#they literally just took the exact same three protagonist ideas and repeated them into a new overarching plot

[rookflower]

i do find it really fucking funny how a lot of the bare bones of a starless clan are so blatantly rehashed from the broken code. what if they use the exact same pattern of "insecure boy, girl in forbidden relationship/love triangle with insecure boy, and traumatised medcat apprentice doing their own thing" in the next arc or five as well.

[janiedean]

Amazing how you can erase and twist everything someone says and not even bother to check things before launching in your 1000 words answer where you repeat the same things over and over again. When I say “Theon’s story is about destroying death”, I AM talking about his trauma and abuse. I’m not saying that Theon is a superhero, I’m saying that Theon’s story is literally about surviving and saying no to the dying of light, he’s always been trapped between life and death. How is that less meaningful than Jon being AA just because he’s special. Jon is stereotypical, not matter how much you deny it. He is the bastard son of the “good” Ned Stark that everyone seems to venerate, he becomes important, he’s actually a prince, and heir to the kingdom, he’s going to come back from the dead and apparently it’s not enough because he’s also AA. Also “I search for AA and see only Snow”, how is that not a red flag? Didn’t you think that it could be about Ramsay hiding Theon? I didn’t say that everything is about mythology and ancient literature, I said Theon has a lot of connections to it, connections that are hard not to notice, that actually make sense and are not taken out of nowhere like everyone in this fandom does. Theon’s story is about himself, not about Bran or any Stark, you’re just obsessed with throbb. Theon is connected to magic and to the gods, Theon is the rightful king of the Iron Islands, so why it’s so amusing to people when someone suggests that Theon has something to do. I’m not saying that Theon has to be important for his story to count, but why it’s so amusing to people the idea that Theon is an abuse and rape victim and at the same time he has something to do. When it comes to female victims, they want them to do great things, when it comes to Theon they constantly reduce him to poor say boy, but Theon is not like that, Theon is in pain and he wants everything to end, but he’s also angry and he wants to be free. I didn’t say that he has to explore the sea because he’s an Ironborn, you said that, not me. I think that that’s something Book!Theon would want to do if he survives everything. Because he would be free and he would go into the unknown. That’s not true Theon has no connection to the sea, the Drowned God himself wants him as king and he likes ships, there’s also the fact that he never learned how to use a ship because he was kidnapped at 10. Also what’s so wrong about him connecting with his culture? He could change things, he wouldn’t be a viking, he would be an explorer. The way you talk about it, it’s like dealing with trauma means closing himself in an house. And about the prophecy, what’s so amusing about saying that Theon has a lot that fits? I know that the prophecy is vague, but Davos and Stannis don’t come close to it as Theon does. Theon died in almost every possible way and managed to come back on his own. He keeps saying that he died in Winterfell. Read the last chapters in ACOK, it’s all there and it all happens at the same time, and still there’s so much more, so many things. And it’s like this HAS to be true, but you say no to everything, you don’t even think that he has something to do with the Iron Islands, you just think he has to “atone” to Bran, so how are you different from D&D? Theon doesn’t have to atone to Bran, Robb or anyone else called Stark, his story is about identity. And Bran is talking to Theon and yes, Theon took Winterfell, but it’s not the only reason their stories are connected, Theon taking Winterfell from Bran was a foreshadowing to them interacting in the future for different more important reasons, that was always clear to me

... anon never mind that I hadn't talked about this in ages so like you came into my inbox with some 500 words of replying at 8 am on a sunday morning and idk how *I* am supposedly twisting things when

you brought this out of nowhere

I hadn't talked about the AA thing nor anything wrt theon's ending in like... a year

you are basically making up half of what I said or didn't because like 'oh I didn't say he had a tying to the sea because he's an ironborn' but two lines later you say 'what's the issue if he reconnects with his ancestry' which.... means that he'd have a tie to the sea because he's an ironborn so what's the truth here

'you're obsessed with throbb' I didn't mention robb once in my entire answer nor throbb nor I have written throbb meta recently like... I ship throbb but I don't see how that has any relevance to an answer where I literally didn't mention it and I said theon's sl can't be just about the starks

idk why you seem to think I have great stakes re jon snow and 'he's stereotypical no matter how much you say he's not', I'm saying that for a chosen one archetype he's a deconstruction so he's not stereotypical in the way h*rry p*tter is or aragorn is or whatever and it's like objective text and honestly I have fic to write and stuff to do and I could have like completely ignored your ask and said 'I think you're wrong' instead yesterday I spent half an hour answering you like... you don't need to sound that aggressive or come at me with this entire block of text when I wasn't even the one starting this conversation

what’s so amusing about saying that Theon has a lot that fits?

anon I explained in those 1k reply or whatever all the reasons why everything theon has that fits is something every single other character has at that point dany has the exact same reasons for fitting it and I told you all the reasons why jon has extra things that fit that no one else has, like.... it's my opinion, I haven't changed my mind since 2012 on it, you aren't going to change it and no one is until grrm writes different, you don't need to convince me or look for me to validate your reading because you can have whichever reading you want and no one stops you, I just don't think it's correct, the end

The way you talk about it, it’s like dealing with trauma means closing himself in an house.

anon you keep on saying I say that but you are aware that if I say I want char X to get their little house in the village/woods/city of their choice and grow strawberries with their loved ones and be happy I'm not saying what you said and I'm talking abt endgame? jaime and brienne both also deal with trauma and when I say that I hope they get married on tarth have fifteen kids and never set foot in a court again I'm not saying having children is the only way to deal with trauma like.... one thing is the endgame one thing is how you get there, where did I say theon is gonna lock himself in a cottage in wow and stay there until ados? nowhere, like.... please a bit of chill here? you read a thing and arbitrarily decided it meant stuff it doesn't mean but I am the one twisting and erasing? like sorry but it sounds like you want a fight about it or smth and believe me fighting about who is AA is not on my list of to-do things for today, also 'I died in winterfell' is like... yeah, theon greyjoy died in wf then he became reek then he became theon again, it's metaphorical, jon literally died, also like if AA wasn't a main fiver then it'd probably be someone completely out of left field that no one gaf about and for that matter there's a character who has been dying and coming back to life who has a flaming sword since like acok, but do I see you telling me it's textual proof beric is AA? no, but that would make more textual sense than theon imvho so *shrug*

in short: anon sorry but it sounds like being that theon is your fave - which... I mean he's in my top three so I agree that he's a great fave choice - you want him desperately to have the main role in the main storyline which is imvho not the case and again... even if jon was stereotypical (which we can argue on but like... from your wording I think you hate jon ngl which fair enough everyone has their dislikes) it wouldn't make the textual evidence less evidence and like... idk how to say it nicely but not liking the protagonist is more common than not and if you don't whatever but that doesn't mean he's not and that the textual stuff indicating he has the mystical hero storyline doesn't exist, I'd suggest you make peace with that concept and with the concept that your fave doesn't need to have any specialness in their sl to be a legitimate fave, also like... in asoiaf everyone who is special™ has a shit life and when grrm says he wants a bittersweet ending like in lotr, do I have to remind anyone what was lotr's ending? samwise gamgee goes back to his little house and children and wife in the shire and says he's home and we're all happy that the dude who deserved it most got it great, if that's what he's aiming for I really don't think presuming everyone gets the magical great™ storyline is in the cards X°D but most of all: again, everyone who's had a sl being full of magic prophecies and shit in these books has had a crap life and hated every second of it that was related to those prophecies and I want theon to be happy at the end so in lack of any imvho text proof that says it's anyone but jon I'll stick with that because it means none of my faves is in line to hate their life, which is exactly what happens to jon if he's AA and exactly what I think is gonna happen and I don't particularly like that for him either bc I do want jon to have nice things but idt he'll get them, doesn't mean I'm trying to find any textual reason to decide on my own that AA is dany (a char I care a lot less about) so that she gets the brunt of it because that's now how it works, I made peace with it too X°D

[demaury]

the best of me (chap.1)

“If anything bad happens I flush the rings, I leave my bestman spot to Baz, and I fly back to Paris.“

OR. Eliott and Lucas have never worked up the courage to actually make a move, and thus spent years dancing around each other without ever acknowledging their feelings. However, an engagement party gone a little too wild, an hotel room and a very bad idea might be all it takes to make everything blow up. (read on ao3)

Lucas had never truly believed that marriage would be something that could happen to him.

Or to any of his friends, for that matter.

It was something vaguely intimidating, that they occasionally joked about but never took seriously enough to consider it. It’s not like we’re gonna get married, he would scoff whenever his friends showed any interest in the new protagonist of his dating life — who never stuck around long enough to even think about it anyway. Marriage wasn’t real. They were still in their twenties, they were still meeting up for predrinks and playing video games until ungodly hours.

Lucas often forgot to lock the door before going to sleep. He sometimes considered candies, potato chips or spoonful of Nutella to be actual meals. He had no idea what was a tax stamp, what was his social security number, who the hell was his emergency contact (did he even have one?), and on the last round of the Presidential Elections the weather was just too good to bother waiting in line to vote for people he didn’t even know — nor cared about. He hated wine, even the fancy ones, didn’t like Champagne, and sitting on a chair was a challenge in itself at work because his first instinct was always to twist his legs at weird angles. He had been gifted a Pikachu Onesie a couple of years ago as a joke present for his birthday and he sometimes liked to wear it during winter because it was warm and comfy and nobody had to know about it. He still cart-surfed down the empty aisle at the supermarket, still felt like the cashier judged him whenever he bought condoms, and he had survived a running nose for a full year because he had dragged taking a doctor appointment.

Marriage? No, not happening.

So there was really no logical reason as to why he would find himself buckling up, in a plane, on the way to Barcelona, one fine July morning. Well, at least he didn’t have any a week ago.

It was precisely two days after a wave of heat had fallen upon Paris. In the span of twenty-four hours, the thermometers had reached well over 30°C, and effectively turned Lucas’ flat, along all the other buildings in the city, in some sort of furnace where you had trouble breathing at all. He should have known that it was the sign that something very weird would happen. Last time there had been seven centimeters of snow was the same day he had found out one of his now-exes was sending nudes to someone else, and one particularly rainy evening, while the Seine was already overflowing its banks, his dad had called to tell him that he wanted him to meet his new girlfriend.

So technically, yes, he should have known something weird would happen, the very moment he had exited his air-conditioned office at 5 in the afternoon, only for the dry summer heat to hit him with the strength of a sledgehammer. Yet, it wasn’t until three hours later, when his best friend called him via Skype all the way from Barcelona, that Lucas started thinking something fishy was happening. And definitely, marriage was not on the shortlist of things he’d have thought about.

“You did what?” he had blurted out, nearly dropping the plastic spaghetti jar he had just picked up from the kitchen elements, spinning around to face his best friend through the screen with wide eyes.

“I proposed,” Yann had repeated diligently, very proud of the emotion he had just caused. “And Nola said yes.”

On the moment, Lucas hadn’t been sure of what to say.

A week later, he still had no idea.

Apparently, though, he was the only one, if everyone else’s reaction had been any indication. Ever since the others had received the news, boys and girls had all been literally buzzing. Basile and Arthur had created a groupchat five minutes after Yann had called them, to gather as many embarrassing material as it was possible to dig for whatever thing he had planned for the weeding, while Daphné had taken over the organization of the trip with Nola, since they had all been invited to celebrate with them in Barcelona for a three-day weekend.

Don’t get him wrong, Lucas would have been thrilled to get an opportunity like this one, considering the fact that you could make fried-eggs on the sidewalks and that he hadn’t had a proper night of sleep in days because he felt like he was suffocating whenever he laid down. But apparently the stars had aligned to mess it all up, and that was the exact reason why he was forced to fly on Saturday morning, an entire day after everyone else had already flocked in Barcelona — save for Emma.

“Dude, I had to literally fight to get this weekend off, don’t even get me started,” she had groaned while they were taking possession of their seats. “Emilie was a total bitch, like apparently it’s rude to ask her to switch shifts when her kid is sick. What do I know? How am I supposed to know that her stupid kid’s got fever? I’m not a psychic.”

Lucas snorted, leaning back against the backrest of his seat. “Maybe she dropped clues and you didn’t hear. Not the first time it’d happen.”

Emma pulled a face. “Rude.”

Lucas shook his head a little. The plane was filling itself with other passengers surely taking off for weeks, instead of a short weekend. Until the middle of the week, he had been set to fly on Friday morning, and he had already made plans to meet up with everyone else at the gate in Orly Airport. But on Wednesday, his boss, Julie, had barreled into the small office he was sharing with an intern to inform him that she had an emergency situation and wouldn’t be available on Friday.

“I’ll need you to cancel your plans that day, I need someone to keep the firm open,” she had said, and Lucas had almost started complaining out loud.

“What about Bérénice?”, he had tried, helplessly gesturing at the empty desk of the intern.

Julie had grimaced. “I’m sorry but I don’t trust her enough to give her full authority. Clients will come to retrieve contracts and she’s not familiar with the whole process. I’m sorry.”

Before he could even protest she had disappeared through the door to her own office, and Lucas had been left to stare begrudgingly at his computer screen with the feeling of having been betrayed on a deep, deep level. He had always gotten along rather well with Julie, ever since he had started working in that architect firm, but right now he wanted to murder her with his bare hands. Or maybe just set the firm on fire. In the end, Alexia, who had managed to score her day off last minute had exchanged her plane ticket with him, so at least he didn’t have to pay another 145€ for nothing, which was probably still better a consolation that nothing.

Still.

“Don’t you find it weird that Yann’s getting married?”, he said after a while.

Emma turned a blank look on him as she glanced up from her phone. She pondered the question. “Dunno. I mean, if he feels like it…”

Lucas gave her a face. “C’mon. We both know he’s not exactly… eh, the best at relationships,” he said emphasizing the two words with a pointed look.

Emma shrugged, waving slightly. “It’s one of those things you never know if you’re good at until you tried. Frankly, what’s the worst that could happen? A divorce never killed anybody.” She widened her eyes slightly then winced when she looked up at Lucas’ clearly annoyed face. “I mean, it’s not that big of a deal until kids come around and-”

“Whatever,” he huffed. His parents had divorced years ago. In the meantime he had grown up and mostly gotten his shit together, so it was safe to say he was mostly over it. “He’s your ex. How many times did you guys start it all over? I’ve lost count.”

“Are you trying to make me freak out to hide the fact that you’re freaking out?” she snickered.

“I’m just saying that three years ago no one would have bet a penny on the two of you waving hello.” And certainly not more than that, he added to himself. It was frankly the understatement of the year. Not only Emma and Yann had started talking again, but Lucas had stumbled on them with their pants down during a particularly memorable New Year’s Eve party, where he had to eventually find an alibi for Yann’s girlfriend.

“Look, it’s not the same,” Emma rolled her eyes. “He wasn’t happy with Marion and we just had comfort sex.”

“That stretched out for weeks.”

“Do you know the very concept of fuck buddies?”

“I’m not sure that fuck buddies usually attend their booty-call’s engagement party,” Lucas observed, fishing his phone in his pocket.

“You know we stopped this months ago. It’s really no big deal and Nola’s okay with it.”

Lucas cocked an eyebrow, unimpressed, before nonchalantly unlocking his phone. “Does she know about the fuck buddies part?”

Emma opened her mouth, then seemed to think about her answer before shrugging one more time. “If Yann came clean about it then yeah, I bet she does,” she eventually said.

Lucas’ eyes snapped up and he stared at Emma, eyes bulging. “Oh, man, this is gonna be a mess,” he huffed, shaking his head. “You do know Basile’s already there, right? Basile and his big fat mouth? Basile no-filter Savary?”

“So is Eliott,” Emma bit back.

It was his turn to open and close his mouth, without being able to get a word out. “What the fuck does it have to do with Yann getting married?”, he asked haughtily.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly, “I’m just saying that while we’re talking about weird as shit relationships you need to take full responsibility of your own mess.”

He scoffed, but his eyes were glaring holes. “It’s gonna be easy then because there’s nothing weird about Eliott and me.”

“Right,” Emma drawled. He almost thought that was it. That she would gracefully drop the topic, a topic that was not even a topic in the first place, let alone her business. But instead, she pretended to give it a thought before she turned to him. “You know what? You’re right. After all ten years might not be enough for it to become weirdly comical. Because, y’know, the first five years it was fun to see you both dancing around each other, then the last five years it was just, well, plain depressing. Maybe in, like, five years, it’s gonna be fun again.”

“Just fuck off,” he gritted. “Eliott is my friend, and he was always there for me just like I’ve always been there for him. I don’t see how that can compare with the weird shit you and Yann keep pulling every three years or so,” he retorted dryly. And with that he grabbed his earbuds, put them on, and ostensibly turned his head the other way.

*

Okay, here was the thing.

When Lucas was young, he had started believing in alternate universes. Parallel worlds never really colliding, but with another Lucas in every single one of them, experiencing different lives and various fates. There was something comforting to it, to simply think about all the roads he hadn’t taken, the choices he hadn’t made, that other Lucases got to experience for him.

It had been comforting, really. To a certain point, at least.

He hadn’t exactly seen the biggest downside of it all until he was 16, and until he met Eliott. The guy had barged into his life during his second year of high school, after Christmas Break. Lucas could still remember the way the walls had seemed to collapse when he had entered the common room meeting — the way his eyes had travelled up all the way to him as if he was a magnet, and the way his breath had caught in his throat, lungs crumpling in his chest. Eliott was beautiful, with his crinkly eyes and his disarming smile, but he was also insanely hot. Hotter than anyone Lucas had ever met. Prettier than anyone he had ever seen. And, well. That’s exactly where the problem had been since the beginning, since the first time they had met, since the moment they had hit it off at that vending machine, right after the common room meeting.

Lucas Lallemant wasn’t a match for Eliott Demaury and would never be.

It had been mostly fine until the night Eliott had told him bluntly, on the way back from a short-lived party on the school grounds, that he wasn’t necessarily looking for a girl to date. A straight guy was just a straight guy until he wasn’t anymore. But still, for better or for worse Eliott was still dating his long-time girlfriend, Lucille — it wasn’t like he was on the market.

It had become much more complicated when, a month or two after starting uni, Eliott had eventually dumped Lucille for Julien. An asshole, if you asked Lucas. Ridiculously good-looking for a philosophy major, and overly confident at that. He was tall and slightly lanky, about the same frame as Eliott — in short, the perfect size not to make hands holding or kissing awkward. Lucas had been on the shortlist of people who had gotten to meet him first (a privilege he’d have been fine not having), and when everyone had bombarded him with questions about Julien, all he had found to answer was 'they look good together’. It wasn’t a lie; they really did look good together. And frankly, it was the only thing Lucas had allowed himself to say about it, because he just couldn’t bring himself to lie.

What was the problem with the parallel universes, you’d ask?

Well, it was the very night Eliott had come out to him that Lucas faced the bitter truth. He was lying in his bed, wide awake, eyes fixated on the ceiling when it hit him like a truck: somewhere, in another universe, Lucas n°99942 was hot enough to be considered a match for Eliott Demaury. You’d think it’d be more complicated to go on from there, to keep being friends with Eliott, to keep seeing him dating other people, but it wasn’t really that complicated. There was just nothing Lucas n°1 could do about it and water had flowed under that bridge. He had found cute guys for himself, not as hot as Eliott, and sometimes not nearly as caring as him, but that was just how it was.

For the most part, Lucas had made peace with it. Well, key words being ‘for the most part’. There was just no point in pretending that he wasn’t feeling his heartbeat rise up suddenly whenever Eliott’s face would brighten up at the sight of him during a party, or the way he’d always make sure that Lucas had a spot next to him whenever everyone would gather at a random bar. There was also no point in denying that a pair of stormy grey eyes sometimes popped up in his brain at… well, odd times. Nevertheless he’d blamed it on Eliott, and Eliott’s personality altogether. Everyone had feelings for him to a certain degree, even the straightest of their friends. Even Basile, Arthur and Yann had already put Eliott at the top of their list if they ever were to switch sides. Sure, for the past few years Lucas and Eliott had gotten even closer, but it wasn’t anywhere like Emma made it sound. It wasn’t odd and it wasn’t toxic. Maybe he hadn’t been fond of all of Eliott’s relationships. Maybe he hadn’t been thrilled to see Eliott get himself into a polyamory thing with a guy and a girl, particularly because he was afraid Eliott would end up hurting. Maybe he had told Macha, Eliott’s most recent ex to this day, to fuck off once. He wasn’t proud of himself but he had always made amends afterwards and Eliott had always told him it wasn’t the end of the world.

They were glad to have each other, and it didn’t make it any more awkward between them that it did with Yann, plain and simple. It was nearly 11 when they made it to the hotel and he just couldn’t wait to let the pressure out and see everyone, he thought as he pushed open the door to the hotel’s lobby.

“Hey, don’t we know these two?” Emma asked, smirking as she gestured from her chin.

Yann and Eliott were chatting by the counter of the concierge. Eliott flashed them a smile, interrupting whatever he was saying, and Yann spun around to grin brightly at them. Hugs were in order and Lucas was soon wrapped in the arms of his longtime best friend. “Bro, congrats for Nola and you,” Lucas said, hugging him back. “You’ll make her super happy.”

No matter what he thought about the whole ordeal — he had figured it was the best to say. Right?

“Thanks Lulu,” Yann replied, still grinning broadly, then he went on to hug Emma. “Fuck I’m so glad to have you guys here. It’s gonna be awesome, everyone’s waiting for you!”

Eliott crossed his arms over his chest, and the loose tank-top he was wearing did a lot in favor of his biceps. “Don’t I get a hug or what?”

“Fuck you’re so needy, we’ve seen each other three days ago,” Lucas snorted, but he still went for a hug nonetheless.

Eliott chuckled, pulling him close. “It’s just nice to have you around.” He ruffled his hair a little as Emma and Yann were talking close by.

Lucas smiled and parted from him with the feeling of not having had nearly enough. “You too,” he smiled, looking up. 

Eliott slid an arm behind his neck, just like he casually did so often, making them both turn around toward Yann and Emma.

Lucas voluntarily ignored the pointed look she gave him as the four of them made their way to the elevator.

[ryouverua]

Trial 5 - Post-Execution

Investigation 1 / 2 - second half is where I put my own theories that I penned before playing the trial.

Trial: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

Pre-Execution

;’’’) That’s a good look on you, Monokuma.

what this no i’m not crying you’re crying shUT UP

Have any other executions ended with the corpse literally landing in front of them in the trial room? I feel like this is a first???

uUM

K.... K1-b0? Buddy? Are - uh - are you okay? You’re looking a bit.... ?????

A-ARE YOU THOUGH -

Uh, okay??? So I want to go over Kaito’s execution and be upset about his death and everything but suddenly, this? This came out of nowhere??? also skldfj they took the ahoge off his sprite too omg

Crap I badly want to mourn Kaito for a while and yeah this is taking away from that but I don’t exactly want to not address K1-b0 literally BSoD-ing in front of us -

Oh! Gloating! I’m good for gloating too. Rub it in his face, Sweetcheeks. You’ve got my full backing here.

Normally I’m against kicking someone while they’re down but KICK HIM! KICK KICK KICK! I’m so down for this collective group smack-down.

Man, this Monokuma has been so much less in control and emotional than the previous Monokumas. I mean, the competition is pretty stacked - last Monokuma was literally the god of his world and an omniscient being that pervaded their entire ecosystem with one exception - but between throwing up a second motive in the first chapter, getting ‘overthrown’ by Monodam ** (even if he ‘went on vacation’ and this entire chapter, this ^ guy is barely hanging on by his teeth.

** I just realized the whole ‘Monodam takes over the killing game’ may have been bloody foreshadowing for this chapter sdlkfj

Monodam even got pushed to his limit for all of a whole chapter/killed two Monokubs and even though Kokichi didn’t directly kill them, he does have Gonta and Miu’s aka two classmate’s blood on his hands even with the most charitable look at chapter 4′s events before both Monodam and he ultimately take actions to end their own lives

this has been another mini-episode of ‘I read into things too much’

ANYWAY quietly skips over everything but the most pertinent Monokub dialogue, don’t mind me ~

Who would though, at this point? .... K1-b0, depending on what’s going on with him right now?

Shuichi is so pumped up thanks to Kaito and Kokichi’s teamwork! This has to be what Kaito was hoping for. Kokichi probably wanted to win the trial in its entirety, though...

Something about him saying ‘you’re certainly entitled to your opinion’ is incredibly grating and hilarious. It’s so.... passive-aggressive and banal? So un-Monokuma? I feel like behind the plushie, someone is pouting with their arms crossed tightly and just grumbling to themselves. They can’t even muster up a whole ~despair~ rant right now.

SWEETCHEEKS SWORE :O

I want to make a fun reference to Saimota but then I remember Kaito’s corpse is still warm on the ground a few feet away from them and I cry

LMAO IT SWITCHED TO A SILENT K1-B0 IMMEDIATELY AFTER....

K1-b0 isn’t about to like... become a killing game enforcer or something??? Like, completely flip his switch? fml this silence is dangerous

blah blah blah monokubs do their ‘cute’ schtick and I get tired of it, anyway -

oh great, it’s the sprite I blocked out of my brain up to this point

DID MONOPHANIE JUST DRAG ME

Please put away the tongue when they leave ffs

Aaah damn it, here comes the hammer. D:

Participant......... and then he mentioned about it going on for a long time, so.... a cycle...??? If Rantaro is repeating it, does that mean they’re all repeating it...??? The same sets of personalities/memories/talents, in new bodies every time or something - ? Is that an idea I should follow -

FFFF DID MONOKUMA JUST FLASH US

YES, PUN FULLY INTENDED SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE THOSE JOKES IN MIU’S ABSENCE

yeah hilariously while I was starting to think more about his statements Monokuma literally surprised me just like he surprised Shuichi and the rest of them lmao

Meanwhile Sweetcheeks is just twitching beside her, possibly even foaming at the mouth -

YEAH WHERE’S THE NEXT SET OF MEMORIES, BUDDY

anyway he talks about despair and hope again, I glare at the yellow text with tired resignation, etc

It really does sound like it’s something that’s repeating when he puts it like that, right??? And with Rantaro’s video - what is this, a test simulation of the gopher project or something?

Another wild theory appears - the original students with the talents Makoto/Hope’s Peak wanted to preserve, or for whatever reason digitized their memories/personalities/talents (think Gonta Alter-Ego) died - or were ‘hunted down’ aka the Ultimate Hunt - and in their place they pick up 16 ordinary kids to give them to, possibly by force. Or hell, maybe not, if Rantaro remembers and said something like ‘you wanted this’, though wasn’t that in regards to the killing game???  And then... they set up a simulation? Maybe? To test their viability? .... The question is who introduced Monokuma to the whole thing. Is that part of the test, or was that the cult sneaking in... and if the students really are ‘easily replaceable’, are they just picking up new ordinary kids as replacements? Are they looking for an outcome where they can defeat Monokuma? If this is a simulation, does it operate under the same rules as the NeoWorld program, where they die in real life?

Eeh... not sure how I feel about this. It feels like it has holes still. 8′D

ffffffff

!!!!!!

Aaaaw....

I mean I think we knew after the deductions in the first chapter but yes, mastermind confirmed - ! And -

WHAT

NO

WHAT

NO

WHAT

N O

W H A T

please go away

I-I MEAN... YOU REALLY DON’T.... HAVE TO...

BANGS HEAD AGAINST WALL

asdlkfjsdl why junko WHY MUST YOU BE BACK

So I was going to put this at the end of the post but then A LOT OF STUFF happened at the end of the chapter and it... doesn’t really fit there....

Okay... t-there is a second option. I mean, Junko could really be back for the third (fourth? do Shiro/Kurokuma in UDG count?) time and I really hope that isn’t the case fff - but ‘Junko’ facing away from us for a reason, right? Which means it could be someone dressed as her, right? Even if it did sound like her seiyuu...

But out of everyone left, assuming this isn’t happening at the exact same time/immediately after the trial... well, I mean, out of everyone alive, two people could be in Junko-dress right now, right? Both Maki and Tsumugi could fit, and considering we haven’t gotten to look at Tsumugi at all and her talent... I’m heavily leaning towards her.

..... except.................. cospox though. Crap. Hmm....

I think... I could maybe follow up on some of the speculating I made in this post? About Junko being elevated to a larger-than-life figure in history? Maybe there’s some leeway in there, in the same way that we have historical figures that end up being featured prominently in fiction, or even become warped/satirized in various ways because they’re so removed from us in our current time... and perhaps Junko has become more than a person in that same way, or even more than that, a title/role that can be inherited and passed down? Is it possible to get around cospox that way? It would fit in with her early Chapter 1 comments - let me see if I can dig them up from my old posts - ah this one, here, if you want to look at it. i also am totally into what she’s saying if you’re wondering why I remember this so well lmao

If she is from the cult... and this is a parallel to Angie, who constantly spoke about being a conduit for Atua’s message, Korekiyo, who was just a vessel for his sister according to himself, and Kaito, who literally acted in Kokichi’s place............. maybe....... this could work........... ????

...... except I don’t know if it’s enough of a stretch to get around this. I MEAN. MAYBE IT IS. MAYBE. I could just be stretching reeeeeeally far in order to avoid an inevitable Junko returning. maybe i just want to see the power of the ultimate cosplayer since it’s a hobby so dear to my heart idek

Whelp it doesn’t matter the scene is moving on without me anyway so 8′D

FUCK NO MORE TRAINING TIME OR TRAINING JOKES OR STUPID TITLES FOR THE TRAINING POSTS THIS IS THE WORST TIMELINE

Man I really love the close connections Shuichi has to people in this game. Maybe that’s why I’ve been enjoying it so much? He recognizes his classmates and what they have to offer, sure - but he’s a regular kid. He’s got his favoured connections, and the people whose deaths he feels more powerfully than the others, and the reactions he has to everything around him... well, maybe that’s my own bias because they really resonate with me. I don’t usually have much of an interest for audience surrogate characters (I don’t dislike them, I just, you know, don’t adore them or anything) but - and I know now that this is a divisive topic - I really like Shuichi’s personality. I really do. And I think he has one. He’s a quiet guy - he keeps most of his thoughts on the inside - and I get that for a lot of people, quiet = no personality, but the way he has responded to a lot of the situations that have come up previously have both been different than what I’m used to seeing from ‘protagonist’ characters and, erm, pretty... familiar to me personally and that has been a bit of a shock tbh. seriously what’s with this - same birthday, same blood-type, same hobbies, likes and dislikes, same Best Boy, etc....

I’m not sure where this tangent is going tbh, but I guess I’m sorta gearing up for next chapter? We don’t have many people left to work with. 8′D Kaito’s gone, Kokichi is gone, and all we have left are a collection of differing quiet personalities. It’s going to be very, very different, that’s for sure.

“Oh yeah I forgot this turned into a group activity like, three sessions in.”

“I mean, you did too by poisoning them both, but that’s neither here nor there.”

I am being a bit harsh on her though - to her credit, she seemed initially confused about why he was blaming himself (despite him repeating all the things she said to him during the beginning of the trial). There’s no one left to connect them now and she seems to have realized that - they’re going to have to finally do the heavy work themselves.

Like Chapter 4 Maki, I feel like she’s speaking in that same roundabout way she did when asking about Shuichi’s interest in Kaede. “Are you lonely too?” or even, “do you need someone to talk to/be with who understands how you feel?” She still has a lot of trouble being forthright but it’s great that she’s taking the initiative, especially after her earlier confession.

I hate to say it, but I think Shuichi may have ended up in a similar state as Ryoma after Chapter 1 if he was left spinning his own wheels...

Solidarity. 8′/

!!! 

For all the things that he did... fml I can’t think of anything better. He spent so much of his time trying to bring you both out of your shells!

I wonder if Shuichi is including his entire class in there. It was only a few days ago that Kokichi said he considered them all friends too. Also Korekiyo hilariously enough

omg they’re still so painfully awkward but it’s so sad and relatable and they’re trying to start building a bridge without Kaito acting as their support...

Ooh! This is the first time they’ve been approached aside from Tenko in Chapter 3, right?

Aaaw he’s so happy to see them. 8′)

YES!!! New team training! New team training!

Yes this is exactly what they need to do after the trial! They need to stick together! ... Now where the hell is K1-b0???

quietly skips over Tsumugi telling us we won’t lose to despair because I am stubbornly clinging to the time before hope/despair was brought back up -

- Sweetcheeks why

so much goddamn hope

But I’ll allow it because it’s leading to an overdue cheesy friendship speech and after the tragedy of chapter 5 I need that right now.

Though... hm. I was sort of hoping Shuichi and Maki could hash out some of her actions in the last trial, or Maki would offer some kind of apology. Would that have happened if they weren’t interrupted?

Yeeessss new image! I love it! Also lmao Himiko maybe you’d manage to finish one if you took the big bulky hat off...

Good - a commitment to keep living is important, especially from Shuichi. Now the majority of you are carrying someone’s wish, huh... except Tsumugi, unless you count Gonta maybe. I figure Miu could count for K1-b0, though I guess that’s a bit of a stretch too?

fuck my heart had been ripped out and stomped on, especially with the flashback to third chapter training:

.... See you, Space Cowboy.

Now fade to bla -

..... Huh.

I’m glad one of you is concerned after what happened. 8′/ I’ll excuse Shuichi and Maki because they have every right to be distracted by grief but between you and Himiko you couldn’t keep an eye on him?

Because seriously, none of them know where he is. And there is no way that’s a good thing.

BUT SOLIDARITY!!! also robophobic!!!

Well that’s an ominous way to end the chapte - oh never mind it’s not over??? What, three ‘epilogues’ this time? Not that I’m complaining because I’m happy to extend the trial for as long as necessary but jeez -

K.... K1-b0???

It was lost after the accident??? So it wasn’t just programming... a... a transmission then? So it really was some sort of antenna...

Wait that makes it sound like you weren’t just using it for guidance but actually being controlled by it?!

More hope and despair references -

Music change???

Wait, dude, what do you mean by that -

What

WAIT WHAt ARE THOSE TURBOBOOSTERS

HE CAN FLY?!?!

UM EXCUSE ME WHERE DID THIS COME FROM

Kokichi was dying to see all of these cool functions and only now when he’s literally dead do you show them off? RUDE

WAIT WHAT THE FUCK K1-B0 THERE ARE STILL LIVING STUDENTS DOWN THERE

MISSILES TOO -

OH WOW UM OKAY THIS WAS NOT THE QUIET CONTEMPLATIVE END-OF-CHAPTER SCENE I THOUGHT WE’D BE GETTING DEAR LORD

dON’T YOU ‘END TITLE’ CARD ME, GAME

a;sdlkfja

i

i forgot this

happened at the end of the

chapter

oh god

skldfj

ugh, ghghhgh

cool thanks sweetcheeks and I will cherish this forever,,,

...

assuming he survives long enough to

[aion-rsa]

Palm Springs Timeline Explained

https://ift.tt/3ffKuLQ

This article contains Palm Spring spoilers. Our spoiler-free review is here.

Time loop movies are quickly becoming a genre, and we are here for it. The paterfamilias of the concept on screen is of course Harold Ramis’ existential romantic comedy, Groundhog Day, but we’ve seen the concept repeatedly riffed on ever since in everything from big action blockbusters (Source Code, Edge of Tomorrow) to slasher movies and indie thrillers (Happy Death Day and The Endless, respectively). So it was inevitable someone would eventually circle back to using the idea of a perpetual time loop for romance. Luckily the first film to do so is the exceedingly clever Palm Springs.

A millennial rom-com stuck on repeat, Palm Springs slyly deconstructs some potentially problematic aspects about Groundhog Day while offering a smart variation on the concept of love through trial and error on the same day. And director Max Barbakow and screenwriter Andy Siara are aided greatly in this by the general appeal of Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti, who turn two potentially unlikable malcontents into a charming pair of co-dependent adult-children searching for maturity. But how they got into their predicament, and how long they’ve been stuck there is a little more complicated than other time loop movies. So we’re here to unpack the timeline in the movie, and how and why events occur.

The Jurassic Period

Following in Groundhog Day’s tradition, an exact explanation for our temporal glitch in spacetime remains elusive, but we know it is caused by a glowing physics anomaly in a cave located in modern day Southern California. And it’s been there a very long time. Since at least the late Jurassic period around 150 million years ago, to be exact. We can trace that because on one magical drug-fueled night shared by Nyles (Samberg) and Sarah (Milioti), the pair see what looks like several Apatosauruses (or Brontosauruses) in the distance. It’s dark, they’re high, and the movie is hinting that it could just be a hallucination, but nope. In the final frame before the end credits, we see the long-necked dinosaurs again just wandering around.

It’s a fun wink and one that suggests this isn’t some temporary gimmick created by the universe to improve Nyles and Sarah as human beings; they’re trapped in a temporal loop by something that has existed since dinosaurs walked the earth and potentially much longer. It’s fair to wonder if the time loop is as old as the planet, if not the universe, with these gentle giants roaming the same plains for eternity. But you know what? Good for them! When you think about it from the dinos’ perspective, Nyles and Sarah are throwing away the gift of eternity like suckers.

Nyles

We of course don’t see Nyles’ first day in the time loop—and we may not have seen a moment from even his first million. It is intentionally vague how long he’s been trapped in this time loop, but certainly years and probably decades have passed when the film begins. Refreshingly breaking from the formula established by Groundhog Day, we as viewers have skipped the early sense of exploration, the subsequent gleeful anarchy without consequences that follows, and finally a brief nihilistic despair. Rather we meet Nyles after he’s come to a happy resignation toward his fate. Hey, at least he gets to wear the same shorts and Hawaiian shirt each day and either aid or subvert the wedding he’s attending however he chooses.

We can be pretty sure that it’s been ages since it began because he already knows about everyone in town, from his cheating girlfriend to the deal about the local barflies. In a pinch, he can even call on a memory about the bearded hermit still pining for the woman who took his virginity when he needs to steal the dude’s car. Plus, as he tells Sarah, he first met J.K. Simmons’ Roy in the “early days” when he was still exploring the wedding’s guests and probing them with a sense of curiosity. Hell, he was even still wearing a suit in those before times.

If those early days were actually early years, then many more must have passed since then. Whatever the case may be, we can deduce that on the original day zero, he must’ve come into this desert after there was a morning earthquake which opened up the cave hiding a time paradox. I’d speculate it was at night after the wedding—perhaps he even was on a drunken bender after discovering Misty (Meredith Hagner) was cheating on him? In any event, he entered the cave and I’d guess the next 40 or 50 years remained much the same ever since… just long enough for him to forget what he even did for a job in the way, way back.

Roy

While we only discover Roy’s full story late in the movie. Roy is a man who married (or remarried) late in life and started a family even later. But despite all that time to reflect on the transience of existence, he still was missing his early wilder days when he made a fateful drive from Irvine down to Palm Springs, California. He’d regret it.

Seeing Nyles as simply someone stuck in a funk like himself at the bar, Roy laments that marriage is a bottomless pit that, somehow, still has a bottom. He also tries to relive glory days by doing drugs with the much younger man. As a consequence, Nyles introduces the cousin of the groom’s daddy to a cave that both condemns and improves the old guy. Oh sure, Roy periodically lets out his bloodlust every few weeks by driving down to Palm Springs to hunt Nyles for sport and then go Jigsaw on him, but by and large, he spends more time living his suburban life until he can finally appreciate it.

If he met Nyles in the “early days,” then Roy has been trapped in the time loop almost as long as Samberg’s protagonist. So I’d again speculate years or decades have passed. But it’s also been long enough for even this old man to finally grow up and really appreciate the prospect of spending family time with his children and seeing them come of age. Living long enough to regret not paying the kids enough attention, Roy may yet be able to do the whole father “thing” right when he gets out of the time loop and comes back home. Which thanks to the post-credits scene, we know is only a matter of time.

Sarah

And yet, it’s the introduction of Sarah into the timeline that really sets events in motion for both hapless man-children she’s stuck in this loop with. Indeed, the plot only begins on the particular trip around the loop in which she follows Nyles into the cave.

Making Sarah the catalyst for everything that comes afterward also allows Palm Springs to lightly interrogate aspects of the undeniable classic Groundhog Day. In that movie, Bill Murray’s Phil Connors spends most of his decades (or centuries) in the time loop trying to court his co-worker Rita Hanson (Andie MacDowell) and get her into bed. While he never succeeds until the end of the film, where he isn’t trying and has actually displayed true enlightenment and self-betterment, he is still rewarded with her love in a single day… all while she’s oblivious to the fact he’s studied her like a cross between a stalker and anthropologist for years. He also has slept around the small town they’re trapped in.

Despite Nyles’ protestations to the contrary in Palm Springs, he likewise did sleep with Sarah apparently many times (he uses the word a “thousand”). The reason she can be shocked that he’s only slept with a handful of people at the wedding and local bar is because he viewed her as an easy mark, time and again, when he was feeling horny. He also was using an invisible position of power over the timeline to manipulate her, just as Phil attempted to manipulate Rita, and did successfully manipulate other women in Groundhog Day.

The grossness of this act is brought out into the glaring light of day in Palm Springs with Sarah distancing herself from Nyles for the remainder of the movie’s second act, effectively ghosting him for his creepiness. Her character also challenges the simplicity of Groundhog Day’s ending, because being a better person does not necessarily equate to a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. But then one could argue Sarah isn’t being a better person when she tells her sister on her wedding day that she slept with the groom the night before—and only to please some God she hopes is watching.

But Sarah is also incredibly flawed. As she mentioned, she’s already made plenty of mistakes that felt like she was living on autopilot before the time loop. She married a dude she knew wasn’t right for her, even before he proposed, and still went through with it, hurting both their lives with the brief, ugly marriage that followed. And rather than reach toward actual self-improvement, she self-destructively pursued a one night stand with her sister’s fiancé the night of the rehearsal dinner.

It is her own failings that allow her to eventually see Nyles and their situation clearly…

Read more

TV

Russian Doll Season 2 Confirmed by Netflix

By Tony Sokol

Movies

Best Comedy Movies on Hulu Right Now

By Alec Bojalad

End of Day

Which is why it’s Sarah who brings an end to the time loop in the movie. Unlike Nyles or Roy, she doesn’t wallow in complacency but attempts to solve a problem, using what is at least months if not years to become a pseudo-expert in quantum physics. Ironically, this is made possible by the fact she slept with the groom the night before. For this reason, she always wakes up early in the day before Nyles does—as she originally awakened to get out of his room without being seen—and leaves the ranch house while Nyles is still fast asleep.

Eventually Sarah realizes that the three-plus second quantum leap they all make to restart their time loop is actually a trip through a literal hole in space time…. one that can theoretically be escaped. While the logic of using C4 to escape said time loop by literally blasting their bodies out of the loop seems dubious at best—wouldn’t they still be blowing themselves up even if it worked?—it creates a narrative excuse to bring the movie’s larger themes to a head.

Most pertinently this includes the sad truth about Nyles: He enjoys the regression of being trapped in this time loop and he’d rather spend eternity reliving the same day and same dippy wedding than face the uncertainty of living his life… or growing up. This is highlighted throughout the movie in the way his preference is to spend eternity in shorts and perpetually drunk with a beer can in hand. While Roy is furious he’s trapped in this loop when he realizes he’ll never see his children grow up, Nyles is cool with never seeing his children or, hell, even his dog again.

In fact, it’s kind of damning to note he never mentioned his dog to his new girlfriend, a woman he claims to love, after spending months or years with her. Such shallowness suggests he really isn’t growing up; he’s just afraid of spending eternity alone. Hence my serious doubts about Nyles and Sarah being a long-term couple.

She previously talked about not wanting to relive the same mistakes again and again, and that was in reference to her marrying a man she knew was wrong for her. Nyles’ desperation was enough to get him to accept he should grow older and not remain in the arrested development many millennials are accused of embracing, but it was a reluctant decision. Methinks when she is outside the loop and has the “millions of other options” of men besides Nyles out there… this ain’t going to last for an eternity.

The post Palm Springs Timeline Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2ZhFAIE