- he isn't a classist asshole he's just sensitive! 👉👈)

Either way, there is clearly an instability to the concept of Jason's Robin. Batman and Robin requires suspending one's disbelief about child soldiers to degree higher than other superheroes, but there's not quite enough to support that suspension here.

Because how exactly is being Robin supposed to help Jason? What about Jason's supposed anger issues lend themselves to being helped by vigilantism? Jason could've just been Bruce Wayne's son, so why is he also Robin?

...Would Jason have just been Bruce Wayne's son?

I.. don't think so. I don't think Bruce adopted him just to offer a good home- not really. Bruce certainly wanted Jason to have a good home, but that's what sending him to Ma Gunn's school was supposed to be. Ma Gunn didn't work out sure, but it's not like she was the only option. Bruce could've just done more research the second time around. If Jason had rejected becoming Robin, would Bruce have still adopted him? If Batman had not intended for Jason to become involved with hero work, could you see him still sending Jason off to Wayne Manor to be adopted?

Bruce didn't just want a son, or even just a Robin. He wanted something specific- he wanted the feeling of having Dick back. Bruce praises Jason for how similar he is to Dick in his head, and based on Alfred's warning and Jason's own behavior, he apparently compared Jason to Dick quite a bit during training. When Dick himself eventually comes to confront Bruce about why there's another Robin, he pretty much lays it bare: Jason is Robin because he missed Dick. That's the core of it.

Now on one hand this is flattering for Jason! It means he was chosen for the Robin mantle because he demonstrated the good qualities similar to the original. In another universe maybe Jason Todd's Robin isn't the angry one or the dead one, maybe he got to develop and he could've become the Robin that came from sharing laughter and life rather than grief. A Cinderella? A little lotus boy.

On the other hand that's not the universe we live in and this reason has absolutely fuck-all to do with Jason.

As for Tim, parentification is straight up the basis of his Robin. It’s impossible to read his “Batman needs Robin” spiel without reading it as a meta statement because in-universe it’s just an extremely frgiggi depressing scenario.

I think Dick might be the only person for whom Bruce's intense self-projection kinda worked out. Not that their relationship was good, but the core of it was okay? Cassandra comes close but Bruce sorta�� lives out his dreams of being all-Batman all-the-time through her. He pushed his bad impulses onto her and she didn’t understand the value of not being Batman so it came off really creepy. He was encouraging her to rely him. Like a tool.

[ylangelegy]

BUZZ (SEVENTEEN'S VERSION). 🎵

[SERIES TEASER/MASTERLIST] An anthology of thirteen drabbles inspired by NIKI's Buzz album— one track for each boy of SEVENTEEN.

↻ ◁ || ▷ ↺ TRACK LIST . . . HIT PLAY?

🔊 01. BUZZ ─ JIHOON. The song's about to start. (Can you hear it?)

🔖 co-producer!reader, feelings denial/realization, confessions.

🔊 02. TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING ─ CHAN. Oh, baby, look me in the eye and say you don't got it bad.

🔊 03. COLOSSAL LOSS ─ JEONGHAN. What happened to making light of every problem?

🔊 04. FOCUS ─ VERNON. Are you The Exception or do I just like your music taste?

🔊 05. DID YOU LIKE HER IN THE MORNING? ─ MINGHAO. And does it feel heavy now to look at me instead?

🔊 06. TAKE CARE ─ JUNHUI. So you take it easy, and I'll take my time.

🔊 07. MAGNETS ─ SOONYOUNG. I'd rather die than be friends.

🔊 08. TSUNAMI ─ JOSHUA. It's like you've known me through all my past lives, what an evil thought.

🔊 09. BLUE MOON ─ WONWOO. Was it hidden in the cards that I'd lose you?

🔖 long-term relationship, angst, tarot card references.

🔊 10. STRONG GIRL ─ SEUNGKWAN. Goddamn it, I'm at least somebody's strong girl.

🔊 11. PATHS ─ MINGYU. My youth is in your past; you'll always have that.

🔊 12. HEIRLOOM PAIN ─ SEUNGCHEOL. You will fall in love and fuck up, too.

🔊 13. NOTHING CAN ─ SEOKMIN. No one'll ever save you; no one and nothing can.

🎹 Works under the series will be tagged with #ylangelegy buzz x svt. If you want to be tagged for any specific member (or the entire series), drop a reply! Stories may not be published in age/track order. Please anticipate slow updates since this is just a little passion project. Looking forward to it! ꒰ •ᴗ•｡꒱۶

[alexandraisyes]

What would happen if you were a writer for TSAMS?

I mean we'll never know unless we try, however-

God the temptation to make jokes about shipping ajfsdkg;ljfasd;l

In all seriousness I'm good at finding and fixing plot holes and writing consistent storylines. I've been writing solo for years, and recently I've been co-writing fics for this fandom. And stars I'll say it now, obviously I wouldn't drag fan ships into the canon lore, that would be stupid considering most of them just wouldn't work with canon.

If I had the chance to write for TSAMS I would definitely try to influence the way certain things (specifically things like mental disorders) are portrayed, because I understand being part of the audience and the frustration of only seeing part of the story and missing an entire important perspective. I personally find so much enjoyment in that because I get to tear everything apart, dissect it, and put it back together so the fandom can understand what the story is portraying, but the fact that someone is required to tear it apart to get what should have been an obvious message most of the time is an issue, in my opinion.

A consistent problem I've noticed with TSAMS is that it's overly omnipotent on some things while being too closed about others. This is a narrative problem that stems from not having enough time to figure out the best approach for new situations they want to incorporate. This is because the writers/VAs are so bogged down by personal projects, stream schedules, their servers, life, etc that they just don't have time to figure these things out. Especially when the company is pushing for more content/lore episodes and they're just a team of four. Four very very busy individuals that have to write AND voice act the entire cast of characters. I feel like having someone who is just a writer would help with a lot of the inconsistency and unresolved plot holes.

There's a lot of strong potential for things that would stem back as far as two years that would be so interesting to see incorporated, but they just don't have the time to work through those and it's easier to keep jumping on new boats and abandoning the ones they have to sink because of unresolved tears in the plot letting more inconsistencies trickle in like so much water. So I would absolutely work to correct those and clean up the holes and resolve unanswered questions.

I'd also push for more consistent characterization, or rather better worded, deeper characterization. Not that they don't have good characterization now, overall I think they do a decent job, but there are just some things that I wish they'd touch on more. Likes, dislikes, disorders, complications, relationships, etc. What really makes up these characters; I'd probably end up with a complicated character web for the main cast at the very least to help with consistent storytelling. I do this with my own AUs to keep characters consistent, including quirks (For example Solar Flare always refers to people by their full name in my writing). It would also be interesting to dig deeper into what makes the characters them. Their personalities, beliefs, interests, morality/standards (for those without morals), and what they did and didn't find traumatic (as well as what level of trauma).

God even just the thought of how I could potentially fix the dumpster fire (/affectionate /positive) of TSAMS and co is a little exciting because there's just so much potential lying around untampered with that I would happily dig my grubby little claws into.

[freshstitches]

I've been peer pressured into including stitch markers in my patterns. It's never been my preference to use them. I don't find them particularly helpful, but I value other people's feedback and understand that they're important for many people. I'm currently making a sample of a new pattern which includes stitch markers, so I'm forced to deal with them. I have the right to loudly complain the whole time. 

Here are the top three reasons that I don't like using Stitch markers in my knitting: 

1. Markers lie. Stitch markers are supposed to be a guide, highlighting an area of your knitting and creating a landmark that you can track. But what happens if that landmark isn't in the right place? Whenever I find a mistake involving a stitch marker, there's a 50% chance that the marker is just in the wrong place and my knitting is completely fine. If the marker is next to a Yarn Over, it's even more likely to slide into the wrong position. In the particular pattern I'm working on, the stitch markers need to move, introducing another place where I can make mistakes. Mistakes happen in my project all the time and one of my most common issues is forgetting to move or place a stitch marker.

2. If (when) I make a big mistake and have to rip out, the markers come out too. It's difficult to find the correct placement after frogging. I do my best to make sure that marker placement is shown in each row. That way, the knitter knows where they should be. you can place the markers when they fall out or if you rip out, but it's still an ordeal to get them back in place. When a pattern lacks these clues, it's nearly impossible to figure out where the markers should be.

3. Very often, markers highlight an existing landmark in the knitting. I'd rather spot a column of increases or a specific stitch in a repeat than a marker sitting next to it. The skill of spotting the se landmarks is often called "reading your knitting." It's a skill that's learned over time, and not everyone has this ability. But it is a skill that's well worth learning  if you want to make projects with intricate stitch work or shaping. Because I'm able to read my knitting, I often take the markers out and use landmark stitches as a guide. As soon as I'm done making sure all of the markers in a pattern makes sense, I remove them. When I don't have to worry about markers, things move a lot faster. 

[genericpuff]

The Extended Mishandling of LO's S3 Midseason Finale Premiere

Alright, so I had mentioned leading up to the release of the newest LO episode that my feelings regarding LO returning were pretty "meh". Not hyped, but not completely back of mind either. Just sort of a weird calm before the storm type feeling that could go either way.

I'm glad I got to have that moment of calmness because good god, this episode was an absolute shitshow. And honestly, I'm not surprised, for several reasons:

Rachel has never been good at maintaining a buffer, even back at the start of the series she only ever had 2-3 episodes ready ahead of her schedule which is NOT an ideal buffer for an originals series.

Rachel has never been good at writing, she's very "draw first write later" and has stated as such in interviews that when she gets 'stuck' on what she's writing, she'll just start drawing and fit the pieces in later.

Four months is NOT enough time to both rest, attend massive conventions, and work on improving a project while also getting buffer episodes ready.

Because of the FP episodes remaining locked over the hiatus, technically Rachel only needed to have ONE episode ready upon return for the newest FP release, not multiple like she'd usually need like in the past during the S2 midseason hiatus or the season finale episodes which would unlock those FP releases like normal - so for all we know, she could have drawn this episode literally last week, especially when the promo material was so last minute. Frankly I think it was REALLY stupid for whoever it was who decided to keep these FP episodes locked (whether it was her or WT, it was more likely WT) but you can read all I have to say about that in my review of the midseason finale episodes.

All that's to say, no, there was never any guarantee Rachel was going to somehow "turn around" the ride we're currently on. I know that many of the critics were hoping for that to happen, but with the circumstances of the hiatus mixed with Rachel's bad habits of putting her best efforts into the procrastination projects that aren't her actual comic (ex. the few original pieces and LO sketches she put out during the hiatus) it just wasn't in the cards. This is where the comic is at and this is where it will remain until it's over.

I want to also point something out about this episode that was... really glaring to me.

As with all of these hiatus returns, LO got priority advertising in the first two banner slots and push notifications AND a popup ad within the app. This is unsurprising, Webtoons is still trying to milk this thing for what it's worth.

I know a lot of people are gonna focus on the art, or the fact that WT is continuing to shill LO, but I wanna point out the part that WT implemented specifically - "NEW SEASON".

This is literally just false. At best I'd like to think some intern just messed up and thought this was a new season, but it's literally not, the episode designation still says "S3". Note that the creators only design the banner art, the actual labels on top are put there by Webtoons.

But at worst, this feels like blatant lying to continue to hide the fact that LO is ending. Mind you, Rachel and Webtoons have still not put out official posts stating that this is the final arc. There is NOTHING from either of them to communicate to the audience that the comic is ending next year. It feels like they're trying to avoid the topic altogether out of fear of losing the fanbase they still have, rather than hyping up the comic's end for those who have stuck around to see how it all wraps up. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case, considering they're now trying to funnel the fanbase into Penguin/Inklore with new marketing deals and the whole Rachel Smythe Presents thing. They're trying to make this seem like the beginning of something "new" when it's really just a quiet shifting of management (Penguin House).

But all that aside, let's actually get into the episode. It's one episode after 4 months, which is not standard for LO's hiatuses, typically FP episodes release on schedule (meaning free readers start hiatuses 3 weeks after FP readers do), the only time this has been an exception has been with the 2 week breaks because the whole point of those was to build a buffer (which you can't do if you're going ahead and releasing the FP episodes anyways). For extended hiatuses like these, usually free readers still get their FP episodes, but that wasn't the case here. That means Rachel technically only needed one episode ready for the comic's return, and it shows. It really fucking shows.

FROM HERE ON OUT THERE WILL BE FASTPASS SPOILERS REGARDING EPISODE 254. DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED !!!

As per tradition, we get a title that means nothing at all. It just says what we already know.

Our collective husband Zeus is dying, no thanks to the poison cupcake fed to him by Apollo. For those who don't remember, Apollo had tricked Zeus into eating the cupcake by making him believe it was from Hebe. We are fully aware that it was Apollo who poisoned him. Remember that for later in this review.

Right off the bat we're off to a hilarious start, both with a cryptid appearance from Apollo in the background (lmao) who is, for some reason, ALREADY returning to the scene of the crime he just committed because... who knows at this point. Apollo and Psyche know it was Apollo at this point, I might add, but I have no clue why Apollo is actually returning to the scene of the crime when he has no idea Eros and Psyche know.

Moving on from that, can we talk about this hilarious dialogue?

"We have to call a doctor! Let's call Asclepius!"

"No, we can't trust him! Gosh darn it, why are we only bothering to think of ONE doctor in this universe where we've seen more than one doctor?? Guess Zeus is just gonna die! What a horribly contrived situation this is!"

And that's literally how I can best describe most of this episode. Contrived. There is a LOT of manufactured drama in this that makes ZERO sense even on a surface level.

And what do you mean exactly, Eros? "What a terrible system!" Is this supposed to be a joke? Lampshading? We've seen Persephone go to the gynecologist. There are non-god doctors who tend to gods all the time here.

Eros just doesn't seem to be that pressed over this, he sounds like Ned Flanders and that's NOT a good way to open up a scene like this... let alone an episode people have been waiting four months for.

Anyways, after a few pointless reaction panels (again remember I have to cut a lot of what I show here for Tumblr image limitations but I promise you, I'm keeping as much important stuff as I can in this, there's just THAT MUCH filler at this point), Eros and Psyche confront Apollo and he is... good god.

There is... so much to unpack here.

First of all, remember those theories about how Rachel was clearly trying to write Apollo as this "secret twist villain" the whole time but it doesn't work because Apollo is simultaneously written as both a 'conniving villain' and a massive dumbass at the same time?

Well, I finally have a more appropriate term for him. He's your average red pill redditor - someone who thinks he's smarter than everyone else when really all he does is sit on reddit all day using big words incorrectly in arguments he gets himself into with a bunch of equally-air-headed dumbasses.

"You can't possibly understand the nuances of the Olympian political system," Apollo said proudly, a man who had, ironically and obliviously, run for president in a monarchy. The union of kettle and pot is eternal.

He's the Slappable Jerk but instead of it being a painfully hilarious impression, it's just painful and hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

this is so stupid because it's 1.) Eros pointing out how obvious Apollo's plan was, despite Apollo acting smart two seconds ago with a goddess who, mind you, has been a goddess for ten years, and 2.) patricide isn't even intrinsically linked to politics, there's nothing 'political' about a guy trying to kill his dad except in, idk, a monarchy, which again, Apollo has spent ten years trying to rise to power in as a president which is a completely different form of government.

If I wanted to be really granular with this, I'd like to think Apollo is making some kind of point about the critics who call out LO's whack as fuck political system (especially in the trial arc) - as if he's saying "well you're just a stupid reader and this is fantasy where you don't understand exactly what political system we're using, so shut the fuck up you stupid twig" - but I don't think it's meant to be that deep. I think it's just Rachel trying to write a smart character and then failing at it because she, herself, is not a smart writer. And I'm really inclined to believe that more than the theory about this being some kind of meta-narrative about the critics because this entire plotline is contrived and stupid down to its core.

I did not cut anything out here, that's the pacing. Leto literally just appears out of nowhere and uh oh spaghettio's, she has Kassandra! Remember Leto? The character we were led to believe was truly "pulling the strings" until she disappeared from the story completely after she realized that Apollo and Persephone weren't a thing, even going so far as to call out her own son for being a fucking dumbass? Well, she's back and once again she's being involved as some kind of "double agent" in this whole thing, even though we literally haven't seen her since halfway through S2.

"Mm yes, you're so stupid, falling into my trap! Even though you had no reason to remember Kassandra anyways because she's literally a mortal woman you just met and you yourself have committed acts of violence against mortals without a shred of care! I'm so smart! My plan is all coming together!"

We've never seen Apollo do anything except cry and poop his pants, the closest he got to being "powerful" was his attempts to murder Daphne (who he seems to have forgotten about in this "master plan" of his) but ultimately he's literally just a piss ant baby and there's no reason to believe that he could somehow outmatch the God of Love who can literally manipulate people's emotions and states of mind with his arrows. But yeah sure go off, you're so powerful and smart.

The worst part is, I can't even buy this as the narrative trying to be like "see how manipulative and conniving he is?" because it's just silly. We've SEEN this man cry with his victim complex, we've seen him say and do the DUMBEST things that don't lend to any amount of "intelligence" he may have, it comes across less as him being "smart the whole time" and more as him trying to sound smart but ultimately sounding incredibly stupid. And I can't even immerse myself into it and buy that maybe that's the point, because it doesn't feel like the point, it just feels like inconsistent writing, he doesn't feel like a 'threat', he's just monologuing.

Bad art and Apollo literally just repeating what Leto already implied so this is a waste of the audience's time.

This is the funniest panel in the whole episode because I can't tell if Apollo is supposed to be in the background (for some reason, despite him literally being in front of Eros and Psyche two seconds ago) or if he's in the foreground and just REALLY small for some reason. This is so off-putting. And of course, it's just Apollo explaining what we're ALREADY SEEING ONSCREEN.

You see, in addition to this episode being contrived, it also talks down to its audience a LOT by explaining exactly what we're seeing onscreen. It's like Rachel saw the criticisms about her not including enough to depict what's actually going on in her head and so she thought the solution was to spoon feed information over pictures that are already doing the job of explaining what's going on. Rachel really doesn't know how to write and even when she tries to implement changes that reflect criticisms that have been made of her writing, she somehow makes things worse because she completely misses the point of what those criticisms are trying to get across.

Anyways, without even trying to resist (for some reason) Eros and Psyche get sentenced to horny jail.

They're now trapped in a basement that Leto somehow has in her home. How do we know that?

HAHAHA FUNNY LAMPSHADING SO FUNNNYYYYYYY

Leto claims that they shouldn't try to escape because the dungeon is "enchanted", but she doesn't even bother to explain what that means. So they literally don't bother trying. They don't try to call her bluff, they don't try to teleport out of there, they literally just go "well shoot", shrug their shoulders, and accept their fate. Just like with the whole "we can't trust the only doctor we bothered to think of" situation, Eros and Psyche are turning out to be some of the stupidest, lowest-effort characters in this comic who literally can't be bothered to try because that would require too much brain power.

Notice how much time we've spent on this and we haven't gotten back to where the cliffhanger of the last episode left off? Well buckle up because there's still more to cover.

So it turns out Hebe was still inside with her dad, in FULL VIEW of what was going on through glass which is somehow COMPLETELY soundproof, and when Apollo steps inside, she just has no idea what happened. She never bothered to even look outside to see what was going on with Eros and Psyche, she's just been sitting on the floor staring at Zeus' dead face for what was likely several minutes, unless Rachel is seriously trying to convince us that conversation and hostage negotiation from earlier only took 2 seconds. The timeline is such a mess at this point that characters basically freeze in place as soon as they're not the focus of the scene.

Apollo rushes inside, acting shocked over the situation, and when Hebe asks where Eros and Psyche are (again, she could have just looked out the window at any time), he's just like "dur idk they just left lol" which Hebe just... buys, I guess.

That's just Persephone but yellow. She's even missing her beauty mark.

See how Apollo put his hand on Zeus' chest/shoulder by the way?

Apparently, despite Mr. Smarter Than Everyone Else trying to pretend it wasn't him, he's able to discern that Zeus is dying from a toxic and rare poison just from touching him. He doesn't even really seem to use his powers, he just touches him and goes "welp he's dead i guess lol don't bother asking me how I know that".

But oh nooo remember that note from before? Well gasp Apollo's gonna use it to frame Hebe! In front of no one else at all!

Hebe of course says she didn't write it, but Apollo continues to try and frame her anyways, even though, again, there's no one else present here, and so it effectively just becomes the most absurd form of gaslighting I've ever seen.

Again, THERE IS NO ONE ELSE HERE IN THE SCENE. He's just trying to claim she did it to absolutely no one at all, in the hopes of... what exactly? That she'll just take the fall for something she knows she didn't do? That she'll somehow be convinced? It's not like Hebe has the same thing going on as Persephone where she has a 'wrathful dark side' he could pin it on, this is just a criminal who just robbed a building pointing at the first person they see and yelling "YOU DID IT!"

All I'm saying is that Apollo would be really bad at Among Us. He'd be the type of player to kill someone, hit the report button, then claim yellow did it which, even if he DID convince the rest of the team, would still get kicked anyways as soon as yellow was proven through the eject to not be the imp and everyone would go "okay cool so yellow wasn't the imp, that means obviously it's purple self-reporting." It's a trick that doesn't even work anymore because of how old it is. Hebe isn't a child here, she's an 18 year old woman who should be fully capable of raising an eyebrow and wondering why Apollo is this quick to accuse her - almost like he's trying to hide the fact that he did it.

But Hebe can't catch onto this, just like Eros and Psyche, she has to act stupid for the sake of the plot.

At first I thought maybe Rachel was trying to do some "whodunit" scenario, but that doesn't work here because we already know who did it. And while there are stories that exist like that that pull it off (ex. Knives Out) the problem with trying to do this the way Rachel did is that the person being framed has to have this thing called motive. The reason why Knives Out and Glass Onion work so well is because the person who was murdered (or conspired against) is someone who is being targeted by multiple people who could all be the murderer. It's quite literally called out in Glass Onion as a form of smart lampshading. "It's like putting a loaded gun on the table, and turning off the lights."

But it doesn't work here because Hebe does not have motive. If you're going to attempt to frame a murder on someone, it has to be someone who would have reasonable motive to commit that murder, even if they didn't actually commit it.

And who among Zeus' children has motive?

What about the war-mongering bloodthirsty god of war who has been regularly sentenced to time in the Mortal Realm to fight in wars in which he's been regularly injured?

What about the chaos-seeking wrathful goddess who would do it to get revenge on the parental figure who cast her aside, or even just for the fun of saying she did it?

Why try and pin it on Hebe, the doting daughter of Zeus who's only had a collective of maybe 20 panels in the entire comic?

But then I realized... it's not Knives Out, it's the fucking Lion King.

Which is just as contrived - if not more - than the assumption this was gonna be some attempt to frame Hebe. It's not. He's literally just trying to keep her from assuming it was him. He could have just as easily played dumb without calling attention to the note but he intentionally went out of his way to try and be Scar from The Lion King , while completely missing the point of why that scene worked in the original movie.

Scar wasn't trying to 'frame' Simba for Mufasa's murder. He was trying to hide the murder, while also attempting to get the only heir to the throne out of the picture, so he passed the guilt of the death onto Simba - a child who, unlike Hebe, wouldn't have the ability to rationalize or realize his uncle his a scumbag - who then ran away from home because he was too terrified to face his family for what happened, assuming that it was all his fault when it wasn't.

That's not how this is panning out here. Hebe is the now 18 year old daughter of Zeus, and not one of his only children. She doesn't even fit into the whole "sons overthrowing their fathers" prophecy like Aries would. Apollo is literally just being a big idiot here by saying "well I'm gonna give you a headstart to run away, because if you stay, I might hurt you" (which btw, should be MORE of a smoking gun that Apollo did it??)

And again, it's all so contrived so that the plot can move forward. "Well I'm going to frame you for this murder, but y'know, you should just leave, I'm not gonna try and press it further lmao"

Again, Apollo is a fucking idiot here, because he just attempted to frame someone who has NO MOTIVE to harm Zeus, to absolutely NO ONE at all who would side with him, only to let her go which would leave her to question why Apollo would try to accuse and harm her in the first place before considering other options. And through ALL this he claims he's the smart one, which I can't even be bothered to "love to hate" because it's written so poorly.

And really it all comes down to how everyone else behaves in relation to Apollo that makes it so stupid and unbelievable. Apollo, you're not smart just because all the characters around you are intentionally being written to be as stupid and non-confrontation as possible. If you can only write a smart villain by making everyone else stupid, you haven't written a smart villain, you've written a dumbass whose victory only happens due to contrived plot convenience. It's not even done well like in Glass Onion, it's just bad writing, full stop.

And who does he call to report this emergency? The satyr police? His son the doctor?

No.

The media. Literally just "hello, the media?? I need your best journalist here stat!"

I need you to understand, even if he were calling a tabloid magazine like The Weekly Nark, you don't just... call a journalist to report a murder. These are not the actions of someone who's trying to absolve himself of guilt, these are the actions of a complete dumbass trying to get news coverage of his trophy kill who would be better off just playing dumb instead of trying to play smart. Even Walter White wasn't this fucking stupid despite all the times he fell on his own sword, Apollo is literally just instigating suspicion towards himself for no reason at all. He's self-reporting so hard and worst of all, you can't even take any of this seriously because of how corny it is. There's no dramatic tension, no stakes, it's just a bunch of characters performing in a really bad stage play and reducing every conflict to "well I guess Zeus is just dead now because no one's bothering to make an effort to stop Apollo or ask questions lmao"

It's truly the epitome of "this plot wouldn't exist if characters would just talk to each other."

But finally, FINALLY we mention the thing this episode is named after, the transition point to Persephone.

Just like with the midseason finale episode, there's a lot to cover here, so I'm gonna get more into it in a part two post.

That said, you can see already this is the messiest, most contrived bullshit to ever wind up in LO. It's trying so hard to be smart and it just comes across as a bunch of toddlers in the world's worst stage play rendition of Clue. None of what was done here was in any way dramatic or tense, it's just a bunch of characters infodumping shit we already know, trying to set up new plot threads that don't make any sense, and allowing one another to get away with what they're doing because they don't bother to even try.

It's completely manufactured, contrived nonsense. It's not "smart", it's not "so dumb it's brilliant", it's just dumb.

[harrisonarchive]

Hello! Am I correct in understanding that there was no fight between John and George on the day George left the Beatles? They sort of confirmed this in the film, and everyone says that everything was calm, except George Martin, who wasn’t even in the studio at that moment..

Hi! From George to Ringo, to anyone speaking about the alleged fight, everyone says that nothing aggressive happened; the only mention of an actual physical altercation is, as far as I know, in a book by Philip Norman, and well, I'll refer to George's opinion on that particular author. Here's Mal's insight, as published in The Beatles Monthly at the time:

“If you read certain national newspapers at the time you may well have believed a load of rubbish about George having a punch-up with the others. It wasn’t like that at all. There WASN’T a fight, physical or verbal. There WEREN’T any tempers or shouting. I just couldn’t believe it when I read the press afterwards. So, to set the record straight, here’s the truth behind George’s ‘walk out’ and the canceling of the TV Special. Of the four Paul was the most enthusiastic all along about doing the ‘live’ show. John would have gladly taken the whole production unit to Africa or America to find the right location. John and Ringo had mixed feelings about the plan, agreeing with Paul on a lot of the ideas but feeling this might not be the best way of making a 1969 Beatles TV film. George wasn’t keen at all. Ever since the last Beatles tour of America in the summer of 1966 he has considered ‘one night stands’ a thing of the past, a backward step for the group he believes should concentrate on perfecting recordings rather than churning out the same program of too-familiar songs on stages here and abroad. So on Friday at Twickenham George stated his case. Singing and playing together would always be fine with him and the last thing he was suggesting was any break-up of The Beatles. So that day, January 10, George didn’t want to stay at Twickenham rehearsing for a show he couldn’t believe in. We were all having lunch when George came over and said very quietly that he was going home. With that he went off, climbed into his car and headed for Esher. Later he told a bunch of press people: ‘Look, we’re old enough and wise enough to be past all this punching-up rubbish. We’ve been through everything together for so long we don’t need that sort of row. We discuss things and finish up agreeing or disagreeing and that’s the finish of it.’ So George’s departure made it impossible to continue with the original project. If there HAD been a real row the others might have gone ahead. But Beatles don’t work like that. If all four are not united on anything it’s dropped in favor of an alternative that everyone likes and wants to be enthusiastic about.” - Mal Evans, The Beatles Monthly, March 1969

For a meticulously detailed look at the Get Back sessions in general, and all that transpired on January 10, 1969 (as far as the public knows) specifically, I'd highly recommend the excellent They May Be Parted.

Thank you for asking; and I hope this sheds some light on the subject.

[thankskenpenders]

I feel like a recent years have shown that fan reaction has influenced the way Sega handles Sonic in some ways. Frontiers for example in a lot of ways feels like a reaction to complain. So a lot of fans have had about mainline Sonic games.

With that said what do you think about Sega making a multi-character 3D action game Sonic and then slapping it on a platform that has some of the least amount of player reach despite being a mainline platform?

I would be very curious to know more about the development behind Dream Team for sure, but as far as I'm aware the game was more than likely made specifically for Apple Arcade from the very start with heavy involvement from Apple, rather than being a project Sega was shopping around that just so happened to end up as an Apple exclusive.

I have to assume that this game would not exist at all if it wasn't an Apple Arcade project. Hardlight is very much Sega's mobile game division first and foremost, so it's unlikely (if not impossible) that Sega would've had them working on a 3D Sonic platformer for consoles and PC when that's Sonic Team's job. And Apple Arcade's subscription revenue is basically the only home for mobile games that aren't chock full of ads, microtransactions, and wait timers these days. So while it could theoretically get ported elsewhere in the future, it's unlikely that Dream Team ever would've gotten made for any other platform.

Like, there are already two Sonic games on Apple Arcade. Sonic Racing (based off of TSR) was one of the earliest releases for the service and has always been heavily promoted as one of Apple Arcade's flagship games. Later they also did Sonic Dash+, a version of the existing endless runner game with the ads and microtransactions stripped out. I have to assume that these games have done well on Apple Arcade, and Apple simply looked at that and went "Hey, what if we got them to make us an ORIGINAL Sonic game?" Apple Arcade also appeals pretty heavily to parents who want their kids to have something to play on their iPads that isn't cram full of microtransactions, and Sonic remains extremely popular with kids.

But beyond that, why they landed on a full 3D platformer with SIX playable characters, some amount of story, and a new style of level design that takes some influence from skate parks? Who knows. Maybe some folks at Sega Hardlight were just dying to make something like that, and the Apple gig was their opportunity to make it happen after so many years being stuck working on glorified Skinner boxes. Or maybe Apple thought a 3D platformer would be good to diversify their portfolio. Again, I'd be very curious to learn more

(Also, honestly, as annoyed as I am that I have to play Dream Team on my iPad instead of my PC or a console, I do find the talking point that "no one will be able to play it" extremely silly. There are billions of iPhones, iPads, Mac computers, and to a lesser extent Apple TVs out there. Billions. With a B. Apple Arcade reportedly had over 100 million users last year. That's quadruple the number of subscribers Game Pass had, even though if you asked the average gamer they'd probably assume Game Pass was the more popular one! Exclusivity is always frustrating, and I sympathize with folks annoyed that they don't have any devices that can play it, but the fandom deciding that "only six people will be able to play this" is completely divorced from reality.)

[halfmoonism]

Fics for Gaza 🍉

heya! I'll be participating in the @ficsforgaza fundraising initiative through sponsoring wips and taking requests. further rules and all my personal request guidelines will be listed below read more! my writing samples can be found in my writing masterlist (linked below) or snippets of my sponsoring wips below :)

also, do not give money directly to me. I have no links for money up regardless and I will never ask. instead, directly donate to a vetted fundraiser (can be found here and here if you need a place to start looking) and send me proof of donation (please block out personal info). fill this form out too when you make a donation, ty :)

lastly, please consider donating anyway even if you don't want to sponsor anything of mine. there's a creator masterlist if you'd rather look at what other creators are offering! and check out gotcha for gaza for any fandom-specific initiatives! free palestine till it's backwards.

general (more info below): writing masterlist post vetted fundraisers: here and here, though those are far from the only places you can find vetted fundraisers!! rate: $1 = 100 words, $8 for a drabble set fandoms I can write for: anything in my ao3, anything from the sponsored wip list, further details in carrd

General

for both

i will not be posting asks, so I'm running on an honor system. don't send multiple authors the same screenshot please, I don't want to have to stop the honor system :')

i'll have your request done within two weeks for every 1k (so 1k = 2 weeks, 2k = 4 weeks, etc) and will sent updates weekly and whenever you request

if life happens, i'll let you know immediate if i'll need more time + how much longer i'm anticipating

for requests

please send me an ask or dm (preferable, only for requests) w/ your request via dm first. so long as it falls within my request rules, it should be all good :) once I accept, then send proof of donation please!

drabble sets are a series of 25 3-sentence drabbles I can write for any prompt, as loose (fandom, pairing, centered around rain) or specific (fandom, pairing + another chara in the bg, during a specific scene in canon) as you'd like. you can req these too!

for sponsored wips

donate first to a vetted fundraiser and screenshot proof + block out any personal info

send me an ask off anon with your proof of donation and which wip/s you would like to sponsor. I will update wcs weekly

please let me know ahead of time if you would rather remain anonymous when I post the wip! I will automatically mention you in the notes unless you specify

Requests

carrd version + ship details for each fandom available here.

all fandoms I will write for (italicized = have written in published work): great ace attorney chronicles, mob psycho 100, xenoblade chronicles 1, persona 5, persona 4, death note (+ another note), pokemon gens 1-4, fe: awakening, project sekai (vbs), find love or die trying, your turn to die, undertale, long live the queen, a date with death, little nightmares, disco elysium, ib, the uncle who works for nintendo, the case study of jeweler richard, the stanley parable, portal, end roll, omori

will write: a lot. many types of AUs, canon divergence, canon missing scenes, angst, fluff, mild humor, mild crack, etc etc. requests can be as vague or as specific as you'd like. that also includes drabble sets

will not write: nsfw, dead dove, underage, omegaverse, cheating/infidelity, rape/non-con, pregnancy plotlines. generally if I don't have a ship listed in the carrd I'd rather not write it, but if I have any notps that I just can't write for in a given fandom, I'll let you know immediately

Sponsored WIPs

notes:

updates weekly

this includes potentially adding parts to completed works that I am open to writing :)

will be sorted from continuations of completed works -> short to longer fics

many wips already have prewritten segments; all sponsored words are not par of the prewritten segments, they are just the anticipated amt until the end of the fic

all of this is also listed in the carrd for easy access, but updated wcs will only be listed here

hand on my stupid heart, the henry epilogue — fe: awakening, inigo & henry & olivia, henry/olivia

synopsis: third ch of the dysfunctionally healthy family dynamic that takes place during their supports while inigo's trying (and failing) to snoop on henry+olivia. wherein henry is on an entirely different wavelength from both olivia and inigo (aka he figured early on that inigo might be his son but rejected the idea on principle) but he still just Gets It

tags: this is just silly. silly and a little sad. and rather yearning. henry is a little insane

sponsored: 0/1500

fun little excerpt: Olivia is strange, even for him. Hmm. Wait, that’s not true. She’s the shy, pretty dancer that joined at the tail end of the Plegian war—he’d consider that pretty normal. But for such a shy person, she sure does get weirdly defensive whenever he says something she doesn’t like, which is a lot! And he still doesn’t get the whole learning emotions thing, but he’s pretty sure Olivia doesn’t go around teaching the whole camp how to frown? Then, alright, Olivia’s strange when it comes to him, that’s for sure, but not anyone else. That's nothing compared to Inigo, though, ahaha.

East of the Sun pt 3, ryuunosuke's (un)grand return — tgaa, heavily implied kazuma/ryuunosuke, bg sholmes/van zieks + post-kazuma getting absorbed into a found family

synopsis: when ryuunosuke first sets foot on london again, he'd expected quite a bit to change from kazuma's letters. but not this much. aka kazuma purposefully didn't tell ryuunosuke abt sholmes/van zieks beyond sholmes visiting the office more and ryuunosuke kind of loses it

tags: post-canon, mild humor, ryuunosuke just goes through it (affectionately) while yearning himself (derogatory)

sponsored: 0/1700

Pushing Up Daisies, that's what you call thaumaturgy sequel — persona 5 royal, akechi & sumire, bg one-sided joker/akechi (that ends)

synopsis: wrapped in the suffocating vines of a perfect reality, akechi goro, without fail, calls yoshizawa kasumi every monday at 9am, never any earlier or later. he won't stop asking her what her name is.

tags: post-royal bad ending, two ppl who lost themselves clawing their way to a bittersweet ending

sponsored: 0/5000 (I don't think it'll be this short but I'll start if 2000 is met)

a long and bountiful life — mob psycho 100, dimple & mob

synopsis: “This is the first and only time I’ll use my hypnosis on you,” he says to a swaying Shigeo, and he knows this is it. (Well, he always did have grand ambitions.)

tags: canon compliant, ending of divine tree arc, angst (ig), regret

(already written: 163) sponsored: 0/1500

fun little excerpt: So, he failed. He loves that kid. He loves that kid and he’s screwed up everything for him, digging from the roots and all: the brainwashing, the mocking, the insincerity, everything he stands for was everything he threw against Shigeo, and the inkling sensation of guilt was easy enough to ignore when Shigeo had gotten full of it and denied his very existence. Easy enough when Hanazawa had stormed in and carelessly flung energy around, easy enough when he just kept proving everyone right about him, perfectly fulfilling their lack of trust and unsavory impressions, their scowls and hatred. He’s used to it! He drank it up! Of course he could take Shigeo like this! Yeah, right.

things older and murker than love [holder title] — mob psycho 100, reigen & mob & hanazawa

synopsis: sometime post-canon, hanazawa walks into s&s with an unusual request: his apartment is haunted. that isn't quite right, but shigeo doesn't know how to tell him that the walls themselves are reaching out to haunt him. (he thinks hanazawa knows, anyway.)

tags: post-canon, in which the haunting is not a person but a place, found family, hopeful ending

(already written: 912) sponsored: 0/1500

fun little excerpt: "You would?" Hanazawa mumbles. The weakened awestruck tone sounds wrong in the office, rejected from every surface and bouncing around with nebulous intent. "I mean—thanks, Kageyama." To Reigen: "No, not like something's in them. It's like—ah, you wouldn't believe me." Reigen raises an eyebrow, the way he would to a particular difficult customer. Except Hanazawa isn't a customer and Reigen's gaze is softer, fond concern shaving away the rigidity of his confidence like a whetstone.

by the cliffside, left wanting — disco elysium, cuno & harry & kim

synopsis: EMPATHY [Godly: Success] — He doesn't have anyone in the world. (The boat not having room for three doesn't stop two detectives and a fledgling hope for change.) aka: cuno goes along with harry and kim for the ending sequence

tags: canon divergence, canon-typical violence, implied/referenced child abuse, slurs (cuno), found family

note: as this is cuno pov, this means there are swears/slurs in like every sentence. oh my beloved awful 13 year old son

(already written: 2642) sponsored: 0/1500

fun little excerpt (literally a swear word in every sentence): "What if I do join the pigs, huh?!" he screams, balling his hands into fists like a goddamn street fighter, and C's face turns three shades of purple like the people in those fucking snuff films she forces him to watch. "Cuno can do whatever the fuck he wants! If you're gonna hold the Cuno back, C, then Cuno's gonna ditch your sorry ass!" He can see the moment she processes each syllable and shoves that catacomb dream out of his old-ass creaky apartment window. Yeah. Cuno's not a stupid fuck. He knows he's in deep shit. He knows C will fucking shank him in his sleep, that type of shit. Then his fucking pig sets a dinky fucker alight and the old world's gone up in smoke.

an old world's haunts — your turn to die, joe &/ sara (one-sided most likely)

synopsis: in every world but this world, sara doesn't lose joe. she can't lose joe. she can't lose joe. (in which sara's utter ruthlessness in the simulations is explored)

tags: major character death (undone, but happens in every 'world' iteration), canon-typical violence (often enacted by sara), emotional manipulation, just. absolute cruelty to survive, the ai simulations.

(already written: 2828) sponsored: 0/1700

untitled canon-divergent au — mob psycho 100, reigen & mogami

synopsis: the world's greatest psychic of the 20th century meets the world's greatest psychic of the 21st century earlier than expected. Somehow, this makes all the difference. aka, in which 12 yo reigen forces mogami to take him in as an 'apprentice'

tags: for want of a nail, nobody is dead, being kind to ppl for fun and profit (it is not fun and there is minimal profit), redemption sort of, found family, non-linear narrative

(already written: 658) sponsored: 0/2000

fun little snippet: But the kid's face reminds him of his own teenage self on the reruns he's unfortunate enough to catch, far-removed from the skin of the drained, lying has-been he's currently wearing. The desire to be someone, to go out of his way to be better is altogether too familiar. Denying this kid now, no matter how pragmatic, feels like betraying the sense of self Keiji perhaps liked best. So he asks, "What's your name?" And makes a mistake.

some sort of remaking — persona 4, kanji/naoto/rise

synopsis: as valentine's day approaches, rise gets hit with the bright idea to teach naoto how to flirt so that they and kanji could finally get it together. that is... not exactly what happens

tags: developing relationship, getting together

(already written: 479) sponsored: 0/2000

fun little excerpt: "No, Naoto-kun, your line delivery's a bit—here, say it a bit slower and try smiling at the end, 'kay?" Naoto-kun, ever the fast learner, follows her instructions to the letter. Which is great, of course! Makes her job easier! Her heart's having a hard time in the face of their sincere smile, though. She didn't think a smile could shine outside of sets.

[rileys-battlecats]

omg?? i adore everything ab all of ur work, but especially ur warriors oc stuff. all the characters are so well-characterized and designed. and also the names?? did i mention designs?? honestly mudpaw is one of the most relatable characters ive ever seen. also i love that the other apprentices are actually understanding and more like actual children cats instead of existing to be mean. (ok that sounds like im saying children aren’t mean i promise some of them are)

but like, to the actual question/s. how did you come up with the concept and get it to this point? in that one commentary video you made, i remember you mentioning that he used to be mudstripe, and he was a serial killer (sidenote that’s actually so baddie) although you decided that you wanted to tell the story of a victim rather than a villian. but did it take a lot of thinking to get micaclan as a whole to this point, or did it just kinda come naturally? also im so sorry i typed an entire essay

WAAAAHHSVDJHSDJAB THANK YOU :') also you don't ever have to apologize for sending me essays in my inbox I love asks like this <3 <3

The story and world as they are now have developed incrementally over time. In the beginning, I never really intended to make anything more for this story beyond "Johnny". I had a very specific animatic visualized for that song (because I'd been listening to it on loop for days lol), and I made characters and a story that fit with the idea.

After making and uploading it, though, the characters and their story kept knocking around in my brain!! I wanted to expand on them, and to develop them more. If my memory is right, "Johnny" was the first time I'd ever made a video telling a story of my own making (previous projects had all been stuff from existing media), and I was excited by the idea of making more :) the storytelling aspect was really interesting to me!

I started coming up with more details in my head, things like character traits and names and the next story beats I wanted to portray. By the time I made "The Garden", I'd worked up at least a loose idea of the story in my head (though I wasn't sure where exactly I was going to take it in the end at that point), and I had designed most of the clan members (mostly to fill backgrounds tbh).

Then, some folks in the youtube comments started asking about references for the different characters, and I started this blog to share them! This is definitely the point where I got REALLY into worldbuilding and fleshing out characters haha. Each reference I posted included a little bit of text about the character, and I got to put to words some of the ideas I'd had previously. Or, it gave me the opportunity to come up with some character traits for background characters I hadn't given much thought to previously! Then people started engaging with the blog more, and having people ask questions gave me the opportunity to think about lots of different aspects of the story, characters, and world. From there, it feels like the entire story expanded, bit by bit, detail by detail. So it definitely took a lot of thinking, but that thinking happened pretty naturally over time, if that makes sense!

[salad-006]

Most Esteemed and Talented Artist Salad, I hope you're doing well. Allow me a moment to express my profound admiration for your work, which stands as a beacon of inspiration in my own humble artistic journey. Your inventiveness and boundless creativity are a constant delight, and I confess that this letter is penned with no small degree of dread, given the immense esteem in which I hold you.

It is with great reverence (and perhaps a touch of trembling courage) that I entreat your permission to embark upon a most joyous undertaking: a fandub of your splendid comic, Tally Hall vs. Evil Hall. My intent is to translate this delightful piece into the Spanish language, enlist the aid of my comrades in lending a voice to its characters, and share it with the world on the grand stage of Youtube.

Naturally, I would take utmost care to ensure that proper credit is given where it is most due. Your Tumblr, Twitter, and Youtube domains shall be heavily acknowledged within the description, and both at the commencement and conclusion of the video, thus directing all respect to your rightful domain.

I fervently hope that this request does not appear untoward or peculiar, for it stems solely from a deep appreciation for your craft and a wish to celebrate it in a manner that entertains and delights. Should you grant your blessing, I shall consider it the highest of honours.

Pray forgive the length of this letter; nervousness and enthusiasm have conspired to make me rather verbose. I eagerly await your response, and regardless of your decision, I remain ever a devoted admirer of your extraordinary work.

(Respectfully I am nervous to send you this ask, I tried to make it funny but I am as anxious as a chihuahua on the street/pos)

While i think itd be funny to just reply "no" , ill give you a legitimate answer

While I appreciate the respect and I'm glad you enjoy my work, I'll ask that you don't produce this dub. To put it simply, I don't want the comic to develop any larger of an audience. I'd like to let it fade into obscurity. If you were just looking for a yes or no, there. But if you want more of an explanation, continue reading.

When evil hall blew up, it put me in the spotlight pretty quick. I kinda became a bit of a celebrity within the Tally Hall fandom. And while it was cool initially, it pretty quickly became a bit of a burden. Multiple times I had people harassing me, borderline stalking me, I kept getting pulled into dramas, I had multiple friends turn out to be awful people, and generally I didn't enjoy just being "the evil hall guy." I didn't like being reduced to just my tally hall content. I also didn't like being set to this higher standard and treated like a celebrity. Not only did it create this weird barrier between me and my fans, but it also opened up a wave of people insulting me specifically just because I was the author of a popular thing.

I dont say this to try and garner sympathy, but rather just to help set the stage. In June I released a shitpost dub of the entire comic, and announced it would be the last thing Evil Hall I would do. Plain and simple, I no longer enjoyed working on the comic. What started as a passion project quickly became more of a burden, hense the indefinite hiatus (ironic) that happened after the last chapters finished by me. Infact I'd say those last few months were probably the most paranoid I've been.

With this in mind, I decided the only viable option was to just. Cut the rope. End Evil Hall, and quietly ask that the fandom respected my wishes in letting it fade into obscurity. Allowing it to continue existing would sort of leave me in this endless limbo, where I'd never truly be free from the comic. While I still get an occasional outlier, for the most part the fandom actually listened, which I am incredibly greatful for. I've been able to completely exit that bubble and return to an environment I'm much more comfortable in.

TLDR: Ive moved on from the comic and i really just want everyone else to as well, cause the tally hall fandom is hell

[andiv3r]

hm *looks into your brain* so what is it exactly that makes darkships appealling to you? /gen /lh

Depends on the type.

(Once again leaving shit under the cut <3 just an explanation of why I like various types of darkships).

Child x adult ships? Dooon't appeal to me At All (usually I block tags cause they can make me really upset). Used to like one of them (billdip) but that was mostly me projecting my attraction toward Bill Cipher onto the character in the show who was the most like me... because I happened to be 10 at the time (younger than Dipper is in the show lmao). I also used that ship and the fucked up dynamics to process. Things 👍

Incest ships? Honestly I've only ever liked one of those (y'all know the one, I don't even have to say) and I've explained in detail why already. I'd say they don't bother me as much because there's not a(n inherent) consent issue but rather a "hey, this is probably not the safest foundation for a relationship," which is also true of like... massive age gaps between adults. There's also the "if you have a kid there's a higher chance they'll end up disabled (+ it's unfair to do something you Know could cause a person that much more difficult of a life) so Don't Do That" but that's. Not an issue. With the things I ship. Considering I find myself drawn more to queer ships + I often headcanon characters as intersex & unable to have kids anyway.

Selfcest ships? Okay come on I'm autosexual the answer should be clear with this one.

Human x non-human? This one's tricky because as with the first one I hate most of these (ships with consent issues Bother Me) BUT if it's like. A nonhuman that thinks/processes like a human and can consent in some way (ex: human turned animal, shapeshifter, werewolf, basically any nonhuman thing that thinks like a person but isn't shaped like one) then I can work with that. These ships appeal to me for. Therian reasons. Not a fan of them in a sexual context but like. A shapeshifter in the form of an animal that can talk and think and, y'know, everything else, being in a sort of qpr situation with a human who does things for them that they can't, and they do things that the human can't, is cool as a concept to me I cannot lie.

Aaand that's kind of. All the main ones. What's funny is that most of these I don't even like except under very specific conditions, so it was hard to go "I like this for x reason" without like. Explaining that Most Of The Time (or All Of The Time with child x adult) I Don't Even Like It...

[onebizarrekai]

oh! that's a good one. general curiosity, do you make playlists for projects? on the topic of songs and ibvs, are there any specific artists and/or genres you associate with ibvs? do you have any song associations for specific characters?

this ask is from 2021… looks like we're doing this now… whoops…

so what usually ends up happening is that I make a playlist afterwards rather than before. I don't think I've made a project or fandom playlist since 2021-22ish, but back when I did, I would just kinda throw em together, not necessarily for inspiration, but just for fun. I don't have a full playlist I'd consider updated and complete anymore, here are a handful of songs I associate with ibvs a while ago: high dive by shaed is the honorary intro music young and menace by fall out boy sugar honey ice & tea by bring me the horizon don't go outside by poppy the judge by twenty one pilots everything is fine by all time low just pretend by bad omens suffer by get scared giants by imagine dragons

most of the time I end up associating whatever I listen to the most with whatever I'm currently creating. so, only some of these songs are ones I listen to all the time, so whatever works works.

meanwhile, more accurately, I tend to associate ibvs with video game music. it kinda takes the edginess factor out of it, which I prefer honestly. offline I make a lot of jokes about ibvs being a kingdom hearts style game, so all the boss music in those games make me think of ibvs now. nintendo music, sonic music, orchestra mixes, any music that sounds like it'd play in the bg of whatever felix is scheming (read: team skull theme from pokemon mystery dungeon), metal gear rising music, silvagunner mixes, that's where my brain goes a lot. for me, ibvs is a fake game at heart.

[ultraericthered]

Whitewash Fit For A King

Somewhat related to the post I just made.

It's quite ironic given King Magnifico's cult leader-like status in the film that there exists a small but still sizeable (for this site at least) amount of Wish viewers who make up a cult following of Magnifico stans. And when I say this, I mean they're all that kind of villain stan.

Oh no no no no no...

Yeah, it partially gives me more cause to resent the filmmakers of Wish including both scenes with the burnt tapestry of Magnifico's sad childhood trauma-related past that spurred him towards creating his kingdom in the final cut ("If only I'd known magic back then...", "so THAT doesn't happen again!"), but at the same time, I feel like even without those moments, these people would've found some way of woobifying and saintifying the character and act as apologists for his villainy. After all, this has happened with virtually every fictional villain in existence in the history of ever. These kinds of stupid, immature simps who don't want to look in the eye the reality that their faves are problematic to the point of being literal evil villains have always existed, and a character like Magnifico is hardly the most perplexing case of this. I recall long ago reading the opinion pieces of someone who was an apologist for Scar from The Lion King, trying to paint him as a lifelong victim and Mufasa as the real villain (can't wait for the upcoming Mufasa movie to re-ignite THOSE takes!). On Xitter I once came upon someone who actually simped for and woobified fucking Ghetsis from Pokemon, projecting all sorts of mental illness and disabilities onto him while insisting that the character had some redeemability that has never once been shown to exist in canon. Even on here, there are people who stan Phillip Wittebane/Emperor Belos from The Owl House, to the point where they maliciously trivialize the religious trauma that Dana Terrace had to grow up with so that they can act like she's petty for "vilifying" the literal villain of her own goddamn story. And I don't even need to get started on the "Magneto Is Never Wrong" subgenre of villain apologism that you can find all over social media. These stans are all absolutely koo-koo!

I've seen this whitewashing/apologism garbage for villains spewed out ad nauseum and the Magnifico simps all sound the same as what I've seen out of those other villain simps - "He deserved better, he wasn't at fault for his mental downward spiral that Asha, the citizens of Rosas, and even his wife drove him to, how dare Disney vilify the mentally ill and victims of trauma like this, blah blah blah blah." And yet there was still one in particular with takes that made me go:

To be specific, it was the very same "Rainbow the Clown" take that this post gave a mention to. The person in question felt the need to mention that they're a Christian (and I hate that in the Trump era, that has become almost a red flag for me), and that as such, they believe that all black magic/dark magic has demonic roots and that they can recognize a demonic possession when they see one. Their interpretation of the film's events, which had absolutely zero basis in anything that was made the least bit explicit in the film itself, was that Magnifico reading from the tome of forbidden magic gave some anonymous demonic entity that progenerated that magic access into Magnifico's soul, mind, and body, and it overtook him. Therefore, everything Magnifico went on to do cannot be blamed on Magnifico himself, as he was "possessed" at the time, not in his right state of mind and not truly aware of the reality around him anymore. And this is why it was so cruel that he ended up punished rather than saved.

Yeah, about that. In the actual movie, there's zero mention of demons or otherworldly entities tied to that spellbook. The black magic itself that is conjured out from the book once the pages are read from and is able to make the spells and curses described within the book work is its own natural force. Its capabilities are destructive and once it bonds with its caster, it poisons their mind with an unbreakable addiction to using it, so that's why it was considered "forbidden" to start with. Magnifico unseals the tome and reads from its pages during his grievance-laden villain song, and we see this:

The magic comes out like green arms or ropes that coil around both of Magnifico's hands, and once they do, we see that green magic juice flow right inside of Magnifico, which briefly makes his eyes glow green as well. This is not "possession" - this is amalgamation. This magic binds itself to Magnifico like a symbiote, and in turn Magnifico is one with the magic now, committed to wielding it and making it manifest as awesome power to service his whims and desires. The literal next thing that happens after is the green fading from the king's eyes as he goes "Where was I? Oh yeah." After the process has be done, he shakes it off and resumes his singing, only now with the green dark magic at his disposal to freely use however he pleases. The magic and the destabilizing effect it has on Magnifico's mental state as he uses it to break and ingest magically contained wishes was not the cause of his turn to evil: it was the consequence of it.

And let's say that the book did contain a demonic entity that made the magic happen and it went into Magnifico to influence him from within a la Myotismon with Yukio Oikawa. It was still Magnifico's own damn fault because he chose to go back on his word to his wife and open up the forbidden book. He's no more absolved of calling out the demon than Mok Swagger is for deliberately summoning a demon to devour his own concertgoers. And no, "but he's just so traumatized!", "he's mentally ill with anxiety issues and was having a breakdown!", or "Asha and those selfish, ungrateful citizens drove him to it!" don't erase Magnifico's agency and capacity for making choices that he did, even in a limited time, think through and decided to go for it anyway. I'm not into the discourse over whether or not Magnifico could be redeemed or if he "deserved redemption" or not, but if you'd like to see a character's redemption, they need to have done some unjustifiable wrongs or else there's nothing to "redeem" them for!

(There was another Magnifico cultist who was a little more on point and likened the book and its magic to a substance abuse metaphor, drawing parallels between Magnifico and the character of Jack Torrance from Stephen King's The Shining. But they specifically paralleled his situation with King's Jack Torrance, when in the actual canonical narrative of the actual movie, Magnifico is Kubrick's Jack Torrance - the alcohol addiction isn't there to draw his inner demons back out so that a demonic entity can better use him and ultimately possess him, it's there to reveal who he always truly was deep down, which is what he becomes when he discards anything and everything in him that beforehand was reigning him in and holding him back.)

Another argument for the demonic possession theory? This part here in the climax, cited as the moment the entity was exorcised from Magnifico, leaving him confused and afraid of what he awoke to find himself currently facing before getting oh so wrongfully imprisoned.

....Folks, that's literally Sakina's wish, the first wish he broke and absorbed into himself through use of his newly acquired dark magic, coming back out from him. The green glow is there because, as just stated, it was that green dark magic that was used to eat the wishes in the first place. The green eyes and green glow fade from Magnifico to signify his power weakening. All the wishes that he absorbed after Sakina's come out from him following this. And if he'd really snapped out of a possession and was back to being his true "good" self at that point, why would the first thing out of his mouth be "NO! THOSE ARE MY WISHES!"? And if the demonic dark magic entity was gone, then where do the green magic hands that drag Magnifico into the tip of his scepter come from? The magic did not leave him because it cannot leave him; it's a part of him, he's a part of it. Reading from the pages of that book even once made him committed to the magic. It's a symbiotic bond and there's no breaking it. That was the point!

Last argument for this crackpot idea I saw from this person was that "high on green-colored dark magic" Magnifico cannot possibly be a valid representation of the king's true character because....his face when we first met him looked so handsome and kind! Look at him!

It's the same ol' "Hans' Twist Villain reveal was bullshit because he was not set up like a villain at any point beforehand, meaning he was not a villain until that very moment, and we can tell this because he never LOOKED evil!" argument, the one that usually relied on a single moment of Hans giving a sweet looking yet condescendingly fond and amused grin to himself after having met Anna that ignores all context, and is based on the idea that only cartoon caricatures of delightfully foul and obvious evilness have to exist to play the villain in place of realistic people in a Disney animated movie, as in real life, evil people aren't easy to identify just by looking at them. The thing is that some Disney villains, arguably all the way back to the likes of Stromboli and the Coachman in Pinocchio, serve as reflections of the dangers of people that have existed and still do exist in the world. King Magnifico is that for the covert narcissist in a position of authority that they're prone to abuse. Yeah, he won't always have EVIL BASTARD written all over his face, but there's context for why that is. In that first image, he's just talking to another person when that person is applying for a job working for him, and as such he plays the part of the kind, charming, generous and benevolent king. In the second image, he's looking at the wishes. The beauty within those magic wish orbs and the splendor their magic gives off make him very happy; that's part of why he hoards as many as possible.

That is King Magnifico.

^ And THAT is ALSO King Magnifico.

He's a villain. He visibly enjoys being a villain. He is valid as a villain. Let villains be villains and love them for that, dammit!

[littleststarfighter]

You don't have to answer this at all, just wanted to give some perspective/info from someone who's been doing illustration commissions for about 15 years: in my opinion, it's always better to work backwards from an hourly rate rather than doing value-based pricing.

When working with private individuals as clients, US$30-50/hr is pretty standard for custom freelance stuff depending on experience, but since you're new to commissions I'd recommend offering a discount for the first few slots (both to get things moving, and also to give yourself lower-stakes "training" until you get used to the process—sometimes your workflow will change in ways you didn't expect under the conditions).

Personally, I prefer to offer a fixed quote based on my hourly rate, because that gets any kind of sticker shock out of the way. I estimate the amount of time it'll take me, add ~10% as a buffer, and apply my hourly rate. The fixed quote also gives me a little freedom not to stress out if it's taking more or less time than anticipated; I just make a note for my next quote and adjust accordingly.

The hourly rate might seem high to you, as it often does to people who are used to more traditional salary structures. But keep in mind that as a freelancer, you're also your own admin support: you don't bill for time spent emailing, researching, invoicing, etc. Tax can also get a bit complicated if you start doing a lot of freelance work.

My own base (non-commercial) rate is US$60/hr, because I've been doing this for a very long time. Frankly, the reason I have a lot of long-term repeat clients who pay my rate is because I communicate well and deliver on time. I set out a timeline up front with scheduled check-ins at various stages, and then I stick to that timeline no matter what. As someone who's also hired many freelance artists in the past, I know that reliability will win over genius every single time.

Speaking of timelines, ALWAYS be specific about the number and scope of revisions you offer. Depending on the project, I might phrase it as "2 rounds of revisions, with up to 1 hour of work per round" or similar. I bill anything beyond that scope at a higher hourly rate, usually about US$90/hr, billed by the half-hour. This also gives you leverage to say "Sure, I can add a whole new character and completely change the background; that will take about X hours which will put us into hourly billing territory at X rate." Either they'll back down or you'll be well compensated for the trouble, and most importantly (from a client services perspective) you've not told them no, you've given them options and reminded them what they've already agreed to.

In terms of payment plans, I normally require 50% up front (non-refundable) and 50% on final delivery. Since you haven't yet built up a rep as a commission artist, I recommend a lower up-front rate (maybe 20-30%). I do strongly advise getting SOMETHING up front to lock clients in and make sure they can't completely ditch if something happens. Plus, refusing to pay a small deposit is a major red flag.

I offer a 5% discount for complete payment up front, because it's honestly worth that 5% just to not have to deal with chasing people down and sending invoice reminders and whatnot.

I'm sorry to hear you've been going through such a tough time, and I hope this was helpful and not too overwhelming; it's just stuff I wish someone had told me when I was first starting out, and I think it's important for working artists to share info about business practices. I wasn't strict about a lot of things back then (like number of revisions), and it always ended up coming back to bite me. It might seem counter-intuitive, but I promise that thinking through and setting a lot of rules/boundaries up front will save you a lot of stress and trouble in the end.

I seriously want to thank you for this. It's incredibly informative not just for me but I'm sure other start out artists too. You've gone over things that I'd have no idea to do, thank you.

I'm certainly looking into how to pay tax as being in the UK I've never had to work that out before as we have it done for us in most jobs. So that would have been something I'd have forgotten about and it's not something you want to miss. I definitely have to time myself working as I don't know how long I take as I've never thought about that either. I just know I'm slow. It's interesting to see what you'd charge hourly as I see a lot of fan commissions having a low fixed rate depending on what you offer.  So definitely have to look whether to offer that or like you suggest a more freelance rate of pay. I'll admit US$30-50/hr made me gasp but that's because I'm used to working for UK minimum wage (roughly $13 a hr) so that seems a lot to me. Gives me something to think about. Though I worry about pricing people out to begin with what with being quite slow and a nobody. And yes! Never forget about getting a deposit. I learnt that the bad way decades ago when I did try to do a commission and was never paid. That's what made me nervous to even begin as I can be a pushover. So need to be more strict in what I can offer and of course revise too.

Seriously thank you this is so helpful. Like you say there's so much people don't share about getting into freelance and commission work. Getting that step up, even if it's me doing it, is something I've no idea how to even start on. I get people saying why aren't you working in art? But my answer is always 'how?' It's something no one's told me about. How to sell yourself and your work. Even commission work confused me. So please don't worry this is beyond helpful and I'm very grateful for you taking your time to help me. It's been a very rough few months but I'm trying to stay positive. This may help me while I find work. Much love, Lucy 💖

[thebadjoe]

BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY PART 5

...It's been a while, hasn't it? I spent time working on a different project and I suppose I needed a break.

I'm here to give you an update regarding my culprit theory in DRDT chapter 2. So of course, SPOILERS WARNING FOR DANGANRONPA DESPAIR TIME CHAPTER 2 in case it wasn't obvious enough. It's also a very long read, so...sorry about that! Before I start, I'd like to say something. This is a message for DRDT-dev.

Not gonna dwelve on the past except for one specific moment : the appeciation/thank you e-mails you've received ever since the start of your hiatus after episode 11 was launched.

I wanted to give you words of appreciation at the time, but it completly slipped my mind because of real life + me working on my crazy theories. I felt bad that I missed it because I seriously wanted to thank you and your team for the amazing work that you've done in this fangan.

I've never been this attached to a fangan before and it's not like I've played/watched through a lot of those eitheir. But this one... it was really enjoyable! I don't think there's a single character that I dislike in this fangan. Like they all got something interesting going on or something interesting that might be bound to unfold. The mystery's also really good. I got really hooked to trying to figure out the truth behind the murder mystery of chapter 2.

I can't do art nor music, but the least I can do to show how much I appreciate the amount of work put into this is by proving it to you. This... is the final time I'm making a theory post for the murder case of chapter 2. After that, I have my own projects to work on.

Of course, I can't ask you to read it all (it's super long anyways), but the post itself is proof that I'm truly passionate about this fangan and that I truly appreciate the amazing work. It's a good source of inspiration. So honestly, thank you! Looking forward to see the future of DRDT!

So... I know I've pretty much covered everything I could explain from part 1 to 4 regarding my Eden Culprit theory. However, I feel like that this is a big confusing mess. After all, I changed a lot of things over the course of these 4 parts and even past that, I updated my culprit theory even further, but didn't provide any updates or edits to my posts.

So I'm gonna go over my whole theory once again, from beginning to the end, in a more logical order. I'll start with the easiest topics being the whodunnit and whydunnit. After that, I'll talk about the rather long howdunnit and give a better and updated explanation as to what I believe happened in each scenario.

I will also have a few texts in bolded blue to represent my evil ego personality trying to take down my whole theory, which really, they're just pretend questions/arguments based on things I believe people will think about or things that's been brought up before in the past.

Then, I'll finish it off with a section to talk about a certain something that may possibly change people's mind about not just mine, but many other theories. Let's do this!

Whodunnit

Of course, if it wasn't obvious enough, I accuse Eden of being the culprit of DRDT Chapter 2. There's a couple reasons why I suspect her, but let's focus on only one for now : the smoking gun evidence.

The decisive evidence lies in this video. Chapter 2, Episode 6 : The "Body Discovery" of Ace in the fitness room.

I skipped it to the proper scene, so no need to worry about that. So there are 4 characters involved in this scene. There's Teruko, Eden, Nico and Ace. At first sight, it really looks like Nico was trying to kill Ace, so Teruko yells at them and then they run away.

So since then, we need to focus on the following three characters : Teruko, Eden and Ace. So judging that Ace is probably dead, Teruko decides to investigate while Eden needed a minute to process this.

Not gonna list everything. For now, let's just focus on what's important to prove that Eden's the culprit : the roll of grippy tape.

This is an important clue because even though it wasn't pointed out by Teruko herself, it was clearly shown in the background (you can see it clearly at 19:55). This clue in question is what the culprit clearly used to set up their murder mechanism for the murder of Arei considering what was found in the playground in episode 8.

At 20:32, Eden decides to give a hand to Teruko with the investigation.

For the following couple seconds, it's a bit hard to see, but behind those speech bubbles, you can still see the roll of tape.

At 20:50, Ace wakes up and shouts that he's not dead. Then at 20:54...

The tape is no longer there, where it's supposed to be.

So what happened there? Was it a creator error? That's actually very unlikely considering how important this clue is. So the only logical explanation to this is that someone took the roll of grippy tape in that moment. Therefore, eitheir Teruko, Eden or Ace took it meaning that eitheir one of them is the true culprit behind the murder of Arei!

It can't be Teruko because she'd literally have no reason to commit murder and we've been under her POV most of the time, so it's very unlikely that there were windows for her to commit murder. Nothing would make sense if she was the culprit, so it's not Teruko.

Ace... there's a slight possibility, but it's still unlikely. I have a couple ideas that could make him seem like he could be the culprit (that I might explain later in the howdunnit), but it's still really difficult because of the fact that Ace is clearly wounded and he probably wouldn't be thinking about killing Arei at some point later. It would be hard to explain certain events, so it's not Ace.

So by process of elimination, that only leaves Eden. She would definitly have a perfect window to grab the roll of tape without being seen. The proof lies in 20:32 in the video. She wanted to help out Teruko in the investigation, which would've been the perfect opportunity to grab it.

This is a very sneaky and demonic trick that the DRDT creator pulled here. Giving us an incriminating evidence that was so hard to spot that they must've been wondering when it'd be found out. It really makes me wonder what would've happened if I was never part of this. Would someone actually discover this damning clue?

Let's move on.

Whydunnit

Man, I came up with plenty wild theories for the motive a while back. It went from "she wants to eliminate bullies" to "she has a dark secret she wants to keep it hidden" to "she misses her beloved dearly".

Eventually, the "she misses her beloved dearly" motive become the official one for my theory and it's not just applied to mine eitheir. There's a few others who seem to approve this motive and use it in their own theories as well.

To give some context as a reminder, Eden Tobisa is a very kind girl. We also know that her secret is "Ever since you kissed her, you were afraid your sexuality would ruin your friendship." This would indicate that she's most potentially in love with someone.

She tries to help whenever she can and tries to organize fun activities with a few, become friends with as many people as possible.

She's basically trying to keep her hopes up. Especially considering her reaction during the prologue...

She appears to be quite a tad desperate in wanting to get out. Anyways, the murder and trial happened in chapter 1. That inflicted quite a mental hit to most of the cast.

Right before the beginning of chapter 2, we get the following quote : "I still miss you. I miss you so much that I wish I you had never been a part of my life. The worst part is, even though you left me like this, there's nothing I can blame you for."

Then in chapter 2, after monoTV reveals the motives, Eden suggests that they should take that opportunity to work together and escape. She's the first person who brings up the escape topic.

Even though she tried to keep her and everyone's spirits up, most of the time, it's been people arguing over everything and nothing. It's mostly a few specific people, but still, it was definitly unpleasant. But the worst part of it all is the event that unfolded in the first 4 minutes of Chapter 2, Episode 5.

That bullying that Eden received was the final straw. She had enough of all of this. That made her realise that there's only one thing that matters to her : getting the heck out of here to meet her beloved, the person she kissed.

This is mostly my logical explanation for the motive based on all the possible clues that were given to be able to find a viable motive for the murder.

For those who believe that it'd be bad writing or whatever, I'm not really gonna delve into this myself, but I'd heavily suggest reading @venus-is-thinking's post here. There's some interesting points related to the narrative possibilities. (Might not fully support my theory, but you get the idea). In any case, whether you believe it or not, the fact remains that this is a possible motive that can be used to explain why Eden commited murder.

Howdunnit

Oh boy, here we go. The most difficult, yet most fun part to explain in this theory. Even though it's only a chapter 2 murder case, there's A LOT that happened that led to the crime. This time around, I'm gonna make sure to list everything in chronological order while also providing the most updated information regarding my theory.

I'll also separate certain events in Acts, to make it easier to comprehend. Let's do this!

Act 1

It all began a few days ago, when monoTV announced the motive reveal. MonoTV gave each participant a troubling secret and told them that if no one commits murder, the secrets would be revealed to the whole world.

MonoTV is a dumb dumb however because it made a mistake and all the secrets have been swapped around, meaning that no one has their own secret. So each participant has a secret that belongs to someone else.

For a few of them, it was pretty much "eh, it's whatever!", but it was especially troubling for David. The reason why is because he knows deep down what his secret is, it's a pretty meaningful one, after all.

We already know by now that his secret is "You exist to manipulate others. Everyone else exists to be taken advantage of." Considering his talent, it would totally ruin his career. So he needed to come up with a plan to not be exposed, and fast.

MonoTV also reveals that the second floor is unlocked and they're free to explore. We're not gonna go over each one of them yet, but I want to talk about this particular scene in the fitness room.

During the investigation of the new rooms, Teruko meets up with Ace and Levi in the gym. There's an argument going on because Levi is trying to apologize to Ace for his behavior in the trial of chapter 1 (when he threatened Ace). Ace is having none of it.

Ace was also arguing with Teruko a bit regarding some comments she made behind his back that he heard, which made him behave like so...

So what is he actually gonna do about it? You'll see shortly in the next coming acts.

Act 2

Teruko spends the rest of the first day secluded in her own room until next morning because girl has to eat, ya know? As soon as she gets out of her dorm, this happens...

Eden sneaks up on Teruko to surprise her, which she didn't see this coming at all. On top of that, she claims that she could hear Teruko clearly in her dorm doing a puppet show with the cactuses. The walls are pretty thin, therefore not really soundproof. This was also shown in Act 1 when Teruko talked behind Ace's back, but could hear that conversation.

Truth bullet acquired : Eden's sneakiness

Truth bullet acquired : Non-soundproof walls

Because of that embarassing reveal, Eden used it to her advantage to blackmail Teruko, forcing her to do friendly activities with her. So Teruko has no choice but to follow her orders and go eat breakfast with Eden.

As they're preparing something in the kitchen, they suddenly hear people arguing in the cafeteria, so they go check it out. It's of course that scene where 3 different pairs fighting against each other.

So first we have J (Julia Rosales) asking Arturo to leave her alone and to stop pestering her with her secret. Nothing too relevant for the murder.

Then we have Ace bullying Nico hardcore all of a sudden. Considering the events that happened in the gym in Act 1 and the purpose of a bully, it's safe to deduce that he's doing this because he's trying to act tough. Ace is trying to display superiority over a targetted victim by bullying them. Ace wasn't really hostile towards Nico before that.

It's also very important to take this into consideration since in chapter 1, most of the time, he was behaving like an absolute coward and that's no pretending. He really has a fear of a lot of things.

Well, actually... Ace bullied Nico once in chapter 1!

Sure, he made a dumb mean comment by calling them losers for liking animals or whatever, but that wasn't just directed at Nico, it was directed at Xander as well. I think he was mostly trying to get attention by being provocative.

Besides, that was only one time compared to the multiple times that Ace bullied Nico throughout the whole chapter 2, so there's clearly a behavior change there.

Truth bullet acquired : Ace's phobias

Truth bullet acquired : Ace acting tough

Moving on... We also have Arei arguing with monoTV about getting rid of the rope. Arei believes that this is a cruel joke of a custom weapon for her since it reminds her a lot of her past. She wants to dispose it, but monoTV refuses.

They eventually come to some kind of agreement and monoTV places that rope in the storage room, so anyone can take it if they wish.

Truth bullet acquired : Easily accessible rope

They arguing kept going for a while until David comes in, telling them to shut up and that he has an announcement to make. He reveals his secret : "My family has a history of depression."

He makes that reveal because he is suggesting that it would be best for everyone to share their secrets before the time is up. That way, once it's already out in the open, no one would have any remaining motive to commit murder according to David.

But as we know already, that was all a lie. He revealed a fake secret and wanted others to share secrets since it would help create even more conflicts which could lead to more dramatic results... like murder.

That was his master plan to instigate a murder. He wanted to have others cause a murder before the deadline, which would keep his secret safe.

Truth bullet acquired : David's plan

Act 3

Eden tells Teruko about her fun activity plan being decorating the clocks in this killing game establishment, but she wanted to invite one more person. She wanted to invite someone who complained that she wasn't invited at the cake decorating activity back in chapter 1 : Arei.

So they both enter the playground, meeting up with David and Arei who were about to have a discussion about secrets. You know the rest of that scene afterwards, I've also brought it up in the whydunnit.

Arei bullies Eden, putting the blame on her for Min's death. Eden gets out of the playground, crying in utter sadness. Then right after that, Arei laughs and...

Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls

Even though she got out of the room, it's very possible that Eden heard it which would be the absolute final straw. She had enough of all of this, then her actual motive kicked in : she wanted to get out of her as soon as possible to meet her beloved.

Of course, we know by now that Arei wasn't really that spiteful. She just wanted to give a tough and harsh lesson about this killing. To stop being so nice and naive as that would make Eden the most vulnerable target to any murder cases in the future. But alas, Eden didn't stick long enough to listen to that part, which makes me wonder if it would've made a drastic different in how chapter 2 would play out.

Well, it's possible that Eden actually heard that part of the conversation!

But we don't know that for sure. Considering the smoking gun evidence, it makes more sense to believe that she didn't hear the rest of the conversation happening in the playground.

Anyways, this was the very beginning to Eden's murder scheme. She had a lot of work to do.

Act 4

Teruko proceeds to meet up with Rose in the dress-up room who was currently having a painting session. She had Rose's secret, so she figured she might as well share the secret, which Rose agreed to.

Then they have a chat about various things, then to Teruko's surprise, she realises that Nico was here this whole time, laying down on the ground.

Nico asks Rose if she could teach him how to paint, which Rose said yes.

Let me pause for a bit to mention an important clue : Rose's custom weapon. It's turpentine. It wouldn't be out of the question to think that since this is a painting supply, she would bring it with her during painting sessions and based on what we know in later episodes...

Well, realisticly, that's not how turpentine is supposed to work!

Probably not, but this is made very clear that the author wants us to believe that it works that way in their world. There's no reason for them to make something up about it other than explaining its intended purpose.

This turpentine is meant to be served as a tool/weapon to knock someone out, kind of like chloroform.

Truth bullet acquired : Turpentine

Teruko was already out of that room to head to the cafeteria while the other two were thinking about going there because they were hungry.

Fast forward a bit in the cafeteria, Ace is having another argument with poor Nico.

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

He's bullying Nico once again to make himself look tough. He's even ready to threaten Nico that he would reveal their secret (we learned in the trial that Nico and Ace have each other's secret).

This failed however because David managed to snatch it from Ace's hands while he was distracted. Then Ace proceeds to keep on bullying Nico, asking : "What are you gonna do about it?"

This surprised Ace, no doubt. Then afterwards, he gets slapped by Hu. She defends Nico, telling Ace that she's had enough of this.

At the time, I thought that Nico's death threat would've been the main reason why Ace kept suspecting that Nico tried to kill him, but it's actually a lot more simple than that. I'll explain it later...

While I'm at it, let's keep in mind that Hu's custom weapon is wires.

Truth bullet acquired : Nico's motive to kill Ace

Truth bullet acquired : Hu being protective of Nico

Truth bullet acquired : Hu's wires

Then we later have Nico's secret reveal, which is not too relevant to the actual murder. What's important however are two things.

Not everyone was present in the cafeteria at the time

Rose was later sleeping in the cafeteria for an unknown amount of time

Let's go back a little bit and talk about what happened to the few other relevant characters.

Meanwhile...

Eden was working on her murder scheme. Based on a Q&A that the DRDT creator did a while ago, we learned that Eden's not very strong or fit. So if she wanted to pull a good murder, she needed to be really smart about it.

So she needed to come up with a murder mechanism to pull it off. So to make it happen, she needed the right materials.

Truth bullet used : Turpentine

She remembered the list of custom weapons written by Charles that Whit showed during the trial. Considering the hidden purpose of this weapon according to this world, she knew that she could use it to knock someone out.

It would be very easy to get a target unconscious without resorting to physical force. Next up, she needed some kind of murder weapon that would do the deed for her.

Truth bullet used : Hu's wires

Eden probably considered using Hu's custom weapon, but that would've been incredibly risky. Even if she was friends with Hu, how would she be able to get her weapon without seeming suspicious?

She needed to use something else. Something that could work just as well as Hu's wires.

Initially, I was thinking of the analog clocks that could be found in the killing game building, a specific wire within it, but it seems quite convoluted on top of being unsure if that would've been enough wire to pull it off.

So I kept looking into it, and I discovered two interesting facts about this fangan.

During the prologue, we learn a few things about Eden, but most importantly, she loves hand-making antique clocks. Meaning it's not wrong to assume that she loves antique clocks overall.

The other fact is the following...

Whoever made this killing game, everyone's dorm has been customized to fit their needs and style. So if we combine this fact, Eden's talent and her love for antique clocks, then it's safe to deduce that she must have antique clocks in her dorm, don't you think?

Not only that, but it could very well be a grandfather clock! There's a seemingly grand variety of grandfather clocks, but what's important is that you can find clock cables in them. They're usually used to maintain the clock's weights.

This could very well be the weapon that she used for the murder attempt on Ace. Otherwise, it could very well be some kind of material that she already had available considering her talent and her love to craft antique clocks.

Truth bullet created : Eden's cables

Murder attempt on Ace? Isn't it Nico who tried to kill Ace in the gym?

I'll explain that confusion later... For now, let's just say that her initial plan was not killing Arei in particular. At least, not the things we've seen in the playground. Whatever we discovered in the fitness room instead was her initial plan.

Well, there's no way to know for sure that Eden had those wires.

No, but as long as it's a possibility, it can work.

But that's only based on your assumptions, that's just wrong!

It's a logical deduction based on facts about this fangan. But you know what? I refuse to elaborate further on this. I'll explain why in the finale.

Moving on, Eden did something else while there was an argument happening in the cafeteria. She decided to have a meeting with Arturo in the infirmary to share his secret. Eden has Arturo's secret : "Your younger sister killed herself because of you. You should have never left."

This is pretty much the flashback scene that we see in Chapter 2, Episode 10. Eden reveals the secret, Arturo threatens her, Arei comes in to save the day. Arei then apologies for her bullying back in playground. Then Arei and Eden become friends.

There's of course more to it than that, but you get the idea.

Wouldn't your motive become null and void when Eden became friends with Arei?

Not necessarily. Eden probably made up her mind already about leaving this place. Besides, there's no guarantee that she fully believed what Arei said.

I personally think that this was a perfect opportunity for Eden to take advantage of Arei when she would need it most.

But this was supposed to be a meeting with Arturo. How would Eden know that Arei would come to the infirmary?

That's the thing. She didn't know. The fact that Arei came in to save her was an unexpected, yet pleasant event. It was literally a golden opportunity for the culprit.

Then she was only expecting Arturo. What would be the point of that meeting if she intended to murder someone that wasn't necessarily Arei?

Right, cause back in episode 10, we were led to believe for a while that Arturo could've been a suspect of the murder of Arei. It was also because of the fake letter that was adressed to Arei.

Well, we know that Eden knew Arturo's secret and that's no light secret eitheir. It's a pretty bad one. So she must've been expecting a negative reaction out of Arturo.

Truth bullet used : David's plan

I doubt that she was aware of David's intentions, but she could've used David's idea to her advantage. She had a feeling that some of these secrets could cause conflicts. Which is precisely why she decided to share it to Arturo.

She was creating a potential suspect for her plan in the future.

Why would that matter if she was only meeting up with Arturo? She would have no other witnesses if that went according to plan!

Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls

She knew that any conversations could be heard from outside of said room, so she made a gamble on it. She was hoping that someone else would hear the conversation happening and they would be the potential witness.

Luckily for her, that worked out a lot better than anticipated when Arei came in to save and befriend her.

Truth bullet acquired : Eden's incident in the infirmary

Before getting her murder scheme in motion, all that was left was grabbing Rose's turpentine.

Wasn't it Nico who stole the turpentine from Rose?

I'll explain the thing about Nico later, but no, it could've been anyone else. Like I said before, she was painting in the dress-up room, her turpentine could've been there.

Also, after the argument between Ace and Nico, Rose fell asleep, so for an unknown period of time, the dress-up room was left unattended, meaning that anyone could've stolen it, not just Nico.

But how would Eden know that the turpentine was there?

Normally, she would think that it's in Rose's dorm, but it's very likely that she saw Rose painting in the distance and spotted the turpentine. It's not because we don't see her since the bullying that we should expect her to be secluded in her room for an unknown amount of time.

But then she would rely on luck yet again to get what she wants!

It's possible that she considered to use something else to knock someone unconscious, but when she came across that turpentine in the dress-up room, she figured it would've been a much better option.

But wouldn't Rose have noticed the turpentine missing during the practice session she was supposed to have with Nico later?

Not necessarily, she tends to be easily distracted and absent-minded. So she might've not noticed until later.

Well, she also has a photographic memory. She can precisely remember things. Wouldn't she remember when it was missing?

Not if she didn't notice it beforehand. Anyways, we're getting nowhere with this, so I refuse to elaborate further. I'll explain why later in the finale.

Act 5

During the evening of DAY 2, a few things happened on the second floor. Ace was working out alone in the gym and a meeting was about to happen between Arei and David in the relaxation room.

Hold up, didn't that happen on the evening of DAY 3?

That's what we're all led to believe, but there are plenty reasons to believe that's not what happened. I'll explain it later when the time comes. For now, whether you believe it or not, let's say that this happened in the evening of DAY 2.

So Ace is working out during that time, most likely doing benchpress. The reason why is somewhat related to this...

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

Obviously he's not pretending to work out, he's actually a fairly fit and strong person, which was also shown during the Q&A with DRDT creator. He's also an athlete.

Even since the scene in the fitness room in DAY 1, he's trying to rely on himself alone and doesn't want others to see him as a joke. So he's also working out to stay in shape.

Truth bullet acquired : Ace working out

Isn't that because of his eating disorder that he's working out?

Probably, but I don't think it's just that. I think it also has something to do with trying to get stronger to make sure he can survive the killing game.

He then hears a conversation happening between Arei and David in the relaxation room. Ace got curious, so he stopped training and decided to eavesdrop on them.

This is pretty much the flashback scene that we get in Chapter 2, Episode 11. Of course, the events according to my theory are different compared to what's shown in episode 11. Aside from it happening at a different day, there's a few other details that Ace tricked us into believing that this truly happened on DAY 3.

Truth bullet acquired : Ace's testimony

I'll explain them later once we get to this particular Act. There is one thing that's very important thing to recall right now though.

He said that right after Arei asked David to say something. That was after she revealed David's secret in private because she was seeking an explanation for his actions. Since she knows David's actual secret, it means that she knew that he lied about "family history of depression" secret and that his secret share plan is suspicious.

So Ace claiming that he didn't hear anything else right after that moment is just incredibly suspicious. It just wouldn't make sense! David must have said something to Arei. He couldn't have simply ran away because he would've run into Ace otherwise.

David must have said something afterwards, regardless of what it is.

Then can you explain what happened then? Why didn't Ace hear anything else.

Ace truly didn't hear anything else, but not for the reason that most are led to believe.

What's that supposed to mean?!

Something happened shortly afterwards that made Ace physically unable to hear anything else.

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

Truth bullet used : Turpentine

In that precise moment, Eden snuck up on Ace and knocked him unconscious with the turpentine that she stole in the dress-up room earlier. Ace became the intended victim target for Eden's murder scheme.

Wouldn't Arei and David hear anything happening?

Probably not. As long as she's stealthy enough and that the turpentine is strong enough, it could knock him out pretty quick with having time to react to it. It's entirely possible to do this quietly.

Alright, but wouldn't they see the unconscious body sometime later after the discussion?

Not if Eden dragged the body to hide it. Initially, I thought she would bring it to the dress-up room and hide it in the changing room, but I think it'd ask too much physically for Eden. So the only option remaining is dragging the body back to the gym. This should work as long as it's not in the hallway and the door is closed.

But earlier, you said that Eden's weak and not fit. How would she be able to drag a body?

In a real life scenario, it would probably be really different and incredibly difficult. But that's the only explanation I can come up with to explain how she was able to do that without getting caught.

It's not like she waited for Ace inside the gym. Otherwise, he would've prolly heard more about the conversation.

Anyways, I refuse to elaborate further on this. I'll explain why later in the finale.

Moving on... After capturing Ace, she had one remaining step to do before preparing the murder mechanism : she needed a scapegoat. Arei was the perfect target for that.

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

Truth bullet used : Turpentine

So Eden knocked her unconscious at the most appropriate time when no one else was around.

Wasn't David here? Wouldn't he have known?

Obviously, the culprit didn't do that while they were both present. Considering the matter of the discussion, it's probably likely that David got out of the relaxation room first, before Arei. So Eden simply needed to wait for David to use the elevator.

Otherwise, she could've also prepared a fake letter, asking Arei to meet up in the playground so that she could knock her out. This is probably the most logical explanation to this. It would match up the contents of the letter that was revealed in Chapter 2, Episode 10.

Truth bullet created : Eden's letter

Before I proceed with the next Acts, I'd like to pause it to explain every other possible clues that was found on the second floor that could be relevant to the murder mystery.

The 2nd Floor

The dress-up room

A few things to note about this room that even though none of the characters talked about, as long as it's presented, it can be used as a potential clue. We got some wigs on the left and the pink heart shaped case looks most likely to be a makeup-kit. It would make a lot of sense, considering where it is.

Truth bullet acquired : Wigs

Truth bullet acquired : Makeup-kit

Then post Arei's murder, Charles finds a ball of clothes in this room.

Truth bullet acquired : Ball of clothes

The relaxation room

There's a few things I'll list that may seem mundane at first, but they will become important as I explain it later.

First, we got those green mats, they look like light green yoga mats? Let's call em green yoga mats, why not?

Then, we have the incense sticks. They give a pretty good smell inside that room. Burning a whole stick can take up to an hour, but the lingering smell can last for multiple hours. They originally come the incense box that we're seeing to the right.

Truth bullet acquired : Green yoga mats

Truth bullet acquired : Incense sticks

Truth bullet acquired : Box of incense

We also learn about a special feature within this room in Episode 2.

We also learn that the room becomes locked at 10:00 PM up until 8:00 AM because of this misting system that monoTV implemented. He doesn't want anyone to enter that room at night while this is happening since it would leave a mess.

Truth bullet acquired : Relax room's nighttime features

The fitness room

I decided to use the crime scene in Episode 6 since most of the much needed clues are found in here.

Let's start with both the broom and the stepladder. They're not from the gym originally, so someone must have brought them here. They must've played a role in setting up some kind of murder scheme in here. Are they from the storage room, perhaps?

Truth bullet acquired : Broom

Truth bullet acquired : Stepladder

Next up, we have the whole weight rack. It wasn't there originally. Uh... I mean, it came from the gym, but not in this unusual position. So someone moved it. Was it part of the murder scheme?

Truth bullet acquired : Moved weight rack

Then, we have those benches adjacent to Ace that's been moved. We also have the right fan that fell down. It was ripped out according to Teruko. Also, the left side fan isn't working.

This is strange because the first time Teruko explored that room, it was working just fine and even after monoTV finishing cleaning up that failed murder attempt mess, the left side fan was working again. Why would it suddenly stop turning if that fan wasn't ripped out?

We have two weight plates neatly placed next to the threadmills. Why are they here?

Truth bullet acquired : Moved benches

Truth bullet acquired : Ripped out right fan

Truth bullet acquired : Left fan not spinning

Truth bullet acquired : Weight plates next to treadmill

Onto the more important clues.

We have a piece of wire that's attached to a blade of the fan with tape. A part of it has blood on it. The other piece of the wire, which was held by Nico when Teruko and Eden came across this crime scene, but then they dropped it. There's also blood on it, but there's a couple spots where there's no blood somehow. Is it two wires or the same wire snapped in two?

Truth bullet acquired : Piece of wire attached to fan

Truth bullet acquired : Other piece of wire

Speaking of tape, this is the roll of grippy tape that I was talking about in the Whodunnit part of my post. According to Rose in Episode 7, when she failed to do a pull-up, she says that there was originally grippy tape on that bar, which Teruko didn't believe.

But if you rewind back to the previous episodes, you can clearly see that there was something on that pull-up bar, but then during the crime scene of the attempted murder, it's no longer there. It's very safe to presume that the roll of tape and what was on the pull-up bar are the same kind of grippy tape.

Truth bullet acquired : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet acquired : Missing tape on pull-up bar

Let's take a closer look at the body.

A couple things to note...

The neck wounds on Ace. We were first led to believe that he died to those wounds, but it turns out, he's still alive. They must still hurt though. Right behind that we can see a glimpse of smeared blood on the wall, behind his neck. Even when Ace wakes up, the blood on the wall is still trying, so it's no magic trick or illusion there. It's very real.

Then, even more subtle than that, there's blood on his Ace's fingers (on his right hand). Because of the way it's positioned and because the other hand is hidden, it's possible that there's more blood on these hands.

And then we have Nico being "caught in the act". Anyone who sees this will immediatly think that Nico tried to kill him, no doubt about it. While I'm at it, let's keep in mind the odd position that Ace's body is found. Another thing even weirder than that is the utter lack of other traces of blood. There's no blood on any of the equipments, other walls and so on. What happened here?

Truth bullet acquired : Neck wounds

Truth bullet acquired : Smeared blood on the wall

Truth bullet acquired : Blood on Ace's fingers

Truth bullet acquired : Nico caught in the act

Truth bullet acquired : Ace's sitting position

Truth bullet acquired : Lack of blood anywhere else

Quite a lot of truth bullets in that room, ain't it?

The playground

(I can't find a good screenshot to take to see the whole crime scene without any distractions, so I'll trust that you have a fairly good idea of what it looked like. Also, I'm getting close to the limit of pictures I can send, so...)

Let's start with the body.

She is seen hanging by a rope on the swing set. Someone tied her up there, but who would be strong enough to pull that off? Then when Arturo inspected the body, he found out that Arei has a broken neck, so something with the rope must caused her neck to snap somehow.

We also find red marks on her wrists, indicating that her wrists must've been tied up with something. Other than that, there's no other visible wounds or details regarding the body. Well, there is one thing... it's not mentioned by the cast, but it's clearly visible : Arei's glove is missing.

Truth bullet acquired : Rope attached to Arei's neck

Truth bullet acquired : Arei's broken neck

Truth bullet acquired : Red marks on Arei's wrists

Truth bullet acquired : Arei's missing glove

Close to the seasaw, which is like in front of the swing set, we can find scuffed marks on the ground, which is caused by something being scraped against it. Seemingly easy to damage the ground.

And there's also the dead fishes found close by. Why are they here? According to Nico, the fishes were fed last evening/night by them, so the fishes were still alive by then.

Truth bullet acquired : Scuffed ground

Truth bullet acquired : Dead fishes

Moving on... to the right, if we look at the carousel aka the spinny thing, there are two clues. First one is the long rope found under the carousel. The bars of the carousel are wrapped with tape. It looks like the very same tape that was found in the fitness room.

Truth bullet acquired : Long rope under carousel

Truth bullet acquired : Carousel wrapped with tape

Oh right, before I forget... according to MonoTV, there was also a broken ceiling light on the ceiling, so they turned it off for now.

Truth bullet acquired : Broken ceiling light

Then in the hallway, Rose knocks over the only trash can available on the second floor and they find a couple clues.

We have the empty water jugs with broken handles. Quite peculiar, don't you think? Then we have a torn-up note which we already what it is by now. It's the letter "signed by Eden" adressing to Arei to ask her to meet in the playground about an issue regarding a secret being exposed.

We also have scrunched up tape, which looks very similar to the tapes we found in both the playground and the gym. Can't be a coincidence!

More subtle and not mentioned by the characters, there's a needle with a black string attached to it.

Truth bullet acquired : Empty jugs with broken handles

Truth bullet acquired : Torn-up note

Truth bullet acquired : Scrunched up tape

Truth bullet acquired : Needle with black string attached

I believe that's all the relevant clues I can find in each of these rooms. Time to get back on track!

Act 6

So to give a tiny recap to where we were last time in Act 5, Eden knocked Ace unconscious, dragged him back to the gym. Then sometime later, she knocked Arei unconscious.

Why would she knock Arei unconscious?! The culprit already found her intended victim for the murder!

There's only one possible explanation for this. Arei was supposed to be the scapegoat for her murder scheme. She was supposed to be the main suspect.

That makes no sense! If it went according to plan, during the trial, Arei would've mentioned that she's been knocked unconscious by Eden.

Not quite!

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

If she can sneak up on Teruko without her noticing, then she can also sneak up on Ace to knock him unconscious without being noticed. Therefore, if she can do that with Ace, she can do the exact same thing with Arei.

So sure, she would've mentioned that she's been knocked out, but who would believe her? Would they rather believe Eden or Arei? I think the answer is pretty clear.

But she must've been knocked unconscious not too late at night, meaning that she could've woken up sometime later at night and no one would suspect a thing about her!

There's no way to tell if the turpentine's effect would make someone go unconscious for a short or long time. That aside, there's a simple solution to explain how she couldn't escape without being suspected. To make sure that she doesn't go anywhere, you just need to trap Arei somewhere, lock her somewhere.

But there's no such place for that!

Truth bullet used : Relax's room nighttime features

The culprit hid Arei's unconscious body inside the relaxation room. Even if Arei somehow woke up early, she would be unable to get out of here because of the features of that room.

The room closes at 10:00 PM and only reopens at 8:00 AM. It's heavily implied that it would be locked. If someone wouldn't be able to enter that room at night, it's possible that someone wouldn't be able to exit that room eitheir if they were stuck inside.

But according to said features, it's locked because of a misting system that uses an enriched formula for the plants inside. Wouldn't Arei be covered in said enriched formula as well?

She would, unless the culprit used something to cover her body.

Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes

Truth bullet used : Needle with black string attached

The ball of clothes has starch on it and according to some google research, starch is actually very beneficial in plant growth. So it's safe to presume that this enriched formula that monoTV mentioned has something to do with starch. Meaning that the ball of clothes is physical proof that it was used in the relaxation room for the night.

This ball of clothes in question is a bundle of all the old uniforms that Teruko and Hu used to have until monoTV changed their style.

Then, it's possible that the culprit used a needle with string to attach pieces of clothes together to make a custom blanket of sorts.

But the turf in the relaxation room would get wet at night and that would stick to Arei's body!

Truth bullet used : Green yoga mats

The culprit placed the body on top of a yoga mat. That way, it wouldn't leave any traces on the back side of her body. Then add the blanket of clothes as mentioned earlier and she'd be covered from all sides.

To summarize this act, after hiding Ace's body in the gym, she knocked Arei unconscious with the turpentine and made sure that Arei would be locked up inside the relaxation room and covered from the misting system. She did all of that before 10:00 PM.

Act 7

Now that Arei's unconscious body was taken care of, it was now time to set up the murder mechanism!

Truth bullet used : Moved weight rack

Let's get that out of the way right off the bat. We know Eden's weak, so there's no way she could've moved the weight rack, even though it seemed to have been moved to make space for the murder mechanism. I doubt that Eden would put the time and physical efforts to move the weight plates one by one, then the weight rack and then putting back the weight plates.

So if she didn't do it, who did?

Truth bullet used : Ace working out

According to my theory, Ace was working out that evening, so wouldn't it make more sense to believe that he's the one who moved that weight rack? That would also be evidence that he was working out during the evening of DAY 2, not DAY 3 (I know what some of you think about this, but I'll get back to it later, don't worry).

But that doesn't make sense! The way that the weight rack was moved and toppled over, it's facing away from the bench where he would be doing the bench pressing.

Maybe, but we don't quite know what the characters are truly thinking. For all we know, this could be his actual workout preference, as weird as it may seem. With that said, I refuse to elaborate further. I will explain why in the finale.

Besides, we know that Ace is fairly fit, so he could move a bunch of these weight plates easily. Moving on...

Truth bullet used : Missing tape on pull-up bar

Since we know that Eden took the roll of tape with her as shown in the whodunnit, sometime after the failed murder reveal, it's logical to conclude that she's also the person who removed the tape on that bar. She removed all of the available tape on the pull-up bars to make a single roll of grippy tape.

Ha! There's a problem with that! It doesn't seem like there's a lot of tape on that pull-up bar, it's highly doubtful that it would be the same quantity as what's shown on the roll of tape. She must have gotten that tape somewhere else.

There's a very simple explanation for it...

See this on the left? That's also a pull-up bar, but slightly hidden by the weird workout contraption directly in front. But still, there's definitly a pull-up bar there.

So tell me... if there was grippy tape on the pull-up bar to the right, wouldn't there be tape on the pull-up bar to the left as well? There was a reason why I mentioned "available tape on the pull-up bars" and it wasn't a typo.

If you combine the tape from both pull-up bars, there would surely be enough to make a complete roll of tape. Moving on...

Truth bullet used : Eden's cables

Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan

Truth bullet used : Other piece of wire

Since the culprit didn't use Hu's custom weapon according to my theory, it's safe to presume to the wire that was found in the gym is the exact same as Eden's cables that I came up with. This also means that both pieces of the wire were originally a single, longer piece of wire.

So she used her accessible weapon for the next step...

Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet used : Stepladder

She attached one end of the wire to one of the blades of the right fan. The culprit circled the cable around the blade a few times and then did the finishing touches by sticking tape to it to make sure it'll stay there.

Of course, she's not as tall as a giraffe or as tall as Arturo, so she needed something to boost her height. That's where the stepladder comes into play. She placed it below the fan, climbed up and did the thing.

But when Teruko finds the body, you can see that the tape is facing upwards, above the fan. Wouldn't it be much easier to place it under the blade?

Sure, it would make sense, but from a mystery game/novel perspective, what would happen if the tape was placed under? You wouldn't really be able to see it now, would you? Granted, some could easily arrive at the conclusion that the wire was attached with tape since there was a roll of tape found at the scene.

So in that case, there's another simple and logical explanation to it. If you had the option to place tape eitheir above or under the fan, which would be the most efficient?

The right answer would be above the fan! Think about it. The wire is supposed to be holding something, so there would be weight attached to it. If the tape was applied under the blade, it could've easily come off because of the pressure of the weight. If it was taped above the blade instead, even though there would be weight pressure, it wouldn't affect the tape much in that situation.

Therefore, Eden placed the tape above the blade of the fan because that was the most efficient option. While I'm at it...

Truth bullet used : Ripped out right fan

Truth bullet used : Left fan not spinning

Considering what I've said previously regarding the left fan not spinning during the body discovery of Ace, there's a simple solution for this mystery.

The left fan stopped spinning because it was turned off. There is most likely a switch in the gym to turn on and off the fans.

That would easily explain why the left fan started spinning again after monoTV cleaned up the room the following day. That would also easily explain how the culprit managed to place tape on the right fan as well. Even though we have no one mentioning the existence of a switch for the fan, it's very easy to come up with that conclusion.

Truth bullet created : On/Off switch for the fans

Act 8

Now that the cable was set up on one end, it was time to take care of the other hand of the cable. That part would require more steps and efforts than what's shown in Act 7.

First off, to make sure her murder mechanism worked, the end result required Ace's body to be standing up with the wire attached to his neck. So it needed to be just kinda long enough to make it work.

So the body needed to remain in a standing up position while Eden is setting up the other end of the cable to his neck. Of course, she didn't have an accomplice nor would she want to work with one, so she relied on a few materials she planned beforehand to make it work.

Truth bullet used : Moved benches

Truth bullet used : Weight plates next to treadmill

Truth bullet used : Broom

The culprit used the back wall so that Ace's body would rest against it. That way, it wouldn't move backwards. Then, she squeezed the victim's legs with the benches, placing one of them on each side so that the body wouldn't move sideways. She also placed a weight plate on each foot so that his feet wouldn't move around, which could move the body if that were to happen. It would help keep the body stable.

Even with these steps however, it still wouldn't be enough to keep the body still. After all, these steps I mentioned only affect the lower part of the body. So if the culprit let things play out like that, the upper body would simply bend forward which would make all that stability effort go to waste.

Fortunately, the culprit is smart, she thought about that beforehand. That's why she brought the broom to the gym. That was the final step needed to keep the body still.

All Eden had to do next was place the broom through Ace's shirt in the back. As long as the body is standing against the wall, Ace would be unable to bend forward because of the broom. It's physically impossible.

You can even try it out yourself at home if you'd like. Pass a broom (preferably a clean one) through your shirt in the back, stand against a wall and try to bend forward. The broom blocks you from doing that.

Wouldn't the upper body be able to move sideways though?

Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't really matter though because the culprit simply needed to hold the body for a bit and all Eden needed to focus on is making sure that it wouldn't move sideways, everything else was taken care of. Moving on...

Truth bullet used : Eden's cables

Truth bullet used : Neck wounds

Truth bullet used : Smeared blood on the wall

Truth bullet used : Lack of blood anywhere else

Now that the body is stable, she needed to place that wire around Ace's neck, but how? Well, if we look at the neck wounds, you can see multiple slashes across his neck. And judging by the smeared blood on the wall, it seems to heavily imply that the neck wounds also reach the back side of his neck.

Well, actually, there's some incredibly minor pixelly details that seem to indicate that the neck wounds doesn't extend to the back. There's also this and-

Those are incredibly niche and minor details to claim that neck wounds doesn't go around the back of his neck which is still incredibly odd to me that people believe is the case considering the smeared blood. To me, it seems more like the creator added that blood on the wall to indicate that the neck wounds also go around his back even if we can't physically see it. In any case, I refuse to elaborate further on that. I'll explain why in the finale.

Anyways, there's also the lack of blood anywhere else during Teruko's investigation of the attempted murder. It seems really weird that there's not much other signs of blood considering how seemingly complex that mechanism must be. Some claim that some of these bloody spots must've been wiped off somehow, but I think there's a much, much simpler solution to this.

The culprit wrapped the cable around Ace's neck multiple times.

The best part in all this is that the culprit doesn't even need to tie it up. Even though it's simply going around his neck multiple times without a noose, the cable wouldn't come off. Heck, if you were to pull the wire one way, it would just tighten up Ace's neck.

If you're not convinced, you can try wrapping a plastic water bottle with some long wire and then try to pull it. It usually doesn't come off.

Act 9

Now that the cable was properly wrapped around Ace's neck, Eden had a few remaining finishing touches to complete the murder mechanism.

First off, now that Ace is properly tied up with the fan, all the materials that was used to keep the body stable was no longer needed and could be discarded.

Truth bullet used : Moved benches

Truth bullet used : Weight plates next to treadmill

Truth bullet used : Broom

Truth buller used : Stepladder

She removed the broom that was stuck in Ace's shirt. Then, she moved at least the left bench so that she'd have an easier access to drag the unconscious body. After that, she removed the weight plates on his feet and put it next to the treadmills. To finish it off, she moved the stepladder away from the fan since it was in the way.

After doing so, she then dragged Ace's standing body closer to the fan. Or rather, right below it, at the center.

Why didn't she place Ace's body under the fan to begin with? Moving it towards the wall seem unnecessary!

No, it was very much needed. Remember, Eden's not strong and she needed to make sure that the unconscious body wouldn't move while she's setting up the murder mechanism. Even if she were to make the body sit down, she would then need to make him stand up to tighten up the wire, but if there's no way to stabilize the backside, it would just fall backwards. Then if she would try to make sure it wouldn't go backwards, it could bend forward and so on. It wouldn't be practical.

That's precisely why she needed to make his body lean against the wall initially. Anyways, once Eden placed the body under the fan, she readjusted the wire a bit to make sure it would remain tight.

Couldn't she just leave the body standing against the wall for the murder mechanism?

Not really. The way the murder mechanism is supposed is work is like so..

Ace's body would be held by the wire which is attached by a blade of the fan. The fans are currently turned off. The only thing the culprit needed to do to commit murder is turn on the switch. By turning on the switch, the fan would spin along with the wire.

If the body was standing against the wall at the time, the wire would somewhat try to drag the body forward, which could potentially make the body fall, which could potentially break the fan.

If the body is standing right below the fan however, the wire wouldn't really drag his body since it is at the very center of the rotation. Once the fan spins along with the wire, the wire would wrap around his neck further, which tightens it even further, which could be what caused those neck wounds.

And that's what I think is what the murder mechanism is supposed to be.

Why would she go through so much work and efforts to make that kind of mechanism?

There's a couple reasons. Eden's not strong, as stated before, so there's a bunch of murder methods that she couldn't do by herself. Granted, she could easily do something like stabbing, but it's possible that she's the kind of the person who doesn't want to do the actual murder action herself. So the culprit would be more at ease if it was some kind of mechanism that would do the dirty deed for her.

But for a more reasonable explanation, working on a murder mechanism like that reminds her of her time spent working on clocks. Since clocks usually involve mechanisms, Eden would be more at ease working on something that's closer to her talents.

Truth bullet used : Hu's wires

Also, less practical reason, but still a reason nonetheless, since the culprit used some kind of wire as murder weapon, it could've been served as a way to throw in suspicions towards Hu. Even though the plan was meant to have Arei be the main suspect, it doesn't mean she couldn't throw suspicions indirectly on others as well. Besides, the more suspicions that's thrown at others, the less likely she would be caught.

Another good reason to it is because of the BDA rule. The rule states that "The Body Announcement will play when three or more people who did not witness the murder discover the body." She crafted that whole killing machine so that she would be able commit murder without witness the moment of murder.

Truth bullet used : On/Off switch for the fans

Eden simply needed to turn the switch of the fans back on and then exit the gym. She could go back to the dorm, letting the mechanism do its work and then next morning, if she goes with 2 other people to find Ace's dead body in the gym, it would trigger the BDA.

Act 10

That sounds great and all, but the murder plan failed anyways. What is even the point of all this?

Well, if everything went according to plan, it could've been a nearly perfect crime. But that didn't happen, as we all know. So what happened instead? Well, there's a simple reason why I suspect why Eden is the person responsible for the attempted murder on Ace.

Truth bullet used : Nico's motive to kill Ace

Truth bullet used : Nico caught in the act

Consider that Teruko and Eden found Nico next to Ace's that night, they're definitly involved in some shape or form. But since the murder mechanism was all of Eden's work, it would mean that Nico is the third party behind this fiasco.

While Eden was working on her murder mechanism, Nico decided that they wanted to murder Ace. The constant bullying pushed them to the edge. So they were desperatly looking for their target to commit murder.

But wait... if Nico was caught in the gym, how would they know to find Ace in here? Wouldn't they think that Ace would be sleeping at night in his dorm? Why wouldn't they look for him in the evening.

It's hard to say. I think there's honestly a lot of things that we don't know about Nico. They're quite the mystery. What we do know is that they were willing to murder Ace. We don't know their whole thought process, but they probably wanted to kill him at night since they would be less likely to be found out.

They probably tried knocking on Ace's door first, or maybe they kept a close eye to when Ace would come back to his dorm, but it never happened. So they probably eventually decided to go take a look around the building to see where he could be hiding.

But apparently, Nico never really thought about it when Veronika asked about how they envisioned killing Ace.

Maybe, but like I said, there's a lot that we don't know about Nico and from the looks of it, when Ace bullied Nico and they then replied that they would kill him, it seemed like a totally different behavior.

I don't know what's up with that, but that sinister behavior makes me believe that this is like a different form of Nico. Like a split personality, or his true self or something. We don't know for sure what it could be, but that different behavior could be what caused them to want to kill Ace at night.

My point is... because there's so much unknown about Nico, there's a vast amount of possibilities that would explain why they decided to murder Ace then and now. Moving on...

So Nico's looking around for his prey (hehe), they probably look around the first floor, but don't find him anywhere. So the only remaining option is taking the elevator to go on the second floor, he must be there after all.

Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls

Meanwhile, Eden suddenly hears the elevator making sounds. She realises that someone is approaching, but who and why this late at night?

Even though she completed the murder mechanism, she still wanted to clean up the crime scene a bit. Like... you know... placing the broom and stepladder back where it came from (storage room maybe), placing the discarded weight plates and moved benches back to their original position.

Unfortunatly, she can't do that, someone's coming, she needs to hide. So what does she do? She turns the switch of the fan back on, exits the gym and then hides in the dress-up room. Now, all she can do is hope and pray that whoever arrived will go back to the first floor.

But how would she not be aware that someone would arrive late at night? Wouldn't she have known that Nico probably wanted to kill Ace?

That's actually impossible. She couldn't have expected this at all.

Truth bullet used : Eden's incident in the infirmary

While the argument between Nico and Ace happened that day, Eden was busy having a private discussion with Arturo in the infirmary. She had a meeting so that she could reveal his secret and cause a potential conflict.

When Ace was threatening Nico that he would reveal their secret, at the time, Arturo, Eden and Arei was nowhere to be seen in the cafeteria, so it matches up perfectly.

So yeah... that was an unpleasant and unexpected surprise for Eden. The worst part in all of this is that when Nico reached the second floor, they actually entered the gym and that's when they discovered Ace about to be murdered by this weird mechanism.

This just became a disaster for Eden, someone found out about it too early and there's nothing she can do about it at the moment except to wait. So what does Nico do next?

Truth bullet used : On/Off switch for the fans

They turn off the fans.

What?! What would be the point of that?! He wants Ace dead, he doesn't want to save him! That doesn't make sense!

This is a golden opportunity for Nico! Think about it. They want to murder Ace, but then they see that potentially someone else already tried to murder him. It's hard to say if they knew what this whole mechanism meant, but they could see that the fan was playing a part to it.

So they probably realised : "Wait, I could turn it off and then kill him myself." That way, if the group somehow figures out the murder mechanism, they might not realise that someone else killed Ace in that moment.

But then Eden would've told the group about it. She would've been a witness and Nico would've been doomed at the trial.

Maybe, but the thing to keep in mind is that at the time, Nico didn't know that the person responsible for the murder mechanism was hiding somewhere on the second floor. After all...

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

Even though the walls are not soundproof, Eden is really sneaky, so she might've been able to hide without being noticed by Nico.

But like I said before, Nico never really thought about it when Veronika asked about how they envisioned killing Ace.

...Again with this. Like I said before, there's a lot that we don't know about Nico yet. It's precisely because he never thought about it that it makes me think that something's going on with Nico.

If Nico had something like a split personality, similar to Toko Fukawa, it would explain those oddities. Cliché'd or not, this is a fangan. So creators could definitly take inspiration from the original ones without a doubt. It would also explain why they weren't willing to share to Charles what happened there. Whether they was filled with regret or not, it's possible that they don't quite clearly remember how it went.

In any case, I refuse to elaborate further on that. I'll explain why in the finale.

Now that the fan is turned off, there are eitheir two things Nico could do : Kill Ace directly with a slightly different method, like physically strangling him or they simply turn the switch back on.

As long as they get the finishing blow, that should work.

Act 11

It's around this time that someone else joins the murder party on the second floor. We must not forget about Teruko! Based on what we saw on Episode 6, Teruko realises that she forgot her spare uniforms in the dress-up room on the second floor because she didn't want to use the same ol stinky clothes after taking a shower. So she then uses the elevator to go get her clothes on the second floor.

Eden hears footsteps, noticing that someone's approaching the dress-up room. Thinking it's the person who was in the gym, she goes : "W-who's there? I know you've been following me!"

But that was in fact Teruko who entered that room, so she replies : "What? No, I'm not. What are you talking about?"

Then Eden gets embarassed and nervous. She asks : "Oh, it's just you, Teruko. What are you doing here?" At the time, the culprit thought that it was the other person who visited the gym : Nico.

Teruko replies : "I could say the same to you. What are *you* doing here, at a time like this?" She makes a very good point. It's very suspicious of Eden to be present in here this late at night and Eden is aware of that. She's in trouble. If she doesn't come up with a valid excuse quickly, her plan will be completly ruined.

Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes

She then remembered that when she was gathering clothes to make some kind of blanket to cover Arei from the starched water, she noticed spares of Teruko's uniform. So with her quick wit, she came up with this : "Hu told me all about how MonoTV gave you both new outfits. I noticed you didn't take any of your new clothes, so I was going to deliver them to you! But I'm guessing that's also why you're here right now."

That excuse worked like a charm. Teruko believed it, as mistrusting as she may be. She was even nearly about to thank Eden for being so nice, but then remembered she needs to retain a mean and mistrusting persona.

So then they talk for a bit, they're about to go back to the first floor. Or at the very least, Teruko was about to go there first because she doesn't trust anyone else to take the elevator with her. Then all of a sudden, they hear loud noises coming from the gym. They enter the room and then we get to the scene of the attempted murder on Ace with Nico being caught in the act.

Act 12

While this whole scene between both girls happened, something else was happening back in the gym. So according to my theory, Nico turned off the fans. That wasn't just because of malicious intents by the way, there was also a logical reason behind it.

Truth bullet used : Left fan not spinning

Truth bullet used : Nico caught in the act

When Teruko and Eden discovered Ace's body while Nico was holding a piece of the wire, in that moment, the left fan wasn't working. It wouldn't make sense for the left fan to be broken like the one on the right since it was working just fine the next day.

This means that someone must've turned off the fans and the only possibility I can think of is if Nico turned them off for their own personal reasons. It just makes sense.

Anyways, as they were about plotting to murder Ace, something else happened that put a stop to their plan.

Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls

They heard someone using the elevator. Not only that, but they could hear Teruko and Eden talking in the dress-up room. They are now aware that there are people close by. They can't afford to do any funny business like murder if there are witnesses close by. They had no choice but to wait for them to go back to the first floor.

To make sure that they were indeed gone, they put their head against the door to listen closely to what's going on outside the fitness room.

While this was happening... yet another unexpected thing happend. Ace came back to consciousness!

That makes no sense! You have no proof of that!

You'll understand why I make that claim shortly. Be quiet and let me continue!

So let's think about Ace's point of view for a minute here. He wakes up in the fitness room. What are some of the things that he notices? Well, he sees Nico in the distance, by the door. Nico doesn't notice Ace who came back to consciousness because they were busy listening to the conversation between Teruko and Eden.

Truth bullet used : Neck wounds

Shortly afterwards, he would notice that his neck hurts. Confused, he's wondering what's going.

Truth bullet used : Eden's cables

Truth bullet used : Blood on Ace's fingers

Truth bullet used : Nico's motive to kill Ace

Truth bullet used : Ace's phobias

So Ace touches his neck and that's when he notices that there's blood. Then upon closer inspection, he realises that he's stuck with a wire wrapped around his neck. The terrifying conclusion comes to him in a flash : "Oh my god! Nico is about to freaking kill me! I don't wanna die!" This is partly why there's blood on Ace's fingers. He's having a moment of panic, but...

Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls

He can also hear two girls talking from outside the gym. So Ace knows that there's people around. He probably wanted to scream, but his neck probably hurt so bad that it might've been nearly impossible to speak at the moment.

So he needed to come up with another plan. What could he possibly do to get everyone's attention?

Truth bullet used : Ace working out

Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan

Truth bullet used : Other piece of wire

Truth bullet used : Blood on Ace's fingers

There's only one possible option he could do in a situation like this : brute force his way out of this death trap. So he grabs the wire from the front of his neck with both hands, tries to break that wire with all his might. While doing that, he's also pulling his body backwards.

That way, it would put stress on both the wires and the fan. So as long as eitheir breaks, that would do the trick. That would certainly explain why there spots on the wire that didn't have blood : Ace wiped them simply with his hands.

HOLD ON JUST A MINUTE! That can't be possible! You can't fully wipe blood on wires with just your hands that way. You'd need something to clean it up. Also, the position of the spots wouldn't quite realisticly match up the positions of where his hands would be and-

.........I refuse to elaborate on that. I'll explain why later in the finale.

Moving on... Fortunately for Ace, when he tried to eitheir break the wire or the fan, both happened at the same time.

Truth bullet used : Moved benches

Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan

Truth bullet used : Other piece of wire

Truth bullet used : Ripped out right fan

Truth bullet used : Ace's sitting position

Truth bullet used : Smeared blood on the wall

So what exactly happened when he succeeded in brute forcing his way out? Well, the cable break in two, which would explain both pieces of wire found. Then, the right fan would be ripped out of the ceiling, which would perfectly explain why it was found on the ground.

As the fan breaks, Ace's backwards momemtum would make him fall behind. This would result in him having a sitting position with his back against the wall. The impact of his head against the wall, would make his head move a bit, which would perfectly explain the smear on the wall.

Also, while he's falling backwards, he would also hit the right bench, which would make it topple over. That would cleanly explain why Teruko found a toppled bench during Ace's body discovery.

And of course, all of that creates a very loud noise, which got Teruko and Eden curious.

But what about Nico?

Well... they're kinda screwed. But more importantly, they're as confused as the girls outside. After all, they were busy listening to the conversation, so they have no idea what the hell just happened there.

So when they turn around, they just see this mess... They can't help but wonder what in the heavens happened here. So they approach the "crime scene" and get rather curious about the broken wire. So they grab one piece of the wire and...

Act 13

Truth bullet used : Nico caught in the act

Truth bullet used : Nico's motive to kill Ace

Truth bullet used : Hu's wires

Truth bullet used : Hu being protective of Nico

Truth bullet used : Turpentine

That's when we get the scene where Teruko and Eden finds Ace presumably dead. They also find Nico holding a piece of the wire that has blood on it. This, ladies and gentleman, is how the whole attempted murder on Ace went down in my opinion. It would perfectly explain all the clues found here.

Not only that, but that would be perfect to make us believe without a shred of a doubt that it was Nico who truly did all of that.

Why? It's simple! Teruko catches Nico in the act, so that's already very suspicious. We also know that they wanted to have a painting session with Rose, so it's very easy to believe that Nico might've stolen the turpentine to knock Ace unconscious.

Then, we see that the murder weapon looks like some kind of wire. What do we know about wires? According to the list of custom weapons, Hu's weapon are wires.

Add that to the fact that she's trying to protect Nico from all the bullying like an overprotective mother, we get the following result : Nico really wanted to kill Ace and Hu wanted to help, so Hu became the accomplice by giving them wires.

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to believe that all of this is just a giant red herring?! A devil trick pulled by the DRDT creator themselves! If that's truly what happened, then I can't help but applaud the creator for coming up with such an elaborate mystery.

Another thing to take note : Eden is really surprised and confused upon seeing the chaotic mess. Her whole mechanical creation broken apart. She couldn't but utter those words : "AHHHHHHH! Wh...What?? What is this??"

Also, Eden notices something else that's entirely wrong : she knows that Ace is not dead.

Huh? How come?!

Think about it. The reason why she made this murder mechanism is to be able to count as a person for the BDA rule since she didn't need to be in the gym for the murder to happen. So when they came across this whole mess, there were at least 3 alive people : Teruko, Eden and Nico. If Ace was truly dead, the BDA would've triggered by now, but that's not what happened.

So Eden knew that her whole murder attempt on Ace failed. Her whole plan failed.

Anyways, Teruko shouts at Nico, they run away and leave the crime scene. So what about Ace? Well...

Act 14

Ace is supposed to be back to consciousness, yet at the time, he's presumably. Well... it's more accurate to say that we were led to believe that he's unconscious. So what's up with that?

There's two options. He eitheir hit his head so hard against the wall that he lost consciousness again. It's a funny theory to think about, but I seriously don't think that's what happened.

So that means it's most likely the other option : Ace pretended to be dead/unconscious.

That's just insane! Why would Ace do that?!

Well, initially, I think it was to fool Nico. Since Ace was absolutely that he was the murderer, he didn't know what to expect of them. So by pretending to be unconscious still, Nico would turn around to see the mess and they would probably not immediatly suspect that this was caused by Ace. It would make sense since they were seen holding a piece of wire, probably wondering what the hell happened.

Well, Nico's gone though. Couldn't he have dropped the act?

He probably could've, but there was something that made him not want to reveal it.

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

By that, I don't mean that he's pretending to be dead because he wants to act tough. That wouldn't make sense. I'm referring to the argument scene with Levi way back in Episode 2. He had a change of behavior since then and he even stated that he would rely on himself alone.

In simpler terms, he's practically acting like Teruko : not trusting anyone and working on his own. In essence, when Teruko does that, it really does make her look tough. Maybe Ace took a little bit of inspiration from it, who knows?

Wouldn't it make more sense to reveal to the girls what truly happened? That would make him look like a tough badass!

Maybe, but remember, he doesn't trust anyone else anymore and wants to work on his own. So by pretending to be dead at the time, no one would realise what truly transpired in the fitness room. So by doing that, he's hiding secrets from others, kind of like hiding the real strength of his hand in poker by making it look weak. That's also why Ace refuses to share anything to Charles about what happened in the gym. Moving on...

Teruko proceeds with the investigation while Eden is busy crying over this "body discovery".

What is Eden truly plotting here? It's simple. She's trying to think of an plan B and quick. After all, like I mentioned in the whydunnit, she really wants to get out of here, so she needs to murder someone.

On top of that, Arei is still stuck inside the relaxation room. If no murder happens real soon, things would look pretty bad for Eden. But then, she realised something... Arei is still trapped inside the relaxation room. This is the perfect opportunity.

As long as Arei is trapped in here, she could proceed to kill her next morning at the earliest time. She would rather not do it, but she has no choice, especially if she wants to complete her goal of exiting this killing game. This is the only remaining move possible. It's all or nothing!

So by the time Teruko finishes the investigation, Eden finally comes up with a proper plan B for the murder scheme. For that to work, she needed something in that gym.

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

So Eden tells Teruko : "Okay, I'm ready. I'm okay. Am I needed, Teruko? Let me help investigate." She would then proceed to "investigate" the crime scene when in reality, she's trying to grab the roll of tape while she's distracted.

The distraction happens around the time where Teruko approaches Ace's body to inspect it more closely.

This is bad for Ace for two reasons. One, she would notice that Ace is still alive which we do notice her reaction in Episode 6. Two, she would notice the blood on his fingers/hands. If she were to notice that, it would help her get closer to learning the truth about what happened here and that's not what Ace wants at all.

That's why he comes up with potentially the best bluff I've ever seen.

Act 15

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

Truth bullet used : Blood on Ace's fingers

Truth bullet used : Neck wounds

Ace decides that now's the best time to pretend to wake up to consciousness and make this hilariously loud shout to showcase that he's not dead. Here's something really interesting about this pose however.

Look at his hands. He put his left hand on his neck wounds while he's clenching his right hand. What do they both have in common? Well, it's meant to hide the fact that there was blood on his fingers beforehand, of course! The same thing happens later on.

Ace now placed his right hand on his neck wounds, covering his hand with blood to make it look like the blood on his hands originally came from touching his wounds at the moment, not before.

So by putting on this act, Ace was able to disguise his bloody hands which hides the truth behind what may have truly happened while also putting on this tough guy act. Neitheir Teruko or Eden would suspect a thing.

And of course, this would also explain why Ace is so insistent on believing that Nico tried to kill him : He saw them with his own eyes. Anyone in Ace's shoes would believe the same thing.

Truth bullet created : Ace's actions in the gym

So later on, Ace tries to chase after Nico back to their dorm. MonoTV kicks Eden and Teruko out of the gym and locks it. Then they back to the first floor to follow Ace. Then there's the scene with Teruko, Eden, Ace and Levi involved. Ace claims that he doesn't need help because he doesn't trust the others and wants to act tough and on his own.

Ace goes back to his dorm, Levi goes back to his dorm and Teruko doesn't care about Ace's condition, so she goes back to her dorm. What about Eden? Well... it's time for plan B!

Act 16

Now that everyone went back to bed. Eden shouldn't have to worry about any other surprises, so late night of DAY 2 should be the perfect time to set up the second murder mechanism among other things. There was yet again a lot of work to do. But that's fine, she mentioned in the prologue that she can work on something for many hours without taking a break.

She had two main goals in mind to make her whole murder scheme work.

Create a murder mechanism at a different location so that the mechanism would do the dirty deed for her. The best possible location for this would be the playground.

Create a perfect alibi so that no one would suspect her. For that to work, she would need to disguise the actual time of death so that people would presume the victim died at a later died, which would be a time where the culprit would have an alibi.

So while Arei is still trapped inside the relaxation room, Eden could work on gathering the materials to make a nearly perfect disguise and make the necessary preparations for the murder mechanism in the playground. Let's start with gathering the materials for the disguise.

Why would Eden need to make a disguise?

It's simple. What would be the best way to make it look like Arei was still alive on DAY 3? By having someone disguised practically like her and being present in a place where there's multiple people for a short period of time.

But she looks nothing like Arei! That's impossible!

We have a lot of clues that could make it possible, as unbelievable as it may sound.

Truth bullet used : Wigs

Truth bullet used : Make-up kit

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

First, she stealthily entered Arei's dorm (she probably had Arei's monopad or whatever it was to unlock that door) to take a look at her spare uniforms. Upon closer inspection, she notices that there's a small problem : there are no spare gloves. It would appear that this is a unique kind of accessory for Arei, so she's gonna have no choice but to take it from Arei's body after killing her.

Truth bullet created : Arei's spare uniform

Next up, she would go to the second floor to grab a certain wig and the make-up kit in the dress-up room. There's this blue wig that looks like Arei's hairstyle, so that should do the trick. Once it's been gathered, she temporarily placed them in Arei's dorm. Most of the disguise materials were collected, time for the next step.

Act 17

It was time to gather the materials for the second murder mechanism.

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel

Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck

Truth bullet used : Empty jugs with broken handles

Eden already had the roll of grippy tape with her, so we don't have to worry about that. She first grabbed the water jugs that probably came from the fridge. Of course, the handles weren't broken at the time.

And finally, she took the rope that belonged to Arei, but was sent to the storage room. I don't know if there were two ropes or only one very long rope. But if there was only one, then Eden must've used a knife in the kitchen to cut it in two. That was necessary to make her murder mechanism work. That would explain the two ropes found in the playground on Episode 8.

Truth bullet created : Water jugs

Now that this was all gathered, she then needed to move them to the playground to start building that murder machinery.

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel

Truth bullet used : Broken ceiling light

Once she arrived at the playground, Eden first needed to throw that rope above this metal railing by the ceiling, whatever it's called. She wanted to create a pulley system, so that step was important.

The culprit picked the longer rope of the two, then she put the rope through the roll of tape, tied it up and then threw it upwards as hard as possible.

It's two floors high, Eden's not strong enough to throw it up there!

She may be weak, but she can definitly pull that task. There's a specific reason why I believe the culprit used the roll of tape. It'd be incredibly light and it has a handle, which makes it really easy to chuck it high up in the air.

Even if she doesn't succeed the first, she had plenty time to keep trying until she succeeded. Eventually, she would succeed, but she would accidently hit the lights which would break it in the process.

The weight of the tape is probably not enough to break it.

We don't know that for sure. Besides, if I recall, MonoTV mentioned that the lights were flickering, which can simply be caused by a misplaced light bulb. So it could very well do the trick with enough speed. But in case you think that's not enough, I'll go ahead and say that I refuse to elaborate further on that matter, I'll explain why in the finale. Moving on...

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet used : Carousel wrapped with tape

Next up, the culprit wrapped the bars of the spinny thing with tape. The reason why was because the carousel was essential for the pulley system. She needed to spin it to raise the rope among other things

At the moment, the bars are pretty slippery, so she needed something applied to the bars so that she wouldn't the grip. Hence, the grippy tape.

Well, that's impossible! The roll of tape by itself wouldn't be enough to cover all the bars of that carousel. Where would she get more of that tape?!

Eden didn't need more tape, that was all that she needed to wrap all those bars.

Now, you're just being delusional! It can't cover all the bars with that alone!

Heh! Are you sure about that? I know that most of you are under the impression that the bars of the spinny thing must be wrapped up horizontally, kind of like putting tape on a tennis racket's handle.

By thinking outside the box, there's actually a way to explain this issue. It's very simple once you realise it. The culprit wrapped the bars vertically!

By that, I mean that she starts applying the tape from the top of the bar and then drags it straight down. Once it reaches the bottom, she just needs to cut the tape and then the extra width of the tape will go around the carousel bar. That way, Eden can save a lot of tape and would have plenty with that roll of tape.

The bars seem fairly large though. I doubt it would be enough to cover the bar with only one length of tape.

Hard to say. But if that's truly a problem, you can easily fix it by using a second length of tape on that same bar. So each bar would have 2 lengths of tape.

And if that somehow makes you think that there wouldn't be enough tape by doing it that way, then there's nothing else I can do to please you. I refuse to elaborate further on that. I will explain why in the finale. Moving on...

Truth bullet used : Water jugs

Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel

It's not time to attach that rope to the appropriate items. On one end, she would tie both water jugs together in such a way that it would be hanging from the handles. At the other end of that rope, Eden makes a noose around one of the bars of the carousel.

She then tests out the pulley system to see if it actually works. If the pulley system doesn't properly work from simply tying up the rope to one of the bars, then there's an alternative. As @1moreff-creator suggested in the past, you just weave the rope through some of the handlebars and that should do the trick.

Truth bullet created : Pulley system

And with that, the preparations for the second murder mechanism would be complete at the moment. There are a few remaining steps, but she can't do it without the body, so she'll have to wait next morning.

Act 18

While Eden is waiting for the door of the relaxation room to unlock at 8:00 AM, there were a few things that she could do. Those are not necessarily things that she did, but could've happened to make sure the plan was perfect.

Truth bullet used : Wigs

Truth bullet used : Make-up kit

Truth bullet used : Arei's spare uniform

Truth bullet used : Needle with black string attached

Of course, she didn't put on the disguise at night even though that would technicly save time. The reason why is because if Eden proceeded to disguise herself into Arei at night, waited for the doors to unlock next morning, murder her, then hide back the body, it would take so much physical efforts out of her that she would be sweating. This would ruin the disguise.

So instead, she tested out the products to make sure that they worked perfectly. For the wig, the culprit could try to readjust the hair so that it would look a lot more like Arei's hairstyle.

Then, for the make-up kit, she would find the right materials to change her skin tone so that it would match Arei's. She probably puts it on her hand or wrist and tries out various combinations until she finds the perfect color. Once she's done with that, she can simply wash it away for the time being. Oh, also, she would take the time to find proper contacts to match Arei's eye colors as well.

Next up would be the uniform. She tried it on to make sure it would fit perfectly. Eden probably knows that she's a bit smaller than Arei, so there could be some differences. She cannot recreate Arei's height, that would be impossible. It's not like Arei is wearing high heels anyways.

If the disguise is not quite perfect, she could probably try to readjust it somehow with a needle and a few basic sewing skills. I'm no expert in this, and it's unsure if Eden truly did that anyways. What matters is that there was the option available before her if needed.

Now that she's fully prepared for the murder scheme, it was time for the culprit to wait in front of the relaxation room until the door unlocks.

Act 19

It is now 8:00 AM of DAY 3, it's time to retrieve the body!

As the door of the relax room unlocks, Eden would proceed to grab Arei's body and drag it to the playground. The turf would probably be dry by now. Otherwise, why would MonoTV allow others to enter that room this early and potentially make a mess if the ground happened to still be wet and gross?

There's no way Arei would still be unconscious for such a long time. Ace woke up in fewer hours than the time it took for the culprit to wait for the doors of the relax room to open.

Ace woke up earlier because of the neck wounds, most likely. We don't really know how effective or potent this turpentine actually is. But based on my deductions, it would make a lot more sense to believe that Arei was unconscious this whole time.

Otherwise, she would have starch all over her if she woke up at night and wandered around that room. For all we know, maybe she was about to come back to consciousness very soon that morning. Maybe the culprit brought the turpentine with her just in case to make sure she remains unconscious. With that said, I refuse to elaborate further on that. I'll explain why in the finale.

Anyways, now that the culprit brought the body back to the playground, she now had access to the missing piece to complete the perfect disguise.

Truth bullet used : Arei's missing glove

It appears to be unique. So Eden took it off Arei's hand and stored it somewhere safe... like her pouch that's around her belt. That would perfectly explain why the victim's glove was missing during the investigation in Episode 8.

Act 20

The final preparations are complete, it's now time for murder! Eden needed to place the body at the right position along with a few remaining props.

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck

Truth bullet used : Red marks on Arei's wrists

Truth bullet used : Scrunched up tape

Truth bullet used : Scuffed ground

Considering the red marks on Arei's wrists when she was found dead alongside the scrunched up tape found in the trash, the obvious logical conclusion we can get out of this is that her wrists were tied up with the grippy tape. The real question though is for what purpose did she do that?

According to my theory, the victim would still be unconscious, so there's no point in tying her wrists to make sure she doesn't escape or fight back or whatever. So by thinking outside the box, I've concluded that the culprit did it because it was a necessary step for the murder scheme.

Then you have to consider the scuffed marks that was found on the ground of the playground in a specific location. It couldn't have been from a fight or struggle since Arei should've been unconscious, so something else should've happened. That's when I came up with this brilliant idea.

For reference, the scuffed marks were found a few feet away from the seasaw (Don't mind the drawing). Also, the yellow stickman where we can't see the legs represents the victim : Arei. The green scribbles represent the other piece of rope, the one that's not as long as the one used for the pulley, but still somewhat long. The subtle grey scribbles by the seasaw and the yellow man's hands represents the grippy tape applied to Arei's wrists.

So here's how it's supposed to work. First, Eden brings the body close by the seasaw and then place Arei's arms between both poles (supports) of the seasaw. Next up, she would bind tightly the victim's wrists together with the grippy tape so that the body wouldn't be able to easily move away from the seasaw through a forceful pulling motion.

Then, she would use the other rope to make a noose around Arei's neck. However, she wouldn't tie the other end of the rope to the spinny thing just yet, she will do that later. For now, she placed that end of the rope as close to the carousel as possible.

I still don't see how that would create scuffed marks to the ground...

That's because I haven't shown you the magic trick yet! Let's continue!

Truth bullet used : Pulley system

Now that the other rope was set up, it was now time to use the pulley system she created last night. First, the culprit spins the carousel in the rotation (let's say clockwise) that would pull the water jugs (that are hanging by the other rope of that rope) upwards. She would pull as much as she possibly can. Then once the water jugs reach the maximum height, it was time for the next step.

Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck

The culprit needed her hands to tie the other rope that was close by her with the spinny thing's handlebar. Of course, there's a bit of weight from the water jugs, so she couldn't simply let go of the pulley. Therefore, she must've been holding the carousel with one or both legs. If tying the rope with one of the handlebars wasn't enough, Eden could've also weaved through a few of them like before.

Now, here comes to most exciting part, the "tada!" of the murder trick! She takes out her leg(s) from the spinny thing, she holds it again with her hands and then... she spins it counterclockwise as hard and as fast as possible!

That way, the water jugs would fall down pretty fast, especially if the spinny were to cause resistence of friction (making it fall slowly if it was the culprit only released). So they would fall fast, while the other rope would wind up along the carousel up until that rope reaches the limit.

As the rope reaches the limit... SNAP!

Truth bullet used : Arei's broken neck

Truth bullet used : Empty jugs with broken handles

Truth bullet used : Scuffed ground

So what happened in that moment? Well, Arei's dead. It breaks Arei's neck because of the immediate stop of the rope attached to her neck which was also pulled in by spinny thing in a pretty fast rate. This is the mainly reason why her wrists were bound. Otherwise, her whole body would've been dragged towards the carousel, which wouldn't really guarantee a killing blow.

But since the victim's wrists were stuck around the seasaw, it wouldn't move much... except for her lower body. It created a knee jerk movement reaction of her legs because of that violent pulling motion. Because of that, this would scrape the ground, which would cause the scuffed marks on the ground.

Hold on! Would it actually be enough to explain ALL these scuffed marks on the ground?

Maybe, maybe not. At the very least, the culprit could've simply created more marks on the ground to make it look more like it came from a struggle. That wouldn't be a problem at all since it's very easy to do damage the ground purposefully.

Anyways, that wouldn't be the only thing that would break. There's also the water jugs! As the rope holding Arei's neck would come to an abrupt stop, it would also make an abrupt stop to the longer rope used for the pulley system which is also what was holding the jugs by the handles. The violent motion would make the rope cut through these flimsy plastic handles, which the jugs would then fall to the ground and spill all over the playground.

The water spill is no issue at all whatsoever and was already planned by the culprit because she knew beforehand that the wet ground would dry up fairly quickly because of the fans at the ceiling.

And there you go! This... is how the actual murder happened... in my opinion. That would explain a lot of clues found perfectly, wouldn't it?

Anyways, Eden's nowhere done yet. That would only her first goal achieved : create a murder mechanism at a different location so that the mechanism would do the dirty deed for her.

Next up, it was time to create a perfect alibi so that no one would suspect her. There was still a lot of work to do.

Act 21

She had a disguise trick to do, but before doing that, she needed to get rid of a couple pieces of evidence. The main issue however is that because she had no choice but to murder Arei past 8:00 AM, someone could wake up very soon if they haven't done so already. But Eden couldn't leave all that evidence behind, especially the body. So whatever she needed to get rid of or hide, it needed to be done really fast. So anything that wasn't too essential in hiding could help her save time. So here's what she did...

Truth bullet used : Scrunched up tape

Truth bullet used : Red marks on Arei's wrists

Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel

Truth bullet used : Eden's letter

Truth bullet used : Torn-up note

Truth bullet used : Empty jugs with broken handles

Truth bullet used : Needle with black string attached

Eden took off the tape that kept the victim's wrists bound. Even though it leaves red marks which would make it fairly easy to deduce for the others to figure out that she was bound, she had no choice but to remove that tap if she wanted to move that body and hide it.

She untied both ropes that had a noose on the spinny thing. She then pulled the longer rope used for the pulley system and then put all that rope under the carousel. She left the tape stuck on the handlebars, it would take too long and there was not enough time.

Next up, Eden's letter. It's hard to say if the culprit truly made that letter as a mean to lure Arei into the playground earlier in the evening of DAY 2 and then knock her unconscious or if she simply made up that whole message at nighttime instead for the whole purpose of fabricating a perfect alibi.

Whichever it is, the culprit needed to tear up that note and throw it in the trash can. She didn't want to downright get rid of it. She wanted the others to find out about it sometime during the investigation. It was a necessary step of her plan to both make her alibi look more credible and also make herself look the least suspicious.

She also threw away the tape that was bound to Arei's wrists previously (which would now be scrunched up), the empty jugs and that needle to the trash. She no longer needed them and it wouldn't make it as easy to figure out the crime if the jugs were separated from the playground. Of course, she couldn't bring those jugs with her and get rid of them completly in case that she ends up running into someone back on the first floor.

Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck

Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes

Later on, Eden would drag the body away from the playground to then hide it in the relaxation room. She knew a decent spot to hide the body. She didn't undo the rope attached to the victim's neck since it was unnecessary.

People would know that her cause of death has to be related to the rope. It was also a waste of time, so not doing anything about it would save time which is exactly what the culprit needs. Also, she probably put the blanket of old clothes above the dead body to hide it better.

Ridiculous! Where would Eden even hide the body?

Truth bullet used : Box of incense

If I had to guess... probably somewhere behind those blue curtains. Preferably close by the box of incense. This spot appears to be further away from where most of the people would be relaxing. Most people would relax where there's the yoga mats and pillows. So that spot by the box of incense wouldn't be as obvious. Besides, there was another reason behind it.

Considering that the culprit is hiding it to fabricate their alibi, it would mean that the corpse would be here for a full day possibly. Wouldn't it mean that the body would decompose and create a noticeable smell?

It's honestly hard to say. I have sources that tells me that it doesn't go through that stage of body decomposition after 24 hours, it's usually more than that. But it also depends on various conditions. We don't know eitheir if the creator took that into account at all. But whether or not it was intended, I have an idea that would suggest that Eden planned ahead and used something in the relaxation room to make her alibi even stronger.

That's just utter nonsense! There's no such thing!

That's where you're wrong!

Truth bullet used : Incense sticks

The culprit used the incense sticks to create a natural timer mechanism!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!

Do you remember what I've said about these incense sticks before act 6? "Burning a whole stick can take up to an hour, but the lingering smell can last for multiple hours." That wasn't made up. That was something that I found out with a simple google search.

So let's rewind the story back to DAY 1. MonoTV announces that they have access to the 2nd floor. Teruko proceeds to investigate and finds out interesting facts about each room. It's very possible that Eden was also investigating at a different time period that day.

That would explain how she was able to come up with such complex and ingenius murder schemes according to my theory.

Culprit complimentations aside, she learned things about the relaxation room and probably noticed the smell of the incense sticks. Because we had a timeskip due to Teruko isolating herself to her dorm most of DAY 1, it's possible that Eden came back to the relaxation room later in the evening and noticed that the smell of the incense sticks disappeared. She would then have a rough idea of how long this incense smell lasts.

Now fast forward to the night of DAY 2, after the attempted murder on Ace failed. When she was plotting a new murder plan and figured out her only remaining option was killing Arei, she would remember the time of the lingering smell of said incense sticks. She would use that seemingly minor detail to her advantage.

Why does it matter having a timer?! That doesn't make sense!

It all has to do with her second goal : creating the perfect alibi. She didn't just want to hide the body for an unknown period of time, she wanted someone to find the body at some point while she's busy building her alibi with someone else.

So by using the incense sticks as a timer mechanism, she would just need to wait for someone to spend time in the relaxation room sometime in the evening. That person would eitheir notice a weird smell (of the corpse decomposing) or a lack of incense sticks smell and they would approach the box of incense to eitheir burn new sticks or to follow the source of the weird smell.

And that's how it works!

Act 22

Now that Eden cleaned up most of the important clues, she then went back to the first floor, back to Arei's dorm.

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

As long as she's sneaky enough and waits for the right time, I'm sure she would be able to enter Arei's dorm without being noticed. And then she would spend a couple hours putting on the make up and the disguise. Well actually... maybe she took a shower first.

You don't have a single shred of proof that any of this happened! Your theory just doesn't work!

If that was the case, then why does my theory line up perfectly with most of the clues found. But more importantly, why does it line up perfectly with what happened to Teruko in the morning of DAY 3?

Teruko overslept at the most convenient time for someone like Eden to commit murder around the morning of DAY 3 while also setting up her disguise.

This also lines up perfectly with what's happening afterwards. Teruko wakes, decides to go to the cafeteria during lunchtime. She finds a group of people there. Ace is having an argument with Nico because he's pretty sure that Nico tried to kill him, which is understandable. The others have their eyes on that heated argument and then...

Truth bullet used : Wigs

Truth bullet used : Make-up kit

Truth bullet used : Arei's spare uniform

Truth bullet used : Arei's missing glove

That's all you get from Arei and you don't see her anytime afterwards up until the BDA. Not only that, but she doesn't say a single thing, she's staying quiet. There's no way you can't find that suspicious in any way. Having Eden pull off a disguise trick would explain it perfectly!

Truth bullet created : Eden's disguise trick

This can't work! Teruko was staring at Arei, she would've noticed something strange about her!

Nope, she wouldn't. It's heavily implied that Teruko has prosopagnosia. This defines as having the inability of recognizing faces. She can only recognize people with their hair, eye color, skin tone. At least, that's what it seems to be when she's having a chat with Veronika in the movie screening room in Episode 7, in the evening of DAY 3. Therefore, she couldn't have recognised that something's off about her.

Anyone else who was in the cafeteria would've noticed something strange about her!

Aside from the fact that she's being quiet, not really. Why? It's simple.

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

Truth bullet used : Hu being protective of Nico

The constant bullying and arguing that Ace is doing towards Nico is causing a big distraction within the cafeteria. Hu was also busy defending Nico, which also plays a part in the distraction. Also, Ace is doing this because he's trying to show how much of a badass he is, despite being nearly killed. He's not holding back.

Well, Rose would've noticed! She saw her at lunch and she has a photographic memory!

Maybe, maybe not. Granted, she did see her, but we don't know for sure if she truly saw something off. After all, she tends to be absent-minded. It is possible that in future episodes, she will remember something that was a little different about Arei thanks to her photographic memory. We shouldn't fully deny the disguise trick just because of a potential witness.

Even then, it would be ridiculously risky! What if someone wanted to talk to her? The wig's light blue, not blue like Arei's hair! Is Eden even good at using make-up? I don't think she'd be able to replicate a good skin tone. And there's also that bowling pin, it's an accessory, shouldn't it be unique like the glove? What about-

Enough! ...I refuse to elaborate further on that matter. You'll understand why later in the finale. What matters for now is that I found a way to explain how the disguise trick could work and fit in with most of the clues.

Act 23

Now that the disguise trick is completed, what happens next? Well, now that the hardest part of the plan is done, she no longer needs to stick around as Arei, so she probably goes back to her actual dorm when no one's around.

Next up to the plan would be to create her alibi, but she only needs to do that from evening to night. So for the time being, Eden can take a good, hot shower and take a good nap. She did a good job, she deserved it! Let's go Eden! (We're proud of you!)

While it's not evening yet, let's take a look at two other characters who had some pretty big events happening to them yesterday. Let's start with Ace! He... had a very terrifying and traumatic experience last night, that's for sure.

Truth bullet used : Ace's phobias

I mean... He's afraid of a lot of things. Death is especially one of them. So there's no doubt in my mind that this scared the crap out of him. I'd like to believe that when he was arguing with Levi, Teruko and Eden last night sometime after the murder attempt, when he went back to his dorm, he probably shattered.

He was probably shaking at the thought that he honestly seriously died. Not only that, but it was Nico, of all people, who tried to kll him (according to him, of course). Nico, the person that he bullied constantly because they were inferior to him was able to pull that off? He has a weak mental fortitude, so for him to not break down at all anytime we see him after the attempted murder just seems suspicious to me.

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

Of course, he's trying to act tough, he doesn't want to show it. Or maybe he wants to be in control of his emotions or whatever. Which, it kinda makes sense, but... there's only so much you can manage mentally. As much as he tries to put on a tough guy act, eventually, the phobias will get to you, the old habits will come back.

Of course, you can improve those kind of issues to the point where it barely becomes a major issue anymore, but these kind of things take time. But of course, that's just my perception and assumption of things. What matters is that there's the possibility that this near death experience affected him a lot more than it seems which will be important later.

As for the other person... let's talk about David for a bit.

Truth bullet used : David's plan

He didn't have an experience as traumatic as Ace, but something happened that messed up with his manipulative plan : Arei knows about his secret and his plan. Well, she doesn't quite know precisely about David's intents regarding the plan of sharing secrets, but she knew something was off and wanted to make sure that there was no ill intent behind it.

Regardless, learning that someone else found out about his secret and their suspicious plan gives a pretty bad taste in his mouth. Not only that, but if his murder instigating plan succeeds, if the victim was someone else than Arei, she could've called him out on it, which would ruin his whole plan.

David is probably constantly thinking about that. He's realising that he's in a very bad spot right now. If no murder happens in the next days, then his secret would be exposed still. So no matter which will it'll go, he's always gonna have his secret exposed. David is literally screwed. That's why he's not in a good mood as shown in the evening of DAY 3.

So what does he do for the afternoon? Nothing much, really. He's probably pondering about a lot of negative things, thinking how miserable he is or something. In any case, he needs some time to be alone.

Act 24

We are now approaching the evening of DAY 3, what happens next?

Let's start with the obvious. Eden wakes up from her nice nap and proceeds to meet up with Hu to spend time with her for the evening. This is pretty much confirmed ever since Chapter 2 Episode 10 when Hu explained her alibi with Eden. According to my theory, that would be part of the culprit's plan to fabricate the perfect alibi.

Next up is Ace. Under normal circumstances, he would've spent the evening working out in the fitness room. However, because of that horrifying near death experience, he didn't want to bother with that at all and he doesn't trust anyone else. So he figured that the best thing to do was isolating himself in his dorm for the night.

But his eating disorder would've compel him to work out in the gym anyways!

Maybe, maybe not. There's no way to tell if the creator really intended for that to happen. So eitheir option would be possible, but the one that would make the most sense is if he stayed in his room. It would match up perfectly with my theory alongside a few other events I haven't explained yet. As long as my method is possible and makes sense, it should do.

And finally, we have David. His plan became a mess, he's in a bad mood. He doesn't know what to do. In any case, he somehow decides to go to the kitchen in the evening.

Why's that? Unsure, there must've been some reason, or maybe there wasn't. Maybe he just wanted to wander in the kitchen. Or maybe he thought he was gonna be able to spend time alone in kitchen, but he didn't think there would be people here at that time. Who knows?

What matters is the following...

Whit suggests to David to chill in the relaxation room, which is exactly what he does. This would conveniently line up well with Eden's plan.

Act 25

At this point during the evening of DAY 3, sometime before 10:00 AM, we only need to focus on David. So upon entering the relaxation room to... you know... relax, David notices at some point something that's off with that room.

Truth bullet used : Incense sticks

There's no longer a lingering smell of a burning incense stick (or maybe it was the weird smell from the corpse).

Truth bullet used : Box of incense

So he approaches the box of incense and then he notices something different about the blue curtains. There's something there! So David removes anything that was in the way and that's when he discovers the dead body of Arei.

David is the first person to discover the victim's corpse.

I object to that! Nico was feeding the fishes earlier that evening. Shouldn't they have noticed something odd about the smell?

Not if the lingering smell of the incense sticks was still there at the time. They wouldn't have noticed if the smell is the same as usual.

The lingering smell of the incense stopped sometime between Nico's visit and David's visit to the relax room. That was a pretty convenient timing, but it makes sense.

Now, we gotta wonder how David reacted to it. He was obviously surprised and shocked. It's hard to say if he felt happy, angry or sad about for one particular reason.

Truth bullet used : David's plan

Earlier, his plan was ruined because Arei knew about most of it. The only way he could make sure that he gets away with his secret hidden would be to have Arei dead. This... is exactly what happened. Arei's been murdered. His secret is now safe again.

Maybe he had a mix of many emotions. His plan was no longer ruined after all. There was a problem however : if he leaves things as is and the group later finds the body, David would become a prime suspect and they would force their way to find out about David's secret.

Not only that, but if they seriously suspect that he's the killer, then he, alongside the others, would lose the class trial and die. David's in big trouble.

Uh... why would David care about the trial? In chapter 1, after the execution, he commented that everyone's gonna die.

Truth bullet used : David's plan

Oh, he does care about death for sure. His whole plan was creating conflicts with others through sharing secrets in the attempt of instigating a murder.

If he didn't care about death or the trial, why wouldn't he simply kill someone instead. There's only one possible explanation : he doesn't want to die. He wanted someone else to do the dirty deed so that he would both have his secret and safe and live to see another day. He tried to kill two birds with one stone.

So anyways, David finds the body, he's shocked and confused. He needs some time to take in what happened. Actually, what happened to the body? He surely doesn't know aside that she's been murdered, of course. Was it a dream? No, it's very real, Arei's dead.

So what did he do afterwards? Well, he probably started doing his own investigation, to try to process how this happened.

Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck

Truth bullet used : Arei's broken neck

Truth bullet used : Red marks on Arei's wrists

Truth bullet used : Arei's missing glove

Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes

As far as he's aware, Arei's neck is broken, which must have something to do with the rope, but it doesn't seem like the relaxation room would be the right place to pull that off. Otherwise, it wouldn't be hidden here. Maybe he notices the red marks as well, but doesn't quite know what to make of it. Same thing for the missing glove. It's really hard to say if he actually paid attention to it.

And there's the blanket of Hu and Teruko's old clothes that are used to hide and cover the body. Aside from hiding the body, is there even any other uses for it? He doesn't know the answer to it. Eitheir way, he at least knows that this murder couldn't have happened here, so it was time to look at the other rooms.

He didn't have to look too hard to find out where the crime actually took place. He simply needed to go to the nearest room : the playground.

Truth bullet used : Scuffed ground

Truth bullet used : Carousel wrapped with tape

Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel

The scuffed ground is the first thing David would probably notice. He's probably wondering if there was a struggle happening here. If so, then whoever killed her must be someone pretty strong. Or maybe it's a trick? After all, he remembers that in the first trial, they've been easily fooled into thinking that Teruko was the murderer. So he can't jump to conclusions just yet.

Next up, he finds something strange with the spinny thing. There's some under there and the handlebars are wrapped up with some kind of tape. What does that even mean? He has frankly no idea.

Also, one thing that I need to point out regarding what David might've done investigation wise... Aside from it being a big assumption, it's possible that he didn't do much of that. At the very least, he was probably trying to figure out where the crime actually took place.

Whether he actually put some kind of efforts into investigating or not, there was still another problem that he needed to deal with quickly...

Act 26

Truth bullet used : Relax room's nighttime features

The relax room is about to close soon. This is bad for David because if he doesn't move the dead body, it will remain locked inside that room for the whole night and early morning. Then someone would definitly discover her corpse next morning, which would get him in big trouble since it would lead to having his secret exposed.

There was no time to waste. He needed to get that corpse out of here and that's what he exactly did. David dragged the corpse back to the playground. Now, he needed to figure out what he could do to indirectly help the group with the investigation.

He must've imagined that her cause of death must be from something like hanging. So he decided to hang her at the swingset. He couldn't quite exactly figure out how it was done, but that's all he could think of. As long as they don't think that it was hidden in the relaxation room to begin with, then he wouldn't be suspected.

But then he realised another problem : How will the others know when she died? If things are left out as is, they might think she was eitheir murdered at night or very early in the morning? There's a lot of possible time of deaths which would stray the group further away from the truth. In David's mind, he's pretty sure she must've been killed sometime in the evening, before he entered that room.

Why would he believe that this was the only possible time of death?

Truth bullet used : Eden's disguise trick

Even though we know, according to my theory, that Eden used a disguise trick to hide Arei's real time of death, the others don't know about it. David saw Arei alive at lunchtime, which means that she was definitly killed sometime after according to his logic. He probably figured it wasn't in the afternoon since it would be much easier for the killer to run into potential witnesses, so the evening was the only option.

Wouldn't David deduce that Nico might be the prime suspect? They were feeding the fishes sometime before David entered that room. Nico saw David use the elevator.

He might've been seen by Nico, but it doesn't mean the opposite applies. It's very likely possible that when David used the elevator, he never saw anyone passing through because Nico had already gone out a while ago. Nico probably noticed David when they were roaming around the first floor.

In any case, he needed to figure what he could do to make the others follow the "right path" into deducing that the crime happened sometime around the evening. David couldn't directly tell them, as ridiculous as it may sound. Remember, he doesn't want his secret to be found out. If he told the group about the actual time of death, they would start questioning him.

They'd be like : "How do you know that she died at that time?" That'd just make him become suspicious no matter what he tries to come up with. Because of that suspicious, they would then press on David which would lead to uncovering his secret.

So what could he possibly do to help them without directly telling them about the "right" time of death? That's when he came up with this crazy idea!

Truth bullet used : Dead fishes

Truth bullet used : Relax room's nighttime features

Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes

He remembered about the fishes in the pond and the nighttime features of the relaxation room. What if he brought those fishes to the playground? It would seem very weird and confusing that there's dead fishes found in the playground, but because of the fact that the relax room closes at 10:00 PM and reopens at 8:00 AM, they would conclude that the fishes were brought to the playground before the relaxation room closes.

Even though the fishes has most likely nothing to do with the whole crime in itself, the others would probably not think too hard about it since it's a seemingly very convoluted crime scene to begin with. He figured that a little "red herring" wouldn't hurt as long as it helps them in knowing the time of death.

That way, he wouldn't need to open up about what he found out, the dead fishes would tell the story for him. Of course, he couldn't simply grab them with his hands. Maybe one by one, but that would be incredibly inefficient.

That's why he used the blanket of old clothes instead. He used that to scoop as many fishes as possible and then brought them to the playground. It's confirmed, everyone! David is a mass murderer! He killed all those fishes that we saw in the playground! (Oh nooo!)

Anyways, once that was taken care of, there was one more thing that he needed to do : get rid of these darn clothes. He doesn't want to leave them in the relaxation room, that would obviously indicate that something or someone must've been hidden there. He can't bring it back to the first floor eitheir, that would be incredibly risky since he could run into someone.

So the next best thing he can do is hide them and also hide what they were supposed to be to begin with. David rolled up that blanket of clothes into a perfectly shaped ball and hid it in the changing room inside the dress-up room. This would explain why Charles found a ball of clothes in the dress-up room.

Now that all of that was done, he headed back to the first floor and called it a day. Nothing else significant happened that night.

Act 27

It is now DAY 4, 8:00 in the morning. Everyone gathers up to the movie screening room. Everyone except... well... you obviously know who by now. It's been 4 days already, so it was time for MonoTV to reveal the secrets, but before that happens... David goes : "Wait! Stop!"

So everyone starts counting and they notice that there's indeed someone missing. So David leads them by saying : "Arei isn't here."

So people start to panic and proceed to look for Arei. Teruko picks up Whit and Eden to make a group of 3 people to find her if she's indeed dead. That way, it would definitly trigger the BDA if all three of them are innocent. Otherwise, one of these three would be suspicious.

Of course, Eden expected that to happen, but she was prepared with her whole murder scheme. Someone should've found the dead body first already last night so it shouldn't be an issue.

So Teruko's group investigates the second floor. Teruko looks inside the gym, she's not here. Whit looks inside the dress-up room, she's not here eitheir. Eden looks inside the relaxation room...

Two things of note here...

Eden did not find the dead body in here even though that was the last place she left it. So she knows for sure someone found the body first and moved it somewhere else.

She could've easily lied about claiming that there's no place where she could be hiding. That would make a lot of sense for her to lie if she was indeed the culprit and hid the body there previously.

So everything's going really well for Eden. It's all going according to plan. The last room remaining to explore was the playground. At this point, the culprit knew that it must be hidden there. There's no way someone would drag a dead body back to the first floor.

But then, before they enter, Whit makes this silly comment : "Do you really think that she'd be hanging out in the playground right now?"

It seems absolutely goofy at first since whether the viewers were making the prediction or they already saw how she died, they would find Whit's comment to be pretty unintentionally punny (or perhaps intentionally even).

For Eden however, that was literally the worst case scenario. She took Whit's comment seriously. Or maybe she didn't at first, but then quickly started to doubt that he was joking. At some point, she must've thought : "What if it was Whit that discovered the body first?"

So as Teruko's about to open the door, in a moment of panic, Eden shouts : "Teruko, wait--" And that's when they discover the corpse of Arei hanging by the swing set, which then triggers the BDA later on.

Unfortunatly for Eden, she made a little slip-up there which could be really troublesome if Teruko catches on to this. Fortunately for Eden however, the BDA still happened, so she's still looking innocent there. On top of that, it doesn't seem like eitheir Teruko or Whit noticed her slip-up (...yet).

And that's how this whole murder mystery happened. From DAY 1 to DAY 4. And you know what? I'm not even done yet. I still have a few remaining events to explain after the body discovery announcement. Let's get into it! We're almost there!

Act 28

Everyone gathers at the playground, they find the body and they're all shocked and stuff. It's investigation time! Obviously, I won't talk about the investigation much details since I've already explained all of the evidence that was found there. Instead, I'm gonna talk about a few noteworthy things that happened during the investigation.

Eden's reaction to finding Arei's dead body is kinda suspicious. Naturally, she would act all sad and in grief upon losing dear Arei. The suspicious thing is what happens afterwards.

Not even a minute after finding the body, she quickly recovers and claims that she's ready to investigate. I know this is a class trial and that they need to take it seriously, but wouldn't it be more natural for Eden to need more time to recover from this? Especially when she was supposed to be friends with Arei according to her narrative.

The next thing is the secrets reveal. J was about to ask MonoTV about the secrets reveal since it would probably help in solving the murder. But then David interjects by claiming that MonoTV would only reveal the motive if a murder didn't happen in the allocated time. But since a murder happened, he's not obligated to reveal them.

Then he goes on about if MonoTV were to reveal the secrets based on the deadline (8:00 in the morning on DAY 4), it would mean that she died very recently, which would narrow down the time of death.

Of course, David knew that she didn't die then. He was just practically forcing MonoTV to not reveal the secrets since he knows that Arei died in the evening of DAY 3, according to his deductions. Basically playing with the rules of the motive reveal deadline. He didn't want his secret exposed, after all.

Sadly for him, MonoTV claims that it's based on the time of the body discovery and not the time of death. So if it was found shortly after the deadline, then it's already past the deadline.

This messes up with his plan to keep his secret from being exposed. So he has no choice but to see that list to find out what this is really all about. At the very least, David knows that it won't directly show whose secret it is since MonoTV himself doesn't know who it belonged to (because of the mixed up secrets).

So later on, David goes to the movie screening room to see the list and he sadly sees that his dark secret is actually there. So he's gonna have to do everything he can to make sure it doesn't get exposed. Of course, all of the actions David's done ever since the beginning of Chapter 2 made Teruko grow very suspicious of him. At least a lot more than the Prologue and Chapter 1.

Enough talk about the investigation. Let's talk about the trial!

Act 29

Kinda like the investigation phase, I'm not gonna go too much into details. I'll only reveal parts of the trial that would line up and make sense if it went according to my theory. So there are three characters who play a big role in this trial.

Eden wants to make sure that no suspicions would be thrown at her. She wants to be the most innocent out of everyone in that trial.

Ace wants to keep up the tough guy act, doesn't want to be seen as someone useless in trial and he doesn't want others to find out what really happened during the attempted murder.

David is hoping that the group will figure out the truth of the trial with a narrowed down time of death (dead fishes) while also being able to keep his secret from being exposed.

Let's start with episode 9! Eden doesn't reveal Arturo's secret. She's going to later, but she needs to build up an innocent girl narrative first.

We get a confirm from Nico that they intentionally try to make a serious attempt on Ace's life when Charles asks the question. The important thing to note here is that this could mean a lot of things. Their mind was most likely set on wanting to kill him, but it doesn't mean that they did all the setup required to make that attempt.

But Rose claimed that they lied and stole from her. Nico's response was : "I--! I didn't kill Arei! I swear!". He didn't deny Rose's claim. That's practically a confession!

Not necessarily! Despite the implication, it could also very well be them wanting to deny that claim, but stopped themselves to simply swear that they didn't kill Arei. There could be various reasons for it, but one that could be the most reasonable is if they were having doubts about it. What if they weren't sure if they actually stole from her or not? His mind could've definitly been chaotic ever since they snapped. So they probably were unable to remember it.

But they were able to remember feeding the fishes and seeing David use the elevator during the evening!

Sure, but that was on DAY 3, not DAY 2. Like I said before, there's still a lot that we don't know about Nico during the events the evening/night of DAY 2. And because it's such an unknown variable, it also leads to a massive amount of possibilities.

Besides, remember what I said in Act 12? It could've been a massive red herring by making us easily believe that Nico's the one responsible for everything involved in the attempted murder on Ace. That trial interaction could also be another trick made by the creator to make us further believe that they're indeed respondible for it all.

Anyways, sometime later, Rose believed that Arei's death was an assisted suicide where the victim played a big role into this. Eden goes out of her way to convince everyone that can't be true. There's no way that someone like Arei would commit suicide.

Why would she do that if she was the true culprit? Wouldn't it make sense to let them believe it was suicide to end the trial early?

There's no guarantee that the smarter people out there (especially Teruko) would let it end that soon. She would've figured out by herself that there's no way it could've been a suicide. So Eden went out of her way to deny the suicide claim simply to direct the group into the proper narrative in regards to Arei. It was a necessary step since she wanted to reveal the incident that happened in the infirmary. That would further confirm that this wasn't suicide.

Next up, Teruko manages to narrow down the time of death by bringing up the dead fish. Based on their knowledge that they last saw the victim at 12:00 PM on DAY 3 and the features of the relaxation room. They were able to narrow it down to sometime between 12:00 PM to 10:00 PM.

Not a satisfying time window for what David had in mind when he placed those fishes, but that will do for now. At least, his plan kind of worked. They won't think that it happened during nighttime. Maybe they'll find out a more accurate time later on.

Act 30

On episode 10, before Eden gives the note, she quickly claims that she didn't do it, whoever did it is trying to impersonate her. So we get the reveal of the torn up note which gives us the letter we all know by now.

She would seem a tiny bit suspicious at first, but that was all part of her plan. Most wouldn't think that she'd be the killer if she wanted to help put the note back together. But in fact, she needed to help for both the narrative and making sure that the ripped apart note would be properly put back together.

She needed to play the scene of the revealed note to make sure that it would eventually lead to the reveal of Arturo's secret. When she would feel like that it'd be best for her to tell the truth, she would also explain the incident in the infirmary.

That would explain why she's friends with Arei. That would explain why she was insistent on believing that she wouldn't kill herself. That whole play would make Eden look the least suspicious so far. Everything's going according to her plan.

Fortunately for David, that note helped narrow down the time of death more accurately. Unfortunatly for him however, this is a fake time of death trick pulled by Eden, the real culprit. Until something major happens, no one's going to believe that Arei actually died in the morning of DAY 3, slightly past 8:00 AM.

Moving on... everyone's discussing their alibis now that the suggested time of death is sometime between 7:30 PM and 10:00 PM.

Hu talks about her time spent with Eden in the kitchen during that whole evening. Which further proves her innocence thanks to Eden's carefully crafted alibi plan. A few have alibis, a few don't have one like Nico.

So Ace lashes out at them as usual, nothing new here. Hu gets defensive and asks for his alibi.

Truth bullet used : Ace's actions in the gym

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

He thought about it for a little bit, but then he came up with a great idea. He lied about going to the gym that evening. That'd make him look kinda badass going there the day after being nearly killed.

Also, he doesn't want the others to know the truth about what he actually did during the night of DAY 2 as he wants to hide that kind of strength from the others since he doesn't trust them.

That doesn't make sense. Ace is actively trying to act tough according to your theory!

I know, it seems kinda contradictory, but here's the thing. Ace's kind of an idiot. He's trying not to, but you just can't really improve that in an instant as if you drank an intelligence potion or something.

Truth bullet used : Ace's testimony

There's another reason however. He really wants to tell the others about David's secret. About what he saw and heard in the relaxation room. But so far, he only knows that David's been to the second floor that night. He couldn't have known about DAY 3 since according to my theory, he stayed in his dorm.

So if he decided to reveal it at the earliest time of the trial, he would have no choice but to admit that this happened during the night of DAY 2 which would then lead to others asking "wait, isn't that the night where you almost died?"

This would lead to more questions and getting closer to the truth and they'd find about what Ace was hiding from them since then. Ace doesn't want that to happen. So he holds that information for the time being.

But then a golden opportunity arrived! Teruko calls out David that he should've been in the relaxation room during the evening of DAY 3.

At first, David was starting to play dumb, hoping that no one actually saw him so that he could lie about it and pretend that he went somewhere else. That didn't happen however, Nico saw him use the elevator, so David can't lie his way out of this sadly. Luckily for Ace, that was the perfect opportunity to expose David. He was in the same location both nights? Sweet!

So then Teruko asks the two if they saw anything strange going on in the playground. Ace claims he saw nothing. This is technicly the truth, even though he lied about being in the gym during the evening of DAY 3.

David claims that he didn't find anything odd and never looked at the playground. That's obviously a lie. He doesn't want others to suspect him. Otherwise, that would make them start being curious about his secret.

Then he adds that he never saw Ace once, which he finds strange. You could believe that he's just lying to put the suspicion on Ace, but there's a better idea that would make a lot more sense. David is telling the truth about never seeing Ace because Ace never went to the second floor during the evening of DAY 3 to begin with.

Unfortunatly for him, that was the perfect time for Ace to expose David's secret and making his claim of being in the gym on DAY 3 more believable.

Act 31

Almost done! Time to tackle episode 11!

So Ace starts explaining what he saw and heard in the relax room. We get a flashback scene regarding that event and then-

We literally get a flashback scene! There's a few details that would indicate that Ace is telling the whole truth, including the fact that he heard this on DAY 3, not DAY 2!!!

No, that's wrong! You should never take everything from granted once the author starts giving us more than 1 character point of view. Some could easily lie about the events to fit their narrative and fantasy.

I haven't read or played a lot of mystery novels, but there's a certain tactic that's sometimes used by the author, if not often. It's called unreliable narrator. From a google search, it says : "An unreliable narrator can be defined as any narrator who misleads readers, either deliberately or unwittingly."

Ace could've easily been an unreliable narrator. Here are a couple things that he could've lied about.

There's a missing fan on the right side. Could've been an illusion to make us believe it happened on DAY 3.

We see Ace with neck bandages. Could've been an illusion to make us believe it happened on DAY 3.

When Ace was eavesdropping, Arei says : "Nico got super pissy and tried to turn Ace into cat food." Could've been a line of dialogue that Ace made up to make others believe that it happened on DAY 3.

Then Ace claims he didn't catch anything else. Which, once again, would make sense if he's been knocked unconscious right after that. But he doesn't want to admit that since it would reveal the truth on when the meeting actually happened.

As a few others claimed, it's very strange that Ace brings up that important testimony this late into the trial. So it would make sense if he didn't want to expose him just yet because he didn't want the others to know the actual truth in the gym.

In any case, David's plan is ruined. He eventually gives up and confesses that the manipulative liar secret is actually his secret. (pretty amazing reveal, by the way!) His career's officially over.

We get a few interesting lines from David that would match up insanely well with my theory.

"Normally, I would continue to insist that Ace is an unreliable witness, and a worthless lying piece of shit as well... But I know how it is with you people. Once you've reached a conclusion, you'll refuse to believe any evidence that contradicts it. So I'm not going to bother."

Unreliable witness and a liar... interesting. Doesn't that match perfectly with my claim that Ace is lying about being at the gym during the evening of DAY 3 as well as my claim that he is an unreliable narrator?

"But I will admit, I did indeed meet with Arei last night in the relaxation room." He's telling the truth. He met with her alright on DAY 3. Doesn't mean she was alive though.

"As for what I actually talked about... Well, I've already forgotten! She's dead now, so who cares?" He's lying... or to be more accurate, he's hiding the truth. He doesn't want the others to know that he found her dead body.

Why not? Why wouldn't he tell the whole truth?

For a few reasons. First off, everyone just learned he's a liar. So they might simply think that he's lying about it. Secondly, that would make him incredibly suspicious. He wants to avoid being seen as the main suspect if he can avoid it. Not that it matters anyways since most of them think he's the culprit shortly afterwards.

Also, another reason to explain it is because he's probably still angry about the fact that they exposed his secret. He's been letting all out ever since the reveal anyways. So he probably wants to act like a butthole as a mean to vent off.

But still, he tries to convince them that he's not the culprit (in his own way), but quickly realises that this is pointless since most of them are so stupid and quick to draw to conclusions, just like last trial.

So then he got an idea. He gives up and confesses that he's the murderer. He's gonna lie all the way through up until someone calls him out on it. The interesting thing to note here is that as soon as he made that confession, he looked incredibly nervous. It's almost like... he's afraid of something. Something like being afraid of losing the trial if no one realises that he's lying?

By the way, another interesting thing to add here : As soon as David confessed, Eden starting being "emotional" and "seriously believes" that he actually did it. The real culprit figured that she may as well push the direction of that accusation to end the trial and be the sole winner.

Here's another interesting thing about Eden. I think she made another slip-up and created a contradiction. No one seemed to have noticed though, thankfully. She made those comments about David that she couldn't believe that he would mentally push Arei into commiting suicide.

That's strange... because I'm pretty sure that at the beginning of the trial, she was very insistent on claiming that Arei would never commit suicide.

Anyways... Teruko asks David about how he killed Arei into more details, but will later realise that his story doesn't make sense and that he's just lying. Then Teruko and David argues about it back and forth up until Charles stops the argument.

He realised something major and says : "Teruko, we really fucked up." Most of us fans seem to believe that this refers to the time of death being wrong (7:30 PM ish on DAY 3). My theory that the actual time of death was slightly after 8:00 AM on DAY 3 would match that up perfectly.

Time For The Finale

Phew! That was quite the long closing argument! With everything I've written here, hopefully that should explain the whole truth behind that murder mystery and explain most of the clues out there. So... what do you guys think about this theory?

.......NO!! It just doesn't work! It's incredibly CONVOLUTED! Way too convoluted for such a murder mystery! It's also very RISKY! Eden is doing a lot of risks to make her murder scheme work. A single mistake could've ruined it all. There's no way that plan works! It's impossible. Also, there's still a lot of things that wouldn't work. Like the disguise trick, there's just no way! She doesn't look anything like Arei! She doesn't have her physique. You've overthinking this! There are certain things about your theory that wouldn't be able to explain how things actually work in real life, like the blood wipe. It's just not realistic! Your theory doesn't work!

...It's pointless... all of this is just pointless...

...huh?!

You heard me. This is all pointless. All these counterarguments, even those that I refused to elaborate and would talk about it here instead... they're all actually meaningless in DanganRonpa Despair Time.

When it gets to finding errors in a theory by relying on reality or very niche or minute details. Or things like risk factor or things like no one would be able to pull off x trick, unless it's an actual contradiction of the actual facts of the fangan, then all of these arguments are actually pointless!

How dare you?! You can't just simply ignore these arguments because they hurt your theory!

As a matter of fact, I actually can ignore those. After all... most of these arguments fail to follow a certain rule in this murder mystery.

What are you even talking about?!

Alright... let me tell you! THIS IS FICTION, NOT REALITY!!!

!!!

Let me explain. For quite some time, we've been trying to prove/disprove certain theories by claiming that a certain event would be impossible because that's not how it works in real life.

One of the examples in regards to debunking my theory would be that the disguise trick would be impossible because it would've been incredibly risky and the plan could've easily failed if someone decided to speak with her or looked at her closely. Another example would be when Eden knocked out Ace without being noticed by Arei or David, seems incredibly unlikely and really risky.

From a reality perspective, it would be indeed ridiculous of a plan and nearly impossible to pull it off. But that's exactly the problem! Danganronpa Despair Time is a work of fiction, not reality! Anything that seems completly ridiculous or painfully impossible can become a miracle in the world of fiction!

You don't even have any proof that the DRDT creator is using that rule!

I do, actually. Think back on Chapter 1. I don't know if this chapter had weekly releases like Chapter 2 but regardless, let's give ourselves a scenario in regards to what would happen if the latest trial episodes of chapter 1 were not revealed, then the creator takes a break, so the fans have time to investigate and come up with theories to solve the murder mystery. I personally believe that this is made so that you could solve the murder mystery without watching the climax of the trial.

Anyways, let's say there's someone out there who comes up with a theory that's practically the solution of chapter 1. Then, we get to the actual murder method which is from the light switch that's been stripped. So Xander got electrocuted by trying to turn on the lights when he was soaking wet.

Most people who would see this without knowing what the actual solution is would simply believe that this is just impossible. This seems extremely likely. Like even if it was really dark and Xander wanted to turn the lights back on, he should've heard the sound of something being removed. Otherwise, he should've still been able to see light since the door would've been opened anyways.

Or what if the theorist came up with the idea that the culprit lure Xander into the light switch by taunting him or something? What exactly would be the odds that Xander would charge straight towards the light switch?

Yet, Xander truly died from the light switch because he wanted to turn on the lights. Seems really crazy and unbelievable, but when we think about it, the creator made it possible because this is fiction.

So there you have it! I'm sure none of you see it that way (and it's fine!), but to me, this is the perfect solution to the murder case of Chapter 2. I'm running out of lines to write, so there are two things I wanna say before I go.

Feel free to try to debunk my theory or come up with alternatives to this theory or anything else that's related to it. I don't mind. I'm most likely not gonna reply to it however since I have other projects unrelated to tumblr to work on.

I'd like to thank @1moreff-creator, @venus-is-thinking, @accirax and most likely a couple others for trying to find faults in my theories or points that I've made. Even though it may not seem like it, there were some points that helped me get closer to an answer that I would be satisfied with. Also huge thanks for anyone else who's been supporting my theory.

While I'm at it, feel free to disregard some points I've made to debunk certain theories that rely on stuff like reality. As long as you believe that it could work within the world of fiction, then that's good enough! Sorry for the long post! Thank you for everything! Take care!