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“However vast her narcissism, the Young-Girl doesn't love herself, what she loves is "her" image, that is, something that is not only foreign and exterior to her, but that possesses her, in the full sense of the word. The Young-Girl lives under the tyranny of this ungrateful master.” (Theory of the Young-Girl, Tiqqun)
#male gaze#film#femcel#jennifer’s body#Pearl 2022#x 2022#bones and all#Helter Skelter 2012#black swan#theory of the young girl#tiqqun
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Theory of the Young-Girl poasting
Chapter One: The Young-Girl as Phenomenon
#girlblogging#original content#theory of the young girl#theory of the it girl#quotes#book quotes#love quotes#it girl#it girl theory#theory#waif#red scare
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#i thought they named the girl penny#but then read the captions again and they just mentioned penny#but in my cannon they did name the girl penny okay#leonard being the sons name is so cute#look at amy getting her wish for 2 kids#im not crying you are#my heart#tbbt#the big bang theory#shamy#sheldon x amy#amy x sheldon#sheldon cooper#amy farrah fowler#love#jim parsons#young sheldon#mayim bialik#11x16#living out their married dreams
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M'lady, doth this harlot bother thee?
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#yu ziyuan#wang lingjiao#jinzhu#yinzhu#I just want to take a moment to shine a spotlight on YZY's maids.#I fully admit to forgetting about them until I was looking up female characters in mdzs for the Six AU and saw their names.#For characters who play a small role in the story I sure do rotate the little morsels of info we know about them in my head.#We know they came from the Yu sect along with YZY and described as 'young women' so did they likely were young when they left#And we know that YZY favours them immensely (to the point she lets them speak a lot more freely than she does her own children)#And they in turn are extremely loyal to herand very skilled fighters.#So what's up with that dynamic? Who are they to her? Who are they to each other? Who are they as individuals?#My theory is that they were initially servant girls YZY took in and trained (hence the whip proficiency)#I also very much love the idea of this double standard; that YZY has these surrogate 'children' she favours over her own#to shadow JFM's affection for WWX (child who is not his own).#Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli just keep losing!!!#Anyways I just think we should hoist jinzhu and yinzhu up more. I think they have minor character swag and potential.
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holly wheeler - who/what are you? an informal post about all of the holly oddities I've discovered so far.
where do I even begin with this one? I'm just going to jump into it and show you all the weird connections I've found that mostly relate to holly-el/jane, holly-alice and holly-sarah. I have no real conclusions so far so I invite everyone to take a look and share their thoughts.
oddity one: the hair
All four are blonde girls, and three have pigtails or twin braids, reminiscent of rabbit ears.
oddity two: the rabbits
terry ives' home, inside what should have been jane ives' room:
holly wheeler and her rabbit lite-brite:
alice creel and the dead rabbit:
And why the rabbits? Well, they're all a reference to Alice in Wonderland. The first rabbit in the painting in Jane's room is just literally the rabbit from AIW, fitted with a pocketwatch.
Alice in Wonderland:
Just check out #whiterabbitgate for more on the two above, the song 'White Rabbit' is also connected to El and just general HNL activities.
The Rainbows:
(above is the Terry Ives flashback from season two)
Holly's outfit in Season 5 is incredibly colourful and there are at least 3 different rainbow items inside her room.
The Flowers:
^ Holly even has yellow red and blue flowers on her bicycle basket.
My questions have already been: why is Vecna/Henry seemingly interested in her enough to not only lure her but continue 'playing' with her for multiple scenes? Why is Holly suddenly relevant?
I'm also a BTVS fan, and the idea of a younger sister suddenly introduced had me thinking of Dawn. Dawn was Buffy's younger sister introduced suddenly in Season 5 (literally out of nowhere) - until it turned out that she wasn't a fully real person, but a powerful energy turned into a human that was sent to the Summers' house where they would protect her. She never existed until she was fourteen, but they all believed she had with false memories. Furthermore, she becomes the target of that season's villain which Buffy has to protect.
So then we get to Holly's room:
Most notably for this post are ALF and the 'A Royal Pain' book. Let me just show you the plot summaries for both, starting with ALF:
I initially thought the ALF reference was just a reference to El (and it very much could be a dual thing). But considering the strangeness.... and the parallels that are coming to light between them.
A Royal Pain:
There has already been baby-switch precedent in the show. In fact it's a major theory about Jane Ives and El - that they aren't the same child. But when it's been specifically brought up, it's been in relation to the Wheelers. Karen, was your other daughter swapped in the hospital? Or something even crazier?
I'll get to more when my ideas are less of a mess. But there's also something interesting @bylerposting has brought up - the way that Mike has this whole interesting out of place dialogue with El.
But what if it wasn't about El - what if it was also subtext for Holly? She came into the family even though she wasn't a biological daughter. The Wheelers were like her new parents, and Nancy was like her new sister.
And there's so much more I'm thinking of but can't get to right now, like Holly with the lights and her perception of the supernatural before others sense it. I just want to get this ball rolling for real.
#this post is a MESS im so sorry#holly wheeler#el hopper#jane ives#alice creel#sarah hopper#(maybe less so)#whiterabbitgate#the wheelers#stranger things#something is WEIRD with the young girls in this show#but yeah uh. what if holly isnt a wheeler#biologically#st5 theory#st5 speculation
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Analyzing DRDT's Ch2 Motive Diction
The fuck do I think I am, a time traveler? Why am I posting a theory about DRDT's Chapter 2 motive secrets now that Chapter 2 is finally complete? What's even the point in analyzing a motive that's over and done with?
Well, believe it or not, this is actually a theory I wanted to write before Chapter 2 Part 2 came out, I just never got around to it. And now we have more confirmation as to which secrets actually go where! So, really, it's all according to keikaku.
The point of this theory is to look at the language used in presenting the motive secrets, and see what it can tell us about both the secret's owner, and possibly the mastermind/whoever wrote them. What subjectivity did the writer inject into the secrets' phrasing, and could any of the secrets be better or worse than we originally thought? Put on your best scrutinizing glasses, and we'll take a look!
The usual CWs for Chapter 2 motive discussion: death, suicide, eating disorders, self harm, and implied homophobia/transphobia. Oh, and spoilers for DRDT through the end of Chapter 2, naturally.
Also as usual, I'll be assuming that all of the secrets are correctly attributed as they were in canon, other than that Xander and Teruko have swapped such that Xander has survivor's guilt and Teruko has the killing game is all your fault. I'm gonna look like a real fool some chapters down the line if I'm wrong about that, but I feel like most of the fandom has consensus agreed that this is the case.
I'll be dissecting the words of each secret through the lenses of the three Fs-- factual truth, flavored truth, and forced opinion. If those categories aren't as inherently comprehensible as they could have been due to my want for a snappy moniker, let me explain them further.
Factual truth is just that-- a literal statement that must be taken at face value. Under the assumption that all of the secrets are the truth (and it's not that J isn't actually Mariabella's daughter or whatever), there isn't much to be analyzed here. The writer presented the story with no flavor.
"You are reading a DRDT theory."
Flavored truth comes in two main forms. The first refers to emotional truths. Someone's secret describes that they feel a certain way about a certain event. It's likely base-level true, but do they feel that way due to their own opinion, or were they forced to feel that way due to someone else's opinion? And, what exactly does that opinion mean?
"You were happy to read a DRDT theory."
The other option is for when what's written is factual truth, but overlaid with a weird emotional layer. Said layer might make the truth feel overexaggerated, therefore implying a subjective take on the subject. Basically, it's anything that logistically should have been factual truth, but that subjectively I felt had something more to it.
"You prioritized reading DRDT theories over your other responsibilities."
Combined, purple means fact-adjacent, but with a little something injected into it.
Forced Opinion is content injected directly from the writer's perspective, and it's what initially caught my eye and got me thinking about writing this analysis. There are a couple of instances in which the writer speaks directly to the reader without feeling the need to provide any level of verifiable fact. These statements exist only to convey the writer's desired tone.
"Why do you even enjoy DRDT theories?"
Some secrets use only one of these Fs, some use two, and some use all three. On that note, we'll be examining the secrets in reverse spiciness order, with the most straightforward secrets first and the most interesting ones saved for last. So, who has the most sauceless secret?
Charles
"Your older brother died, but you don't remember him at all."
Okay Elliot fans, don't kill me for inadvertently calling your boy sauceless.
It's not that Charles' secret doesn't contain intriguing information, but that the way in which that secret is presented doesn't tell us anything about the person who wrote it. It's not phrased as "how could you have forgotten your dead older brother?" or anything as dramatic as that. Both phrases are presented in a manner devoid of emotion or judgment. They're just two facts!
Rose
"You took on your talent to earn money for your family. But you've since put them in a lifetime of debt."
"Lifetime of debt" feels kind of accusatory, but it is true when the sum total is in the millions of dollars. I think this could have been written a lot more judgmentally than it was, which is why I ultimately left it as factual truth.
Whit
"Your mother is dead. You always omit that truth."
The use of "always" in "always omit that truth" could be called into question, but based on Whit's behavior so far, it seems to be pretty straight up. Honestly, if anything, I think the bluntness of this statement speaks more to the writer's opinions and goals than anything else.
J
"You hide your name and birthright to pretend that you aren't the daughter of Mariabella Rosales."
"Birthright" is defined as "a particular right of possession or privilege one has from birth," if anyone was curious. With the way our society is set up, J should inherit a large amount of money and soft power just by being Mariabella's daughter, so I think this is legit. It has a bit of an emotional tone of superiority to it, but nothing drastic.
Arei
"Blackmail, rumors, lying, stealing, slander. You did everything you could to ruin your sisters' lives."
Ooh, our first instance of flavored truth. We're welcoming it in with a pretty bland example, though-- one that I went back and forth on for a while with whether it should count as factual or flavored.
Ultimately, I decided that, if we hadn't had Arei spell out her backstory and secret for us, I'm sure I would have been speculating about what "ruin your sisters' lives" really meant, and to what degree it was true. I shouldn't disqualify purple text from being purple text just because it was proven true. However, because this really was proven to be Arei's main motivation, we can basically take it as fact.
Levi
"You're a murderer, and you hold no remorse."
A secret which obviously has both a factual and an emotional component, but is also pretty straightforward in how it presents that emotional component.
When I was originally scheming up this theory (before it was revealed to be Levi's), one of my big talking points was going to be about how the divide in this secret opened up the possibility for it to actually be two secrets in one: that the secret's owner was both a murderer, and, separately, held no remorse. That turned out to more or less be true, which was fun!
Eden
"Ever since you kissed her, you were afraid your sexuality would ruin your friendships."
Eden's secret has a pretty obvious factual part-- that she kissed a girl (and she liked it)-- and a pretty obvious emotional component-- that she was afraid it would ruin her friendships.
Much like Levi or Arei, the emotional component is very likely accurate. In this case it's not very dramatized: they didn't go as far as to say "ever since you kissed her, you knew it was a matter of time before your friends would leave you" or anything along those lines. Still, as an emotion-based secret, so there's always room for debate.
Ace
"Your body is falling apart, but you'll still refuse to eat."
"Your body is falling apart" is (probably) a fact, but it feels really emotional. That "probably" is what sold me on this needing to be purple, though. It's hard to say how much Ace's body really was falling apart prior to his death. I'm sure the situation wasn't great, but we know that Ace was still capable of overpowering Arei, lifting ~60 pounds, launching a slingshot, and cutely climbing up swingsets on top of the running, swimming, and general obstacle-course-ing featured in his execution. Ace surely wasn't healthy, but "falling apart" seems like a bit of an exaggeration, based on the knowledge we currently have.
If nothing else, the "but" and "still" paint a picture of Ace being aware that his body is malfunctioning but choosing to limit his calorie intake anyways, which is an emotional layer far beyond the likes of a blunt "you have an eating disorder."
Nico
"No one accepted you because of your identity. You were constantly mocked by your family, your peers, and everybody else."
Does this highlighting make sense to people? Nico being bullied for being nonbinary is (sadly) the truth, but there's a lot of emotional coding to it that isn't necessarily 100% accurate. Like, is it really true that no one Nico met previously ever accepted them? I'm not going to pretend like there aren't deeply transphobic places out there, but "constantly mocks" further makes it sound like not only did everyone hate them, everyone did so physically and/or vocally, as opposed to simply judging in silence.
The weirdest thing about Nico's secret to me is that the writer took what otherwise could have been a factual secret and turned it into a largely emotional one. The only straight up fact we can garner from this is "Nico was mocked by their family and peers because of their identity." What happened to "people threw rocks and laughed at you because of your identity"? That would have been a (more or less) concrete fact that illustrates the exact same idea. But instead, the writer went all in on dramatizing that everyone was against Nico. Is there a reason for that?
Veronika
"You only took on your talent to distract yourself from your incessant need to harm yourself for fun."
Veronika's secret is kinda like Nico's plus Ace's, so it's nice to be able to put it here. Like Nico's, it interweaves factual truth and flavored truth in a way that makes distinguishing between them uncertain. And, like Ace's, it deals with a factual mental illness combined with its subjective motivations.
The core truth of this secret is "you took on your talent to distract yourself from your need to harm yourself," which is what can be seen in blue. However, that has very different implications than "you only," "incessant," and "for fun" add. Of the three, I would rank "incessant" as the most factual, "you only" as the least factual," and "for fun" in the middle.
I do think that Veronika's need to harm herself did feel incessant, but whether it was really for fun is up for debate. It's even more debatable whether distracting herself from self-harm was her ONLY reason for becoming a horror fanatic, as there are many other potential motivators out there, such as a genuine interest in the craft, or even the generalized boredom Veika describes as opposed to just the self-harm angle. In the end, I don't know how helpful making that distinction is for Veronika, but I'll throw it out there.
Arturo
"Your younger sister killed herself because of you. You never should have left."
Our first instance of forced opinion marks where things really start to get juicy. Although, uh, before you interpret my analysis in a way I didn't mean, just because something is marked as opinion doesn't mean it isn't an opinion I agree with. If Arturo sticking around would have saved Felicity's life, then, yeah, he probably shouldn't have left. However, in essence, "you never should have left" isn't a fact, it's an opinion-- one that prioritizes Felicity's life over whatever benefits Arturo gained from running away.
Again! I would also prioritize Felicity's life over whatever motivation Arturo had, assuming that they wouldn't have just, like, both died if he'd stuck around. However, the fact that I hold that opinion tells you something about me and my beliefs. I'm someone who holds the popular opinion of valuing others' lives. And therefore, from the pink text, we can also surmise that the secret writer values others' lives, or at least is willing to leverage that common opinion in order to make others feel guilty.
The only concrete fact present in Arturo's secret is that his younger sister killed herself. The idea that she did so because of Arturo, to some extent, is probably true, but it's based on the emotions of a person that the secret writer probably never even met. Especially when combined with the pink text, the secret gives the vibes of repeating Arturo's dark thoughts back to him to make him feel even worse about the situation. The writer's embellishments of a simple fact were designed to hurt Arturo.
Hu
"You were quite the hopeless child. Dying once wasn't enough, so you attempted suicide three times."
Hu attempted suicide three times: true. Hu's emotional state while doing so was pretty abysmal: yeah, probably. Dying once wouldn't be enough to counteract what she did: ????????
Much like Arturo's, I imagine that the pink text in this case is supposed to mirror an emotional "truth" that Hu holds in her heart. Still, I can't call it anything close to a "fact," given that it's completely based on individual interpretations of penance and morality. And it's an absolutely buckwild thing to say, especially while providing no context as to why anyone would hold that opinion.
It's hard to know what further motives the writer may have had beyond making Hu feel bad when we don't know what Hu did that made her feel as if she needed to die. For instance, if Hu accidentally killed her childhood friend, then we could use that as a data point that the writer was harsher towards murderers. Or, if it was putting her family into financial trouble, we could contrast how the writer treated Rose's secret versus Hu's. However, as we currently have no leads on what Hu's done that she needs to pay for (as her secret quote tells us), there's nothing more to be gained here.
Min
"You always treated the competition with ruthlessness, but poisoning them to win was a bit too far, wasn't it?"
One interesting facet of Min's secret is that it contains one of the most obvious uses of the writer injecting their own opinion into the secret. Like, the entire secret isn't even a statement, it's a rhetorical question. You can feel the writer raising their eyebrow at Min challengingly.
Once again, the pink text is being used to judge and/or shame Min for what she did. I really can't see any other purpose for the pink text beyond doing that.
Xander
"You're constantly blaming yourself for the death of your parents and siblings. It doesn't matter that it's not your fault, just that you didn't go with them."
An even more interesting facet of Xander's text is that this is the only instance in which the pink text is... sort of nice? I mean, not really, as it's still majorly playing to his survivor's guilt in a way that I'm sure would have made him feel awful had he ever read it.
No, what I'm talking about is the "it's not your fault" aspect. I really struggled with which of the Fs to assign to it. From Visiting Graves, it seems like the cause of Xander's family's death was drinking unpotable water, which was likely infected by the Spurlings. Therefore, factually, it isn't his fault, and should be blue.
However, Xander certainly feels like the weight of his family's death was on his shoulders. His secret quote defines his "feelings of guilt for having survived a catastrophe in which others died," and he says in the Bonus Episode itself that "the worst part of it all was that [he] wasn't there." Technically, Xander's family's death being his fault is subjective-- no matter what Unnamed Student says, we can never know for sure that he couldn't have done something if he was there. He is an Ultimate, after all. For those reasons, I felt like maybe the immense emotional connection for Xander should make those words purple.
But then I thought, if the secret was supposed to reflect Xander's beliefs, it would say that the incident was his fault. The writer breaks form in this secret. As opposed to Arturo, Hu, and possibly Min (we don't technically know how she feels about the incident, but I'd imagine that she would agree it went too far), instead of judging the secret's owner in a way that appears to mirror the way that they judge themselves, the writer goes against what Xander would say of himself, injecting their own opinion. That's weird.
Of course, I could definitely be blowing this out of proportion. It could just be that Xander acknowledges that, factually, the incident was not his fault, and therefore he would actually agree with the "it's not your fault." Furthermore, the writer still follows this up with the "just that you didn't go with them," which matches with their usual judgmental attitude. They can't be that soft on Xander when they're still saying it would have been better if he died.
Still. You'd think that the writer would want to play up Xander's insecurities that he was at fault for his family's deaths. If Xander were alive and the motive had been handled properly, Xander would have picked up a paper that told him that his family's deaths were explicitly not his fault. Is that really what MonoTV would have wanted?
David
"You exist to manipulate others. Everyone else exists to be taken advantage of."
You might be surprised to see David's secret all the way down here, given how relatively simple it is. Just like Charles' secret, it's two pretty blunt statements, and it's all written in one color. The difference is that literally nothing in this secret is objective fact.
Disregarding 1) any arguments of determinism ("David was always destined to be a manipulator because he has no free will") and 2) the possibility that this is a soft confirmation of DRDT being in-universe fictional characters ("David was always destined to be a manipulator because he, as a character, is reading his scripted lines"), there is genuinely no way to historically or scientifically verify anything that's said in these secrets. It's based on emotions and emotions alone.
But, whose emotions are they? David certainly believes this to some extent, given that his admission that he's a "lying, manipulative, scumbaggy piece of shit." The sentence "everyone else exists to be taken advantage of" is really aggressive, and, in combination with his Ch2 heel turn, it's very easy (and potentially correct) to believe that these are David's home-brewed feelings.
However, keep in mind the writer's propensity for intentionally stirring up the secret holder's most hurtful thoughts (like Hu) and things they'd rather forget (like Arturo). There's nothing in the secret itself that tells us that David enjoys being destined to be a manipulator, even if he believes in that idea.
David: You were right. I'm a good for nothing liar. But I call those lies "motivational speeches" and everyone eats it up.
Much like how the secret itself could be David's opinion or someone else's, we don't know which parties hold the opinion that David is a "good for nothing."
Look, I'm not trying to say that David has done nothing wrong in his entire life, even if villain apologism is my side hustle. I just think it's important to ask ourselves what entity is declaring this secret as "fact," considering that nothing about it is actually provable. At the very least, it's sure hard to accurately tell the group the exact contents of your secret when it's not based on anything factual.
Arei: Why did you lie about your secret? David: I'm sorry? I don't quite understand.
(Can you tell I was convinced to finally put this theory to paper whilst working on a David analysis...?)
On that note, though, I'll leave further speculation about David for another post, lest I go too far down the rabbit hole here. I just think there's a lot of room for interpretation when it comes to the manipulator secret.
Teruko
"How could I even select what secret to make your motive? Just about everything you've done in your life is worth killing for. The killing game is all your fault."
And, surprising no one, Teruko's secret is at the very bottom. I don't even know where to start with this one.
We'll start at the beginning, I suppose-- Min's secret has one of the most obvious examples of the writer injecting their own opinion into the secret's text; this is the other. They even both have rhetorical questions! Twinsies :D
The first sentence has legit nothing to do with the "factual" contents of the secret at all. The entire sentence is 100% the writer's opinion. They even refer to themselves with the "I" pronoun!!! And the second sentence isn't much better. What's regarded as "worth killing for" is entirely up to the reader's opinion, and "just about" is incredibly vague. Is what Teruko's done 80% worth killing for? 90%? 100%, with a single exception?
I've also always thought that "killing for" was a weird choice. It should be "killing over," right? Killing for is like, "oh, I'd kill for a sandwich." Generally, it's seen as a positive thing, something you really want. If Teruko's life is worth killing for, that would put Teruko's life in place of the sandwich (lol). AKA, "oh, I'd kill for Teruko's life." Given what we know of Teruko's life-- that she's faced being orphaned, poverty, extreme injuries and more-- it's hard to imagine that anyone would willingly want that for themselves.
However, there are two ways I thought of to explain the word choice that don't involve assuming that the phrasing got messed up. The first is that the writer really covets Teruko's capacity to survive. As Teruko herself told us, she's the Lucky Student, so she can't die. "Kill for" could indicate that, despite all of the hardships Teruko has faced, the writer still believes that Teruko's constitution makes her life enviable and/or desirable.
The other is the more literal interpretation: that whatever Teruko has done has made others want to kill on her behalf. We already saw this once with Min, who felt compelled to attack Xander if it meant potentially saving Teruko's life. There's also our usual throughline from Prologue Hands Guy that ending the killing game and killing Teruko might be linked. Therefore, conversely, if there's anyone out there who's interested in the continuation of the killing game(s)-- XF-Ture Tech?-- it might stand to reason that they would be willing to kill in order to keep Teruko alive.
Both of these interpretations struggle with the lead-in of "just about everything you've done in your life," though. It's because both of them directly relate to Teruko's luck, which to me seems less like what she's done and more like who she is. But, the origins of Teruko's luck are undefined enough that I don't think I can use that to shoot either possibility down.
On to "the killing game is all your fault." I was tempted to make this sentence entirely pink, due to how likely it seems that this sentence is overexaggerated. Teruko is still a totally viable mastermind choice, to be clear. There are a lot of things that become a whole lot more convenient if Teruko is the mastermind, this secret included. However, if Teruko were a self-aware, despair-loving mastermind, why would she put a secret basically accusing her of such into the killing game?
You could argue that, if MonoTV were competent, no one would have seen this secret other than Teruko herself. It's still kinda weird to write that down for herself, though. It would have been a lot safer to just leave the secret off at "How could I even select what secret to make your motive? Just about everything you've done in your life is worth killing for." And, I don't think anyone who happened to see the secret would think too much of it. Perhaps Teruko wanted others to know she was the mastermind? If that were the case, why not correctly claim her secret when David asked her in 2-13?
(Once again, I really hope I'm right about this secret being Teruko's.)
In the end, I decided to just flag the "all" as being the writer's opinion, as an endeavor as grand and complicated as the killing game surely has more than one thing behind it. Every canon killing game, despite having a main instigator, had many other individuals aiding in its creation. And, the writer clearly has a vendetta against Teruko in this secret, so I'd be more surprised if they weren't overexaggerating her involvement to some degree.
However, "the killing game is your fault" remains in blue, even though we can't verify it to be true at the moment. If you recall, at the top, I decided to make the assumption that all of the secrets were true to at least some level, and this is where that kicks in for Teruko. Plus, if the writer (who is quite possibly the mastermind) believes that the killing game is at least partially Teruko's fault, then that's likely the case, no?
What Did We Learn?
Now that we're done with all of the secrets, let's turn it back to see if we can figure anything out about the writer. The ways in which secrets were handled can kinda be broken into tiers, like this:
Charles, Rose, Whit, and J all had 100% factual truth.
Arei, Levi, and Eden had some factual truth and some flavored truth, but the emotional truth was pretty easily verified as correct.
Ace, Nico, and Veronika had a mix of factual truth and flavored truth in a way where it was harder to parse what was feeling or fact.
Arturo, Hu, Min, and Xander had some factual truth, some flavored truth, and some forced opinion, all of which had some elements of assigning blame.
David and Teruko were struggling to present anything certifiably factual at all.
Meanwhile, if we try to categorize the secrets themselves:
Levi, Arturo, Min, and David all had secrets regarding harming others.
Ace, Veronika, and Hu all had secrets regarding harming themselves.
Rose, J, Arei, Charles, Whit, Arturo, and Xander all had secrets about their families, with the latter four relating to dead family members. (Levi also technically counts for this, but it's not explicitly mentioned in the secret.)
Eden and Nico have secrets relating to their identities and the crises they face because of them.
Teruko has a secret that's hard to define :/
What does this tell us? Well, honestly, not much. All of the people in the "straight facts" tier have secrets that relate to their families in non-violent ways, but that may just mean that the lower-stakes secrets were harder to dramatize. Everyone who dealt with a negative effect on a large group of people (Min with the competition, Xander with his large family and by extension town, David with... everyone, Teruko with those in a killing game) is near the bottom of the ranking, but it also follows that those with more grave secrets would face further scrutiny for it.
There's nothing as simple as "everyone whose secret referred to a death was harshly judged" or "everyone who harmed themselves was treated more kindly." Therefore, we can't really assign any of those straightforward beliefs to the writer. Alas.
However, assume with me for a moment that 1) the mastermind is the one who personally wrote out the secrets and 2) the mastermind of the killing game is one of its 16 contestants. Nothing too crazy, but those are both (kind of) assumptions.
(I know that, technically, MonoTV said "the real mastermind is one of you" at the end of the Prologue, which would mean that one of the 16 students has been confirmed to be the mastermind. However, I personally don't believe that's necessarily the case. You can read more about that in Mai's section of my (albeit outdated) Mastermind Ranking, if you wish.)
If the secret-writer is a mastermind hidden amongst the cast, that means that they must have written a secret about themselves. Which category would be the most likely category to find our mastermind in?
Well, the obvious answer is in the top tier, as they're the least suspicious. If you want to fly under the radar, give yourself a secret that won't be the talk of the town if it comes out of the bag. Veronika has already primed us to recognize that someone's secret doesn't have to be the worst thing they've ever done, which could be foreshadowing that we'll later learn that the mastermind's secret works the same.
In terms of the mastermind's specific identity, it's also interesting to consider which secrets had the most information packed into them. Most-if-not-all of these students attended Hope's Peak together as friends for a little while, but some were certainly closer than others. All of the secrets are secret, naturally, but to write a secret like David's, you have to know a lot about how his mind works, which implies closeness. The secrets that include something about how their owner thought or felt-- the "why," so to speak-- include Levi's, Eden's, Veronika's, Xander's, and David's. Conversely, you largely don't need to know anything about how Charles, Rose, Whit, J, Arei, Ace, or Nico thought or felt about their various circumstances, just that they happened. Arturo, Hu, Min, and Teruko are in sort of a weird place where the secret seems to reveal how they felt, but could also just be the writer feeling the same way.
In terms of the ones where you don't need to know anything, the results are a toss-up. You could argue that, if Whit were the mastermind, he could have hurt Charles way worse than he theoretically did, but you could also argue that Charles' secret was left more vague on purpose as a form of protection/favoritism.
However, the fact remains that, somehow, the person who wrote the secrets had to at least get into Levi, Eden, Veronika, Xander, and David's brains in order to transcribe how they felt about doing their various deeds. Who knows those five super well? Honestly, my first thought was Teruko, but it's also undeniable that a talent like David's or Whit's would lend itself well to understanding how others' minds work. And, of course, there's Mai, whose main talent thus far seems to be understanding others.
As a final note, I want to list a couple of secrets that I feel have anti-mastermind energy. Secrets you read and ask, "now, why would that person have written and released this information about themselves?" The level to which this is the case varies, but I'm going to include everyone I had the thought for. These people include:
Whit. Why would he tell everyone about a truth he prefers to omit?
J. Same thing: if she doesn't want everyone knowing she's Mariabella's daughter, why would she make that her secret? Why would she even create the opportunity for someone else to read that?
Eden. Less so than others (as, if she's in a supportive crowd, she might want this secret to get out), but if she's afraid of how people will treat her after learning she's a lesbian, why would she say it?
Nico. Same as Eden, basically.
Arturo. He really seems to want to forget this. Unless he's a mascohist-ermind (Ellis, is that you? /j /ref), I don't know why he'd remind himself, especially with such strong wording.
Teruko. Again, assuming she wants to keep this under wraps, why release that secret into the world?
You could also count Charles and/or Levi for this category. However, I decided that just because they seemingly forgot about the contents of their secret wouldn't mean that they would have no motivation to write it, which is really what I was judging.
Sorry if that wasn't as conclusive as you were hoping for! (/gen) If it were more conclusive, I probably would have made the theory earlier, or someone else would have had the same thought. As we learn more about the secrets in future installments like whether the Teruko/Xander swap thing is actually correct, these are the sorts of questions that I want to be keeping in mind.
And, of course, please take this analysis with a grain of salt! I always assume that everything in DRDT is 100% accurate to real-world logic because I really respect DRDTdev's storytelling. However, much like my note content analysis, I understand that going so far as to say "Charles can't be the mastermind because there's no way he'd know about how Veronika felt about her self harm" is quite possibly going too far. The most important facet of the secrets is that they made for an interesting story development, which they did! Any logic about how the in-universe secret-writer found out this information is just a cherry on top. But inspecting those cherries for quality is what we get up to 'round these parts.
Thank you for reading! And hopefully I'll find the time to write more DRDT stuff in the near future :)
#danganronpa despair time#drdt#fanganronpa#drdt spoilers#charles cuevas#rose lacroix#whit young#j rosales#arei nageishi#levi fontana#eden tobisa#ace markey#veronika grebenshchikova#nico hakobyan#arturo giles#hu jing#min jeung#xander matthews#david chiem#teruko tawaki#me stealing venus' role as a literature girl. i'm literary analysis girl now >:)#well not really a work of literature but the literature (diction) of a work. you know#i truly dropped the Fs so fast. RIP moniker#but you see why this needed to be its own post right. if i went off on this insane ramble near the start of my David analysis#that would have been. well. insane.#LITERATURE GIRL INSANE OHHHHHHHH-- (/j)#my theories
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the most unbelievable thing about blue exorcist to me is that rin didnt know about shiemi's existence at all. Like not at all?? I get yukio being able to lie and lead a double life but he never mentioned his childhood friend that he tutors like once a week? He was never in a situation where he was like 'oh i heard this from shiemi' not even a slip up??? Not even once??????? I feel like when rin met shiemi he shoulda known OF her at least.
#Like an 'ohhhh you're my brothers friend!' Situation even if he didnt know her name#Cuz yukio was pretty young when they met i don't think he was the lying prodigy he is now#My only explanation is that rin just forgot#But i feel like he wouldnt like if he knew his brother had a friend especially if she was a girl he would remember that#Tho i have had a theory that yukio is lying about being a good liar#He prolly messed up all the time and rin didnt press him cuz it didnt seem like his business#And like yukio was healthy and his father seemed cool with it so it must be fine (it was not)#blue exorcist#ao no exorcist#yukio okumura#rin okumura#shiemi moriyama
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Soyona Santos: "I am cold, calculated, and aloof. I don't care what common people think of me, only that my clients know I can be trusted to handle matters efficiently, and that my enemies and employees know I am not a woman to be crossed."
Also Soyona Santos: "DID YOU KNOW MY MOTHER WAS ON THE EXPEDITION THAT FOUND THE FIGHTING DINOSAUR FOSSILS IN MONGOLIA?!?!"
#you know she's been excited about that since she was a little girl#those were her bragging rights#her claim to fame#there's a fossil specimen with photographs of it in a thousand magazines and textbooks#and her mother was responsible for feeding the animals and refilling canteens on it#a true hero and legend to a young girl#and now with all her millions and her penthouse and her power and her art#all the wealth and confidence she's gained for herself#she still brags about what made her feel important as a child#soyona santos#she's done so many things but what is she genuinely proud of?#jwct#chaos theory
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What others want: El to be happy and accepting of Byler immediately.
What I want: DRAMA, ARGUMENTS, ACCUSATIONS, then acceptance.
#look I love the drama sorry#not sorry tho#I want peace and love in real life and drama chaos in the fictional worlds#working on an edit I might actually finish this time#and it’s SO juicy#it’s also kind of a theory edit#ramping up the drama to 1000#preview/hint: you made me look for him 👀#byler#stranger things#also depeche mode because they are to me what TS is to young girls#🤷🏼♀️
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Confession #166
#rwby#confessed by anonymous#really? I think its quite easy to understand where its coming from tbh#because when you have show like rwby - where when a new character gets introduced its most likely forgotten in the corner quite quickly#so its like okay damn I guess ill just think about how this character is cool as a concept/in theory#so we have Weiss who is one of the main characters and easily one of the best in the show#people often like exploring characters they like; her family; what are they like? how can they affect the story or other characters?#Whitley comes from the same background of being repressed like Weiss was but unlike her or Winter; he doesnt seem much like a fighter#how does that shape him? he cant use the same escape route as his siblings? I think it would make sense for him to be bitter#or maybe Whitley just needs a better PR team who are willing to come up with cute design for him and neat weapon lol#make him into a cute girl#give him a boyfriend#give him a voice inside his head to rival the other voice inside young boys head#make him summon edgar allan poe#man Im not going to beat the Whitley liking allegations after these tags
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I am very curious was it ever stated in the show that Karen was a victim of sexual abuse? Or is it just your theory? Or are you referring to that one time Jody went down on her while she was in a coma, because that was messed up
she says in season 3 when talking to lip outside that she was almost sex trafficked, and as you said, jody raped her while she was comatose and he also did it again in a deleted scene (that time she wasn’t comatose but she was still very brain damaged and a teenager). the entire relationship with jody was that because he was in his thirties and she was only sixteen, so it was statutory. and i don’t really count it but it’s worth mentioning frank told her that he liked it when she had sex with him… and that was fucking odd
#tw sa#as for a ‘theory’ tho i will say that a girl that sexually active at such a young age may find herself in that kind of situation#because she was definitely exploiting/oversexualizing herself from a young age#and it’s also just traumatic to be that sexualized- especially how her father treated her#not like eddie sa’d her it’s just the way he spoke of her was dehumanizing and misogynistic#and a lot of how she acted was because she was so hurt by that#shameless#karen jackson
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youtube
On this episode of the podcast, Ariel chats with Dr Tanis MacDonald about her upcoming course in winter 2025 on hopepunk. What exactly is so punk about this kind of hope? Can hopepunk even be said to be a genre in its own right, or is it an aesthetic or lens that we can use to think through just why the characters are deciding to have hope in bleak situations?
Tune in for recommendations of hopepunk novels (and poetry!), ruminations on political hope, the centrality of relationships and radical empathy to these stories, and more. Plus some academic theories informing the formulations of hope, of course.
Links:
Tanis MacDonald | Author of Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female
Watershed Writers with Tanis MacDonald | Podcast on Spotify
Hopepunk, explained: the storytelling trend that weaponizes optimism | Vox
Companion Species Manifesto
The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
S2.9 Reframing Narratives With Ecocriticism, With Dr Jenny Kerber
#solarpunk#Solarpunk Presents Podcast#podcast#podcasting#hopepunk#literature#hopeful#hope#hopeful books#teaching hopepunk#university English course#affect theory#emotions#hopeful literature#hopeful resistance#Simon Sort of Says#1984#Orwell's Roses#Letters to a Young Poet#Star Wars#Brown Girl in the Ring#Lord of the Rings#Anthropocene#radical empathy#choosing to care#political hope#choose hope#YA fiction#Science Fiction#Science Fiction and Fantasy
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Do you like sitcoms? Do you wish that there was more fan content for a particular show / pairing on ao3? Do you enjoy writing for a sitcom fandom?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, Sitcom Fanfic Month is for you! The goal is to have a month entirely dedicated to works regarding a variety of sitcoms — Age and popularity of the show do not matter.
The event will be primarily prompt based, each date of the month having specific prompts assigned to them for those who are interested with the weekends being for people to catch up on reading all that was posted during the week. However, we’ll also have free days for people that don’t wish to feel constrained by the limitations of a prompt!
This is currently a work in progress, but we hope to have an official announcement ready soon. Feel free to follow for updates!
#sitcoms#sitcom#fic fest#abbott elementary#brooklyn 99#b99#big bang theory#community tv#community#modern family#mofy#the good place#parks and rec#parks and recreation#the office#one day at a time#new girl#superstore#young sheldon#it’s always sunny in philadelphia#friends#friends tv
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After pondering on it for several days, I have officially decided I did not like the direction of KFP4 and have banished it from my brain. It is no longer canon. KFP4? What's that? Don't know what you're talking about.
#spoilers ahead#it wasn't all bad#I really truly loved the scenes with Li and Mr Ping they were wonderfully hilarious#and the music was great#BUT#I just did not like the direction they took Po's story at all.#and I'm kinda furious they subtly undermined Shifu's character#by making him “fine”/“not fine” with Oogway picking Po as his successor instead of him.#it was only a thing for 2 seconds for the sake of humor but it completely undermines his inner peace character development#first off why can there only be one successor#and second off why can't Po take primarily the fighting side and Shifu take the spiritual side#It FITS HIM#don't know if most people would notice that shifu's character was undermined but because he's one of my favorites I sure did and it HURT#also um the furious five WHY didn't we have them be the main characters with Po instead of the fox chick no one cares about#literally their interactions with Po that's WHY WE'RE HERE DREAMWORKS#also it's become really obvious to me that the fox girl was literally written just so they could cast a specific voice actress in a big rol#nothing against that actress I love her in other stuff but that was a bad move Dreamworks#and another thing#the movie's message about change not always being bad is perfectly fine and good in theory#but such character change is only satisfying from a storytelling perspective if the audience actually WANTS the character to change!!!#I don't WANT Po to stop being the dragon warrior! I don't WANT him to pick a successor! That wasn't satisfying!! like whyyyyyyyyy#Plus he's like way too young?? to be worrying about this??? Oogway didn't worry about it until he was literally 900 years old#Shifu is what in his 60s? 80s? and he hasn't picked one#why would they make shifu worry about po doing that any time soon literally at all#so there dreamworks#I banish this movie#I banish it for one thousand years#kfp4#kung fu panda 4#po kung fu panda
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