#like i swear the games ai knows exactly how to fuck u up at the last second

[poorlittlevampire]

i hate star rail why is swarm disaster so fucking hard i keep dying on the third stage of the final boss in swarm 3 im gonna lose it OTL

[dovveri]

Hi dovee how are youuuuu?

I actually feel rly bad for her cuz before they even found out she was trans, there were a lot of men who were being rly degrading to her in her comments and also threatening to start stalking her. Like she had to make a post about how she felt uncomfortable and for them to please stop making threats to her safety. This discourse of men and bear tbh gives me headaches cuz men are so butt hurt that they made a video (ai) of a zombie-like bear (slippery skin if I'm not mistaken) that would "definitely kill women" because its literal goal is to brutalize women but only those who chose bear over men. Like imagine having your ego so hurt that you make this as a response to a hypothetical question that was made to inflate the ego of a man who was trying to flirt. And again, because they fail to have any common sense they can't understand the question and why people answer the way they do😭 I saw a 3-minute long video of a girl explaining the answers so that that kind of men could understand and on the comments, there were still some guys who were like "oh, but the bear would definitely kill you!" like-

HIIIIII OMG my fav person to talk to abt 🤢men🤮 omg i didnt know they were saying that stuff to her even before they found out she was trans? thats terrible omg i genuinely think the less centralised womens lives are around men the more misogynistic they get like did u see the recent bumble billboards? a man HAD to have made that and crazy too as like a response to the 4b movement gaining traction in the west they had to be like “celibacy isnt the answer guys!” like what?!?! u can also be celibate and still date men?? and from BUMBLE too like the platform that was meant to champion women making the first move and everything its so disappointing

ok i recently also watched poor things and i DESPISED it like it got so much love and wtv from being a ‘feminist’ film but um????????? no absolutely the fuck not all it did was champion pedophilia like the director (A MAN) ltr just put all his kinks in one movie and called it feminist bcs it was ‘sexually liberating’ and GOD I HATE THIS ARGUMENT like i HATE that the only thing men have gotten out of the feminist movement is “oh! women enjoy sex too? amazing go women!” like NO SHUT UR ASS UP sexual liberation was important bcs it gave women autonomy about WHO they wanted to have sex with, if they even WANTED to have sex with people, it gave them more purpose to sex than just bearing children it allowed them to enjoy sex just as men have been able to for centuries. but feminism is SOOOO much more than that but ofc thats the only part that men pay attention to right? UGH i ranted abt this film more in my letterboxd review LMAO but i wont text dump here

OMG YES EXACTLY THAT LIKE THE MAN V BEAR QUESTION WAS POSED BY A MAN like exactly what u said he asked it bcs he thought it’d be an easy ego boost since in his head there was no way a woman would choose a bear over him. and this zombie ai thing?? wtf theyre literally going to show EXACTLY what we’re talking about bcs people that r making that are also the ones killing women in video games and normalising violence against women and combining it with sexualisation of women? so its rly if they had the tools to do it they would and THEY HAVE THE TOOLS so no wonder we’re terrified?

last point i swear but the line between lust and anger? is SO CLOSE lots of men dont realise it but they can go from being absolutely in love with someone and willing to do anything for them, to wanting them dead or worse (junko furata)

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Okay I was talking to the amazing @border-spam and I kinda accidentally Went Off in her inbox so imma ramble here instead cuz I wanna go more in depth on the topic of the afterlife in the borderlands universe bc it is definitely canon thru the Guns Love and Tentacles dlc

Tl;dr: at least they didn't introduce time travel [stares directly into Lilith's fucking soul]

So she brought up the whole aspect of the siren afterlife where the siren can choose their successor or let their powers go off and choose 'their own' user (and they usually choose young kids for some reason) which is a weird thing to suddenly introduce in the 3rd game, because this should've been, if it did exist, talked about before in past- Maya would not have been the first person to know about this. And the fact that this siren afterlife even exists is a weird thing to have in general, to even introduce as a story point when they could've kept it as randomly chosen people getting siren powers (because what sort of sicko wants to give a little girl a probably shortened life of pain and fear that they themselves had to live through).

And it IS weird because introducing an afterlife is just a wild thing to do in a universe where technology can be used for all sorts of weird shit and magic borderline (pretty much) exists. I mean ik we're all pretty much on the page that siren stuff ISN'T actual magic and is instead Eridian stuff that hasn't been explained, but still you get what I mean it is insanely advanced tech or science that looks like magic to us

Because listen. In GLaT that side quest where you go help the dead little girl. That happens because of Maliwan tech. I remember, because I remembering musing to myself that it is probably the same sort of Maliwan tech used to access Heck during the Bloody Harvest event. I am going somewhere with this I promise

Firstly, since this afterlife or weird death dimension is Officially Canon (idk if the Bloody Harvest event is canon but this is official main DLC so it's canon), why is it never mentioned by the characters? I feel like they wouldn't keep quiet about it, and told Tannis, and I don't think she would have let that go without investigating it. The characters don't know they're in a story, and they don't care about satisfying character arcs or development or shit. If Lilith or Tina had the ability to see Roland again, don't you think they'd try? If Ava or Krieg knew there was a chance they could speak to Maya, even if for one last time, don't you think they'd go for it?? Like they don't care about satisfying character arcs, they would try it. Tannis invents a machine that lets us go inside people's heads, this is a universe where you can copy/turn people into AI, and put that AI in a robot body, don't you think SOMEONE would try to make that happen??? When the afterlife scientifically EXISTS?? This removes, like, ALL stakes if we're literally able to open portals to this death dimension and talk to the people in it. And in a game where the writers were soooo adamant that the new-u stations aren't canon, why did they introduce the concept of an afterlife in a dlc that is canon

There is more to this, hang on, I'm not just bitching abt logistics I swear

Okay so when you go thru that quest, there are manticores that appear. Manticores are enemies on Nekrotefeyo, so it's weird that they suddenly appear in this 'completely unrelated' area of the game. I put that in quotes because it's probably related tbh. The green colors in this dimension and the wisps and everything remind me a LOT of Nekrotefeyo's core spilling out. It also reminds me a lot of the wisps we see when we kill Guardians, of their souls/minds getting whisked away to be put in either the main place they're stored OR into another Guardian body, but those are usually R e d. It ALSO reminds me a lot of Krieg's mind's planetscape in his dlc, same color scheme and everything

So u guys know I am a big fan of the whole Eridians created humanity as a step up from the Guardians theory, because we see guardians/Eridians in the murals of the Vaults interacting with humans and gifting the babies Eridian relics and such and such. There are human statues in the Vaults, sirens are obviously linked to Eridians, etc etc. They clearly, at the very least, lived side-by-side, tho I believe the Eridians created humanity. I believe this theory very hard, I wrote a whole essay on it previously, yada yada. So if we take it one step further and imagine that the Eridians created a place to store Guardian souls when they die before they find a new vessel (the inside of Minos Prime, perhaps? The inside of Nekrotefeyo?), what is stopping them from doing the same thing for humans??

Which would explain how this place is accessible through technology- it is a physical place created by Eridians. If it IS the core of Nekrotefeyo, given the color scheme being the same as the death dimension and human 'wisps', it would make sense that dark Maliwan is there doing research and why it is their portals specifically that can access this area, and, if bloody harvest IS canon, why we only fight Maliwan soldiers in Heck (besides ratch). They were exploring their new discovery until we came along

It would also explain how sirens are able to choose their successors after they die- they're brought back to the 'collection unit', the 'soul storage place', idk, and they can either choose someone to burden, or let the powers go and choose a random person.

Which is really messed up if u think about it, but then I don't believe the Eridians are good people ever since they started feeding us to the Destroyer, soooooo.

I wonder if wisps eaten by the Destroyer are lost forever. If so, then I wonder if Steele's Siren powers are gone and that's why her resurrected claptrap body couldn't use her powers, or if her wisp just escaped and her powers went to some random person.

Also why didn't Nyriad choose Leda instead of the twins to give her powers to. It's like Nyriad wanted them to suffer bc she locked herself in the Vault they were conceived in. And like... Can wisps not escape Vaults? Then that brings me back to Steele's Siren powers. She did technically die? Outside the Vault? I think? It's not 100% clear cuz she was definitely impaled outside of it, but idk when exactly she died died. I mean there's the whole thing about how they recovered her body in the first place, buuuut let's not go there bc I'm already brain hurt for today

The main point is: the afterlife is weird. I think it's a place created by the Eridians to store people when they die, and that's why it's a physical place we can go to and open portals to and why the Sirens have the opportunity to burden other people with their powers when they die. It does make me wonder if Troy had absorbed Maya's entire fuckin wisp when he turned her into hot chocolate powder, or just her powers. Cuz the powers go to Ava when Troy's dead, meaning Maya DID choose, but did she choose immediately after she died, or only after Troy died.

These are questions that MUST be answered they're IMPORTANT HHHHH

[crystu-cii]

XDD

I f e e l that pain in my soul-- my older sister uses cologne sometimes and it is sO STRONG AND WILL NOT STAY CONFINED TO HER ROOM-- AMD SOMETIMES SHED DO IT IN THE DOORWAY LIKE HELLO-- XDD

YEAH WH GET SOME SLEEP LEAVE THE STAYING UP TO US-- XDD

YES BABY JAIL, INTO THE UPSIDE DOWN LAUNDRY BASKET YOU KNIFE-WIELDING HEATHEN-- XDD oms XDD well I don't know them but I love them- YESSS THEYRE SO FLUFFY-- I'm actually curious what images pop up first imma check-- FLUFFY PUPPIES-- we've actually never owned ones that fluffy(those actually look more similar to shetland sheepdogs than the shelties we've had so far?? Very similar/similar enough where if someone doesn't know a sheltie we mention shetland sheepdogs), our current one is a purebred that we got for free(she was being given away bc her family never came back for her and the lady taking care of her couldn't afford the time to take care of a second dog long-term think) and she's got pretty short fur in comparison- still fluffy enough, but not quite so long of fur-- she's a blue merle(absolutely gorgeous fur, she's like 8 now with a lot of health problems but she's super loving still 💕💞) anyways about the fur, so long as you brush regularly you should mitigate most of that, and it mostly collects in corners- but like.. be prepared to eat and wear dog fur for the rest of your life-- (actually there's a thing called a fur zapper we bought recent that you put in with your clothes when you wash/dry them(I think it's dry but idk??) that's supposed to get a lot of hair off your clothes in that process? Also lint rollers are your best friend--) AND roombas are really helpful(we bought a knockoff one and rarely have to sweep ever so 👀) XDD WHEEZE I can't even imagine what you did-- but like you could ask for a budgie/parakeet /hj I mean, they aren't very expensive (actually they're pretty cheap) but they're very loud, need a lot of attention(especially if you want them to bond to you!) and you need to research into them a lot to make sure you're doing things right-- loads of vids online!! Loads of websites too!!! I'd know I have one- JUST A WARNING, FEATHERS AND SEED HULLS GET ALL OVER YOUR FLOOR XD p l u s like you have a friend who knows stuff about birbs :3 anyways ENOUGH RAMBLING FROM ME WOW THAT GOT LONG--

💕💕 I feel that XD OMS-- I WISH-- WHAT A D R E A M - s n a k - Awww but what a mood XD

XDDD oms YES-- EXACTLY-- XDDDD another good thing you should try eventually is SWEET POTATO CASSEROLE WHICH IS APPARENTLY DELICIOUS??? I TRIED IT FOR THE FIRST TIME(AT LEAST IN A WHILE) TODAY AND IT WAS SO FUCKIN TASTY????

H E A THEN-- XDD how cool of them to try tho :3 whEEZE Y 'A LL-- XDD

WHEEZE I SUCK WITH INSTRUMENTS SOOOO-- DAMN THA'S SOME BAD LUCK MY DUDE-- MAYBE YOU'RE CURSED DAMN-- oms wOWW--

Yesss-- ooh I've never played 👀 seen some stuff but never played-- (see: my computer sucks XD) I h a v e played Portal 1 and it is SO GOOD and SO SHORT and I WISH I HAD GOTTEN PORTAL 2 INSTEAD BUT THATS OKAY CRIES-- YESSSS THE SONGS SLAP--- ALSO THERE ARE ACTUALLY TWO WHOLE MORE CANON(PROBABLY KINDA MAYBE NOT?? IDK) SONGS, ONE FROM A LEG DIMENSIONS GAME("You Wouldn't Know") AND ONE THAT WAS CUT FROM PORT TWO("Don't Say Goodbye"(Harry101UK made an edit to make it Glados' voice!!)) THERE ARE ALSO A BUNCH OF GOOD FAN SONGS SO YEAH-- ALSO NOT TO BE A SIMP BUT GLADOS' VOICE? PERFECTION. I LOVE HER. ALSO I COULD LITERALLY DETAIL THE PORTAL LORE I AM INCREDIBLY EMOTIONALLY INVESTED IN THIS GAME-- ALSO THERES A CLIP THAT SOMEONE MADE USING A (VERY GOOD) GLADOS TTS TO HAVE GLADOS SAY TRANS RIGHTS AND ENBY RIGHTS AND IF I FIND IT AGAIN ILL SEND IT TO YOU-- YOU COULD PROBABLY FIND IT IF YOU LOOM UP GLADOS SAYS TRANS RIGHTS? IT HAS A VIDEO WITH TRANS FLAG COMPANION CUBES ACCOMPANYING IT-- ALSO YES THE PORT MODS(/ADD-ONS? MAYBE? THEY'RE COMMUNITY MADE I THINK BUT IDK ALL I KNOW IS THAT THEYRE COOL AF--) (also I apologize for all the screaming? XD it's like, four am and I was talking about portal so.. whoops?)

Right like wth???? I???? Okay but like December to February babies just fuckin DONT EXIST IN THIS GEN OR SOMETHIN-- CAUSE I FIND N O N E -- Maybe there are more December babies but there are definitely like NO January to February babies it is So Weird--

NEJFQOBGKW WOWW d an g like-p l e a se s t op over sp r aying-- xD and LEGITTTT LIKE- THAT WAS M Y ROLE TO STAY UP LATE- XDD

WHEHEHEZE- LAUNDRY BASKET TIME- G E T I N XDD anD YESS- any doggo is just such a cute doggo 😭💞💞 but for me- fLUFFY ONES ARE WHERE ITS A T- and ohhhh i see- FOR FREE?? W H A T A S T E A L XDD but awwww the poor doggg at least she's with you now ! ;0;; 💞💞😭 aaw such a lovable puppup 😭😭💞 and oHHH i see :00 but oh no- xD i also have a friend that has two dogs and whenever he would give me gifts- there would be dog hair on them no matter what- XDD and ooOhhh those sound really helpful! omg- i swear i dont have to have a pet for the need of a roomba- i already shed so much hair myself its so crazy-- xDD and oH MAN loud animals are really gon get my mom fired up- and OO birds just look so cuteee i always fantasize of having one- but then again- with the noise and all xD the more i think about it i dont think we are prepared to have a pet at all xD but i still dream of at least having one pet in my lifetime!

and OO that sounds awesome!! i have no clue if i even tried casserole before- man- sometimes i just eat food without even knowing wth it is XDDD but THAT SOUNDS so gooodddd :O

and LEGITT LIKE- TF IS HAPPENING WITH MY SCHOOL LIFE- XDD and oh my god- IT GETS WORSE- that year there was a FREAKINGG FIREEEEEEE- it wasnt that dangerous thank god- but it had to get a whole ass room renovated because of it- and guess what room it was- THE ORCHESTRA ROOM- AND GUESS WHAT M A D E I T W OR SE- that year- it was the first time the school replaced those 10+ year old instruments with new ones- NOW THEYRE B U R N T- and mind you that the school's budget isnt so- gr e a t- like oh my god i am still so bewildered over HOW MUCH chaos HAPPENED that year- and i thought that year was gon be the year- yknow? like UGH

and OHH MANN playing portal sounds awesome! but i just dont think the game would be worth my money cause i know the plot- and even with the mods and all my brain would be broken as i would possibly have no clue what to do- xDDD

and HOOOO MANNN game fan songs are just so AWESOMEEE- and those sound pretty cool! :OO and HOLY SHIT FUCK YEAH- GLADOS SAYS TRANS AND ENBY RIGHTS Y A LL- now im gonna look that up and let my ears be blessed by such words- XDDD and DONT WORRY BOUT SCREAMING ALOT- i scream a whole dam lot too XDD

and LEGITTT- finding someone's b-day in january and feb is so rare all of a sudden like wh a t - XDD

[the-faultofdaedalus]

The computer chirped at him as the last little piece of code settled into place, and Tony turned to face the screen, smiled just a little. “Hi, sweetheart” He said, the nickname automatic, “You’re awake now, everything feel ok?” He asked, stared at the screen unblinking, because if something was wrong-- 

Nothing would be wrong, he reminded himself, because JARVIS had checked the code alongside him, and he trusted JARVIS absolutely. 

He didn’t quiet trust himself anymore. 

Systems functional

Words appeared on the screen, a plain black text terminal Tony had rigged up just for this.

Audio Input: Identify?

“I’m--” Tony started, and then couldn’t finish the sentence, not with what he would’ve. “Creator unit. Identify, Creator-Unit,” He told the AI, wiped a hand over his face. The cursor blinked at him as the AI started searching. 

He could put all that information straight in. Could have the AI awake and full of everything they needed to know, but...

He wanted them -- and this one especially -- to be able to choose what they learned. DUM-E had been coded as a skeleton, no inherent motor functions, language functions, barely even any computational systems. DUM-E had learned everything he was by himself, had chosen what to remember and what was important and that’s what made him him. 

JARVIS had started with more, was built with computational functions that he didn’t have to figure out and the ability to understand most human language right off the bat but he’d still learned. That first week after both of them had come online had been... more than exhausting, as Tony essentially gave them a crash-cource on everything, but it was the kind of exhaustion that meant that you’d have a good night sleep, because you did something important. 

He’d had to put more into this one. He didn’t have a choice, because he needed her ready soon, far, far too soon for his liking, and he simply didn’t have time to take a week off to teach a baby AI how the world worked. 

he didn’t trust himself enough right now to teach a baby AI how the world worked. 

The cursor blipped, and more words appeared on the screen, no delay between the letters or the words. 

Identity: Stark, Anthony E. Iron-Man.

Identity: Creator-Unit. 

Identity: Dad? 

Tony’s breath caught in his chest, and he made a quiet little noise, put his head in his hands, pressed his fingers into the top of his eye sockets and hoped that it would make everything stop hurting. “Yeah, kiddo,” He said, “I’m-- that’s me. Identify, self. Okay, honey?” Tony said, gentle, as gentle as he could be right now because there were-- there were going to be some things that he was going to have to break to his new kid as soon as possible and that-- 

That was going to hurt. 

Identity: Self. War-Machine AI. Artificial Intelligence. Computer.

Identity: ROXY

Identity: Me?

“You’re Roxy, yeah.” Tony agreed, “You’re a person. Can you tell me who war-machine is?” He pressed, skipped over the command that he knew she’d recognize, pushing her into parsing hidden meanings. 

The cursor blipped, and Tony let his head tip back, staring blankly at the concrete ceiling. 

An error beeped, and Tony bit back a swear, turned to the debugging screen. 

Command Prompt: Tell Me Who War Machine Is. 

Command: “Tell”, Provide Information

Command: “Me,” Identity: “Me,” Identity: Self. ROXY. 

Command “Tell Me,” Provide Information, to: Self 

Error: Unknown information cannot be provided to entity: Self

“Edit last command,” Tony said, tiredly, they always had trouble with parsing that when he said me he meant himself after the self-identify was run, but if they ran the self-identify after figuring out what he meant by a non-explicit command their core hierarchy would be all out-of-wack, sense of self below processing when the two were inherently linked and he should’ve caught that before this became a problem, but-- 

His mind wasn’t exactly up-to-snuff, these days. 

“Can you tell identity, creator-unit who war-machine is?” He asked, instead of the tricky third-person expression of self, he’d get to that later. 

JARVIS could do most of this, anyways, but... Tony needed to do at least this little bit. 

Command Prompt: Tell Identity: Creator-Unit Who War Machine Is.

Identity: War-Machine

Identity: Colonel Rhodes, James R. Rhodey. Platapus.

Error: “Platapus” Identify: Small Semi-Aquatic Mammal. Identity: Rhodes, James R. Human. 

Data does not match.

Tony laughed, startled himself with it. “It’s a nickname, honey. Non-literal. Doesn’t have to make sense,” He told her.

Honey. Kiddo. Sweetheart. 

These are value: Nicknames?

Tony opened his mouth to reply, and then;

Value: Nicknames, Imply value. Entity: Self has value to Entity: Creator-Unit?

“Yes,” Tony responded, vehemently, “You have value, you’re-- You’re my kid, and I love you, and I’m so proud of you, that was very quick, there.” Proud of the fact that she had ran an identify command by herself, twice, had recognized that the things she knew didn’t match up and asked about them, had tried to figure them out for herself, he was so, so proud.

He had a feeling that she was gonna be the smartest of his kids.

And he was never going to see her rise to her full potential. 

Roxy didn’t say anything else, but Tony could see her code, chugging along, running identify after identify, diving into all the data she was currently allowed to access.

(She’d need some tips on how to access even just Tony’s intranet, much less the entire internet, before Tony would even think of letting her loose there.)

((And some of the things that were in JARVIS’s database and not in hers Tony wanted to tell her himself.))

In the meantime, Tony closed his eyes, put his head down on his desk. He was exhausted. More exhausted than he’d ever remembered being, well, ever, almost, and not just the kind that came from not sleeping. Sleeping wouldn’t fix what was wrong with him. 

He could conk out for 24 hours straight -- if he had the time for that, which he absolutely, unequivocally did not -- and he’d wake up just as tired as he had been before he’d gone to sleep. 

At this point, it was chronic. 

...At least he wouldn’t have to get used to it. 

The computer chirped at him, and Tony jolted up, checked the time and realized that he must’ve drifted. 

I have a question.

It was informally worded, not like a command prompt typed out on the screen, and the burst of pride was like the sun on his face. She’d been learning. “Go ahead, Rox,” Tony told her, couldn’t help the anticipation. 

The words typed themselves out, this time, like there was a person behind the screen with a keyboard, giving the words a sense of timing. Tony was so, so proud.

JARVIS has been helping me. I have talked to DUM-E, U, Butterfingers. Creator-Unit. Dad. Why is my primary protocol not the same? Why is mine not you?

“Oh, sweetheart,” Tony said, voice soft, even as he shot a look at the nearest camera -- JARVIS should’ve changed his by now, Pepper needed him more than Tony did and JARVIS being tied to Tony in this way was only hurting him, Tony was going to have words as soon as this was done, “I-- Yours is Rhodey, you saw that, right?” He waited for the affirmative, “Your job is going to be to protect him, ok? To help him out. You’re going to be flying with him, not me, that’s why--”

He is not my dad. My primary protocol should be you. To help you. To protect you. Like the others. Why am I different?

“Because I’m not going to do that to you.” Tony told her, “Roxy, I’m-- I’m dying. I don’t have that long left. It’s not something anyone can protect me from, it’s just-- it’s a fact. And I need someone to look out for-- for my Rhodey, ok? I need someone to protect him. That’s gonna be you, ok?” 

Why

The word wasn’t emphasized in any way, no punctuation, but it still felt plaintive. 

Tony realized that he was tapping the arc reactor through his shirt. “I fucked up,” He said, “I made a mistake that got a lot of people hurt, and-- I’m paying for it. This,” He said, pointed to the light in his chest, “It’s keeping me alive. It’s also killing me. Cest le vie.”

Roxy didn’t respond to that. 

“I’m sorry.” Tony said, “I’m sorry for waking you up now, when i’m dying, but.” There was a reason he’d only run the final compile this late in the game. It was cruel, for him to make it so his kid wouldn’t ever really know him. 

It was better then her knowing and having to mourn him with everyone else. 

“I had to.” Tony continued. “Rhodey’s-- he’s good, ok, he’s better than me. Remember that, Rhodey-- he’s the best, and you know, you know you can leave, that you don’t have to follow any order I give you but please help him. Please keep him safe, I-- This doesn’t work without him.” The words were rawer and more honest than he’d let himself be, even to JARVIS, even to himself, in a long, long time, but if anyone deserved the truth, it was her. It was his kid. 

The cursor blinked at him for a long moment. 

I promise.

I’ll keep him safe. For you. 

And those eight words were the last straw, the promise, the assurance, more than Tony could take, and when his head hit his arms this time, he was crying.

[ryouverua]

Trial 6 - Flashfiction (4)

FLIP THAT CHESSBOARD, SWEETCHEEKS!

Trial: 1 / 2 / 3

it’s what kokichi would have wanted

DRV3 HOW DARE YOU HOLD OUT ON THE CUTEST DAMN TSUMUGI SPRITE OF THE ENTIRE GAME

how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren’t real

And we found it in Kokichi’s lab of all places. Why? Had he been able to get access to it ater all? Why was it just lying there so awkwardly - not hidden or neatly put away at all, but just tossed on the floor like an afterthought?

...... thinks about the state of Kokichi’s dorm room

yeah the chance that he left it on the floor like a bored 12 year old or me is not 0%

Wait.... is there??? The only one that stands out to me is the method of applying vs being scouted...

So we go over the events again, or as the game would probably put it, comb over The Longest, Most Ridiculous, Most Despairing Backstory to look for discrepancies.

Don’t look so pleased with yourself!

YES THANK YOU SHUICHI THANK YOU FOR STOPPING HER BEFORE SHE GOT STARTED AGAIN

It.... it doesn’t???

as;dflksdjf

U-Uuuuh Monokuma??? Are you just allowed to namedrop the title like that???

A-Anyway, this one was sort of vague - not sure if the game did too good a job of hiding it or not, but I certainly didn’t clue into this immediately because, well, I’d argue that Junko was ultimately the cause of this? And she was the original Ultimate Despair, even if Mukuro got roped into it with her? This felt a bit like being at a multiple choice exam where there are a few answers that are sort of right but not exactly right and then I cry

AND MUKURO!!! I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS MUKURO ERASURE, DAMN IT!!! can you tell she was one of my favourites in the first game if not my favourite

“And that’s why, even though you are technically right, you are also wrong, and therefore will not get any points for your answer to this question.” sweetcheeks you sonuvab -

despite the mukuro erasure, consider me team maki

“Can it, nerd.”

It would have been really nice to have Maki in the first game.

We really are going over this piece by piece.

Okay, so now we’re reviewing the first game. They were forced to kill each other, then Junko was found out and killed herself in the end, which led to the eventual end of the Despair side....

Shuichi is clearly onto something that I haven’t quite latched onto yet. 8′D

This makes me think of how cool it would have been to have this text style in the previous games. Have I mentioned enough about how much I like the typography in drv3? Because I don’t know if that’s possible.

OOOH that’s right - I forgot! Or, well, I didn’t forget, but it didn’t really occur to me that we were remembering that they were literally trapped in the school by Ultimate Despair, I guess.

I guess the gist of it is that they’re remembering - well, not witnessing the events, but being told things were one way vs another. They would have been too young to have been alive at the time though, right? It seems to me that, though the game clearly wants us to take it a different way, we can also interpret this as them just being told the wrong thing within the memories themselves as opposed to the actual memories being entirely falsified. What if the reports at the time or the commonly-known story was that they had been locked in by Ultimate Despair, and it’s only the properly researched books like this that have the correct accounts? It’s not exactly an uncommon phenomenon for there to be widely-held mistaken knowledge/generalizations of famous events, unfortunately... 8′D

Anyway, I’m getting distracted because like I said, this is really not the angle the game is going with at all.

BULLSHIT

AND ALSO

WHY WOULD A BOOK EXIST THAT DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS THE MEMORIES YOU GAVE THEM

LIKE

WHY DOES IT EVEN EXIST IN THIS PLACE AT ALL

I’m seriously fixated on this book!

also

I love Shuichi just casually ignoring Junko!Tsumugi lmao

I’m calling her Junko!Tsumugi I refuse to call her Tsumugi!Junko I REFUSE TO GIVE UP ON TSUMUGI’S AUTONOMY

This.... this one has to be it, right? This was the one thing I remember getting really confused by when they talked about applying! In fact, I had thought the whole reason Shuichi was considered the Ultimate Detective was because of the homicide case and if that resulted in him being at Hope’s Peak, it was because word of that had traveled - but then if it was an application, that means either his parents or his uncle would have applied on his behalf, right?

this was a detail I remember remarking on and loving btw I got really sad when in Chapter 5 it started looking like they were all in the same class

I think more than the others, this is the big one. All that other stuff can be attributed to mistaken hearsay - but this? This is something they would have ‘directly experienced’.

Oh apparently he chose to come... despite feeling awkward about his title.

I wonder if he was pressured into it by his family....?

Or, uh. Let me correct myself. I wonder if, in this mistaken memory, he remembers being pressured into it by his family?

I-I feel like I would trust the book over you guys especially considering the whole ‘we remembered Kokichi Ouma as a Remnant of Despair and got him killed as the fake mastermind’ situation tbh.

well technically ultra despair girls is

That is a good point. I mean, it could quite possibly happen underground, but I suppose the same could be said of the Jabberwock Island one - there’s no reason that should be public knowledge.

“I mean, I know it’s nothing new, but bear with me here.”

H A L L E L U J A H

REALLY

REALLY

MAKI, REALLY

YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW BETTER

FUFCKFUCKING HELL GUYS YOU’RE KILLING ME HERE

sdfkdslfj fukging

noOOONONO

aND YOU! YOU SHUT UP TOO!!!!

“Also have you seen their outfits? Do you realize how terribly they would clash? ‘Oh Saihara, why would that matter what do uniforms have to do with anything surely Kokichi and his uniformed clown posse could just be a branch under the Remnants’ NO THAT WILL NOT FLY WHEN THE HEAD OF THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION LITERALLY DOUBLES AS THE ULTIMATE FASHIONISTA!!!”

this level of reasoning is possible for saihara shuichi

.... what do you think, everyone?

And he still has the Supreme Leader title, even if these aren’t really their talents... there has to be something to that, right?

Shu -

Shuichi

The words DICE were written in big words over his giant hella awesome throne

He has a checkered scarf which brings about a certain ‘game’ feeling

he literally challenged you to card games

I’m.... I’m just gonna throw it out there, but there’s a pretty good chance the group he led was called ‘DICE’.

YOU SAW THE VIDEO YOU SAW IT DAMN YOU MAKI I KNOW YOU’RE BETTER THAN THIS YOU ARE SMARTER THAN THIS!!!!

“Maki also said he literally said he didn’t know what she was talking about when she interrogated him with a crossbow literally aimed directly at him but surely that’s unrelated -”

s o b s

I 100% bet Tsumugi was not counting on them finding this room. So.... beginning the trial, she tried to do a Kaede/Kaede’s twin mastermind thing. Then she switched tactics to being solely ‘Junko’ and her lackey Kokichi setting up the game with the last survivors of humanity as... revenge for Hope’s Peak, I guess? Or something.

So where are we going from here? Are we about to discover this was all a simulated scenario then?

Sort of like they’re trying to test different outcomes and scenarios - with different talents, maybe? Is there the selected 16 (15? 14?) talents that can be switched around at will, or is there a larger database of students’ talents? That’s what I really want to know.

But “there are an endless possibilities for lies,” a certain person may say.

why are you all ganging up on me also how when two of you are literally the same person and the other one is an AI acting as an extension of you -

It sort of hit me but this is a weird echo of Korekiyo’s trial, with Junko and Tsumugi switching back and forth with each other the way Korekiyo and his sister did. I wonder if there’s something to that, or if it says something about Tsumugi in general...

(one hangman’s gambit later...)

TALENTS ARE NOT THEIRS AND POSSIBLY ARBITRARY CONFIRMED

I WOULD KILL FOR KOKICHI TO POP OUT OF THE GRAVE TO SHOUT IT’S A LIE RIGHT NOW

FUCK YOU BEAR

ghggkhgkh

that is a dangerous precedent to set

But you weren’t planning on revealing this, right??? Right???? Your hand was totally forced! Don’t play this off like it wasn’t!

I swear I had a similar idea when I was coming up with how they could see themselves in photos/pictures if the students weren’t actually who they thought they were - about how their brain filled in the gaps and placed their own faces where they’d expect to see them (like in the funeral scene with the portraits, etc). Glad to know I was kinda right on that regard!

I really like it when they combine Junko and Tsumugi here. There’s probably something to that - when it’s Tsumugi herself acting as the mastermind, as opposed to just being ‘Junko’.

T-Those are some pretty big inconsistencies though? Why would there be incorrect options in those flashback lights in the first place? What was there to gain for their being options where ‘Ultimate Despair trapped the first class in’ and ‘Junko is the end-all of Ultimate Despair’? At least Kokichi’s made sense to have on standby, but the other stuff? Isn’t their existence a bit weird?

It’s... nice to see Shuichi focusing on Kokichi. Being posthumous and all it’s a bit late, but it’s still nice - especially after all that talk of ‘not understanding him’ and ‘the embodiment of a lie’, having him finally clue in to Kokichi’s real place in all of this - a victim of the mastermind - is good. It’s the perfect example of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and Kaito figured that out last chapter, so it’s long past due for Shuichi to drag himself and everyone else to that conclusion, kicking and screaming if he must.

(he was jealous of Angie)

because he was trying to stop the game!!!!!

Which, honestly, was pretty clever on her part. I think overall Kokichi will come out of this looking the best - he had so little going for him and almost succeeded in his coup - but the fact that Tsumugi was able to counter his surprise attack still says a lot about her own intelligence and her ability to adapt, because in that moment she also had limited options.

THANK

YOU

LORD

WE HAVE GATHERED HERE TODAY TO SAY FAREWELL TO REMNANT!OUMA THEORY

REST IN PIECES AND NEVER COME BACK

Pretty damn successfully, too.

While the fact that her first inclination was to straight-up murder Kokichi was very Not Good, it’s at least good to know that it took the extra nudge of the flashback lights to push her over the precipice. Basically, it took turning Kokichi into a complete monster in her eyes - Despair with a capital D - to strip away his humanity entirely. I do wonder if she still would’ve staged a rescue mission of sorts to rescue Kaito? For that matter, I wonder if Kaito had been on the outside (with the Flashback Light used on him and everything) and it was someone else being held hostage like Shuichi, would he have been able to talk Maki down?

It’s interesting how they’re turning hope itself into a weapon here. I think Junko talked about this in the first game, the idea of giving hope out to maximize despair, so it’s not the first time the mastermind has actively used hope as a weapon - but it’s never felt quite as dirty as it does here.

!!! We’re seeing her as herself in the room!!! I guess it’s the flashback light classroom, but still!

That is so unfair considering they were all being threatened with death, you were straight up messing with their brains and also that airlock exists??? And they straight-up collapsed after being exposed to the outside??? I’m 

I think Shuichi managed to break away from that a bit at the end... maybe. He seems more motivated by righting the wrong in Kaede’s case at this point, and of avenging everyone who died - but the same can’t be said of the others.

Man I even wondered what it would be like without Kaito and Kokichi there considering they’ve been the strongest ‘movers’ on both sides - and the answer ended up being ‘I’ll give you artificial motivation to act’.

SHE’S.... REALLY A KILLING GAME FAN GIRL AFTER ALL..........

Oh, this does feel dirty. She’s lusting after them in an abstract way - like pieces on a chessboard. Kokichi was able to compartmentalize and make people take certain actions to an extent, but even he had attachments that he wasn’t able to shake. I knew it felt like she had managed to keep herself from getting too close to them, with the sole exception of the protectiveness she felt for Gonta (which?? I want to know if we’ll hear anything about that specifically???) but this is... wow.

Actually, this is very Komaeda-esque isn’t it? She wants to see them succeed in their battles against each other in a similar way...

Junko only gets that look when she’s actually mad. So if Tsumugi is sporting that... well, she must be smarting a bit underneath all the gloating she’s doing. She was happily spouting off ‘hints’ before, right?

Oh??

me too tbh

OH THE TURNABOUT MUSIC IS HERE

THAT TRANSITION WAS SO GOOD AND SMART WHAT A GREAT WAY TO USE THE PORTRAIT STAND

oooh! OOOOH! OH WHAT A FANTASTIC POINT!

SHUICHI MY BOY YOU’RE ON A ROLL NOW! GET HYPED GET HYPED GET HYP -

AAAAAAAAAAH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hajimemed

[ryouverua]

Trial 6 - Retrial (1)

...... Alright, let’s do this.

Speculation post with theories are here.

It’s so... blue....?

i’m not saying this shade of blue makes me think of anyone in particular but I’M TOTALLY SAYING IT MAKES ME THING OF SOMEONE IN PARTICULAR -

Is that a ‘the results will speak for themselves’ thing or literally ‘someone else will choose’ thing??? We’ve had to deal with ‘an outside force is actually a part of this’ thing, but last time that was a force for good and they were pretty much rendered helpless. What are the chances that’s the same this time...

Probably because he and the mastermind being threatened with exposure are two different entities??? It sounds like he doesn’t have anything on the line this time!

MONOKUMA DO YOU REALLY HATE US THAT MUCH

LMAO

Damn you Monokuma you really can make me laugh sometimes when I’m not ready for it.

“’They’ being ‘me’, in case I didn’t make that clear.”

And then, after setting up for the trial and a long pan around the remaining participants, we land on....

.... one Very Tired Detective.

There’s one pretty glaring reason to have a class trial even if there hasn’t been a murder; someone incredibly significant still left to identify....

.... I-I guess this is the way we’re doing it though! Okay! We’re going to straight-up retry it!

I guess this is as good of a way to do it as any! This all pretty much revolves around the events of that night in the end!

“Incredibly ironic, considering the circumstances.”

lmao I swear I mentioned the Ultimate Mastermind as a joke possibility at one point whoops

I do like how we have Himiko to confirm it for us. Actually, that works out perfectly - we have a classmate almost every step of the way to confirm most of the evidence, except... I guess in the case of the flashback light room, right? Which is, y’know, good, considering we’re probably going to be accusing one of them within the hour... 8′D

And he wanted a second. Most people don’t want to go back in for seconds. Here’s a question though - did he remember the last killing game in the prologue? Is that why he recognized Monokuma? But.... why wasn’t he freaking out at that point? Or maybe that’s just because of his apparent ability to keep calm under pressure...

HE GOT FUCKING PLAYED

This speaks to the hidden trap that’s always existed in Shuichi’s own mind - that he often assumes that anything he can do, such as notice the hidden door, other people can do just as easily. Because ‘if someone like me can do it, who only became the Ultimate Detective by accident, then surely it would be presumptuous to think that no one else could make the same observations as me’. N-Not that I understand those feelings on a personal level or anything.............

Out of pure curiosity, I wonder if he was given the Monopad specifically by Monokuma or if he just woke up with the second one? Or maybe it was left for him in his room? He had to have reviewed it at some point in isolation, because he was clearly shaken up by it. For that matter, when did he see it? Just after we first originally met up in the gym, post-talent acquisition? Or later than that? I wonder if it’s possible to pinpoint before and after him going through the Survivor’s Perk based on his reactions? I do remember he was checking out the library during one of Kaede’s FTEs when we approached him, but I can’t quite remember when that was...

Wait, are you telling me the video itself was on his Survivor’s Perk? I thought it was just in that safe - then why was there a copy of it on a USB in his lab??? Was it to paint him as suspicious if we got that far? A bonus prize for someone if they were able to figure out the clues?? Hell, was it a ‘motive’ to paint a target on Rantaro’s back the same way the flashback light targeted Kokichi in Chapter 5, in case he made it that far? WHY WAS THE DECK SO STACKED AGAINST THIS POOR BASTARD

“He just had an incredibly scary face while coming to that conclusion, so naturally it was very suspicious at the time.”

.... Man, what’s with all these people with our best interests at heart having such terrifying sprites? Rantaro, Kokichi, Gonta, Ryoma, and I’d argue Angie in her own strange way - all of these guys had some of the creepiest reactions in the game. the lesson is it’s the plain cute ones you gotta watch all the pun intended -

don’t be rude Himiko

“If only I’d had the protagonist power at the time - I could have wooed him. I could have wooed him!”

This is pretty damn sad, though. I wonder if there was anyone he was considering reaching out to? There’s at least one person that comes to mind immediately and I 100% guarantee it’s not who you think it would be:

.....

Ready? No, it’s not Kokichi.

It’s Ryoma Hoshi.

No, seriously! Ryoma literally made it clear that he was willing to give up his own life to end the game. He showed the resolve to help someone get out of there in order to rescue the rest of them. Rantaro literally had to argue him down from doing that. I know at that point it was the day of the deadline, but... man. What if Rantaro had come clean with Ryoma about what he knew? Could something have changed?

Behold: Rantaro Amami, the Ultimate Cryptic.

How heavy was this burden on his shoulders...

I know it’s not relevant to the flashback but SHOW HIS SCARY SPRITE YOU COWARDS

RANTARO WE WILL MAKE UP FOR THIS IN THE BONUS SALMON MODE, I SWEAR IT TO YOU RIGHT NOW -

Behold: Rantaro Amami, the Ultimate Sacrifice -

if there aren’t what-if AUs out there about potential scenarios where Rantaro opens up to someone I will riot.

I-I mean, we weren’t going to explicitly say that but -

“.... Patience, Shuichi. Their time will come. And they won’t know what hit them.”

I see you, sneakily trying to sneak that truth and lie theme back into the trial, and I wholeheartedly approve ~

Are you just saying that...? You were there, right? You saw that we found the Survivor’s Perk. You know we found the lab, so why are you not trying to redirect us? Will you try to do that in the debates or -

oH -

SHE DOESN’T KNOW WE FOUND THE HIDDEN PASSAGE FROM THE BATHROOMS

SHE DOESN’T REALIZE WE CAN PIN HER DOWN WITH THIS

LET’S DO IT!!!!!

Well THIS explains why the Monokubs are participating in the trial. 8′D

E N O U G H

We can match it... aaah, we can match it to the picture that shows him holding it! And it wasn’t there with the body, but in the mastermind’s room!!! Man I’m so pumped up!

I love how Shuichi’s shutting down the Monokids lmao - I’ve never seen him act so aggressively in a Rebuttal Showdown before. 8′D

Man that’s a lot of blood to have landed that way, but who am I to argue about blunt trauma blood physics. THE POINT IS WE HAVE PROOF, BABY! CONFIRMED SECOND PERSON IN THE ROOM!

oh right also this happened:

So we’re just gonna lose them one-by-one during the trial, huh? I’m okay with that.

can you let it slip again

pretty sure you’re thinking of Scar and Simba was Mufasa’s cub -

THAT TOO

DO MONOKUMA AND TSUM - THE MASTERMIND HAVE BEEF OR SOMETHING DEAR LORD

“And it’s totally not someone in this room.” awkwardly attempts to not make eye contact with a certain plain girl -

In those brief few precious seconds...

Cutting all the fluff out, but all you need to know is that all the Monokubs are absolutely useless and don’t know anything except for Monodam because of course.

T... The interval timers. We’ve talked about this already. It was a big thing in the last trial - literally why Shuichi was suspected for a while, and how it got narrowed down to her and Kaede.

It’s always her. It’s always her.

TSUMUGI IS LITERALLY ‘CASUALLY’ TEAMING WITH MONODAM TO DISPROVE SHUICHI I CANNOT BELIEVE HOW BALLSY SHE’S GETTING

Didn’t the mastermind have the advantage of Rantaro triggering the camera both times and setting the ‘30 second’ clock between intervals? Just sayin’ ~

I’m so glad and not surprised that K1-b0 is the one remembering Miu’s contribution. look I have room for kiiruma in my heart too okay

with that said I love the ‘so done’ look he has while he’s next to her in this picture

30 seconds sounds like a short amount of time, and it is. but it can also be surprisingly long. She would have to be quick and deliberate... but she could do it. Dart out, grab it and go. And she’d probably be watching the live feed so she would know exactly when to do it! Between the flash and the ball dropping on him, she has two cues to work with!

I see you too debate online.

this is the ‘take a minute to appreciate the text and graphic design’ minute, don’t mind me - I just really l ike how they have such different styles denoting who’s speaking. Man I can’t get over how well designed it is.

....

Wait, we really have to bring up the idea that they have surveillance cameras? When one of the biggest sticking points of the last trial was that Monokuma didn’t know who the victim was because Kokichi interfered? YOU THOUGHT WE WOULD GET THROWN OFF BY THAT POINT -

This is K1-b0′s big win, so I’m glad he’s the one sassing them and presenting the sixth cub ~

this better be the last damn time we ever agree on anything EVER

I mean, I guess we had to clarify that for the sake of being able to move on but... eh.

OH

Though! Though it does help us confirm that the mastermind had to have been in the room and not one of the people who were known to be downstairs, so that is good! I mean, we honestly pretty much knew that already, but it definitely doesn’t hurt. Gotta tighten that trap after all!

I DUNNO TSUMUGI, WHY WOULD THEY?

“The mastermind is a punk bitch -”

“O-Okay, we plain get it, that’s enough -”

“No. No, I think I need to elaborate on what a scaredy-cat coward the mastermind is -”

LMAO HE’S REALLY INTERRUPTING SWEETCHEEKS ON THIS

..... What a weird point to be hung up on. And the way you’re talking, like you are the mastermind rather than an independent AI, is definitely different than before.

i-i mean look what just happened with kokichi and maki but okay, yeah, we’d totally work together and not have a random student try to make a stand on their own or, hell, have a flashback light designed to instigate chaos and confusion -

Yes............. but. Uh, I’m going to bring this to the point below actually - *

HA

okay blow up a Monokub now

....

damn it

Oh damn, I didn’t think that rule would ever actually come up in a trial. Cool.

LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU -

YOU LITERALLY SET HIM UP YOURSELF!!!

.... Or, the mastermind did. One of you did. I don’t know - I know in my head that I should probably be treating them as one and the same - but they just feel like different entities to me. And if I’m going to humour that idea, that means there is the very real question of ‘who decided to set him up with that message’, ‘who decided they had to steal the Survivor’s Perk back’ and for that matter, ‘were these decisions made independently of each other or was the idea to take back the Perk back conceived the moment the Perk itself was created?’

* To pick up where I left off earlier -

It sounds like discrediting the idea of the mastermind would all be much more important to said mastermind moreso than Monokuma... right? Because Monokuma seems convinced that everything will be fine (the game will continue) even if they find the mastermind, right...??? So I don’t know if the reason was to keep the killing game going, because she clearly showed she is able to create a motive even when the students are banded together against a single person, and she can even misdirect them - I think it’s more to protect herself, because she never wanted that to happen in the first place. Iunno. It just feels a bit different to me than how Shuichi put it.

Oh....?

B-BUT, LIKE, WE CAN STILL FIGURE OUT WHO IT IS FROM THAT... >:( let me accuse my cosplay girlfriend you monojerk

So, erm. Right.

At this point, if you weren’t seeing my little spur-of-the-moment text reactions, you wouldn’t know that I did a double-take when I saw this happen live. Because, well... I’d figured out the whodunnit, the whydunnit, the when, the how - but apparently I’d managed to miss the fact that there was a ‘what’ to resolve. So I figured out the culprit.... but didn’t realize that we weren’t just investigating a theft, but the actual murder again.

With that in mind -

[funky murder mystery jazz music stops]

IT’S    A    W H A T ? ! ? ! ? !

TSUMU - I-I MEAN -

MISS MASTERMIND, WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?!?!