#part three theories

[silver-wield]

You think the reason he can go snow boarding is because he hasn't come to turn that he hast stopped hallucinating a dead person? Nothing shippy obviously. It's a mechanism the brain does to stop someone from spiraling down. Like when SA victims block their trauma to the point like it never happened at all. Because if they do everything will resurface. Because if it resurfaced for cloud, then one of the stars of trilogy Zack, will haunt him again. He's done another failure, someone died because of him being a weakling. He can't be a hero, he's also not a soldier, and therefore cannot be important to Tifa. He can't protect Tifa.. 😭 and therefore not deserve her 😭.

That's likely the angle they're gonna take with it. I'm expecting some fucked up shit up until his break down at the crater.

[tadfools]

You guys are commenting on the fics you read right? You’re at least leaving kudos on the Astarion smut and the pairs that have less than 20 fics for them too? You’re bookmarking stories you really like that are still being updated and ones that haven’t been touched in over a year right?

You know that even the smallest interactions are like cocaine to fic writers right? You understand how important a string of emoji hearts left behind on a chapter at three am is right?? Right????

You’re treating AO3 like a community and not a content factory….right?

[dansemacabre]

i’ve been thinking about “sixer, it would eat you alive” since i read it and. man. every layer you peel back makes it worse. im not a bill apologist but. shit

if you (1) take it at face value, it paints bill as an apologetic murderer in his single (and maybe sole) open moment of regret. he doesn’t let his walls down often- only with ford do we even get to see the remnant of his galaxy, see the “actual remorse” ford describes, get just a hint of his origins. but he does it, because he thinks ford should know.

if you (2) take it from ford’s point of view, as something he committed to journal three, like. wow. imagine being so committed to a being that you’d hunt down and kill the monster that destroyed his home, only to (assumably) figure out later that that being was the monster. the small moments of trust, the “good times”, are so key to manipulation. how long did ford hold onto that one shred of vulnerability? no wonder ford stayed for as long as he did. in his eyes, bill was a survivor. ford wanted to survive too.

(slight tw below for unreality- any time i mention our reality, i mean “our reality” as a narrative device used in the book of bill as a proxy for the idea of bill being in our reality, since he can’t actually be in our reality. all of this is a fictional theory about a show/book with fictional contents!)

but if you (3) remember that “even his lies are lies” and absolutely Nothing bill says should be trusted. Whoo boy. if i read tbob right the book itself is being created in the theraprism (even tho it shows up with the ciphertologists at some point? idk that’s a whole other post). it’s meant to show what the reader wants to see; it manifests in our reality as what the collective fandom wants to see. so if we want to see truth, if we want to see where bill ended up and who he actually is, there’s a non-zero chance that the whole interaction was a complete fabrication.

imagine bill, stuck in the actively harmful, probably earth-illegal theraprism, once again being forced to be “fixed” and molded into something more palatable, being forced to conform no matter how much it hurts. (i know natural uncontrollable mutation ≠ just so much murder and destruction and chaos, but. you can’t ignore the similarities. bill has obviously been thinking about those silly straws.)

he looks back on everything that went wrong, back on his relationship with ford, back through every dimension where he wins. would that one moment, that one truth amid centuries of lies, have saved him from purgatory? if he had just been open? shown his damage? maybe he did think of his parents, or his henchmaniacs (especially the oracle). people who he might have once opened up to. maybe he just wanted to open up to someone again.

so in his own weird way, stuck in a cell, he reshaped reality again. in this reality, for this fleeting moment, he had been someone worth believing. and ford had listened, hell, ford had wanted to help. looking back, knowing how he treated ford, knowing how ford ended up because of it, maybe bill would have said the most honest thing he’d ever told ford: i am the monster, i am not worth your time or belief, and i will eat you alive.

[nenoname]

Details in Stan's letter that still haunt me

(how long will I continue thinking about a two page letter that's technically not even that long because Stan's handwriting is fricking large? .....you don't need to worry about that.)

The bro code only shows up in the Lost Journal pages, and to me Stan's message feels like it purposely echoes Ford's "miss you" in the college photo (and for some reason the message doesn't appear in the website version of the photo?) ....or alternatively Stan simply noticed how distressed Ford was about this entire thing and wanted to support him in a way so he can be sappy but without the kids knowing, or both!

Stan's claim about the Oregon lottery contradicts what the Lost Legends website said about Tate McGucket's ability to predict the winning numbers!! ...but also breaking into the Lottery HQ is definitely a very Stan thing to do and it's not the first time small gags have been retconned

Despite spending most of his letter nonchalantly destroying him, the taunt about ripping a dollar bill in half is the only part where Stan is directly responding to Bill. Maybe it's the two of them having similar ways of thinking but it's rather specific considering Bill taunts the reader about it...

And after Bill spends an entire book calling Ford Sixer despite normally using a pretty wide range of nicknames for him, Stan then spends his letter mainly referring to Ford as Sixer, even though post-Weirdmageddon he tends to use a mix of nicknames. And it's not like he'd gotten to see Bill himself for long, let alone see him steal that childhood nickname (that is only used twice in the actual show btw!). Did Ford tell him what happened or...?

With all this and the website's "still on your mind" message, what I'm getting at is my tinfoil hat theory of Stan somehow seeing some of the pages the irl readers saw, even when it should be personalised to the specific reader, and he's been lying about it for some reason. Considering that the book flat out doesn't make an attempt at convincing Soos, I find it a stretch that whatever Bill was telling Stan via the book was an attempt to convince him either.

Wouldn't be the first time Stan's skimmed through a book and lied about what it meant to him.

(...Now I kinda wanna see a story about the family reading their versions of the book and making fun of it while Stan is improvising every single one of his pages and blatantly ignoring Bill's attempts to mock and taunt him)

But also I'm fascinated by the letters that only showed up on the website (aka the Soos+Wendy+McGucket+Pacifica ones). I'm assuming that Mabel had stuck them on after Stan's letter... but they were basically eaten by the book itself because seeing Stan's letter kick-started Bill's breakdown which takes up the rest of the book

[albino-parakeet]

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Henry Wu made a hybrid abomination? No, bro just made The ULTIMATE Asexual Wingman. (Just ask Yaz and Sammy lol)

Two scientists making abominations together and suffering the consequences, isn't that what life is all about?

Timelapse undercut and version w/o overlay

(Sorry the quality isn’t great.)

Song(s) used: Rachel by kimfitz and Test & Recognize by Seekae

[accirax]

hey! i was wondering about eden’s emotional cg scenes with teruko at the end of ep14; if eden does happen to be the culprit, how would it affect her characterisation? personally, i can’t help but see it in a negative light, one which dampens her impact on arei, teruko and others with her ‘rational optimism’ and general kindness. if eden believed arei wanted to be friends with her, and was willing to reciprocate it, would eden really kill her in cold blood?? if her tears at the end of ep14 were genuine, would it go against her ultimately being the blackened?

tl:dr: how would you justify eden’s last moments at the end of ep14, if she were the culprit? it felt truly genuine to me, but i can’t help but notice her suspicious behaviour and inconsistencies in regards to the ch2 murder :(

(sorry, i’ve never done an ask before!! apologies if this is worded poorly.)

Can Eden Still Be the Culprit (Again)?

Haha, it figures that, even if I didn't choose to cover it in my Episode 14 Dissection, I'd still wind up analyzing what was going on in that scene anyways. Glad you're curious to hear my thoughts! (And don't worry, you phrased everything perfectly!)

The truth is, I didn't initially go over it because I wanted to post my thoughts on the day after the episode aired I, too, am somewhat confused as to how Eden could say all of that and still potentially be the blackened. However, as someone who still believes that Eden could be the blackened, it's probably a good idea if I figure out for myself what the hell this scene means in the context of DRDT at large if votes for Eden are close at hand. And potentially preempt some of the backlash that might arise if they are.

Just know that I, too, think that some of my points might be a bit of a stretch sometimes. We cool? Cool. Let's get analyzing.

SPOILERS for DRDT through Chapter 12 Episode 14, as well as Chapter 2 of THH and Chapter 1 of SDR2, and a WARNING that we will (obviously) be discussing Eden!culprit throughout this post.

For Eden's words and actions to make sense under the preconception that she is the killer, I think there are only three major roads you can take.

NUMBER ONE: EDEN IS A LYING, MANIPULATIVE, SCUMBAGGY PIECE OF SHIT

This option... is not great. Everybody agrees that it is not great. I hesitate to use the word "bad," because I think that people are way too hasty to call things "bad writing" (especially before they've even happened), but... I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty bad.

Basically, what it says on the tin. Just like David, Eden has actually been a liar and a manipulator the whole time. She doesn't actually believe anything she said about optimism or the power of friendship, and was 100% using that attitude the whole time to get everybody's guards down. A character like that would have no problem saying whatever the hell she needed to say in order to get others to pity and therefore not vote for her.

I don't like this one because it fully invalidates everything that we've seen from Eden so far. For someone like David-- or, say, Nagito-- even in the midst of their big heel turn, there are parts of their previous characterization that are still salvageable. Teruko caught David being a hater on literally Day 1, and it was easy to read into his outbursts of anger and insane nosiness to expect that his personality wasn't really as bright as his stars. Similarly, even if Hajime got along with Nagito, he was still sort of a creepy and off-putting guy, and everything about his love of hope stayed as strong as ever. For Eden to suddenly turn to the dark side would truly come out of nowhere. Other than... I don't know, liking to bake?, I don't think there are any aspects of Eden's former characterization that would remain. Not that her character would remain in the story for much longer, but, whatever.

I'm going to discount this option because I have faith in DRDTdev's writing, and I don't think he would suddenly want to abandon the Eden character he's been strongly developing over the past two chapters. Again, I refuse to call anything bad writing until the Chapter at least, if not the story as a whole, is wrapped up, but there's a reason why everyone's first instinct is to hate this idea.

NUMBER TWO: EDEN IS THE BLACKENED BUT DOESN'T KNOW IT

Basically, Eden is able to be so genuine because she either forgot or didn't know that she was the one to kill Arei, but we'll still be able to convict her in the end because all of the evidence points to her. How would this work? Well, sorastar6 came up with a theory that Eden might have killed Arei but blocked it out of her memory. It could also be something where, like, someone else put her up to it and she accidentally let go of the rope or whatever to kill Arei without realizing it. (That idea is loosely based off of a-student-out-of-time's theory of David manipulating Hu to kill J-dressed-as-Arei-- hopefully if they read this, they won't mind me using their theory as a logistical basis off of which to accuse Eden 😅)

However, I don't think either of these cases are particularly likely either. The murder method is so complicated and clearly premeditated that it would be really hard to trick someone into operating it without realizing it at all. And, if Eden killing Arei traumatized her so much that she lost multiple hours of memory then you'd think she'd just... not do it. I respect the hard work and creativity of both of these theorists, but I'll be passing on this option as well.

NUMBER THREE: EDEN FEELS REALLY, REALLY GUILTY ABOUT IT

Okay, so I maybe-sorta-lied: there are probably other ways that you could interpret Eden's emotional reactions to talking about Arei's death other than specifically her being guilty. However, given that guilt was already the justification I reached for the first Eden mini-breakdown in my Episode 13 Dissection, it may not come as a surprise that I'm staying on theme.

Before, I summarized that what Eden was saying to Levi was basically what she wanted to say or already said to herself. She knows that killing Arei was "wrong," so even though she thought it was the right thing to do, she wants to always remember Arei and acknowledge her faults as a form of penance. Also importantly, one facet of why Eden might be breaking down now is because (under the theory) she only learned that Arei truly wanted to change and be her friend in the Trial when David told her. It makes her feel extra guilty now knowing that she killed someone who wasn't just her bully, but someone who wanted to be better than that.

We're going to keep that rationale in mind as we now look through everything that Eden has to say at the end of Episode 14. The only thing of note that I will have to concede is that, even if Eden isn't a liar or a manipulator overall, any time she says anything along the lines of "I'm innocent!" or "I didn't kill Arei!", it has to be a boldface lie. Sorry, I don't like it either, but there's no way around it (outside of something like option 2). I otherwise want to claim that Eden is straight-up lying as little as possible, but this was kind of a gimme. But hey, that's why I have my doubts that any of this will turn out to be true as well.

Since this is its own post and not part of the Episode 14 Dissection, it means that I get 30 images to use on just this subject, hooray!

This is certainly a softball to start this defense off on. Eden can just be confused/upset that her efforts to evade being the blackened aren't working all of a sudden.

Similarly, this is just her rephrasing/challenging everyone's thoughts. Perhaps I should have cut out some of these beginning statements, but I'm always one for being thorough.

Don't worry, this is the last of these three. I will note, though, something that I actually only noticed on this watch-through. I was aware that Teruko and David both had shots that only showed their mouths and torsos with their eyes obscured in this episode, but apparently, Eden has one too. Of course, this could go either way: these shots could be reserved for the "major players" of this chapter-- the protagonist, killer, and someone who's clearly getting extra focus-- or, it could be more of a protag/antag/support thing. Or maybe DRDTdev just decided to start using this for highly emotional scenes.

Well, given that I'm trying to throw Eden under the bus in this post, it's clearly the first of the three. Don't listen to any clowns (<- me) who might tell you otherwise. (/j)

"Hold myself together" isn't as innocent-coded as it might seem on the surface. It seems pretty clear to me that Eden feels genuine sadness over Arei's passing no matter her role in Arei's death. However, being the blackened and having to keep a secret throughout the Trial might make coping with those emotions even more difficult. Fully breaking down in grief would be bad enough as an innocent, but as a blackened, it would basically be game over. Arei's death is the cause of her discomposure, which can still be equally true if she was the one to kill Arei.

This is quite possibly the line that I have the hardest time justifying in the context of Eden being guilty. I could obviously just say that she's lying here, but as I said at the start, I want to call what Eden says lies as minimally as possible. So, what are our other options?

Nico said earlier this episode that attempting to kill Ace was "the worst choice that [they'd] made in [their] life," so it could be fitting for both of our killers this chapter to feel the same way. After seeing what it was like to kill Arei and have everyone suspect you, Eden decides that whatever her motive for killing was wasn't worth it in the end. However, now that she's in this situation, she still has to stick with her initial plan (unless she wants to just die on the spot) because she can't go back, no matter how hard she tries--

For DRDT to enter its third chapter with the cast at their most hostile and downtrodden but also only having one killer who did so accidentally and two killers who deeply regretted it would be very interesting indeed.

Alternatively (or perhaps in combination), this could also be Eden being somewhat of a pessimist. If you're a blackened, you're generally hoping/expecting that everyone other than you will die. However, only one person's death is actually guaranteed-- your victim's. (Or two people's deaths if you kill two people, but that's not important to this case.) In theory, Eden choosing to kill Arei in particular doesn't really matter, because if she won the Class Trial, Arei would die anyways. However, now that Teruko has accused Eden, reality might be setting in for Eden as her dreams of being the one to escape flit away. In that case, she may be regretting her choice to victimize Arei-- if she's going to die for her attempt, she might at least wish that Arei got to live over some others.

I think the first option is probably the best from a thematic perspective, although both options certainly have their counterarguments.

Eden's (stellar) read on the "Why?" line definitely implies that she's frustrated, which could go either way. It's equally possible that she could be mad that people are suspecting her when she's innocent, or that she's upset that everyone is suddenly hounding her when she thought she was putting up a good front.

As for her leading question, if Eden is the killer, we've already seen her subtly mine for information at least once before. The conclusion of her last breakdown was her trying to ask David what really happened between him and Arei in the Relaxation Room. Now, asking this question might be intended to either shore up arguments she hopes to defend herself against, or force other people to "concede" that there are no reasons why Eden would have killed Arei. A bit of a dangerous gambit, but it's arguably more dangerous to have to come up with justifications about unknown arguments on the spot, especially when emotionally struggling.

Not gonna lie, though, the fact that she immediately followed up "why do you think I killed her" with "I cared about her!" also slants towards an innocent read. If you really were the culprit, I feel like you would start trying to argue against some of the solid evidence that people just presented (such as Levi bringing up the information required to write that note) with evidence of your own. Instead, Eden shoots straight for the emotional defense, even though no one was arguing that Eden never cared about Arei leading into this speech. (Arturo brings up her connection to Arei, but he never directly says it was because she didn't care.) It could speak to the fact that she was fully unprepared to be accused (because she didn't do it and had no idea about the tape).

However, Eden has always been a very emotional person, and it's possible that a big part of her intended defense was to say that she cared about Arei. Another interpretation is that Eden brought this up now because it's something she's insecure about. It sort of goes back to my idea that Eden is still desperately trying to cling to the idea that she's a "good person" despite her choice to kill. If that's true, the way that Eden is perceived as the killer might be very important to her. Like, obviously surviving the Trial itself is the most important thing, but Eden doesn't want anyone to misinterpret her as a monster on her path to the finish line.

I already explained why this line was sus as hell to me:

This distinction-- between "Arei was my friend" and "Arei could have been my friend"-- could be very telling down the line. Eden pauses mid-tear-filled rant to distinguish that Arei is not her friend, not because she's dead, but because they hadn't reached that point yet. Arei is not Eden's friend in death. What can that possibly mean other than that Eden killed Arei?

This is one of the lines that makes me most think that she is the blackened in this monologue. Because, seriously, why would she not have just said "Arei was my friend!" if there wasn't any doubt in her mind?

Alright, I think that about now is a good time for me to drop the thesis I've developed whilst reflecting on Eden's behavior and how to put all of the pieces together. Should I have said it earlier? Maybe, but where's the drama in that?

Basically, for starters, I don't think that Eden fully believed that Arei genuinely wanted to be her friend. As I've said before, Arei saving Eden from Arturo happened mere hours after Arei denounced her entire personality. It's super believable that Eden might think that Arei was just using her usual manipulative tricks to make Eden look like the fool again. However, despite all that, I don't think that Eden hated Arei, either. They were just in the exact same state that they were in before-- Arei as the bully and Eden as her target-- which Eden had never hated Arei for before. Eden wanted to help her and wanted to be friends with her, as she says in this screenshot, but that doesn't mean it could actually happen. Tragically, Eden determined that Arei wouldn't be able to change while being trapped in this killing game.

After that, Eden decides that she needs to kill to escape the school. The exact motives of which have puzzled Eden!culprit theorists for months, with current speculations still being that it may either have to do with her secret, the girl she kissed, or her family, who she told Levi she couldn't imagine living without. We've got time to cook on that in the post-Trial, if Eden is the killer. However, I also don't think that we should discount how scary the killing game has become.

Let's run through the events of Day 6 again, because it's a truly terrible day for Eden:

Eden wakes up in the morning and goes to rouse Teruko, who she has to blackmail in order to even get her to consider attending breakfast with the others. She tries to convince Teruko about the value of optimism, but Teruko only tells her that her worldview makes Teruko even less inclined to be her friend. Speaking of lack of friendship, Eden's chances at a peaceful breakfast-- which she had been hoping to use to bring everyone together-- are dashed when there are three separate shouting matches going on in the Dining Hall. Eden tries to assign her associates to break up the fights, but it goes terribly-- all she does is get Arturo and J mad at her, while Veronika only makes the situation between Ace and Nico worse.

After David's plan causes Charles (who has been making some of the most progress so far) to recall his traumatic past, Eden tries to invite Teruko and Arei to a fun event to brighten everyone's moods and right her wrongs of the past. Except that, when she does, Arei rejects her offer outright and brings up some of her biggest insecurities, causing Eden to run out of the room crying. Neither Teruko, who Eden has been trying super hard to befriend, nor David, who has (theoretically) been acting in the name of harmony and cooperation, run after her to offer her any comfort.

Despite David's lack of support, though, she still decides to support him by following his idea to let Arturo know about his secret. Trying to do so nearly costs her her life. She's just one unarmed 5'2" clockmaker against a clearly agitated 6'3" surgeon with a scalpel, and she's only saved by the bully who just said that Eden "utterly disgust[ed] her in every way." Arei now claims that she'd do anything for Eden, but is that just another setup through which Arei can make fun of her trusting nature in the future...? Eden wants to hope, but it's hard to do so when the person who just saved you was the one who told you you shouldn't.

Anyways, even despite a long afternoon of Nico being outed and a long night of being stalked by probably-Arturo, Eden is still trying to help Teruko pick up her clothes when she runs into Teruko in the Dress-Up Room. But since nothing can go right for Eden today, it's then when she and Teruko hear a loud noise, and they stumble upon Ace's body in the Gym-- the second murder attempt Eden has seen today. Nico is standing over Ace, really making it look like they killed him. Gosh, if only someone had been able to talk to the two of them this morning in a productive way, instead of making things worse. Thankfully, Ace is still alive, but less thankfully, he's now a convert to killing and wants to eliminate Nico. The day ends with Ace saying that this place is worse than death and Levi-- who Eden had just been praising for being kind and reliable-- giving up on his former friend.

Are you starting to see why Eden started planning murder and picked up the tape when she did?

Looking at it through that perspective, I don't even know if Eden needs a reason outside of the killing game to want to be the blackened and escape. If we can accept that Ace's motive would be to escape the situation in which he almost died, it feels like we should be able to acknowledge that Eden could be motivated by the exact same thing.

Obviously, it's harder to believe that Eden would kill than Ace, because Eden generally cares about everybody and Ace (other than Levi, once) didn't really like anyone. However, I, at least, don't think it would be totally narratively unsatisfying for Eden's reason for killing to be that her bandwidth for caring for others was overloaded, and with no one supporting her (and at least one party actively attacking her), her fears of the killing game got the better of her, if only just for a moment.

Getting back on track, Eden's terrible awful no good very bad day has inspired her to kill, but who does she take down as her victim? Well, as we've established before, if Eden wins, everyone will die anyways, so it's not like she's really "sparing anyone's life" by not killing them here. She's already made her peace with everyone as she knows them dying. And after that, despite the care she still has for Arei, she chooses Arei as her victim because of what Arei told her after Arturo attacked Eden. But, I'll reiterate, Eden doesn't hate Arei. Instead, Eden chooses Arei because she thinks Arei is the victim that will make her look the least suspicious.

Just because Eden doesn't believe that Arei really wanted to be her friend doesn't mean that other people won't. In fact, I think that Arturo would definitely believe that the two of them had turned over a new leaf. In this situation, Eden is aware that her best path to innocence is to play up her kindhearted personality in order to lead people to believe that she would never hurt a fly. Therefore, she decides to leave the note behind so that people will hear about the story of Arturo attacking her. In my Episode 14 dissection, I was spinning my wheels trying to figure out why Eden would possibly want anyone to find that note. However, this option would create a reason why Eden would want others to read the note. The mere fact that Arei decided to come to the Playground would serve as evidence that Arei really did care about Eden, and therefore make Eden seem more innocent. Maybe she overstepped a bit on revealing so much about Arturo's secret in the note, but given that everyone seems to believe that the killer overhearing the conversation was possible anyways, it's not a huge deal.

However, there is a contradiction here that you may have picked up on. Why would Eden count on using a note to draw Arei out to the Playground if she didn't believe that Arei would actually listen to her? I raise you a new idea: who says that note was actually real?

For those who believe that Eden isn't the killer, the thought that someone falsified writing that note isn't anything revolutionary. However, if other culprits could plant that note as a fake, who's to say that Eden didn't do the same?

I believe it was demodraws606 who recently raised the question of why Eden would even bother writing a note to Arei when she could have just gone up and knocked on her door. (Apologies, I tried to find the post in which they said that but I couldn't track it down 😔) That excellent question set off the domino chain that made me think... well, maybe she did.

Eden works through the night (14 hour shifts, baby) setting up the pieces of her murder contraption in the Playground and writing a fake note that she "sent" to Arei. However, instead of sending that note to Arei, she goes to Arei's room herself and knocks on her door at, like, 7 AM or something. Eden doesn't necessarily believe that Arei will answer, but, if she doesn't-- that's not the worst thing in the world, right? It's not like she's particularly pressed about the secrets deadline, and she left herself with enough time to put away her murder scheme if necessary. Unfortunate, but assuming that she lives another day, she can try again some other time. However, instead, Arei opens the door (because, unbeknownst to Arei, she really did want to be friends with Eden), sealing her fate.

This also opens the opportunity for the scene of knocking Arei out to be in the doorway of Arei's room, instead of in the Playground. I always wondered how the scuffs on the floor would be so contained to one area near the entrance to the Playground. Like, the whole rope setup must have been at least somewhat set up by the time Arei entered the Playground, right? If Arei saw that, why wouldn't she start running away? And, in the case of Eden as the culprit specifically, would she really be able to subdue Arei in such a small area? If Arei was knocked out in her room, we wouldn't be able to see any evidence of that happening, because no one searched her room. That also leaves open the opportunity for Eden to have tossed any items she used to knock out Arei into Arei's room, where no one would be able to find them. And, hell, let's rope the glove into this, too! If Arei was never even intending to get dressed up to the level of leaving her room, maybe she hadn't yet put on her glove when Eden taped her wrists! It's weak reasoning, but it's a reasoning, at least!

(Also, if you're wondering how the scuffs on the ground could have gotten there if Arei wasn't subdued in the Playground, sorastar6 also recently made a theory that the ground was actually scuffed up after the jugs broke and the turf became wet, and it was the killer walking through a puddle that messed up the ground.)

After that, yada yada, ropes and carousel, Arei dies, investigation, Class Trial.

Eden is trying her best to just lay low and survive the Class Trial, but a wrench is thrown her way when David reveals to her that, after she left the Playground, Arei confessed to David and Teruko that she actually wanted to change. This goes against everything that Eden thought. Part of her reason for murder was that no one was willing to work with her, and now she learns that she just killed the one person who actually was? That's terrible! It can't be! David, please tell me the rest of that story!!!

At this point, you might wonder why, if Eden feels horribly guilty about killing Arei and unsure of her former conviction that the best thing she could do would be to get out of here alive, she wouldn't just confess to the crime already. Beyond her desire to survive herself, I think it could be because she wants Arei's death to have meaning.

If Eden gives up, it means that she killed Arei for no reason. She made the huge, irreversible decision to kill Arei, and then decided to throw it away when things got tough. But she won't let herself brush away the deaths she caused just because it was inconvenient for her.

She won't let her emotions take precedence over the harm that she caused.

She has to acknowledge that Arei's death was her fault.

Which means that, just like Min did, she has to fight like a proper blackened would if she wants to prove that she cared about enough Arei to believe that her life had meaning.

And that's why Eden is so insistent that she didn't kill Arei because she hated her. She isn't someone who believed that Arei was fully incapable of change, and she still cared about Arei a lot. And so, she'll honor Arei's legacy by taking to heart what Arei said to her.

Those are my general thoughts on how to justify Eden's breakdown at the end of the episode-- although, obviously, we still have more to go. That awkward middle placement strikes again, huh? But, I do think it has its benefits, which is why I'm keeping it here. We get to balance some buildup before the point with the lens of seeing some of the dialogue after the point. Let's wrap up the rest of this a bit quicker, shall we?

Since we're a while from the start, let me just issue a refresher that this post is assuming that every time Eden says "I didn't kill Arei" she is just lying. Yes, it assumes that Eden is willing to lie in a Class Trial, but I think that any 18 year old would be capable of pulling that off if their life was at stake, no matter how sweet they may seem.

This could also be another instance of Eden assessing the situation via asking a question.

This line would be tying back to the assumption that Eden's main plan for getting away with the crime (other than possibly framing Nico with the murder method) was to pull the emotional defense that others wouldn't believe that she killed. The tears could still absolutely be borne of genuine fear, but the choice to reach for help from Teruko could be her planned fallback if things got dicey. If she is the killer, then the evidence should stack against her, meaning that "belief" is her best way out of receiving votes. This is her hail mary.

"This trial has been cruel to me" is 100% right if she is the blackened who got jumpscared by knowing that Arei cared. After she initially acted against her instincts to kill for the sake of her life, she then has to face consequences that she didn't even think were possible, all while keeping a straight face. For whoever the killer is, can you imagine how stressful it must have been to have David extend the Trial for so much longer with his nonsense? (Mondo with Byakuya vibes in Ch2, honestly. The THH parallels never rest.)

Again, we're saying "I didn't kill her" is a lie, while "I just wanted to help her" was the truth. Something more along the lines of "I just wanted to help Arei, but she seemingly rejected my every effort, so I killed her but without the knowledge that my help was actually getting through to her" is what we're aiming for here.

I decided to combine these two together because I didn't have much to say about the first one on its own. One interesting thing to note here is what thebadjoe pointed out: Eden says that friends are supposed to help each other out, yet in Chapter 2 Episode 3, she was the one telling Teruko that relationships aren't transactional. What changed between now and then?

Well, this is much more in keeping with Arei's "that's what friends do" philosophy, which could either be a further indication that she was taking Arei's words to heart (for better or for worse) or that she's just desperate enough that she needs to count on Teruko in this moment if she wants to survive (again, whether genuinely innocent or guilty). It could mean nothing, but it could also be an indication of Eden's more manipulative side, if she's making an emotional argument that goes against her own philosophy just because she knows it'll strike a chord with Teruko.

(Of course, you can basically counterbalance this "inconsistency" with the one that one post (yet ANOTHER post I cannot fucking re-find) pointed out with Ace saying "I would never commit a murder of my own" with him previously saying that he was "about to commit a murder of his own" on Nico. They can't both be the killer unless something really weird is going on, so at least one of these "inconsistencies" has to mean nothing.)

Also, while I wouldn't go so far as to say that Eden is faking her tears over Arei (because that's clearly not true) there's also room for Eden to be crying here because she feels bad about manipulating Teruko, but as established before, still feels like she has to go through with it. Her acting doesn't have to be impeccable if the crying is covering up the crying she would already be doing.

'Cause sometimes, the breaks you take in between sniffles can conceal the breaks you would be taking as you struggle to lie to Teruko's face! Hypothetically.

"Please trust me, Teruko. You're my only hope."

In this hypothetical, I think we have to assume that Eden is just genuinely surprised that the super-smart Teruko wasn't able to see through her act. It might come as a shock that the same Teruko who said that Eden's kindness made her want to stay farther away would now see Eden's pleading as a sign to protect her. (Another judgment of character that Eden made incorrectly.)

And now, for the other hardest part to justify...

With the combination of the soft music (the same music that plays during the "kindness isn't weakness" scene, mind you) and the bokeh lights and the line deliveries and everything, this does feel like pretty convincing evidence that Eden is not the killer. But, if we're talking about the world in which she is, I do think that she still feels genuinely relieved here. The hug isn't directly manipulative, it's just thanking Teruko for giving her another shot at life.

Furthermore, it's a confirmation that, in Teruko's eyes, Eden still isn't a "bad person"-- at least not yet. Eden needs to continue believing that she's a good person with good ideas if she wants to have any hopes of fighting back against the cold and cruel world she was telling Teruko about. If she's become just as cold and cruel as the rest of them, then there's no way for her to be optimistic or kind, and therefore, no way to escape the grief that's haunting her. Eden has yet to learn that a good person is not gold, so that's the only world that she sees.

And, that's Eden's last line of the episode! Before we wrap up, though, I do want to talk about how Eden being the culprit would affect the story as a whole, as you touched upon that in your ask. Mainly, I want to talk about the big problem that many people have with Eden being the killer: what would happen to Teruko if it's proven that one of her closest allies is the killer again? We don't want a repeat of Chapter 1, but how do you avoid that after that hug?

As is my M.O., I'm here to argue that there are two ways you can make the situation different: by making it better or making it worse. In terms of making it better, I think that thefandomenchantress argued for it well in this post. If Eden's gotten her most desperate moment out of the way now, she might have room to be a bit more accepting in her final moments, and be able to reassure Teruko that just because she killed doesn't mean nobody is worthy of trust. In fact, Eden is so sad now because she didn't have enough trust in Arei, and look where that landed her! We could end Eden off on at least being happy that she and Arei were both able to change in the ways that the other wanted for them (Arei becoming more helpful and Eden becoming more responsible) and her being happy that at least the other students get to live.

On the other hand, you could make it worse. Venus-is-thinking and I have discussed together before how different Min and Eden's situations are, because while Min only really tried getting close to Teruko after her crime was already committed, Eden has been trying to become Teruko's friend for ages, before the idea to murder even crossed her mind. This death would be even more personal, as it can more so be argued that Teruko's lack of trust is part of what drove Eden to kill, whereas with Min, it was just that Teruko initially trusting Min opened her more up to hurt. You might argue that this would just cause Teruko to pull away even more harshly (which is still bad), but that's not necessarily the case. Maybe her breakdown this time drives her to get in people's faces so that they'll die even faster and she can rip the bandage off. Along those lines, maybe she'd even try to get closer to those she least trusts right now (like David) because clearly, her curse will cause those who she spends the most time with to die. The circumstances around Teruko have changed, which means that we can't expect the same sort of pressure to necessarily yield the same result.

As for your concerns about Eden's impact on Arei and genuine-seeming emotions, hopefully my main dissertation answers how I'd explain that ^_^

If you're wondering how I feel... well, despite everything that I wrote, I'm honestly kinda thinking that it's Ace at this point. Don't get me wrong, I think that the Eden read is still out there, but given how seemingly little time we have until the culprit is revealed, there may not be enough time to unpack anything close to this before the gavel comes down. Everyone keeps posting their polls about who people think is the killer, and I keep flip-flopping on whether I choose Eden or Ace as my answer. I wouldn't be surprised if either of them did it, except that--

Well, let's be honest. At this point, I'm going to be flabbergasted by whoever the culprit is, just because it's them.

Thank you for the ask, and see you on Friday!

[morganbritton132]

Living for conspiracy Steve. You know if they tried anything Joan the Disservice cat would be on the case. You also know Diane clocked it during her looky loo walks and she’s got tea. An alliance is forming.

What’s funny about Steve’s paranoia with the electric company van parked outside is that it’s definitely just the electric company.

If SoMeBoDy would just listen to reason then maybe they might remember the bad weather they’ve been having. They live in a suburb just outside of Chicago. It’s windy and wind messes with powerlines, but Steve isn’t dumb. Thank you very much.

He knows that.

Just like he knows what logo Mike said was on the van that El flipped. And like he said, “It’s spycraft 101. Of course, they’re here after a storm. It’s inconspicuous.”

“Big word,” Eddie replies appreciatively. “How do you know that?”

“I took the SATs?”

“Now the word! Why do you think that they’re tapping our phones?”

“It’s in all the movies, Eddie.”

There’s an unspoken duh tacked on to the end of Steve’s sentence and Eddie kinda loves it. He kinda loves how confident Steve is when he’s convinced himself this shit is real and a little part of Eddie wants to play along, but he knows how quickly it can all go bad so, “Baby, please. Stevie, what are they tapping into? We don’t have a landline.”

Steve pauses to think and then peaks back out through the blinds. He mutters, “You don’t know how wiretaps work?”

“Do you?”

Steve just purses his lips and looks even harder out the window which is just Steve-speak for ‘no, actually. I don’t know how wiretaps works because no one does.’ It makes Eddie grin, sliding up behind him and whispering in his ear, “Don’t you think one of our half dozen nosy neighbors would’ve told us if someone was spying on us?”

“Not if-“

“Baby, Diane came over twice last week because she saw a suspicious car in our driveway,” Eddie hums. “It was our car, Steve.”

Steve relaxes back against his chest a little but he knows the battle is not yet won so, Eddie adds, “Sweetheart, think about it. They’d know.”

“That’s true,” Steve relents just a little and then says, “Unless one of our neighbors is a spy.”

“No, baby.”

“Like a nosy neighbor that’s always in our business,” Steve continues, building confidence. “And who has always been in our business ever since we moved in…and who is talking to the electric company people right now.”

Eddie looks out through the peak in the blinds Steve is making and watches as Diane makes her way down her driveway in her pink house shoes, waving at the man halfway up the telephone pole. She calls something up at him but they’re too far away to hear it.

He can feel Steve pull away and Eddie thinks, damn it.

“Well, that friendship was good while it lasted.”

[mantequillabooks]

I let my delusions get the best of me and for a second I truly believed we’d be seeing Theo again in season 3.

Part of me (probably out of habit) wants to be delulu again and believe he might still come back somehow🥲. When Colin said something to Eloise along the lines of “you should consider yourself lucky that you’ve never been in love” best believe I was screaming “you know NOTHING Colin!”

Then when Eloise was talking about how she survived being accused of being Lady Whistledown but not without some scars I IMMEDIATELY thought of Theo again. And then when she opened that drawer and you could see the book she got from Theo that she had kept………🥲 I don’t know why I do this to myself but I still hope. Part of me just wants them to pull a persuasion with Eloise and Theo.

Otherwise………it’s off to AO3 I go.

[featherdusterbelphie]

Logged into obey me nb for the first time today. Saw the new update.

The new app screams 'we're about to discontinue the original game soon!'

Which makes me a little sad

[silverhalla]

alright single digit days so it’s time for last-minute baseless + unfounded veilguard theories!!!!!!! I’ll go first: the reason spite can’t take over lucanis’ body is because that body is ALREADY being possessed by lucanis, who was in fact dead and buried in the wake and rebound to a new form in the ossuary

[fideidefenswhore]

Eloquent and lengthy speeches, put into Anne's mouth at her trial and on the scaffold, should be read with scepticism...

but the 'notoriously unreliable' spanish chronicle...shouldn't?

[aria0fgold]

Seared like a songbird flying to the sun

A belated birthday gift for @misty-wisp ! Tried to combine references for both Swan Lake and Cendrillon >:3 (Linked the English cover I took the lyrics from for the title!)

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Dune Part Three Theory

(Dune part two and Dune book series spoilers)

I've been thinking about the end of Dune part two and how they had Chani walk away at the end. Paul says that he foresaw that at some point Chani would come back to him and would come around to what he is doing. I said in my review of the movie that I couldn't see how Chani would come back to Paul as they really do seem so broken at the end of the film, but then Paul saying he has seen her return to him gives that glimmer of possibility that she does indeed come back and I have a theory on how that may happen. Now just to be clear I have not read the books so this theory is based off the movies and the other adaptions of Dune (the 1984 film and the 2000 miniseries) that recently watched.

Personally I feel like it would have to be something fairly major in order to convince her to come back to him and after watching some other adaptions of Dune I got this theory, its a cliche one but I could see it working if written properly.

So spoiler warning for the 2000 Dune miniseries here, and also the books as I think its where the plot comes from, but in the miniseries Chani and Paul have a son called Leto who is tragically killed in the attack of Sietch Tabr. Obviously this wasn't in the 2024 Dune part two adaption. But it did make me think, what if Chani is pregnant with Leto and that's what makes her come back?

Here's my reasoning for why she may be pregnant and just not know it yet. The first is the blue scarf. I saw some posts talking about how in the movie it represents her love for Paul, which is really beautiful and I love how they use the scarf in the movie to show her shifting feelings about Paul and what he is doing. But I also found out that in the books Fremen women would wear a blue scarf when they had newborn sons, making it also a symbol of motherhood. So maybe this blue scarf wasn't just a way of symbolising the love Chani had for Paul but also a little hint that she would become the mother of his son and that she is secretly pregnant.

Another reason, or hint, for her possibly being pregnant is that there is a moment in Dune part two where we see a shot of Alia in the womb and then it cuts to Paul and Chani's love scene. I could be reading in to it too much, but I also couldn't help but think maybe that was some symbolism, we are shown a baby in a womb and then Paul and Chani being intimate, maybe hinting that this was the moment their son was conceived. This is also the moment when Chani asks if he will always be with her. He replies as long as he breathes but sadly we know this isn't true because come the end of the film they are separated. But this line could again be to show that they will be together again and with it positioned as it is, with the clip of a in-utero baby and their intimacy, maybe that's a hint that what brings them back together is their child.

I could see a situation where Paul finds out Chani is pregnant and then tries to use that to convince her to come back to him. Whether he finds out through one of his dreams or because they run into each other some how and he can see she is pregnant, it would be understandable that he would want to be in his child's life and so he would try to talk her around. I could also see Jessica trying to manipulate Chani into returning if she is pregnant as Jessica would see the baby as an heir to the House Atreides.

But the interesting part of Paul's line in the movie about Chani coming back is that he says 'she'll come to understand' which makes it sound like at some point Chani is going to fully jump on the bandwagon with Paul and what he's doing. But again I keep wondering how they are going to write that considering how against his actions she is right now. But after watching the miniseries and seeing the plot with baby Leto I wonder if that'll be the trigger. So here's what I am thinking.

Chani is pregnant and she reluctantly returns to Paul, feeling a bit conflicted but wanting her child to know their father. Maybe the baby also makes Paul re-evaluate things and it seems like he is turning back to the right path and this makes Chani feel like maybe he isn't as lost as she first thought. Kind of like a bit of a fake out where you think oh maybe he's been saved from going down this dark path and he'll actually going to turn things around.

Then tragedy strikes and in some kind of attack, whether that's an assassination attempt that mirrors the attack on the Atreides in Dune part one, or an attack similar to the one on Sietch Tabr, their son is killed. In the miniseries its the death of their son that seems to push Paul into overthrowing the emperor, there is a moment when a messenger calls him crazy for threatening the spice fields and challenging the emperor and Paul screams at him that they killed his son, indicating that he was angry and grieving enough that he would have done pretty much anything to get revenge. In the miniseries though the plot line isn't that fleshed out, their son is barely in it and there are a couple of scenes showing their grief but the whole plot point kind of gets lost in the rest of the narrative. But one thing Villeneuve has done really well so far is taking characters and plot points that aren't overly present in the book/other adaptions and giving them a lot more depth and complexity that gets an emotional response out of the audience. I feel like this plot point of them losing their child, if written well, could be a really gut-wrenching and heartbreaking plot that has a big impact on the story and characters. I could see how losing their child could push both Paul and Chani down a path of no return. Chani's grief could be what makes her 'come to understand' that this holy war and waging battle against the houses is the 'only path' forward. It would make the war personal for her and I feel like it is something that is a big enough emotional event that it would cause her to change her way of thinking. I could also see this being the final straw for Paul and what causes him to go full dark side in his rage and grief. It would be a horrifying and tragic story to watch but I do think it would fit in with darker tone of Villeneuve's adaption.

I could also be completely and totally wrong about all of this, but it popped into my head so I figured I would share it, annoyingly it'll be a few years before we get any answers. I am curious, though, to hear other people's theories on how they think Villeneuve will have Chani return to Paul like he foresaw, or whether she will return at all.

[maxdurden]

in the world of spyre, how much do we know about high court? like it's a predominantly (if not completely) human nation. it seems like worship of sol/helio is important. is it like,,, a theocratic ethnostate oorrrr???

and it would be completely high fantasy bs, right? i mean, solace is the only nation with arcano-tech, right?

[yuseirra]

ONK SPOILERS UP TO CHAPTER 158:

I think there's a god that's actively trying to make Hikaru (who's forgotten he's a god) fall into despair and ruin his life in order to corrupt him. That must be the "star" that's mentioned in Fatal:

致命的な欠落をくれたね

身勝手な巨星、狂わされた生

You have given me a fatal flaw

Selfish giant star, ruined lives

I don't think it's the same "star" Ai has or Ai is if she's one, it must be the black one that's been trying to cause the

"灼かれた眼、もがれた羽根、創造的堕天"

Burnt eyes, stripped feathers, creative fall from heaven

These sets of lyrics seem to indicate it's not only Ai that's special, but that he's some sort of special being that's been "flawed" and stripped of some sort of grand powers under the influence of some being with powers.

What Ai's done is so far from trying to harm him. She protects him and is very concerned over what happens to him, she wants to bring him back if "he's lost".

I think it is "the god who loves absurdity and unreasonableness" that's doing this to his life because the stuff that's been happening's been really absurd!! People around him seem to turn crazy and act out and do things Hikaru's never wanted to happen...

The thing is, Hikaru STILL is capable of believing in people and gives them chances to redeem themselves after everything he's been through, despite the ugly things he's faced and the mess he's been in. He's still not entirely corrupt!! You see Aqua suffering and being pretty unstable when his eyes turn black, he's still kind inside but he can use people and become pretty cold, right? But this guy has been under the influence of the black star since.. he was at least 14? That makes him having endured for 20 years and he's STILL trying to give Nino a chance and stuff, this guy.. I think he IS originally someone who's really sweet. And he was like that the way he was depicted in the movie arc. But so many terrible things keep happening to him in ways he can't predict and he falls back into despair whenever he has something good and has some light in his life. It's unfortunate and miserable, to the state it becomes ridiculous, when you see it, when he shares happy moments with Ai, the next scenes we see him being tormented and abused, we see him believing he's going to be okay as long as Ai's with him and then Ai leaves him claiming she can't love him. It's such a weird cycle he has. He seems cursed!!! I don't think he'd have found it entirely despairful when Ai's reached out to him to come see their kids. It wasn't a bad thing that's happened to him- well, when that happens to him, SHE DIES. Nothing good happens to this guy. It gets reaped away before he can fully enjoy it. and he still manages to be so tender; it's kind of incredible how he can still be like this actually. Do we ever see him lashing out to people? Not at all. He tends to them with a smile and is still polite... I wouldn't be surprised if he grew insane after all this but he doesn't seem like a maniac. He just seems to be really depressed and hurt (yup but he could have still killed Yura o<-< let's see how the truth about that will be uncovered)

He really does seem like some type of benevolent god in nature. It's a strong part of him that doesn't seem to shift so easily. Him and Ai, they never gave up on love or tried to love people. They still treat other people pretty kindly;; And seeing how the story went, Ai really wanted to pull him out of his miseries. She probably WAS his friend or his partner or even his wife when they were both gods, if they were one.

EHHH?? and I just looked it up, Amaterasu(related to Ruby) and Sarutahiko(husband of the god of entertainment and the god of "bright lights") and Ame-no-Uzume(the goddess of entertainment) all seem to be interlinked one way?? Huh??

Here's what I found in the page I just linked:

"SARUTAHIKO-NO-O-KAMI who is in charge of all things on the Earth (everything inside the atmosphere) as the ancestor Kami of all Earthly Kami and carries the great mission to teach mankind and lead/guide us into balance with Divine Nature.

SARUTAHIKO-NO-O-KAMI cannot produce anything by himself. Equally important is the Divine Female Power of AMENOUZUME-NO-MIKOTO in all things we need the balance of IN/YO (yin/yang, uchiki/sotoki).

The plan for all things in Nature (including human beings) was made by AMATERASU OMIKAMI (Kami of Sun, Taiyo-source of life, leader of Ten-no-Kami [Heavenly Kami]), but the mission to supply the actual guidance is entrusted to SARUTAHIKO-NO-O-KAMI."

All three of these gods that I believe are related to these three characters do something regarding the balance of nature.

So if there's SOMETHING that's been trying to get at him, and make every part of his life miserable to resort in something that'd corrupt him (and you see, doing so to HIM alone wasn't enough to make him take aggressive action. It had to take the death of his lover to make Hikaru do things that'd make him be so.) It'd disrupt the balance of the world. That's some serious stuff that'd make the gods themselves to act, right? Tsukuyomi says in 144 that there's the god who's created the world. They must be the most powerful god of all, right? In any case, they'd definitely NOT want this to happen.

The hoshino twins have some sort of mission assigned from the gods, no?(ch 75?) They are born with destinies? (ch3)

I have a feeling the reason they are reincarnated have to do with their parents. The fact that they are specifically chosen as Ai and Hikaru's children should be important, and their mission doesn't seem to have been completed yet.

Their dad is in danger. For a while now too. Their mom wants them to help him. Well, he's probably turned a new leaf and he decided to turn himself in, but is this really everything there is? Is this going to be it?? When there are CLEARLY gods that are involved in the story watching the twins and guiding their fate?? So yeah.

If Ai is the god "who loves people", then she's probably not in good terms with the third god that's mentioned, "the god who loves absurdity and unreasonableness", that one is actively hurting her husband and it's ruined her peaceful life with her kids too. I think it's that god that's going out of line, and it must be stopped from causing even further harm. I think "the god who loves people" blesses people with white stars and gives people the power to thrive in the entertainment industry(Ame-no-uzume is the entertainment god) I'm not sure what god would be the third one, is there a Japanese god with that sort of nature? Well, that one must be the one responsible for the black star. That one's probably the real mastermind behind everything, and why Tsukuyomi's come to the human world. Probably under the creator god's orders. She'll need Amaterasu(Ruby) and Maybe Susanoo(Aqua), her sibling gods, to help her bring order and restore balance.

I feel that's why gods are mentioned and are brought up time to time in this story, they must be important... it must have to do with Aqua and Ruby's destiny... It works with the songs too.. and how Ai wants to save her boyfriend...

so let me throw this out there!! I think this can be it!!!

+ ADDING ON:

Do you think this might actually be true? I’m being serious; the more I look into mythology, the more I see similarities between the relationship of Amaterasu and Ame-no-Uzume and the relationship between Ruby and Ai.

Ame-no-Uzume is a goddess who has a husband and is often mentioned together with him. Her husband happens to be the god of bright lights. When I looked up more about him, I found out that he’s a god who leads beings with goodness. This kind of explains Hikaru’s personality in many ways. His character is incredibly kind, almost to a strange degree. Even though there's some ambiguity in his actions and we still don't know enough about him, it makes sense to believe his personality remains consistent with how he was depicted in the past from his recent actions.

The god of light or earth gods are usually associated with order. In Norse mythology, for example, Balder (or Baldur), who is the god of light, was the most righteous god and had never told a lie, making him a noble god. When he died, it triggered a great chaos in the world, marking the beginning of Ragnarok. In myths, "light" is usually associated with order/rules, which is the complete opposite of "absurdity and unreasonableness."

I just found out today that the couple Ame-no-Uzume and Sarutahiko were assigned by Amaterasu to maintain the balance of the world. What if the god of absurdity and unreasonableness, who corresponds to the black star, saw these two who had become human and thought, “This is my chance,” and tried to completely ruin their lives? Ai ends up dying, Hikaru falls into despair. If he fully falls into that god’s grasp and becomes corrupt, it would disrupt the balance of the world as planned by that god. That’s why Tsukuyomi was dispatched by the creator god to stop this. Tsukuyomi then calls upon the divine powers of her sibling gods, Susanoo and Amaterasu, and grants those powers and destinies to the two souls she cherished and wanted to give another chance at life. Since they’re people who loved Ai, it would also be a good connection for Ai, the god who loves people. In this sense, Tsukuyomi is really looking out for them. Aqua and Ruby might be resenting this god, but to them, she’s actually their benefactor. Remember when she asked, “Why do you hate me so much?” She's actually really helping them a LOT.

If the story unfolds like this, it means Kamiki has been enduring these absurd events without fully understanding why for at least 20 years (and it seems his family situation was a mess even when he was much younger so that makes it his entire life having lived as human), all while maintaining some level of goodness. He hasn’t fully fallen into corruption yet. That’s why there’s still a chance for him. The fact that his character seems almost ridiculously kind when he appears, if it’s like this, it actually makes sense.

I think Ai, who is really a god who loves people, caused Hikaru into the human world after she hopped in in eagerness. That’s why Ai subconsciously felt drawn to Hikaru, worrying about him and caring for him so much, to the point where they almost became married... because they were originally a married god couple. I think the story would work well if it develops in this direction!!

If this kind of theory were completely far-fetched and nonsensical, there shouldn’t be any mention of gods at all. But instead, they keep being referenced, even in the later parts of the story. Honestly, I hope there’s something to this. Otherwise, why did Tsukuyomi even appear? Why are gods being mentioned at all? The protagonists are said to have a mission, but we don’t know what it is!!!

Looking at Ai’s traits, she represents the "love of the star", right? She definitely seems like "the god who loves people". And there’s this idea that there are gods who don’t know they’re gods. Ame-no-Uzume must be Ai, and because that goddess has a husband god, it'd mean Hikaru is a god too. If you look at the songs, there are hints about this!! And there’s a being that’s trying to corrupt him. That being likely caused Ai’s death, manipulating him into taking extreme actions with the intent of seeing her again. That must be the black star.

Ai managed to defend her man against that. Impressive.

I think this makes for a pretty good narrative! That would mean Aqua and Ruby have saved the universe!! They’ve protected the balance of the world!! XD Since making the movie was something beneficial to Tsukuyomi as well, she ended up helping them, and through the movie, they managed to turn Hikaru’s heart around. Tsukuyomi is probably Ai’s friend. She could be an acquaintance of both Ai and Hikaru. So she probably wanted Ai’s love to be properly conveyed to the people Ai loved, while also trying to save her fellow god who had gone astray. That’s why she’s involved. Doesn’t that make sense?

Now that Hikaru hasn’t fully fallen into corruption, maybe the god behind the black star will finally step forward? Isn’t that god the final boss?? Is this getting too fantasy-like? But... if so, then they shouldn’t have included fantasy elements in the first place...

Doesn’t this story make more sense this way? Explain why things turned out like this?

Yes, that’s right! I’m throwing this idea out there! I don’t think there’s absolutely nothing to it!! There’s definitely something here. Something related to the gods.

[discjude]

it is literally 4 in the morning and I can't fully articulate this but like. I spent a whole lot of time trying to work out who the "third" in Rise + Fall is (given the 'two works well, three complicates things' rule in Fall) mostly because its the sort of thing that works really well for parallels (example: my insane Hook theory). Obviously there has to be a Third for the Prequels twins (since Soman wouldn't've made it that big of a deal if there wasn't), just as there is a third for the TSY and TCY twins: Tedros is the Third in TSY, and the Complicator Of Things himself - Aric - is the Third in TCY, but there's a lot more candidates for Prequels: you could make cases for Hook, the Pirate Captain, Pan, and Vulcan, from my memory. But none of them really stay around long enough for them to be the third, so I was struggling to pick one out that worked well.

Based on how the Rule Of Three is described, the Third has to be someone that gets in the way of two others, who are going to be the twins, and needs to do a significant amount of Complication. Aric is literally the blueprint for this (potentially also Evelyn, but also not Evelyn, for Reasons). So anyway looking back on it the Third in Rise and Fall is SO OBVIOUSLY the Storian itself and im mad I didn't clock this earlier

It's present through both prequels, where most of the other candidates aren't. It DEFINITELY gets in the way and DEFINITELY does some significant Complication, looking at the end of Fall. If I were to reach slightly, the first image we see in Rise and Fall is of the Storian physically between the brothers, mirroring how it ends up coming between them emotionally, and I like to think that's intentional (Book 2's cover does this as well).

More importantly, there's another part to the Rule Of Three pattern with the sets of twins that isn't explicitly stated, but is consistent between all three: the Third always replaces one twin to form the Two with the other. in TSY, this happens with Tedros and Agatha (predominantly). In TCY, this happens with Aric and Japeth - this is why Evelyn can't be the TCY third in my opinion, since she doesn't replace either twin, and breaks this pattern. in Rise and Fall, this happens with the Storian and Rafal. There isn't really a pattern to whether the Good/Evil twin gets replaced, unless you want to go into some very very very bit leaps ive thought about regarding the whole "was Rhian II evil or good before becoming Rafal, and does that also affect Japeth doing the same thing" thingy but I could not fully explain that stuff ever. There is probably so much more nuance I could add to this if only I reread TSY but that will happen Some Other Time