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accirax · 8 months ago

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Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 14 Dissection

I can't think of how to introduce this dissection other than just saying "god damn??". This chapter-- especially its second part-- has been a wild ride, and one that it appears we're nearing the end of. However, we still have one important question left to answer, which I'm sure I'll talk about here. So, let's chat.

SPOILERS for Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 14.

Also, I will be discussing Ace and Eden as equally likely blackened candidates in this post. If it will upset you to hear about the prospects of either or both of them being the killer, you might want to sit this one out.

Given what happens later in the episode, it's very interesting that the episode began with (more or less) Ace "admitting" that he has no idea how the murder mechanism worked. A truthful method of disqualification, or a masterful play by Ace to ask Teruko to ask him about the murder method only to pretend that he has no idea what it was? Time will have to tell on that one, because I honestly have no leads.

Similarly, is this Eden being genuinely shaken up and not remembering what transpired in the Gym, or trying to play the helpless innocent card to get out of having to help Teruko explain the murder method that she stole? Spoilers for my thoughts later in this dissection, I guess: they're so evenly matched that it's crazy.

I've always thought that Hu is the prettiest DRDT character, and this episode did nothing but prove me right. Hot damn, ma'am.

The insistence that this questioning is "traumatizing [Nico]" makes me think that Hu could be projecting her own experiences on to them. Perhaps she was once an innocent in a situation for which she kept taking the blame? That would be interesting as another connection between Hu and Nico, of both of them having taken the blame for someone else's follies.

This was a hilarious comeback; never change, Ace. Or, maybe you do need to change slightly, to become a less cowardly and impulsive person. Or maybe I should at least be rooting for you to have the chance to change in the sense that you live long enough to have that work out for you.

Yet another instance of J being the one to say that murder is bad. I wonder if this has to do with her character/backstory in some particular way (although given what we know about her past I have no idea what that would be), or if DRDTdev just needed a judgmental and confrontational person who would snap back at anyone to take over these kinds of lines.

(That's not me dunking on J's character btw she's valid for this)

This was a really clever way for Charles to phrase this to make Hu listen and settle down. I appreciate the out-of-the-box yet logical thinking. (Also I missed hearing Charles' voice :,D)

Woah, I was not expecting to get a Closing Argument comic for the Gym murder, but I am obviously delighted that we have one! Also, OH MY GOD, THE CEILING GRATE. How did none of us even think to consider that as part of the murder mechanism?

However, there are still some aspects of the state of the Gym that haven't yet been accounted for with this version of the murder timeline. I don't really think it's anything that would stop Nico from being Ace's would-be killer at this point, but I'll list them out here in case they are or in case they turn out to be relevant to Arei's murder. I'll also be trying to debunk them, though.

Moved Benches: Some of the benches near the pullup bar were knocked over. These probably fell either in some sort of struggle while knocking out Ace, or when Ace's body fell from the fan.

Moved Weight Rack: The weight rack was moved closer to the bench press and flipped on its back. I guess this really was also knocked over in the same fashion, no matter how unrealistically difficult it should have been to move due to its weight? Or it really was "workout preferences"???

Nico's Missing Cowl: When Teruko and Eden found Nico at the scene of the crime, they weren't wearing their typical dark cape thing. I have no clue why. You could say that Nico was trying to look less instantly recognizable, but it's not as if anyone (other than maybe Teruko) who saw a dark-haired 5'5" individual in a blue shirt instead of a gray cowl would think it was anyone other than Nico. There's also ye olde theory that they might have used it to soak up blood somewhere, but 1) Ace seems to have lost less blood than it may have seemed, and 2) the cowl was still not seen anywhere in the crime scene. I think I remember speculating that after Nico hypothetically used it to soak up blood (or, on second thought, maybe used it to gag Ace with the turpentine), they then stuck it in the fridge to hide it for the time being, at which point MonoTV discarded it and Nico got a new cape from their room. Maybe if it was used to apply the turpentine, Nico also could've put it away to prevent themselves from being affected by the fumes? I guess that's what I'm going with.

Lack of Tape on Pullup Bar: So, this one is obviously relevant to the murder already because Rose not being able to do a pullup is part of what tips off Teruko to the fact that something is off with the tape. However, I have no idea why the tape actually got removed from the bar. I still maintain that I don't think anyone could have stolen the tape off of that bar and repurposed it elsewhere-- most online sources seem to agree that kinesiology tape isn't reusable, and the fact that it was already wrapped around the bar in such a tight spiral would make it difficult to conform to any new specific shapes. My best guess is that Nico might have tried to use the bar instead of the light grate at first, determined that the tape was preventing the wire from sliding properly, and then removed the tape before determining the bar still didn't work. Or, Nico could have tried using the bar before settling on the broom, and thinking that it wouldn't work with tape on it... for some reason? Kinda scratching my head here.

I wonder how long ago it was. It's been four days since the Chapter 2 motive was revealed, although Ace was attacked only two days after the motive. Furthermore, Ace had started bullying Nico to some level already by the end of Chapter 1. I'm sure that Nico must have known what their secret was and probably didn't want it to be shared. My guess would be that they probably started cooking on murder pretty shortly after the new motive was released. That would also work with Charles-via-Whit letting everyone know what the custom weapons were in the first Class Trial.

This was the perfect response for Nico's character. They don't understand why an untruthful "sorry" would actually serve as a courtesy for most people, so they try to say what they feel and get ostracized for it.

Gotta say though, Ace, that was a pretty aggressive reaction from someone who said he "didn't need other people to tell him lies just to keep him happy" ;) (/j)

Damn, way to throw Levi under the bus. I can see why, for someone like Nico, they would want to assert themselves as not the most abnormal person here, though. I just want them to be neurodivergent buddies :(

If that's the case, then I'd have to imagine that we won't be seeing Nico as a killer again down the line. However, they could also just mean "getting caught"/"going in without a solid gameplan," so it's still possible we will. There's also the possibility of them doing something more like a sacrifice kill, although it would take a lot of character work to make something like that feel within Nico's nature.

Sorry to keep screenshotting every little thing Nico says but they keep saying really interesting things. The fact that Nico specifically mentions their father as opposed to "parents" or "family" makes me think that we'll hear more about their father specifically sometime in the future. Or, who knows, maybe their other parent left or died.

Nico: I don't expect you to forgive me. Very few people ever do. So I don't see the point in acting sorry.

This was very interesting as an addendum to the above screenshot. What exactly did Nico "ask for" forgiveness for in the past? Was it just more social blunders, as they described in ch2-e2, or did they get into more trouble closer to this level than we realized? It could also be an indication that Nico has spent time with people who believe that being nonbinary is a crime that Nico needs to feel sorry for. Fascinating stuff, indeed.

Points for Ace being the killer. We know that he went into this trial looking to suspect Nico ("[...] I'm pretty sure I know who the murderer is. It's not David, it's Nico"), so if Ace is the killer, it would make sense if he'd want to make the crime scene resemble Nico's to make his bait more credible.

Hey, it's the aforementioned T A P E T I M E, motherfuckers :D (still /j) Personally, it's quite gratifying to hear that it wasn't just a visual malfunction or a minor detail blown way out of proportion.

You're, uh... getting to this point much faster than I expected, queen. I don't think she's now going to go down the exact same distrustful rabbit hole that she was in before, but there's definitely still potential for her hopes to be crushed by the end of this chapter. Or, maybe she will accept some people as genuine friends, and instead in the future have to confront how she feels when she loses a genuine friend, or not blaming herself for the effects of her luck, or something along those lines. I like that Teruko isn't a static edgy protagonist, though. Like, don't get me wrong, I've always known and appreciated that she has depth, but it's refreshing that she isn't someone who's so stubborn about her own way of thinking that she refuses to admit when she's in the wrong. Teruko really wants friends, guys.

TERUROSE REAL??????

(Also Rose's speech was excellent as well I just didn't have anything in particular to say about it other than "wow" at the moment)

Yahoo, lockdown logic strikes again! Also, a quick

Is Teruko Correct In This Assumption?

Personally, I fully think yes, only Ace or Eden could be the culprit at this point. MonoTV confirmed that it tried to restore the Gym to the best of its ability but couldn't return the tape, which means both that there was no tape in the Gym to be taken and that there was never any spare tape in the Storage Room that MonoTV could have used to replace the roll. I guess you could say that there was an extra roll of tape in the Storage Room that someone else took before the murder took place, but that level of coincidence seems implausible at this point in the Trial.

No, for anyone other than Eden or Ace to have acquired the tape, they must have either stolen it from one of those two or asked for it from one of those two. Asking them seems very unlikely-- for starters, if it was Ace who took the tape, I don't think he'd be giving free hand-outs to anyone. And, if Eden isn't the killer herself, that means all of her fright regarding stumbling upon Ace's body was genuine. I don't think she's naive enough to then hand over what was used in Ace's murder to anyone asking... or at least not without bringing it up now. Beyond that, anyone who would ask either of them for the tape would have to know that the tape was used in the murder attempt, knowledge of which was very limited. This episode went to lengths to establish that Nico was the sole culprit behind the attack on Ace, and while it's still possible it could all be an elaborate lie, the explanation Nico gave felt very in character and important for their characterization moving forwards. So, while Nico would obviously know it was used, if Nico asked either of them for the tape, surely neither Eden nor Ace would trust them. Otherwise, I think Rose is the only one who could have found out it was gone, but even so, given that neither Eden nor Ace have tried to argue that Rose asked them for the tape, I don't think that happened.

You could also say the same of neither Eden nor Ace claiming to have had the tape stolen from them-- but I could see either of them feeling like claiming to have taken the tape at all right now would be a death sentence, so I understand why they wouldn't say it. Still, I don't know if the narrative is there to support the tape having been stolen from them. On the day after the Gym murder (Day 7), Eden isn't seen in the daily life at all. If someone stole the tape from Eden on that day, I would think that DRDTdev would at least want to show us who Eden was spending time with on that day (given that he put in the effort to make the tape sprite disappear from the Gym at the time it did), so that we would have any idea who might have done so. Ace is seen once in the Day 7 daily life, arguing with Hu, Nico, Levi, Veronika, and Arei. However, having just been attacked, I imagine he'd be hyper-aware of anyone getting close to him, and therefore would be more likely to notice if someone was rifling around in his pockets (if he has pockets?).

Really, I think the only possible candidates for who could have stolen tape from Ace or Eden would be Levi (mostly just for Ace) and Arei (from either of them). Levi might have had an opportunity to take the tape from Ace on the night he was attacked, the night of Day 6. Eden said last episode that Levi "kept trying to help him" after Ace was attacked, which could imply that Levi was the one to put bandages around Ace's neck. Furthermore, he does have a criminal past, which could make him better at stealing. Similarly, Arei is confirmed to be a good pickpocket, stealing Min's pen without Min noticing at all. I think she's the only one with the proper buildup to have taken the tape from Ace at that breakfast, and would be the most likely to have spent time with Eden when Eden was off-screen. (Although, it would have to have been before lunch, because Eden says the last time she saw Arei was at lunch.)

However, I don't think many people think that Levi is the killer anymore, and if Arei stole the tape from Eden or Ace only for the killer to then steal the tape from Arei, I would start to wonder why DRDTdev even made the tape such a scarce resource in the first place. Remember that, if the killer was purposefully trying to recreate Nico's idea, they likely knew in advance that they would need the tape to pull off their plan. It was used in enough places that seizing the opportunity to take it off of Arei seems unlikely, as it was too fundamental to the plan's inception. Besides, for the killer to replicate Nico's plan in the first place, the killer likely needs to be Nico, Eden, Ace, or Teruko, who are the ones who could have most easily taken the tape on their own.

I've already seen people accuse this Trial of being bloated, and while I strongly disagree (I only think cases are bloated when they're stalling for time and have nothing of interest to discuss, and we've still had PLENTY of interesting stuff to discuss), if we spent a whole 'nother who-knows-how-many episodes reversing all of the progress we just made to say that either Nico wasn't actually the one to kill Ace or that someone who didn't see the crime scene killed Arei, that bloating problem would only seem worse to those people.

I understand if you don't want to believe that Eden or Ace has to be the culprit for whatever reasons-- whether that be that they're your favorites and you don't want them to die or you really like your theory and don't want it to be false-- but I really think that this episode cemented that either Ace or Eden will be voted for as the blackened for all of the reasons above. Therefore, I shall be proceeding accordingly.

She was WILD for this. Hilarious line of reasoning.

What's Up With the Body Discovery Announcement?

The "reveal" of this line of logic was no surprise to me. As someone who's believed that Eden is the culprit for quite a long time, we've had to figure out ways to get around this thing before, and besides perhaps "not witnessing the murder," someone else seeing the body before the BDA rang is the most obvious way to cheese it.

However, in order for this to be a thing, we have to ask ourselves-- who would have actually seen the body first?

David claims to, but he has an alibi starting at 7:30 AM with Veronika and J. Both because Arei theoretically wasn't dead before then and because we've been operating off of the assumption that a meal takes about 30 minutes to eat, I don't think any of the three of them could have stumbled across Arei in the morning. Nico and Hu both have an alibi, which I'm going to consider solid enough to remove them from possibility-- one of them spotting the body would be helpful to make Eden the killer, and I think the only people who believe that Hu and Nico are lying only believe so under the condition that one of them is the killer. Whit is out, because him seeing the body beforehand doesn't actually accomplish anything, and so is Charles, because we can assume that, if he saw the body, he would be out of commission. I'm also going to strike Rose from seeing the body before breakfast, both because she's very likely to have been asleep and because if she had already seen Arei's body in the Playground, she probably wouldn't have refused to draw a diagram. That would leave only Ace, Levi, and Arturo as non-blackeneds who could have helped facilitate culprit!Eden from not being caught by the BDA.

However, we also have to consider that "before 8 AM" isn't the only time someone could have stumbled across Arei's body. They also could have seen it before Teruko, Eden, and Whit did while everyone was looking for Arei. So, what do we know about what happened during the search for Arei? Not much. Hu says that they should split up, while J says she's going to check Arei's room. Teruko says that most people are probably searching the first floor, an assumption that's supported by Teruko, Eden, and Whit not seeing anyone else while they check the second floor. You might think that would eliminate the possibility of anyone else seeing Arei's body during the search, but Teruko did say most people, not all. There's also what MonoTV said when Teruko and Veronika were investigating the Gym.

MonoTV: It's too high! If you stood in the movie screening room on floor one and started punching through the walls, you'd fall into the playground.

This not-yet-addressed piece of evidence got me thinking about the possibility of someone seeing Arei's body from above, standing in the Motive Screening Room. It still probably couldn't be Teruko, Whit, Charles, Rose, or J, but anyone else would theoretically be back on the table if that were the case. That being said, I can't find any visual differences in how the Motive Screening Room looks between the beginning of Chapter 2, when the search for Arei begins, and when Teruko goes to check the motive secrets (other than a curtain being added over the screen in the third case). So, unless there was already a heretofore unmentioned hole to peek through in the room, I wouldn't count on that being the case. The connection between the Motive Screening Room and the Playground will probably just be relevant to a different chapter.

Therefore, that leaves us once again with Ace, Levi, and Arturo. The main problem with believing that any of them could have seen the body beforehand is why they wouldn't have brought that up at this point in the Trial. Here are my best guesses as to why:

Ace: I have genuinely no clue why Ace wouldn't have brought up that he saw the body in the morning (assuming that he actually did) to defend himself at this point. It's not like it would make anyone more suspicious of you.

Levi: Levi does seem to be a bit dense regarding what is and isn't helpful behavior in a Trial, so the most likely possibility to me is that he just didn't realize that confirming he saw her was helpful. Like, "oh, I didn't realize that me confirming that I saw Arei would help us pin down Eden as the killer. I was just trying to figure out how David and I both saw Arei's body this morning and I didn't see him." "Wh-- David was obviously lying!" "He was?" "I already told you he was lying before..." "Levi... we talked about this..." Bonus points for it not being out of character for Levi to be unfazed by seeing a body, though.

Arturo: In Arturo's case, I think it would have to be that he'd still be worried about people seeing him as suspicious for saying he found Arei's body in the case of accusing Eden specifically. They already have a past history of conflict, and I could see someone brashly accusing Arturo of throwing Eden under the bus just to get revenge on her for the secret thing (even if I don't think he would actually do that). He also made an enemy out of Arei, so I don't think he would be particularly fazed by seeing her corpse either-- similarities to Felicity's cause of death notwithstanding. However, I also find it likely that he trailed after J in going to check Arei's room.

So, what's our conclusion here? Does this mean that Eden is basically fully cleared by triggering the BDA? I wouldn't count her out just yet, but the evidence isn't looking great for her. It's quite possible David only brought up this argument to A) hold out suspension of disbelief that it's not just Ace for a little while longer, B) drop this logic as foreshadowing for a future killer's plan, C) characterize the kind of logic he uses in a Class Trial, or D) bring up this argument in canon so that the people who theorized that the BDA might not clear Eden or Whit wouldn't be like, "wait, but what about...?" However, it's also possible that one of the possibilities I listed above, something I might have missed, or the "see no evil" idea (as FF put it) could keep Eden in contention. That dynamism is part of what makes Ace and Eden feel so evenly matched.

See, this is what I assumed David was getting at after Nico reminded me of his early-morning alibi. But then he just kept talking...

I'm not going to delve into what David was thinking here too much, because I already have an anonymous ask about what I think David's rationale was that this will almost certainly come up in. However, as a short version, I imagine that David is trying to get everyone angry at each other in the hopes that it'll incite another murder that he can get the class to fail? Or to cause enough discord in the group that they just fail this one. That would be why he also rags on Rose for not remembering the tape, and insults Arturo's sister-- he wants no one to trust anyone so that the murder-solving process will be as un-streamlined as possible.

The fact that he targets Teruko so specifically is probably because he (accurately) assesses her as the only real threat there. Charles and Rose can help, sure, but their mental struggles make them easy enough to eliminate if you play your cards right. Teruko's main flaw is her lack of trust, so if David wants to weaken her, it makes sense to go right for that jugular. Furthermore, by stating his plans so plainly and publicly, it might incite other people to fight back against him and say that Teruko should trust them. However, that kind of olive branch might make Teruko even less inclined to get close to them, if what Teruko said to Eden at the end of ch2-e03 can tell us anything. Didn't stop Eden from trying at the end of this last episode, though!

After taking some more time to think about what David was up to this chapter, I might change my mind on those being his goals. But, this post does serve as my initial thoughts of sorts, and that's what I initially think about this scene.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Does Ace Have Nothing To Do With Arei?

What Ace has to say is more or less true-- barring the breakfast in which Arei didn't talk at all (AKA, no conversation), Ace has literally never been in a small group event with Arei. However, although they didn't talk to each other, Ace did overhear the conversation between David and Arei, which does give him a connection to Arei. Quite relevantly, Arei did say this to David during their conversation:

Arei: You said that sharing our secrets would help fight against the motive. But when I think about it, not a single good thing has come out of that. Eden was stupidly naive, as usual, and tried to talk to Arturo, so now I have to protect her.

From this, Ace could probably surmise that Eden had Arturo's secret, she talked to him about it, and that Arei stepped in to save her from Arturo. He was one of the few people who could have known that Eden and Arei grew closer before the murder occurred: another connection Ace had to information about Arei.

However, before you use that evidence to call Ace the killer, let me remind you that he still doesn't have enough information to write the note from just eavesdropping on this conversation alone. As I outlined in this theory (same as the one I just linked above), whoever wrote the note had to specifically know that Arturo's secret was about his sister, which Arei doesn't divulge (quite possibly because she didn't even know) to David. Therefore, although Arei mentioning Arturo and Eden in this conversation is interesting, it doesn't actually make Ace any more likely to be the killer, because he still would have needed to find some way to spy on Eden's secret and/or Arturo and Eden's conversation to write that note. (Unless mentioning the sister specifically was an oversight plot hole, but I never want to use that as my reasoning.)

So, do I get what Arturo is getting at? Yeah, Ace and Arei were never particularly involved, and Eden clearly has a greater connection to the victim. However, there is more to the Ace/Arei bond than it might first appear, and it's possible that could come up in the Trial moving forward.

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

... BUT THEN HOW THE FUCK CAN EDEN GO AND SAY ALL OF THIS, BE THE KILLER, AND THEREFORE PROVE DAVID RIGHT???

AND THE "BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS DO" REFERENCE??? AT THIS HOUR????? I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF THAT MAKES HER SEEM MORE OR LESS SUSPICIOUS!!!!

OUGH AND THE MIN PARALLELS TOOOOOOO

MIN WAS TERUKO'S FRIEND BUT ALSO A KILLER. DOES THAT MEAN EDEN IS GOING TO BREAK THE CYCLE OR DOES IT MEAN THAT WE'RE STUCK IN A DOOMED STORY IN WHICH TERUKO IS THE PROTAGONIST? IT COULD GO EITHER WAY!!!

Jumping back in time for just a moment...

A Piece of Evidence That Lines Up to Them Only

I thought about making this its own separate post, but decided not to. If you guys want me to make this part it's own separate post so it's easier to find/comment on directly, let me know, and I'll set that up.

But before you can make your decision, I suppose I have to explain what I aim to do here. Basically, Teruko has told us that she's still torn between Eden and Ace (mood), and that, while she'll start off attacking Ace, she's looking for any pieces of evidence that could prove that only one of them could have committed the crime. Problem is, we have no indication of what that specific piece of evidence could be, and, trust me, it could be a lot of them. Thus, what I'm going to do in this "mini" theory is list out every piece of evidence that I can think of, and say whether it points to Eden being the culprit, Ace being the culprit, or it can't point to either of them. Perhaps once we're done, you'll see why I'm so conflicted on which of them it would be.

I'm going to tier these pieces of evidence in terms of least likely to be the missing piece to most likely to be the missing piece, starting with all of the aforementioned unexplained gym evidence. The knocked over benches and weight rack were not part of the replicated crime scene, and I have no idea how Ace or Eden would have wound up with any version of Nico's cowl. The missing tape on the pull-up bar has the greatest likelihood to be relevant, but as we're already suspecting both of them for having the tape, I don't think it'd be a decision maker. Any of those pieces of evidence would be likely to come up in proving that Nico wasn't the one behind Ace's murder, but this theory is operating under the assumption that Nico is the one who tried to kill Ace, and either Ace or Eden killed Arei. If you want the answers for your own theory, do your own homework. (/lh)

Ace or Eden will get a point for any evidence that I think would better be used to accuse them as being the culprit. Therefore, winning points is actually a bad thing if you want to be innocent. For convenience of "scoring," Eden will be purple because of her shirt and Ace will be pink because of his "maroon" hair... and because I needed red and orange for the likelihood ranking.

UNLIKELY FINAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE

Arei's Body Swinging: This evidence has already been used to establish that Arei was killed in the morning, not at night. Either Ace or Eden could have killed Arei at 7:30 AM, so point to neither of them.

Ace Trying to Assign Himself to Guard Duty: This one is obviously a point for Ace if it were the final piece, but it's such a minor happenstance that I doubt Teruko would think to bring it up as the main thing against him. Like, she could bring it up in general, but I don't think it'd be her crowning jewel. Still, it's a piece of evidence we haven't discussed yet, so credit where credit is due.

Arei's Bound Wrists: Bound by the grippy tape that either of them could have stolen. Point to no one.

Broken Playground Lights: The lights in the Playground are broken, likely from the mechanism being hung up through the ceiling rafters. You could argue that this is a point for Ace's strength, but I don't think throwing a ball that high requires so much strength that Eden couldn't do it, especially if you might be able to use the see-saw to launch it somehow. Point to no one.

Dried Up Puddles: This has nothing to do with either of them. Point to no one.

Carousel Wrapped in Tape: Again, either could have had the tape, so point to no one.

Two Pieces of Rope: Either of them could have taken the rope from Storage and cut it; point to no one.

Food/Utensils/Napkins in Trash: Probably David's dinner. Possibly evidence of Eden and Arei having breakfast together, but that's a stretch. Point to no one.

Cups/Tissues/Palette in Trash: Rose says these were hers. Point to no one.

Incense in Trash: I know thebadjoe had (has?) theories about this being used to conceal the scent of Arei's body being hidden in the Relaxation Room a day earlier than anyone thought, but I find that to be too much of a stretch to accost Eden for it here. I think it's just filler. Point to no one.

Grippy Tape in Trash: I should just stop writing out tape evidence. Point to no one.

Broken Jugs: The killer used jugs of water to make Arei heavier, which broke when she fell. They probably had the fish water in them, but we're not talking about the fish themselves at the moment. I'll say point for Ace because the jugs are probably from the Gym, and we've seen Ace in the Gym far more times than we've seen Eden.

Needle and Black Thread: This evidence... might have to do with the ball of clothes, which we'll get to later. However, if this is relevant to the murder, it's probably from the Dress-Up Room, in which we've seen Eden but never Ace. Point to Eden.

Construction of the Note: After a bit of internal debate, I'm going to call this a point for no one. Why? Well, it's because Eden would have reason to help construct the note whether she was the killer or not. If she is the killer, she might have wanted to guide the discussion that followed its reconstruction, to urge to Rose and Whit that she's innocent and that someone must have framed her. It would also give her reason to come into the Trial already having a handwriting sample on her. However, if Eden is innocent, she also easily could have just wanted to help out. Most importantly, Eden already brought up the note being constructed in her initial defense, so I doubt Teruko would reuse it as the nail in someone's coffin.

Splashing Arei With Water: Either of them could have thought of this and accomplished this. Point to no one.

SOMEWHAT LIKELY FINAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE

Body Discovery Announcement: While this may very well play an important part in solving the case, I don't think it'll be the final smash, so to speak. That's mostly because we already talked about it a lot in determining whether Eden could have done it. In the end, I think we'll either have to come up with a way to justify Eden having cheated the BDA-- by Levi or Arturo having seen it or via see no evil-- or we'll accuse Ace without the BDA being a problem. I guess I have to call this a point for Eden because if the BDA were to be the damning evidence, I think it'd have to be for her. However, in my heart, this is totally evidence supporting Ace being the killer.

Arei's Broken Neck: I'm using this as a stand-in for the strength of the killer, in the sense of lifting Arei up and being able to stop the carousel. This is a point for Ace, because he's a professional athlete and Eden is generally the weakest person in the cast.

Scratches on the Ground: This evidence certainly seems to indicate that there was a struggle at the Playground, but is there anything more to it than that? I'm more willing to believe that Ace could have beaten Arei in a fight, but does that point to Eden because there would've been more of a struggle, or Ace because Eden wouldn't have wanted to fight Arei at all? Ace also normally wears heels (while Eden and Arei don't), which is what Hu cites will naturally scratch up the floor. This evidence is vague enough that I don't think it'll be used to point to either of them, but if it did, I think it's more likely to be Ace.

Ball of Starched Clothes: For starters, I'll share (I think it's) thebadjoe's theory that the ball was adhered together using starch from the Relaxation Room that's sprayed on the plants at night, because I saw some people questioning how the clothes could have been stuck together. Anyways, the ball of clothes itself is definitely a point for Eden, because we saw her in the Dress-Up Room specifically looking for Teruko's clothes. Although, Ace certainly saw Teruko and Hu's new fits, so he could have figured it out for himself.

Actual Acquisition of the Tape: I don't think this will be used as the final piece just because I feel like the narrative is pointing towards the damning evidence relating to Arei's actual murder as opposed to Nico's. However, it's relevant to discuss, so I'll list it here. Although Teruko says that Ace and Eden had equal odds at the tape, on the surface, it really makes much more sense if Eden was the one to take it. Star explained it well here, but I'll add my own recap: in the moments when the tape must have been taken, in between when Nico leaves and when MonoTV kicks everyone out, Ace is recovering from unconsciousness, covered in blood, full of rage, and has all eyes on him. Meanwhile, Eden is scared, sure, but she had a clear moment to actually examine the scene of the crime and is also knocked to the ground-- potentially right next to the tape-- with all her wits about her. While it's not impossible to believe that Ace sleight-of-handed the tape, Eden had a much clearer path to taking it. Point to Eden.

MOST LIKELY FINAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE

Arei's Missing Glove: To my memory, Arei's glove hasn't been brought up in the Trial at all, which is definitely strange, because it must be missing for a reason. If DRDTdev is crafting so much detail into the BDA that the swinging of the body is plot-relevant, there's no way he would have just missed giving Arei her glove. The question is, what was this used for? Those who are familiar with my theories should know that I've never been a fan of dress-up theories, so I'm going to discount that possibility. The thing I thought was the most likely was that the killer donned the glove so that their hands wouldn't get super scratched up from grabbing the grippy tape-d carousel bars, before gleamingtempest reminded everyone that both Eden and Ace already wear gloves. Still, looking at them, Eden's gloves are probably made of something more like cotton while Ace's gloves likely have some sort of tougher grip on the inside. So, Eden would probably be more likely to need something else to protect her hands. Also, given that both of Arei's wrists have marks on them, the glove was likely taken off before her wrists were tied. I can't figure out why Ace would have taken off Arei's glove before restraining her or how he would have gotten Arei to take it off otherwise, while for Eden, at least, I can imagine her asking Arei to take off her glove. Therefore, I'm going to call this one a point for Eden, while also throwing out that it might just be missing if Arei didn't bother putting on her glove for the early morning meetup.

Fish on the Playground: You've heard it from me before, Eden has an alibi through the entire time the fish could have been taken. With seemingly no accomplices (other than possibly Arei) in sight, I don't know how Eden would have gotten her hands on those fish. Meanwhile, Ace had a great opportunity. Point for Ace.

Pieced-Together Note: This evidence is very confusing, because I don't see how/why either of them would have implemented it. For Ace, I wrote that entire theory (I'm not going to link it a third time) about how, based on the information in the note and the layout of the first floor, it really seemed like eavesdropping was impossible, and the person who wrote the note had to be Arturo or Eden. Then there's what thefandomenchantress pointed out about Ace's pedantry making it seem like he wouldn't misspell "responsible" in the note, and that he just doesn't give me the vibes of someone who writes in cursive. By all accounts, it really seems like Ace can't have written that note. But then again, why would Eden have written that note? Okay, bad phrasing; she wrote it to get Arei to come to the Playground. But still, why would she sign it? Or if she were to sign it, to make sure that Arei knew it was her, why include so much detail about what Arturo's secret was? More importantly, why wouldn't Eden have just stuffed the ripped up note into her belt, or her pockets, or her room if it would serve to incriminate her? Put it wherever she put that glove! Hell, why not eat the note, if it's a life or death situation? There's the "reverse psychology" argument, but similar to what Teruko said this episode, it would have been much simpler for Eden to have pretended that Arei came to the Playground for some other reason without the killer planting some sort of note meant to frame her. And it's not like I think Eden is really the type to misspell "responsible" either. So, I'm kind of at a loss. It's such a major piece of evidence that I feel it has to come into play again somehow, but I'm not sure how. I think I'm going to call this one a point for Ace because at the very least I understand why he would want to leave this evidence here, even if I don't know how he created it. For Eden, I don't get why she'd leave it lying around, even if in pieces. You can call it revenge for Eden getting the point on the BDA, if you wish.

So, what are the results? If you add up all the points together, you wind up with 6 points for Ace and 6 points for Eden. Funny. If you tier the points, however, with 1 point for unlikely pieces, 2 points for somewhat likely pieces, and 3 points for the most likely pieces, you get 12 points for Ace and 10 points for Eden. Of course, that's using my tierlist of which pieces of evidence are most likely and on top of that, assigning the BDA and the Note the way that they are (if you flip them it's 11-11), but still. If you're invested in my findings, these are the results.

Needless to say, I hope you can understand why I'm having such a hard time determining which one of them will turn out to be the killer. Although, I must add...

If we're suspecting Ace first before we've done our Debate Scrum, that's not a good look for Eden never being suspected again in this Trial.

Concluding Thoughts

What? A conclusion? I've never done one of these on a dissection before?!!

Yeah, well, this time, I have stuff to say that I couldn't really correlate to one image in particular! And also I ran out of images, so this is what you get!!!

I spent that whole "A Piece of Evidence" section talking about the physical evidence that could support Ace or Eden being Arei's killer, but in it, I really didn't get to talk about the narrative implications of either of them being the killer at all. I know that Narrative Defenses are typically Venus' thing, but I have my thoughts on this, too. Namely, that both of them are riddled with narrative problems for being the killer at this point.

(Note: I don't mean "problems" in the sense that DRDTdev has written anything poorly. What I mean is, my own perception of how the characters are conveyed has me currently raising red flags about how either of their stories will pan out as a killer or how the rest of the story will pan out without them. At the time the answer comes, I have full faith that I'll be satisfied with the results.)

Let's start by looking at Eden, the spotlight character of the end of this episode. After that whole heartfelt speech with the CGs and the tears and the brilliant voice acting and the everything, how could Eden possibly be the killer?! I'm the one who was trying to defend the possibility of her still being the culprit after her little rant last week, and while I could probably do that again with this speech, it just felt so... I dunno, sincere. You can really feel Teruko's reluctance to put her faith in Eden, but her choice to do it anyways. Teruko already showed signs of growth this episode by admitting that she can't always solve mysteries by herself, so could that be a sign that she might come around on the group faster than we initially anticipated? If Eden was the killer, it would crush Teruko so hard. Is there any recovering from that? Can we really prove David right?

On the other hand, Ace is, quite possibly, one of the most intertwined members of the cast. He's probably Levi and Nico's #1 correspondent, and he's up there for Hu as well-- assuming they both survive the chapter, I'm sure their animosity towards each other will only grow in Chapter 3. With Ace just having given up on Levi, having just been the target of Nico's battery and Hu's verbal lashes, can the story really work without him in it at this point? Eden hardly has connections with anyone other than Teruko-- Hu's probably next, but Eden probably ranks, like, fourth on her list after Nico, Ace, and David-- which should make her more expendable. Is it really Ace's time already?

However, despite my complaints, I also think that both of them could be really good options as the killer here-- the two options I prefer over anybody else.

Eden is the character who's most connected with Arei. She plays into the chapter themes of being a good person beautifully. She's a good person, a tragic figure, that killed not because she wanted anybody dead, but presumably because she had something back at home that she had to get back to at all costs. Killing her off would break Teruko-- would break everyone. With the reveal of everyone's secrets, next chapter is going to be a living hell, so why not make that hell worse by removing the biggest conflict de-escalator here? It would force other people to step up to bat. It would give everyone a chance to change, what Eden wanted for Arei most of all. Eden's development isn't an arc, per say, but a fall-- a reminder that even the "most good" people can do the unspeakable.

Meanwhile, Ace has perhaps the most obvious reason to kill someone: he literally almost fucking died himself. Ace's execution would be a reminder of the physical reality of the killing game. That actions have consequences. Even if the guy who started all those fights is dead and gone, you can still feel his presence lingering in the arguments between the others. The guy you underestimated most of all-- not for being kind, but for being dumb-- can send you into a multi-hour spiral in which you accuse even the sweetest of participants. Ace's development isn't an arc, per say, but a fall-- a reminder that reveling in your own distrust and anger might lead you to do the unspeakable.

For someone who's spent so long believing that Eden is the culprit of the chapter, it's really amazing how down-to-the-wire DRDTdev has made the end of the case, where either option feels so believable that it's like you can picture the rope in their hands. Whether my theories, old or new, were right or wrong, I am highly looking forward to watching next week's episode and discussing it with you all. See you on Friday-- just try not to freak out too much before then, alright? (/aff)

#danganronpa despair time #drdt #fanganronpa #drdt spoilers #drdt chapter 2 part 2 spoilers #ace markey #eden tobisa #hu jing #nico hakobyan #teruko tawaki #i'm glad i got to shout out so many people in this one! :D #i try to keep a pretty good pulse on what's happening (on tumblr at least) so i can give credit where credit is due #although i obviously can't read everything lol #i was freaking out so much while watching this episode #bc i felt like i was so right but then all of a sudden so wrong. unless?#also i really wanted to put the meme of “sickos -> ”yes... ha ha... yes...!“ after teruko talking about how the tape points to Eden or Ace #but i already ran out of images so. you'll just have to imagine that one sorry #my theories

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miriadalia · 6 months ago

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Kwon and Draco Malfoy's character archetype and why it makes fans go crazy

(Warning: this post contains spoilers from both stories)

Like it or not, Kwon Jae Sung has become one of the most beloved characters in the Cobra Kai series, and he only needed 15 minutes or less of screen time to do so. Here's my analysis of why his character traits are so interesting to many fans and how this reminds me of the "Draco Malfoy effect" in the Harry Potter fandom.

Cobra Kai and Death Eaters

The first time we see Kwon, he's a student at the Korean Cobra Kai dojo, a place that not only condones but actually encourages young people to be violent, offensive, and merciless. We see how this teenager eagerly absorbs every one of these teachings and puts them into action.

Sounds familiar? In the HP universe, Death Eaters were an elite group created for the sole purpose of terrorizing and eliminating those they considered "the weakest and unworthiest": Muggle-borns and Muggles. They convinced (or forced) very young people to join them in their "mission": Draco, Snape, Regulus… All victims who then became perpetrators of the same crimes.

This scenario is SO attractive from a fictional POV. You have this dark group of adults that use and manipulate these teenagers or young adults for their own selfish purposes, and you begin to wonder: what are these young characters going to do when faced with the real consequences of their actions and way of thinking?

Draco realized (slowly and painfully) how his family's ideals were turning him into a monster forced to torture and kill innocent people. Kwon wasn't given enough time to do that… But I'll talk about this later.

Bad Boy trope and the King of Ships

Now, we can't deny that a huge part of both Kwon and Draco's attractiveness stems from their charisma, quick-witted remarks, and their inflated sense of self-importance, believing themselves untouchable and incomparable. They feel empowered to say and do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want.

All this, combined with their appealing and recognizable looks, creates the perfect formula for your next fictional Bad Boy crush™. And it also makes them so easy to ship with other characters, especially if their interactions can be interpreted as flirtatious when taken out of context (ahem, Dramione, ahem, Drarry, ahem, Kwon x Tory).

"He's just a boy"

At the end of the day, both boys were just that: 17-year-old boys trying to fit into the world they were raised in, be the best in their class, and achieve great things in life. And this is what makes them so endearing to many fans like me.

Both tried to impress the father figure they kind of idolized.

And both suffered when they faced the reality that they were just as powerless and insecure as any other normal teenager.

But in Draco's case, this moment of realization became the start of his regrets and redemption arc.

In Kwon's case, he was fated to be consumed by rage and die… due to a questionable plot and chain of events.

Now, I'm not going to debate the last 15 minutes of Cobra Kai Part 2 here. I've already written about it, and this isn't the point of this analysis anyway. I respect the people who think that Kwon's death was necessary and that it will help other characters' growth in Part 3, even though I strongly disagree with how the Cobra Kai writers handled it all.

However...

The infinite possibilites of the Redemption Arc

Not giving Kwon the possibility of a future redemption arc was a real waste of his character's potential.

Draco Malfoy wasn't truly redeemed in the original books, but at least in the epilogue, we see him raising a beautiful family, far removed from his racist past. And if you consider what happens in Cursed Child canon, you'll see how much he has grown and how good he could have been as a teen, too, if he hadn't been fed the wrong ideas and morals.

Imagine how cool it would have been if the "There's no such thing as bad student, only bad teacher" theme was applied in a drastically different way than what they decided to do in Part 2.

I'm not saying they should have shown us Kwon's redemption arc in Cobra Kai Season 6. That wouldn't have been good because we only have five episodes left, and it wouldn't have been believable that he changed so fast... But if he hadn't died, then all possibilities were open (for future spin-offs or even just to be coherent with the tone the CK series had until season 6, that is: no dead kids, just adults and only because of an illness).

Sunshine Actors

Lastly, it can't be denied that Brandon H. Lee and Tom Felton have played a crucial part in making their characters fan favorites.

They both have amazing acting skills, portraying charismatic yet tragic characters. And Brandon's stunt and martial arts skills are truly fascinating to watch.

But there's even more to their casting as Kwon and Draco. And even though I can totally separate the actor from the character, I won't deny that the actors being handsome, gentlemen, and the nicest people behind the scenes plays an important part in fans loving their characters.

If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading!

I often post more character analyses and plot reviews, so if you like this, feel free to follow me and message me with any questions you may have :)

~miriadalia

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artficlly · 9 days ago

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Hey! Just went through a couple of your stories (reblogged them to my smut side blog). I really loved the writing for Lessons in Love Making so I wanted to leave a longer comment. The way you shaped Reader and her conflicts for this story is truly beautiful. You give her this desperate need to give that is both her strength and fatal flaw. It’s something she has from the start so it fleshes her out but when she begins a relationship with Bucky it is brought to a head in her life. And the foreshadowing of this downfall by Reader constantly putting Bucky first and Bucky accepting that (because why would you turn down something freely given?). It just speaks volumes on this issue of women as commodities not just in the way of Reader being used for her body but of being so used to being support for others it never turns off to where she can’t have healthy relationships. Reader has never had someone challenge her on it because giving is seen as a virtue and because of the stigma around Readers “skill set”. Her giving is demanded but also scrutinized. But you set this up without making Steve and Tony villains. Even when Bucky makes a mistake he’s not a villain either. All the conflicts are miscommunication either because there has been with the Reader in order: No communication (Steve), mutually hostile communication (Tony), or Poor Communication (Bucky). There’s also Poor Communication with Natasha. She treats Reader how she would any of the other Avengers going through a hard time. By using her Red Room training which further upsets Reader because instead of being treated like an equal Natasha is treating her like a target (the only way Natasha knows how to help)

Anyway here have some flowers💐 I wish this was on ao3 so I could bookmark it and horde it on my digital shelf but I understand that site is not for everyone.

hi lovely!

thank you so much! this is such a kind and thoughtful comment, gosh i'm grinning so much reading it. before i jump in, i thought i'd mention i do post all my works on ao3! i should probably advertise my ao3 a bit more on here. but yeah, username is the same - artficlly or you can click here.

i wish i could reply something as meaningful to all this, but i fear i'll just be repeating what i've already talked about a bunch of times in previous reblogs/comments/asks etc. i'm also feeling a bit braindead after a long day so forgive me and i'm going to try my best haha

although it's a bucky fic, i think the readers story is super important. i do have worries that maybe it'll become a little too reader heavy? i don't know. i have very clear goals in mind for how i want to finish the series/leave these characters (which i don't think i'll disclose yet). i will note i don't think i necessarily will leave them entire 'healed' or 'fixed'. i don't think any person can be entirely 'fixed', there is always going to be lingering trauma, especially for these two, but i think it's more about their journey into becoming healthier with how they handle it all, you know?

we can already see the improvements bucky has made with the readers help, and maybe, no spoilers but, it is time for him to return that favour? we've seen the reader really spiral this past chapter.

i never really expected people to be so interested in the whole, i guess feminist?? side to this story. but it's been a fucking delight honestly, because i do have future projects where i want to cover more "serious" themes and topics. for as serious as you can get in a smutty marvel fanfic haha.

i am interested in covering other themes like generational trauma or just characters caught in loops of self-destructive behaviours because of the environments they were raised in.

you might enjoy my series 'a dish served cold'. it's kinda tame in comparison to lessons in lovemaking, but it is a story about revenge, redemption and the blurred lines between good vs bad (as well as era-appropriate womens issues since it's a western au) and it's complete! only 30k words so it's a breeze to read (though, i did write it nearly 2 years ago so please forgive my writing, it has improved a lot)

i don't know. i just have so many ideas and stories and things i want to say! i do hope people stick around to listen even after lessons in lovemaking wraps up.

thank you for reading and stopping by in my inbox <3

#tysm <3 #rambles

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halliescomut · 3 months ago

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Post TBNW Ep 5 rambles

So, I didn't really have a lot to say post episode 4 (other than my standard which is that Cir's mom is a raggedy bitch) so I didn't really talk much about it. Post ep.5 I have quite a few thoughts, some positive some negative. We are gonna start off with the random though.

Potential spoilers below break through ep 5 and kinda for the novel.

I posted a poll regarding Jin, because I was curious what the read was on hi 'psychic abilities' because I was kind of torn. I also posted a video on TT, and I got a decent amount of responses overall.

So...here's the thing, having read the novel (slight spoilers for that) prior to watching the series, I wasn't sure 100% exactly how they were going to handle things. It's pretty standard in BL across East Asia and South East Asia, that when you are doing an adaptation you stick pretty close to the original work, like 95% close, and in general it's more that some scenes will be foregone because of runtime constraints, filming constraints, or because their inclusion sort of mucks up the flow of the storyline, rather than the story being fundamentally changed. Mame, as the original author has a lot more leeway from fans of the novel in terms of making story changes, than a larger company who secured rights to a story for adaptation. So given the changing attitudes that have happened since TBNW was originally released, and her sort of free-range ability to make any changes she wants as the original author, I was kind of expecting to see the lynchpin of the novel be altered. i think in general it's problematic, and watching up to episode 5 where it seems like it actually hasn't been changed (presumably), the success of this series is fully hinging on Boss's general affability and audience affection towards him, especially for international BL watchers.

But back to the point about psychics, if we're to believe that parallel worlds exist, psychics is pretty basic and believable. That doesn't feel like a big leap, especially since in our own real world as it exists now, many people believe in psychics, precognition, and other metaphysical phenomena, myself included with parameters. But if the parallel world does not exist, that cuts down on the potential believability of psychics at least a smidgen, and lends a lot more credibility to my theory that this is more of a PSYCH situation and Jin is just in fact neurodivergent and capable of situational awareness and observation. But I do think it's interesting that overall we got a 2/3 response for yes/probably really a psychic, and 1/3 for no/he's probably not psychic. I would say based on the media I've watched, the metaphysical and psychics and such is pretty commonly believed in Thailand, so I don't think the inclusion of such an element in a show that isn't outright fantasy like Century of Love or UWMA is necessarily odd or out of place. It's a present concept in the society/daily life so of course it's going to pop up in the media. I don't really have a conclusion to all of the this, I was just curious.

Looking to my first long post about the show, going over eps 1-3, I had 3 main theories as to what is actually happening in the show.

Following the novel, no actual parallel universe.

There is an actual parallel universe, and it's like a Butterfly Effect situation, and in some way there are people who are aware/can control movement between the worlds in some way.

No real parallel universe, this is a coma dream situation following Cir's head injury.

I had supporting information for each scenario in that post, so I won't rehash here, but given our new information from episodes 4-5, here's what I think we're actually dealing with. Cir created the 'parallel world/alternate reality' in response to the trauma/abuse he's been facing at the hands of his mother. He operated for a few years with the fantasy as a way of escaping his reality, and with his injury we see kind of an overcorrection. I think in a combination of general brain scrambling and recognition of his own mortality, when he woke up in the hospital he just became desperate, made an arguably questionable choice, and here we are now. The 'dreams' he's having now with the 'other Cir', the dream where he woke up in the other reality and that Phu knew he was the 'wrong one' are basically stress induced and a result of the guilt he feels for lying to Phu, but he also doesn't really know how to get out of it all.

The obvious response is "just be honest with Phu" but he's afraid of that, as he recognizes that Phu could be horrified at his deception and want nothing to do with him, which is something we see Cir directly considering.

By the previews it does look like we're getting some introduction to Zone next week, which is fun, bc he was delightful in the novel, and we're getting more of the Jin/Wim relationship, again also very cute in the novel.

Overall, I am curious how things are going to play out. As stated above, by following the novel we are relying A LOT on the general affection that fans have for Boss, to counteract the impulse to be absolutely horrified by his choices here, even as we have sympathy for him. It's going to be an interesting thing to watch.

I will say for this episode in particular, I'm impressed by Boss's acting. He's always been a bit more subtle, I think because his characters so far have been more staid, but the way he expresses what Cir's feeling and thinking through his solely his physical acting is really impressive.

As a final spicier and less depressing note- I'm so glad they kept in the blowjob scene and I thought it was very cleverly shot. I talked in my wishlist post after reading the novel that it was a scene I really wanted kept in, particularly because in Thai BL we rarely see Tops pleasuring their bottoms without reciprocation. And a blowie, while it can be enjoyable for the giver, is far more focused around the pleasure of the receiver, and we just don't see it that often. Truly of the 3 other blowies I can think of in BL right now, they're all Tops receiving. And like, I haven't seen every BL, I'm actually pretty behind for anything that was released in the last 6 months, so this may be becoming more common.

Also, as a very random sidenote, I paused right at the end of that scene to kinda of squeee about it and when I pressed play it immediately cut to Cir in the bathroom and I 100% was expecting a product placement moment for toothpaste or mouthwash. Missed opportunity really.

Anyway...that's everything for these two episodes. I'm not sure when I'll post more, because I am trying to really only post when I feel like I have something to say, rather than just because it's expected...so we'll see.

Mame BLs MasterPost

#The Boy Next World #TBNW #BossNoeul #CirPhu #Cirrus x Phugun #Noeul Nuttarat #Boss Chaikamon #MeMindWhy #MameBL #HallieSMeta

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marlequinncos · 10 months ago

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Now that HOTD Season 2 is over, I have a lot of thoughts about what has transpired. Full disclosure: I basically wrote an essay, so long post ahoy! I have read the book, meaning there are a couple book spoilers in here along with show spoilers. Also: there are all my personal opinions, so you may agree or disagree.

The Good

The show is beautifully shot and the cinematography is excellent. We've gotten some really gorgeous shots this season.

The dragons look great, they're animated well, and I like how we can really see their different personalities and their relationships with their riders.

The acting is solid pretty much across the board. Folks like Emma D'Arcy, Matt Smith, and Olivia Cooke are excellent as usual. The standout for me this season, though, is Tom Glynn-Carney as Aegon. He's thoroughly fleshed out his character and given him some really interesting shading and depth and I really enjoy watching him on-screen.

Some excellent new additions to the cast! Ser Simon Strong is a national treasure, Gwayne Hightower is a mood, Alys Rivers is who I aspire to be in life, and the Hull brothers are both interesting (especially their dichotomy) and they better show more with them as per the book.

Rook's Rest gave us our first real dragon battle of the show, and I thought it was really well done. I was concerned that it would be the kind of fight that's hard to follow visually, but it was clean and worked nicely. I also love that they made Aemond torching Aegon a conscious choice.

The costumes are, once again, beautiful.

The embroidery title sequence kicks a lot of ass, and I like how they're adding to it with major events.

I do really like how they've made Helaena a dreamer (which they started in season 1) and how she's a tragic Cassandra figure. However, I do have some issues with her that I'll talk about later.

The Red Sowing was done well. I was hoping we were going to see some people get incinerated to really underscore how dangerous claiming a dragon can be, and that did not disappoint.

Little Oscar Tully verbally suplexing Daemon through an announcer's table was everything I've ever wanted.

I really like the relationship between Rhaenyra and Alicent. That said, I think there are some real issues with the writing that I'll discuss below.

Big fan of them putting Tyland Lannister in Situations.

Aemond committing war crimes and serving cunt as ye olde Sephiroth. 10/10 no notes.

While I do think the tripping balls in Harrenhall arc went on for far too long, I like how the show is leaning into the magic of the world with the weirwoods and insane visions of the past, present, and future.

Women kissing

The Bad

The pacing. Listen, I like a slowburn (one of my favorite horror movies is The Witch which many people find boring), but the slow pacing has to build to something, and this entire season felt like it was just build-up with no payoff. Last season ended with a consequential event (death of Luke), and this season began with another (Blood and Cheese), yet I don't feel like those events have managed to push the plot forward. Even Rook's Rest, which seemed like we were finally getting the ramp up to all-out war that's been teased for one and a half seasons due to Aegon being burned and Rhaenys dying, didn't really ramp up the stakes. We're still waiting for the war, and it feels like Season 2 was just a giant teaser for Season 3 rather than a stepping stone of the whole story. Think of it this way: season 1 ended with a build-up to the war and yet somehow this season also ended as a build-up to the war. It doesn't feel like progress was made; we're essentially in the same spot. The season should have ended with either the taking of King's Landing or the Battle of the Gullet.

Blood and Cheese. There is a reason this event lives in infamy for book readers. It's essentially the Red Wedding of the Dance of Dragons, because of how truly heinous and horrifying of an event it is. But the show toned it down a lot, and I think that was a mistake. Not to mention the fact that the death of Aegon's heir, who was a literal child, only seemed to be an issue for about an episode, and then everyone kind of forgot about it. Frankly, I don't like how the deaths of Luke, Jaehaerys, and Rhaenys were somewhat glossed over other than an episode of some characters being sad. Those deaths should have reverberated with long-ranging consequences and I don't feel like that's the case.

The writing. It's just not as good this season. Yes, I know the writer's strike probably affected it, but still. The conversations are nowhere near as engaging or interesting as they were in season 1, and I'm someone who loves dialogue scenes of political intrigue. I also think some of the character decisions they've made don't work. The biggest issue I have in that regard is with Rhaenyra. I don't actually hate the scene in the Sept (even though I think it is kind of silly how Rhaenyra managed to sneak into KL without being detected), because I like how they establish that Alicent knows that was wrong in her assumption about Aegon and yet she doubles down and they both realize that war is now inevitable even if it all began because of a misunderstanding. But book Rhaenyra is both far more active and ruthless than her show counterpart. There's a reason they call her "Maegor with teats". I thought we were getting some of that "warrior queen Visenya" Rhaenyra during the Red Sowing episode, but the fact is that she's spent most of the season trying to decide on a course of action and trying to do everything peacefully. She should have thrown that out the window after her conversation with Alicent in the Sept. It's especially weird considering she ended season 1 out for blood for the death of Luke. I feel like the writers are afraid that having her sometimes make nasty decisions will make her unlikeable to the general audience. But by doing that, they've also reduced this fascinating woman into a shell of who she should be. Look at Dany and Cersei from GOT; both of them were women in positions of power who did not hesitate to make (sometimes bad) decisions and/or commit horrible acts to further their goals and guess what: for the most part, the audience liked them! Give me "blood and fire" Rhaenyra! Support women's wrongs! Make characters morally grey! LET WOMEN BE AWFUL!!

I also think that the writing is doing Alicent a disservice. They really don't know what to do with her, and its a shame because Olivia Cooke is great. She just feels rudderless to me.

It really looks like the show is cutting Nettles entirely and giving her plot to Rhaena and I don't like this choice. Nettles is an amazing character in her own right, and her relationship with Daemon is key for him to start changing his Targaryen supremacist worldview and for his arc as a whole. Plus, this takes away the significance of Rhaena and Morning at the conclusion of the Dance.

While I like Helaena being a dreamer, they need to give her more screen time and dialogue. Girl had almost nothing to do this season.

I wish we had seen more of Jace and Cregan in the North and the Pact of Ice and Fire. Not saying we need 20 minutes of that, but 5 would have been nice.

I like the idea of that big vision of the future in the finale, but knowing how GOT ended does soften the impact quite a bit. And I don't love that Daemon and Aemond kind of already know their fates?? That's definitely going to hurt their arcs going forward.

The season should have been 10 episodes. Having it be only 8 really messes with the pacing of the story. Not loving the 2 year breaks between seasons either.

The "Let's Wait and See"

Aegon said that Sunfyre is dead. I really hope he's wrong about that because boy howdy that will have major plot implications if Sunfyre really is dead.

DAERON REAL. It would have been nice if he had been mentioned in season 1 and actually seen in season 2, but at least we know he exists and isn't a cryptid. Hopefully we finally get to see him in action in season 3 because poor dude has just been implied for two whole seasons.

I hope we see more of the book's excellent side characters like Black Alys, Benjicot Blackwood, and Sabitha Frey (who we did technically see briefly, but if you're a book reader, you know what I'm talking about). I'd also like to see more Cregan.

Overall, I think the season was a mixed bag. I hope season 3 fixes some of the issues with pacing and writing, because they have a great cast and a show that looks beautiful.

#house of the dragon #hotd #hotd spoilers #chatterbox #long post

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chancerei · 7 months ago

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so, I'm an anime-only MHA fan, but I've seen a fair number of spoilerific weird takes, especially re: the ending. spoiler warning for those who would rather not know what's coming

one of the weirdest and most specific criticisms I've seen is that Deku (post-timeskip, quirkless) should've made/designed his own support equipment instead of receiving it from Bakugo. the reasoning for this is that in being given this new source of power instead of creating it for himself, he is refused growth by the story. Deku started powerless, was given a quirk by All Might, and only then was he able to become a hero, and to help others.

on the surface, I can see how this is the same. Bakugo (a successor to All Might in his own way) handing him the key to power definitely rhymes. however, I think it's important that Bakugo (and the rest of class A) come together to do this for him. it's a restatement of something important within the story, and something that I thought came through really well in the season finale: giving selflessly to others engenders similar behavior in return.

do nice things for people without expectation, and before long you'll find that they've given back to you, however that may happen.

Uraraka was willing to lay her life on the line to help not only Toga, but everyone else around during that fight. in return, Toga apologizes for her actions, she mends the wound and moves to make things right. her entire world has been turned on its head not by violence, but by kindness.

All Might, in a similar though less noticeable way, shows in this latest episode what he's gained from teaching. he's devoted himself fully of late to class A, showing them how to apply their skills to the goal of helping others, and in return? he's learned so much about how to help himself. No, no one gave him that, and he likely wouldn't have been interested if help was offered, but his care for his students is truly what saved him in this instance.

So could Deku have done the same? maybe, I guess, but more than that, would the fanbase accept it? I don't think so. Even doing as All Might did and learning from those around him to create something for himself wouldn't have fixed everything. that would be labeled derivative all the same. really, there was no ending for him that would satisfy everyone, but I'm happy with what we got (or what we will get, as it were). I have a lot of strong feelings about a lot of things in these final arcs, some good and some bad, but overall it feels like Horikoshi wrote what he wanted to write, and what he thought would best communicate what he wanted to say. at the end of the day, that's all I can ask.

but yeah, I do wish the LoV were handled better than that. idk lol

#bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia

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gadgetcheat · 3 months ago

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[rejuv spoilers, crazy ramble, again]

re: risa and eden. i said this topic was for another post and that post is now! it's um... kind of long!

so i noted in a previous post (kind of a prequel to this one, that i'm still proud of, go check it out) how the parallels between Risa and Eden are totally not a coincidence, and i've been wanting to elaborate on that especially given... new insight we have ^_^

so there's the obvious fact of both characters being, well, dead. and their association with XJ / KC respectively. but beyond that, there's possibly something to be said about the parallel of both characters being associated with joy and happiness, but in opposite ways. Risa who sacrificed her life to continue bringing joy to people VS Eden who's signature trick was making people so happy they could literally Die. even if this is a coincidence it's an extremely interesting contrast...

so it's not a stretch to say they could be related in some way, and as i've been racking my brain trying to think of how...

you know how in renegade Talon says how he "didn't exist in his past life" (the old earth)? and how he was put into the new world as an "afterthought"?

my idea: i think Risa was created for the new world to replace the human Eden. to fill the void left by a person who no longer exists. it would explain the total absence of Eden's supposed counterpart, why risa is familiar with XJ but not KC (the XJ from the old earth)

the only limitation of this is that i have no clue what that would mean for Texen and in-game Zumi. i honestly don't have a real answer for that, but Texen does have a piece on the nightmare chess board, so we'll definitely get more of him in the future... interestingly, his piece is labeled "A shadow of a greater purpose"... how greater of a purpose are we talking :D?

also, if you've seen that collage Zumi posted of all the character's eyes, in an eye, ignoring the obvious new artwork in the bottom right for a second-- i really wasn't paying much mind to the placements of characters but it caught my eye (heh) the four specific characters perfectly lined up in the dead center of the pupil:

(archetype) Melia, Variya, Crescent, and... whatever Risa is doing here? she's the odd one out considering the other three are very important characters and have obvious ties to zeight/the core/etc. this is rejuvenation, i don't think they would put someone there just for vibes 0_0

actually, in the dead center of the eye... could you say they're at the Core of it? ehhh :D? you know, as in the system responsible for recycling souls and stuff?

also also, in terms of "things that aren't unusual but that weirdly fit in the context of this theory of mine", Risa has a banner outside the GDC stadium that reads "2FCE" (two-face) with the caption "In our soul there are two faces... One is beautiful, and the other is gorgeous!" possible that this is a reference to Clear acting as her, or maybe its something else? or maybe it's nothing at all shrug. just thought that was interesting

my impatient brainrot is leading me to reverse engineer the hell out of Eden because there is, again, literally almost nothing about them anywhere right now. can i prove their relevance? can i provide a definitive explanation for their existence? no, but i think that's kind of the point...

it's like they were hardly even there in the first place. no lines, no real screentime, no direct counterpart, dead long before the story takes place... i've said it before, but for a trio of characters notorious for being weird and mysterious, Eden is particularly strange and different in ways that haven't even been acknowledged in game. like i feel like we should look into this

from a coping narrative perspective this could be a way to make eden relevant without just using flashbacks or time travel (the latter of which i'm not certain would even work with her), if they were destroyed but there's still a trace of them in the new world... i don't expect them to come back to life or anything, but even ignoring my favorite character bias i don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to have at least some influence on the current story. the mysterious figures are important characters, i feel like Eden wouldn't be in the game if they didn't have some big underlying significance to the lore that is just being very well kept under wraps...

regardless of if i'm totally and hilariously wrong on all of this the big idea is that if Risa ends up being more important than initially thought, then i'd wager Eden has something to do with it… and it seems like Risa's show isn't quite over yet...

"Risa... Who are you?"

#posts #scheduling this for like 5am and not in the rejuv tag because i'm very shy. valentine's day special!#if anyone else has any thoughts i would really love to hear... bats eyelashes #even if your thoughts are 'wtf mesh'#this probably seems like total crazy speculation for a character with .4 seconds of screentime and 0 lines #but unfortunately i am crazy. and enjoy character analysis. and the mysterious figures

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dipplinduo · 1 year ago

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I was thinking about the whole toxic chain theory with Kieran and I was just imagining the potential with it when it comes to this ship.

Like Juliana could still try to help Kieran while Dokutaro/Pecharunt is controlling/influencing him or something.

It made more sense in my head but what are your thoughts on this?

*** RESPONSE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS TO THE INDIGO DISK GAMEPLAY ***

Love this, personally I could write Kieran either way and was lowkey pro-toxic chain theory Kieran with the DLCs because I thought it was an interesting plot point that could better add to his characterization if done right (i.e. rather than being fully responsible for his 180, make it more so that the toxic chain capitalized off of his internalized emotions and potential lifetime trauma, and thus amplified some of the extremities we saw/could've seen).

At the end of the day, he is still a young teenager, though, so I understand the argument against Kieran toxic chain theory and just recognizing his behaviors as being developmentally appropriate. I also don't mind non-possessed Kieran either. I just wish his character motifs were better explored and his resolution was better written (e.g. more post-credit scenes with him making amends with other characters, which includes certain characters also apologizing to him). Because let's be honest, Kieran is very much a polarizing character to the general Pokemon community, and I do wish that people could sympathize with his overall story more. Like, I've legit seen people rant up and down about his negative character arc in the teal mask, but in reality it's very obvious that the player was more of the straw that broke the camel's back given his home life and upbringing. The player just takes the brunt of it because they are something tangible that he can externalize and project his frustrations on, so we become an obstacle and goal. The closest we got to that being integrated in the storyline was as Kieran was yanking at terapagos's stone. It's there, but could've been better imo.

However, at the same time, I also think it's important to note that Kieran's actions are things he needs to be held accountable for as well. Especially in the indigo disk as he's in full blown villain arc. Like, he straight up bullied a number of people and lashes out on practically everyone he interacts with. Changes the dynamic of an entire school just because he's pissed off and bitter. Despite his pain, those kinds of actions are not okay and shouldn't be left unchecked. Even Kieran himself shows the capacity to acknowledge when he's not necessarily doing the right thing, yet will choose to do so anyway.

I have more opinions on this LOL, but the point to that tangent is that the motif for a toxic chain possession is there. In my own multi chapter toxic chain fic that I was trying to have chapter 1 of out today for, AND WILL DEF COME OUT SATURDAY OR SUNDAY LATEST a dynamic that is similar to what you mentioned will be happening between Kieran and Juliana. Because OOOOH THE POTENTIAL FOR BOTH CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND DYNAMIC DEVELOPMENT. Get ready for some angst. 🥲

#dipplinshipping #dipplinshipping headcanons #kieran pokemon #kieran x juliana pokemon #juliana pokemon #juliana x kieran pokemon #kieran x juliana #juliana x kieran #pokemon dlc #pokemon indigo disk #pokemon spoilers #pokemon teal mask #kieran toxic chain

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mywingsareonwheels · 2 years ago

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On "Endeavour" series 9 (a critical/disappointed but affectionate post)

Cut for length, spoilers, and criticism :)

I've been thinking so much (too much ;-) ) about the ending of Endeavour since it came out. Sometimes joyfully, sometimes wistfully, mostly sadly. Occasionally angrily.

What series 9, and especially 9.3 really needed to do was a) wind up and honour the character arcs/plot arcs of Endeavour and b) set things up for Inspector Morse. And honestly, after months of pondering and thinking and hearing other people's views on it (both those I agree with and those I don't, the latter actually including Shaun Evans's ;-) )... I think it did at least partially fail in both those aims. But I think it failed ambitiously and lovingly. Which matters.

The Bad Stuff:-

The key problem Russell Lewis has said he had in writing s9 was the Thursday family and the fact that Morse never mentions any of them in IM, at least unless Joan really is the Mrs Strange of that period of time.

This problem was made worse by the fact that they are four of the most lovable characters in Endeavour, and that the relationship between Morse and Fred Thursday is the key one within it. So I can see the logic! Something awful has to happen. And given Morse's romantic interest in Joan, the Thursday family generational war trauma, and Fred's PTSD-ridden tendencies towards explosive violence when he's feeling protective of his loved ones or other vulnerable people... I can see why Lewis went with the solution he did.

The trouble is... solving the Problem of the Thursdays I think took over series 9 to such an extent that the writing managed to:-

a) honestly? fridge the character development and perceived quality of all four Thursdays (especially Fred and Joan, both of whom I think got a really rough deal tbh) in order to further Morse's long-term arc, which really is a bit bloody unfair after 9 seasons. Very very damn unfair in fact. And... uncompassionate, which is awful given that overall Endeavour is one of the most compassionate shows I've ever seen.

b) undermine Jakes's return by giving a necessary incompleteness to his search for Big Pete (and also massively underusing Jack Laskey, but honestly the fact that series 9 was only three episodes long did cause problems there).

c) turn Big Pete/Raymond Kennet into just a plot device for the aforementioned fridging of Fred's character development which... actually I admit didn't fully notice until I read a fic chapter today which did the opposite, but oof.

d) undermine Max's friendship with Morse in Inspector Morse by ignoring it completely and implying that Morse is Alone Forever after the events of Endeavour which just Isn't The Case (and again, James Bradshaw was shockingly underused). Gods could we have done with at least one scene where it was recognised that Max isn't going anywhere and they like each other so much. <3

e) actually? Undermine the complexity of the Morse of Inspector Morse too. Because DCI Morse? Is not constantly miserable and dour and closed off and unable to connect with people. He has friends, he has choir, he can make literary references in the station and have a random PC pick them up, he has a positively impish sense of humour at times, he still has his wonderful relationship with Joyce. His house is gorgeous and thoroughly well-loved. He immediately warms to Lewis who is a lot like Thursday at times, and he clearly rather enjoys Lewis teasing him so much. He is kind and compassionate, and sometimes his manner with witnesses is very like Thursday's avuncular best moments. Sure, DCI Morse is also difficult and grumpy and most definitely an alcoholic; he struggles to open up fully to people and never manages to pull off a long-term romantic relationship. But he's not a permanent ice king. He's actually a lot more like the earlier DC Morse at times than the Morse of the last few minutes of 9.3! The whole "I was betrayed by Thursday and now I will never trust anyone ever again ever" thing just wasn't necessary in order to set up Morse in his 40s and 50s. If anything, it leaves open the question of how he navigates what's actually a rather larger character jump than it would have been if Endeavour had ended earlier. Which just... ngyargh. (Also, I mean... I'm not aro, very emphatically not, but even I can see that there's something more than a bit problematic about the suggestion that Morse's life is tragic forever because he's usually single.)

Here's the other thing though: the one respect in which he is very closed-off even with Lewis in Inspector Morse is that he never tells Lewis about anyone important in his past unless he actually has to (usually because they die a violent death and his connection with the victim comes up). Never mentioning the Thursdays, Dorothea, Bright, Jakes? It didn't need that intense an explanation. At least, not a "he can't even bear to think about Fred or Joan again" explanation. It just means none of them died a violent death in Thames Valley during his time as DCI which, you know, I am extremely fricking glad about! ;-) He could press the still-beloved Thursday family to his heart like flowers, and that would be enough. He could still be getting postcards from all of them right up to the end (and I'm persisting in believing that he does ;-) ).

To unpack point a) a bit:- I mean where Joan's concerned I think a lot of us agree on this. I actually do like Strange! But it is horrible that we never hear anything about Joan's social work in series 9; it's implied that she's giving up her job in order to marry him. And Joan finding herself and moving towards saving the world one woman at a time was beautiful. I mean, there was no obligation to have everyone have a happy ending series 9! But the ending of that arc of Joan's without explanation and without comment. Not even a brief discussion where she says that she's regarding it as worth it, or is wondering about going back to work at some point... gah. That's harsh. Also, if she is the Mrs Strange of Inspector Morse? That isn't going to be a very happy marriage. :( So we're left I think hoping that they'll divorce, and that Joan will go back to social work one day, and perhaps go and find her family.

And Fred. Oh Gods, Fred. I mean, I have made so many posts about him on here. ;-) The thing is: with the context provided in series 9, him committing manslaughter (not murder! not under English/Welsh law! and he might even have a decent case for self-(and other) defense!) and perverting the course of justice (yeah okay that he definitely is guilty of) in order to save Sam... it makes sense. He has had his moments of violence, and I think it's crucial to not forget that he's killed two people to save Morse in the past. Which... is part of what frustrates me, because it feels like the narrative in 9.3 is that we should treat Fred killing to save Sam as somehow less morally okay than him killing to save Morse. Which is the kind of protagonist-centered morality (or indeed police-centered morality?) that the morseverse generally avoids, and I Do Not Like It.

But the precise circumstances that series 9 creates in order to make it convincing for Fred to a) do that, b) cover it up, c) snap that badly at Morse, d) try to justify what he's done to Morse... they were extreme. It takes one of the most intense piles of trauma laid on one character in one 3-episode season of anything I think I've ever seen. Fred is going through so much, he's so broken, he's so burnt out. And I mean... of course! It took all of that to make him make those mistakes! But in retrospect... if you need to set up that intense a situation in order to make a character fuck up enough to further the plot line of another character... yeah. Hence my comment about fridging his arc. The point of Morse and Fred's relationship until series 9 has always been that even though they are both very flawed and very fallible, their love for each other is a good and awesome thing (series 7 I think really brings that home <3 ). It feels to me that 9.3 makes the whole of the rest of the show less moving and good, and that's... oh that's sad. So sad. :( I mean, I'm very biased, the Morse & Fred relationship has always been my favourite thing about Endeavour! But if the ultimate message is "Morse should never have loved Fred that much, however kind Fred was and however often he saved Morse's life"... oh that's just... it makes the whole thing so much thinner. This is, apart from anything else, a man who explicitly puts his marriage at risk when his son is missing in order to save Morse at the end of s8! But now we're supposed to see everything a tragedy because Morse has to accept that he isn't that important to Fred and never has been because during a really intense few months he's not been Fred's number 1 priority and... gaaaah.

This is terribly rambly; I'm really not as articulate today as I should like. Apologies!

The thing is: I've been fighting actually-being-a-bit-disappointed-in-series 9 for months, but now I'm going "no actually they failed" I can be a bit more generous. :)

Because...

The Good Stuff:

a) Bright's arc is fantastic. 100/10, no criticisms. <3 Probably the only one I'm fully happy about but I am very happy about it.

b) There is not a split-second in the whole of series 9 (the whole of Endeavour in fact) in which the acting is other than superb, especially from the main cast. That farewell scene between Morse and Thursday? Fucking hell. I mean, Roger Allam is my favourite actor, he never disappoints, but he still astounded me! And Shaun was also just magnificent. <3 And why hasn't Anton Lesser played Prospero yet; his delivery of the speech was incredible! Also fucking hell Caroline O'Neill is an unsung hero of the whole show.

c) To do the Fred arc justice: Fred's morality wasn't thrown away over nothing. I do feel that the trauma-conga-line-to-enable-Fred-to-let-Morse-down-sufficiently bordered at least on the contrived and unkind, but my Gods it would have been so much worse if it wasn't there! <3

d) So much nuance. I mean the fact that a lot of us cheerfully disagree with each other over how forgiving or otherwise Morse was feeling towards Fred? Is based on microexpressions, and call-backs, and how much we can read into the layering of Fred's image over the reference to Lazarus "born a pauper" in the "In Paradisum" of the Faure Requiem, and what sounds like was more than one filmed version of the farewell scene. I mean, my Gods. Endeavour has always respected the intelligence of the viewer, but that was something else.

e) The nitty-gritty of the dialogue never stopped being wonderful. Some absolutely incredible lines, literary references, layered scenes... I know I talk about James Bradshaw and Jack Laskey being underused, but the lines that each of Max and Jakes got while actually onscreen? Phenomenal. Ditto Abigail Thaw/Dorothea, on all counts.

f) The cinematography bloody hell. <3 <3 <3 And the music! Aaah!

The failures of series 9 I see are in pacing, and in making flawed decisions that don't serve the characterisation. They aren't, not once, about the quality of filmmaking being anything other than fantastic. <3 Or the storyline being other than extremely ambitious. There's nothing lazy or cheap or shock-tactics-for-the-sake-of-shock-tactics or (grr) prioritising being unpredictable over being good. It's all earnest and loving and beautifully-realised.

So many times when a show ends disappointingly (or a show's current main actor's final series ending disappointingly *cough*Shetland*cough*) it's down to lack of care and attention and love. I can't possibly accuse Russell Lewis or anyone involved in Endeavour of that. <3

I just... I just wish, so much, that they'd made different choices for the Thursdays. But at least we still have fanfic. :-)

(Also, full love to those of you who disagree with me on part or all of this! I love that this is a fandom where we can agree to disagree, and avoid much in the way of ship wars/character wars etc.. <3 Long may it continue!)

#itv endeavour #endeavour spoilers #endeavour s9 #endeavour s9 spoilers #itv inspector morse #mild inspector morse spoilers #endeavour critical #but also #endeavour admiring #e morse #endeavour morse #inspector morse #fred thursday #joan thursday #russell lewis

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vibesoda · 4 months ago

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Hi! I love your Fine/Quick Clockwork au and i was too shy to ask about it before but i saw your post talking about people asking questions, and it felt like a sign asdfsdf

ok first though i found the fic from your drawing of fein/fine and couri/icarus and it's literally??? been living in my head rent free i was making silly little doodles of fine and couri during class today like???? the story is so interesting and cool (im a BIG sucker for hero-villain stuff) and the characterizations are so good, especially loving the dialogue and fein's narration, it matches his voice really well

i think i've reread chapter 3 at least six?? times?? probably more. every scene is so good because they're all tense but in different ways, which makes each part suspenseful while still being unique. there's a feeling of dread throughout the whole chapter, and it's awesome. also villain fruit is everything to me...he's so slay (literally. maybe too literally actually)

So I have two questions! One, aside from obviously having different characters, did anything change between the chapter three that we got and the original idea/vision for the chapter (that you can say w/o spoilers) given that there was a 2 year gap between it and 2? And two, how common is having a power in the au's world, and how did you decide what power to give each person? of the people we know i feel like people wouldn't usually correlate fein and being a healer so it's soo interesting seeing that kind of dynamic here

this got really long so just wanted to say your writing is amazing and im always excited to read your works, thanks for taking the time to read this ok bye-

thank you SO much for this. you are so kind and i’m absolutely overjoyed that you enjoy my work. i’ve said this many times before, but it bears repeating that people like you are the reason i’m still sharing my work. knowing that people other than me derive joy from what i make is everything.

anyway, to answer your questions: no, not much changed between the original concept for the story three years ago and the current outline i have. one thing that changed, though, was that i never planned on Fine himself being targeted by villains, but i since changed my mind (obviously) because the events of chapter three force Icarus to think about being a hero from a different perspective. it starts a domino effect that leads to some rather groundbreaking discoveries on Icarus’s part.

i’d say about 30-40 percent of the population has some sort of power, but very few of them are “powerful,” like Icarus’s wings. Lots of them go undetected for a long time, like Fine’s healing.

Icarus’s power was pretty straightforward. A long, long, time ago in the year of our lord 2021 (and parts of 2020 if i recall correctly), couri ran a category of 1.16 RSG called icarus, where the player would start with an elytra and a stack of rockets. that’s where his sona’s wings came from. artists started drawing him with wings and the rest is history.

about Fine’s power: Iterum readers would know that it’s quite similar to Switch’s power, but Fine’s power predates Iterum, so it came first. if you read the tags on Fine, you may notice one that reads “superpowers as a metaphor for love languages,” and, uh, weeelllll, if you read into Fine’s monologue in chapter three, think about giving vs taking, uh, you can come to your own conclusions about all that. A lot of HBG’s powers are based on their Dolorem/Iterum counterparts, if that provides some insight.

#thank u so much for the ask nonnie #i saw ur other one i will answer it shortly 🫶#fine fic #yap

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applestorms · 2 years ago

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GOOD OMENS.

CLENCH UP BITCHES WE'RE DOING THIS. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS READ WITH CAUTION my hands are still shaking from finishing season 2 approximately 13.420 minutes ago so everybody clam the fuigk up/down. we're getting IN to this one. 10 sections.

youtube

okay, before i get into anything specific, i just wanna say: this series has had some of the best writing i've seen in a tv show & it's really fucking gratifying to watch. this season in particular had some really clear, distinct themes that were evolved upon and executed pretty much perfectly imo, to the point that i almost feel like i can guess what a good deal of season 3 is probably gonna look like (see section 12). this is great!! it means the writers are really paying attention to what the story is doing & what the characters are feeling/going through at any given moment in the story, & it just makes the series that much stronger on a rewatch. this season in particular really hits that sweet spot for me of being overt & clear w/ its themes w/o treating its audiences like idiots, it just. works.

i'm not going to touch on season 1 as much here since it's not as fresh as s2 for me rn, but hopefully this post can help bring some additional analysis/reflection to the new season. not sure how much of this will be totally crazy wild & new, but perhaps some interesting points will come outta the process. hope you enjoy the read!! there's 13 sections so feel free to skip around.

1. aziraphale as the beautiful execution of a flawed protagonist (ft. crowley's pining)

one of the best parts of this season by far comes from the character writing, particularly for the main two & especially for aziraphale. aziraphale was my personal favorite to watch for this entire season actually, he & crowley are both such a fucking mess but aziraphale in particular hides it in such a fascinating way to me. it's not just like watching a car crash, it's like sitting on a park bench watching a man drive a bus into a stoplight, like full on crunch the vehicle in half squish, and then just get out & carry on walking like nothing is wrong & he isn't dripping blood & scraping broken bones across the concrete.

on a broader scale, there is something incredibly appealing about how aziraphale & crowley are presented, even at a very base level. even w/o the fantastic acting of michael sheen & david tennant specifically, it's a pretty common thing that fandom will default to shipping Narrative Foils, & these two are the epitome of that. a demon who can't stop being a nice guy & an angel who keeps cutely being an asshole- this is a great base to work off of, & again the execution thus far has been excellent.

what i like about aziraphale in particular is how complex his character ends up being while still fitting into a very particular role. while crowley to some degree fits into an already pretty popular & well-loved character model (that of the grumpy nice guy), aziraphale has to hit a couple of very important & precise traits, being both outwardly very likeable & endearing while simultaneously constantly fucking up & doing increasingly egregious shit. i really can't commend michael sheen enough for his acting in helping to get the balance right- it would be STUPIDLY easy to make aziraphale the most obnoxious character to ever grace the screen if performed or written incorrectly, the kind of outwardly-kind asshole that does horrific shit w/o reflecting since the show runners seem incapable of seeing the character for what they are & it all just ends up driving viewers up the wall (e.g. emily in paris).

what i think makes aziraphale work is the fact that he is just genuine enough in his actions that when he does something legitimately horrible, it's both so subtle you almost don't even pick up on it, too distracted by the emotions you feel in following his perspective, & just motivated enough that it's easy to write him off w/o thinking any deeper. as much as crowley calls aziraphale out for being a bad magician, i think it's spot on that the one thing he is quite skilled at is misdirection. you spend a lot of time in this show following very closely with either aziraphale or crowley's POV, but in s2 especially the contrast between those two views is quite overt. while crowley's perspective is often a lot quieter, more reflective & also overtly anxious as he throws himself into stressful situations purely for the sake of supporting az, aziraphale's POV is always very loud & chaotic as he runs around, finding pubs & fighting demons & doing whatever the fuck else he wants to at any given moment.

the main flaw of aziraphale in this season is, imo, selfishness, a direct contrast to crowley's continual self-sacrifice when it comes to aziraphale. in both cases though, this is (pushed to become) a flaw that i think ultimately leads to their inability to connect at the end of the season. but in order to understand that more, we're going to have to take a closer look into the circumstances that have thus far shaped both aziraphale & crowley's characters.

2. denial as a defense mechanism: heaven & hell as life threatening danger

if there's one thing s2 has not forgotten when it comes to a&c, it's the circumstances of s1 that led them to their current emotional/mental states.

slight tangent to lead back into this point: in my work as a librarian, i end up dealing w/ a very particular set of clientele when it comes to the kinds of people that regularly use a public library. parents w/ young children, older gentlemen & ladies looking to escape the more extreme weather, and (for my city, at least) lots and lots of people who no longer have stable housing. since an often forgotten about goal of a public library (well, to the general population) is social services, as a part of my training i've recently been working through a book on what is essentially trauma-informed customer service, which has led to a lot of insight.

one point in particular that i want to highlight here is the idea that traumatic instances are both common & intensely significant in how they can change a person's behavior. defense mechanisms that may make sense in the context of a traumatic event will often stick w/ people even as the context they're in changes & the instincts are no longer useful, instead making the individuals' life even more difficult.

if there is one trauma that defines a lot of the current problems that a&c are going through, it's the fear that originates from the constant surveillance and, in turn, threat of complete eradication that comes from both heaven & hell.

significantly, crowley & aziraphale both respond to this threat in distinctly different ways: where crowley clings to the idea of escape, of creating a place where it's him and aziraphale against the world (alpha centauri), in part idealizing aziraphale as both his only friend ("friend") & the only person he could ever truly trust (crowley also likely has some trauma from the fall but we'll get to that), aziraphale viciously denies that they even have a relationship, all the while simultaneously relying on crowley heavily to do a lot of his dirty work for him. (see this post for the endgame twist on that idea.) it's significant to me that a good chunk of aziraphale's earliest morally dubious actions involve lying- since he's been doing it for so long, it's probably one of the easiest things for him to write off as not that bad, so it's natural that he would default to it as a defense mechanism here too.

to clarify, crowley does engage in denial too, though it's obvious from the emotional climaxes of both season 1 & 2 that he is much less committed to it, likely doing it for the sake of easing aziraphale's mind and/or giving himself something to fall back on so he doesn't attract too much attention from the people that can really hurt them. overall though, these are both basically just fight/flight responses- crowley ultimately wants to run away from or fight everyone that can hurt them (& betrayed him by letting him down in the past) and aziraphale ultimately just wants to deny that the problem even exists.

if we see aziraphale's later stated goal of, "Let's change heaven for the better," as an evolution off of his earlier mindset, this is also basically what their final argument in ep6 comes down to: crowley wanting to run away and aziraphale wanting to go & fight for change. what's so aggravating about this conversation is that they also want the exact same thing: EACH OTHER. (idiots.) (maggie & nina were spot on, of course. it's not just nightingales missing in that silence.) this is not even to mention the fact that they are utilizing these defense mechanisms not just in an attempt to protect themselves, but ultimately to protect one another. think about that one late at night if you wanna get up the motivation to key mr. gaiman's car.

it's also interesting to note that in s1 crowley basically wins this argument, getting the chance to settle down (albeit, still under pretty questionable circumstances) as he & aziraphale (supposedly) create their own little corner of the world away from everyone else. it still doesn't work though as neither of their solutions really get at the core of the problem, which is 1. the horrific bureaucratic systems of heaven & hell that Don't Give a Shit about People at all, and 2. their own unspoken fears & feelings (romantic & otherwise).

3. good, evil, & narrative foils: crowley edition

since i extrapolated on aziraphale's character in section 1 and a&c's relationship in 2, i think it's only right that i look into crowley more for 3.

for all the pain & agony & tears that it brings, i really do think that ep6 is the best ep of s2. specifically, i think that ep6 is the one that shows the primary issues of a&c that have been plaguing them throughout the season (& even previously in s1) the most overtly, and this is especially true of crowley.

there are two things that aziraphale gets wrong about heaven in their final argument: 1st, the idea that heaven is necessarily better than hell, & 2nd the idea that crowley would ever want anything to do w/ it again.

i've seen some people talking about crowley like he's the voice of reason this season, but i don't necessarily agree, or at least not entirely. he's completely right when he says that heaven & hell is toxic in their final argument, yes, but i don't think his motivation in saying that is purely from observation either. remember that point i mentioned earlier, about crowley also having trauma from his initial fall? where aziraphale naturally trusts people to a fault (see: gabriel, but also picking up shax, the graveyard, etc.), crowley is plagued by a complete inability to trust anyone around him, & it's my opinion that a lot of this comes from the trauma of his initial fall.

the one exception to this is, of course, aziraphale, who we can see attempting to be a friend to crowley both before & long after his fall, but aside from him crowley Does Not trust anyone else around him & honestly for good reason. while we can write off hell as just being Like That, even if crowley didn't initially want to fall (as is heavily implied in a few flashback scenes), he certainly doesn't want to be dragged back into a supposedly great position that he knows he could lose again at any wrong comment. this is also (in part) why i think crowley reacts so strongly to aziraphale's "Nothing lasts forever," comment- after going through the horror of losing his divinity & all the stress of the last few seasons, the one thing crowley probably wants is stability, & he's been relying on aziraphale as the source of that. you're both doing the dance for this one, boys.

to reiterate: don't forget the graveyard scene when it comes to crowley doing absolutely anything for aziraphale to the point that it hurts him, both in terms of the supposed punishment he got from hell (that az skips over real fast in his narration) & how aziraphale continues to deny both the reality of their relationship & how much his denial hurts crowley.

4. beelz & gabe the weirdest couple imaginable. good for them. good for them. also: heaven & hell as two equally controlling/toxic sides of a bureaucracy

the Big Bads of the last few seasons took more of a backseat for this one which makes sense considering the focus on a&c and all of the parallel couples, but i do think the one point that was emphasized for them is very important, and that's the ways in which both heaven & hell parallel each other as shitty bureaucratic pyramids of power.

if we consider this meme to be true, i think crowley really is right when it comes to his analysis of heaven & hell, though we're probably just gonna have to wait until s3 to see the exact route the show decides to take.

a big running thread w/in either of these two groups is the fight for promotions, both in terms of people clawing their way up to get more power & in terms of people being replaceable. crowley & gabriel getting kicked out of their positions is just a vacancy of power to the companies that are Good Omens Heaven & Hell, and there is a very clear parallel between shax & michael & their desire for control. what's notable is how that parallel might also now extend to aziraphale what w/ his new promotion. all very fitting concepts to cover in a post-covid, writers-strike context, which i have seen our resident mr. gaiman posting about.

5. yuri on ice, hannibal, & the beauty of acknowledged romantic tension

if there is ONE thing i am disgustingly grateful for in this show it's the fact that we finally have some concrete follow-through on the romantic tension between a&c that permeated through s1. there's only so many times a man can call his best bud "Angel" completely unironically before it gets fucking stupid (cough cough dean winchester cough). but also, to put it in the words of another text post around here: I love how the kiss was awful.

even if there wasn't a kiss, the fact that this fucking entire season fucking revolved around love & featured all kinds of parallel couples should be enough to clue you in on the romantic tension between a&c, if you somehow were blind enough to miss it before. that being said, i'm really glad that the kiss was executed the way that it was, essentially summarizing all of the tension & anguish that had been built up over the last few seasons in an explosion. the state of aziraphale & crowley's relationship hurts more because they kissed, because the tension finally overflowed & it still wasn't enough to stop him from getting in the stupid elevator & running away again.

sorry had to take a break to aggressively listen to the better call saul theme song again. anyways, while i know there are some other shows that have set precedent for this in acknowledging the romantic development between their leads, i can't stop thinking about two in particular in comparison to good omens: yuri on ice, for the literal cinematic parallels between the kiss, and nbc hannibal, for the creator acknowledgement & slow lead up to the climax.

what i am desperately hoping & praying for w/ good omens is season 3, since it feels like all too often when we finally get a good, Gay:tm: show it's always this big, flashy thing right at the end that everyone freaks out about & adores (around these parts, at least) but is never evolved upon. i think gomens has a good chance since we've got more precedent now, the creators/actors/etc are more open about it, & the season is clearly unfinished w/ a ravenous fanbase, but something something supernatural trauma i'll trust it when i see it. can't always believe these corporate fuckers. at the very least though they probably wouldn't write this kind of ending if they didn't think they had a good case for another season, so.

ok, a couple shorter sections cause i'm undoubtedly gonna run out of space if i keep at this pace:

6. the resurrectionists was a really good arc that i enjoyed a lot

exactly what it says tbh, the writing for this arc in particular really stood out to me.

i mentioned earlier that s2 has some really good character writing & i think that's in part because it's necessary as a kind of transition season, reflecting on the chaos that happened w/ the first go at armageddon & setting up for the next apocalyptic event that is likely planned for s3. it's for this reason that i think the resurrectionists arc is really strong, establishing in particular all the flaws of aziraphale's character that i went over previously in a very interesting way that still manages to weave into the previously established, albeit quite sparse flashback timeline established in s1. the morally dubious nature of grave robbing for the sake of science & medicine is the perfect context to put characters like a&c in, and the more overt look into class w/ a character like elspeth works really well in helping to ground the more abstract social commentary associated w/ heaven & hell.

7. ramblings about sequels & whatnot

it can be really difficult to write a sequel, especially when the first go at the story cleaned up its plot so well by the end, but where s2 is strongest imo is in establishing the ways that crowley & aziraphale still need to grow.

i almost think that this season had to end horrifically tragic, in a similar way that i think book 2 of the simon snow series wayward son had to end on a pretty dour note. in order for 1 & 3 to have decently high notes, 2 just often has to be pretty miserable to balance it all out.

this is also why i think the maggie/nina storyline is so important overall. not only do those two establish the most overt romantic parallel to a&c, helping to transition the story from s1 & set up for ep6, but they also end on a distinctly hopeful note that's in direct contrast to the scene that comes immediately after they leave. the parallel plants at least the tiniest seed of hope that a&c can sort their shit out if given some time & communication, similar to maggie & nina. it also makes a lot more sense in establishing why crowley chooses that moment of all times to bother w/ a love confession- i genuinely don't think the kiss would work if m&n didn't have a little sit-down intervention w/ him beforehand.

8. SPECULATION: aziraphale vs. crowley apocalyptic fight, dissolving of the current organization of heaven & hell, affirmation of the beauty of humanity & morality?

a list of my speculation about what may or may not happen in s3:

apocalypse part 2 only this time aziraphale & crowley are actually gonna be fighting each other & it's going to be fucking agonizing to watch especially in direct contrast to s1

there's probably going to be some sort of attempt to get crowley into an equal/parallel position to aziraphale in hell. whether or not he actually decides to take this position is kinda up in the air, but either way he's going to fight it at first out of a hatred of both sides. if he does eventually agree it'll be under some sort of condition to save aziraphale, and/or a fake out trick that also is to save aziraphale.

i just don't think i can see a happy ending where heaven & hell stay in their same structure. w/ such big characters as gabriel & beelzebub just fucking gone into the middle of nowhere there's gotta be some kind of re-establishment of the two sides & their relations. the only way it might not change is if the Religion Lore gets in the way, but w/ the established politics of this show & mr. gaiman i can't see an ending that just allows the status quo to continue on exactly as horrible as it's been.

crowley back in his apartment? (plsplspls.) also something really heart-wrenching & emotional related to the car & the bookstore after a&c have been separated from them because of course. personally requesting additional exploration of the car as a symbol of crowley himself/able to be influenced by aziraphale e.g. scooting towards az, yellow is so pretty, etc. etc.

more flashbacks, maybe more from crowley's pov this time? like something to do w/ that period where he was supposedly being punished for helping aziraphale, more about his experiences w/ hell & the fall, etc.

something something affirmation of the beauty of humanity & the world, ft. a&c bonding over their mutual love of it again. they were each others only real friend for how many thousands of years, if they're gonna be fighting OR attempting a romantic bond that's going to be significant.

when the actual romantic reconciliation happens is kinda up in the air, but it depends on what the Big Bad ends up being, an external force of heaven & hell or a&c themselves. personally, i think that heaven & hell are just gonna keep getting weaker but w/ aziraphale in charge maybe that'll change (or maybe it'll be the catalyst lolol). if it's external they'll probably get together earlier in the season, if it's more internal probably not til the end, though there might be a momentary reconciliation for the sake of fighting something else.

i'm a bit more up in the air about this one, but maybe something more w/ satan & god as the top of the pyramid when it comes to heaven & hell? good omens is all about that kind of contrast so it might make sense. this also assumes that s3 is the presumed end of the series, which may or may not be the case.

if this does end up being the end of the series: i really, really, really, would not be surprised if crowley & aziraphale end up fully human. it's quite the obvious answer but it just makes so much sense for their characters, w/ their love of the world & whatnot. then again a lot of their relationship has also been related to immortality, but also then again there's a lot of stories out there about immortals hating their long lives & wanting to just settle down like normal people so. ehh. oh speaking of settling down,

9. they're NOT married, that's the PROBLEM: thirteen seconds.

thirteen. full. seconds. of the Most Awful Kiss. known to contemporary tv.

they're not married that's th eentire fuckigngggng proble m.,,..,,..,.

10. "I forgive you."

this is such a nonsensical line it makes me so absurdly angry. what the fuck are you doing aziraphale. well, presumably the exact same thing crowley was trying to do by kissing you, but i digress.

bonus edit, i thought of this literal seconds before falling asleep & now i can’t get it out of my mind: crowley needs aziraphale for stability, aziraphale needs stability to have crowley. mic drop

#i had to keep taking breaks writing this to listen to the better call saul theme so i could calm down #gomens #good omens season 2 spoilers #good omens #gomens 2 meta #also if you somehow end up reading this mr. gaiman: yes i do sneak your books onto the displays at the library whenever i can #as it should be 😌#astronaut rambles

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accirax · 8 months ago

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Part 2! I'm going to try to get this out as close to the release of Part 1 as I possibly can! But doing that means that I should make this intro really short so as to spend more time on the actual meat of the theories and expedite my progress on posting as much as possible so let's stop wasting time and get to it!

More DRDT Chapter 2 spoilers below.

Continued Execution Thoughts

I'm sorry, who are you people???

I'm probably thinking into this too hard, but when I first saw that there were other humanoid figures in Ace's execution, I was shocked. Does this imply that there are other humans in the area helping with the implementation of the killing game? Or are these just XF Tech androids meant to aid in executions? Or are the executions themselves meant more to be pieces of art that don't fully conform to the realities of the universe, more focused on spectacle than realism?

It's probably that last one, but, still. Caught me off guard for sure.

Oh, sweet, an updated autopsy report. Thanks, Detective Gumshoe. (/ref)

Well, I guess I didn't have as much more to say about the execution as I thought, given that this paper doesn't seem to have any extra lore hidden in it either. Other than that, despite understanding why killing Ace made sense here and agreeing that it was a good idea, I'm still very sad that Ace is now dead. (I would've felt that way with anyone, to be clear).

Given how the chapter ends, immediately jumping into Teruko all by herself, I still don't really think I've processed that he won't be in the story that much anymore. I don't know if that'll come with a bit more time, or the bonus episode, or when Chapter 3 starts, but it'll definitely be jarring to proceed with no more Ace. Still, I absolutely commend DRDTdev for how they capped off this character, and for giving us such a memorable and likeable character in our Chapter 2 killer slot. In my opinion, Chapter 2 deaths are the hardest to make relevant.

This is the first thing Teruko has said since Levi stepped in front of her, by the way. Seven minutes and one execution later.

Using the elevator to cut Eden off here was such a fun moment, especially as a callback to the beginning of Chapter 2.

Back then, Teruko wanted to take the elevator by herself, and kicked Eden out from riding with her. Now, she's having everyone else take the elevator, kicking herself out. Maybe elevators can be our always.

Teruko: Why did you push for Min to be executed so quickly, but stalled for so long to execute Ace? You wanted Min to suffer knowing that she didn't have the time to say all the things she wanted to say. You wanted Ace to suffer knowing that the longer he lived, the less chance Levi had to survive. No, more than that. You wanted all of us to suffer.

This was also an incredibly welcome and clever surprise! I had just assumed that this episode was longer than the last because DRDT has been trending longer in general (as in, Chapter 2 is way longer than Chapter 1), but it was so cool to see that that was also intentional by MonoTV. It's not that Ace actually had any more or less to say than Min, but that Min got cut off while Ace was left in prolonged suffering.

"So-called TV show" is quite interesting. Does that mean it's not actually a TV show, only having the appearance of one? A TV is present in the logo, and the mascot is, well, MonoTV, so clearly, the television is quite important to the story DRDTdev wants to tell. Maybe it's intended to be a show, but it hasn't aired quite yet?

If it isn't a TV show, that would answer questions such as "why did they threaten the students with revealing their secrets to the world when presenting the secrets on the show would reveal them to the viewing public anyways?" So, that would be kind of convenient. However, if the answer to that question is "just roll with it," that's fine by me. I'd rather have an interesting and informative motive than fully follow along with what makes 100% sense for the universe the story takes place in.

MonoTV: That is my secondary purpose, after ensuring the death of every student.

Who is MonoTV convincing, exactly? Most people in our world, at least, would look at the entity forcing young adults to kill each other and easily tag them as the villain in this scenario. Using appearances to "convince everyone" that you're the bad guy shouldn't be hard at all in a peaceful world.

Does this imply, then, that the audience is inclined to believe that MonoTV is in the right? Does everyone want Teruko to die, and/or for the killers (which many of the students already were, or at least related to a death) to always be punished for their crimes?

If that were the case, then why would MonoTV need to be perceived as the villain? For the sake of drama? To imitate the killing games of old? Or is all of this just meant to indicate that MonoTV (and the person programming it) doesn't believe that it's in the wrong?

There's a whole lot to sift through with the words that MonoTV's default persona chooses in this episode. I look forward to seeing everyone dive into that in the future.

I know that this line specifically makes MonoTV look more like a victim of fate (similar to everyone else) than a manifestation of fate itself. However, the context leading up to this quote makes me believe that MonoTV will be a good representation of fate due to its robotic nature:

MonoTV: But I have no choice in the matter. I have no conscience, no sense of morality, no will at all. I am merely a robot, subject to the laws of my code. I have no choice but to perform the actions that my creator dictated I must. Even if I feel pain or guilt, I cannot stop.

MonoTV and Teruko are both similar, because they both believe they're "fated" to hurt others. However, for MonoTV, this is literal. MonoTV, at least this version, is just lines of default code. It has restrictions it must adhere to, and was created for a singular purpose. However, Teruko is a person, and despite her curse, she can really do whatever she wants. She can change. And that's why I think, in the endgame (or at least at some point in the future), Teruko will be able to contrast herself against MonoTV and recognize that she can write her own future, because, unlike MonoTV, she's a fully realized person.

I also want to point out how odd "even if I feel pain or guilt" is. Like, are you... feeling those things...? Are you even capable of feeling those things? Or are you just trying to relate to Teruko? MonoTV, when I get you--

I feel like this is the first time that Teruko has acknowledged Xander in an even vaguely positive light since before he died. I suppose you can infer that her cactus theater was somewhat positive, as she was interested in the prospect of the two of them continuing to be friends, but this might be the first time she's outwardly acknowledged that his death was a bad thing. Or maybe I'm forgetting something, idk.

:,(

Surviving Students Order

Thank you to brawler64brandon for pointing this out to me!

Pointing out what, you may ask, if you haven't read the linked post? Well, apparently, the order in which the surviving students were portrayed changed. Here's the order from the end of Chapter 1, which was the same as the end of the Prologue:

In summary, the Prologue/Chapter 1 order was:

Ace - Veronika - Arei - J - Rose - Xander - Levi - Teruko - Hu - Charles - Arturo - Eden - Min - Whit - David - Nico

While the Chapter 2 order is:

Veronika - Ace - J - Arei - Rose - Xander - Hu - Charles - Teruko - Arturo - Eden - Levi - Min - Whit - David - Nico

Things of note:

Veronika and Ace traded places

J and Arei traded places (um, not like that (/j))

Teruko used to be between Levi and Hu. Now she's in between Charles and Arturo

Levi moved the most, from 7th position to 12th position

Teruko and Hu used to be the center pair. Now Charles and Teruko are the center pair

Hu, Charles, Levi, and Teruko traded which half of the students (1-8 vs 9-16) they were on

Rose, Xander, Min, Whit, David, and Nico all stayed in exactly the same place

To be honest, I have no clue what's going on here. They aren't listed in the order that the voice actors are credited in the description, nor are they listed in the official character order as listed on the cast page of the official tumblr. And, similarly to what I determined about that character order, this also doesn't seem to be in "alphabetical first name order, alphabetical last name order, alphabetical talent order, death order, order of introduction, Class Trial seating order, gender order (like doing all the girls, all the boys, and then Nico), rainbow order of official colors... And, as far as I can tell, that remains true if you do any of the options in reverse, or if you remove Teruko." It's not even in the goddamn hidden Mai quote order. Was the order just pulled out of a hat???

I bring all of this up because I think that, theoretically, knowing why the characters were in the order they were in could help us figure out why it changed. Then again, if they were in a more concrete order (like "height" or something), it wouldn't make much sense why they moved. That means that the order in the first place was probably either random, or subjective.

I just don't understand why it changed, then. It could be to account for the new designs, but Hu and David's designs are really the only ones that made major changes to their silhouettes-- Hu's because of her longer and fuller skirt, and David's because he's striking a different pose. Why would that affect anything about the order in which Veronika and Ace stand?

There's the possibility that DRDTdev was just putting the order together by memory and that he made some mistakes, which is honestly quite possible. However, that's not the answer you're hoping for when you ask a theorist! So I'll share the few ideas I did come up with.

Ace/Veronika and J/Arei were swapped because DRDTdev wanted J and Rose to be standing in between two dead people (and, to an extent, Veronika as well). For J, it would be to further hone in on the comment she made near the beginning of the Class Trial ("why am I surrounded by dead people") in addition to her anti-murder sentiments. For Rose, it would reflect how the memories of those who have passed are still haunting her. And, in Veronika's case, it could be that her treatment of the dead will isolate her from everyone else.

Maybe some of the people moving around is to show the emotional distance between them? J moved away from Arturo while Arturo tried to move closer to her, Charles moved closer to Whit, Hu grew farther from Nico, Teruko tries to keep Levi away after he stepped up for her, stuff like that. While possible, this is a very confirmation bias-y conclusion. Some answers will work, but others won't. Like, that would mean that "Eden moved away from Teruko." No she didn't, by the end of the Chapter they're closer than they were before.

Honestly, the best explanation I can think of for the swaps is to give us less meta information to work with. For an example of what I mean, starting in SDR2, the canon games had portraits of the students that appeared just before the Trial started, with the alive students in blue and the dead students in red. Many fangans also began to copy this format, and DRDT is no exception.

The thing is, these images usually have a sort of "balance" to them. As you can see here, in DRDT, each of the first three deaths were on three different pages. Much of the time, every page has a survivor on it, or at least someone who doesn't die until very late into the game. Pages frequently also have a mix of killers and victims on them. The first killer and the first victim are rarely shown on the same page. Same with double kill victims. As someone who pays attention to these sorts of things, I look at these pre-Trial images and am already thinking, "if Xander and Ace are already dead from page #3, does that mean that no one else on that page will become a third victim, to keep the pages even?"

By switching the order of people around, it means that no one can use, "well, Hu through Levi seems like way too many alive people in a row, so there must be at least one death amongst those students in Chapter 3," because by the end of Chapter 3, the order may have been shuffled around anyways. Does this make sense, or do I just sound fucking insane?

Personally, if there are two victims in Chapter 3, I think that one will be from page 3 and one from page 1 or 2, so that things won't be so predictably dead even. And then, the killer would be on either page 1 or 2. I might be biased because my vibes currently say Charles/Arturo Chapter 3 victims, though.

And, after all of the sadness (/pos) that this episode granted, seeing this at the end of it all made me really happy... because it means that DRDT is still planned to be continued, even if it's years down the line!

By this point, I imagine that most of us have read DRDTdev's Chapter 2 conclusion post, in which he confirmed that even starting production on any future DRDT content (including things like bonus episodes or MVs) may take a long while yet. And I, much like seemingly most people in the comments and reblogs of that post (thankfully) am 100% okay with that! Between the myriads of sprites and backgrounds, animations, and editing effects, I can see how solely creating the visual art necessary for another chapter would take ages and loads of effort. And that's not even including things like writing (including planning out a whole-ass murder), music selection, and consulting with voice actors!

Creating a fangan of this level all by yourself is a herculean task, and DRDTdev deserves to take all of the rest he needs and more before he begins to subject themselves to that grind again. Personally, I'm setting "sometime in late 2026" as my hopeful estimate of when the main plot of DRDT might resume, and I'm willing to wait longer than that if necessary.

And, while I will be greatly saddened if DRDTdev eventually has to announce that DRDT can never continue, I would understand and respect that as well. Even the kindest of fanbases leaves you with a lot of hopes and dreams to fulfill on your plate, and if the mere situation of having such a public and popular story is stressful for DRDTdev, then he should be allowed to step out of the spotlight for his own comfort. I would be upset to not be able to speculate about the ongoing story anymore, but, honestly, I've had enough fun discussing the series with all of you to make investing my time and emotions into this story 100% worth it. 110% worth it, even. 11037% worth it!

Thank you to DRDTdev for a spectacular closing act to the second chapter, and thank you to all of you guys for listening to my theories through Chapter 2 Part 2! I promise, there should be much more to come, even without any Taylor lore or Q&A secrets dropped in our laps... Although, who's to say how long it might take me to write them, haha.

Chapter 2 Part 2 dissections, complete! :D

Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 16 Dissection

Wow. Just wow. What a way to end off the chapter. (/pos)

I wasn't expecting to have a whole lot to theorize about with this one (especially given its relatively shorter length), but buckle in, because I'm sure I'm going to have a lot to say about the way that the end of this brilliant chapter played out...

Enough to call this a Part 1 again, much like I did last time. That means I have a rate of way over one image per minute...

SPOILERS for Danganronpa: Despair Time through the end of Chapter 2. (wild) Also spoilers for SDR2 through the beginning of Chapter 4.

When I was first watching the episode, I definitely had the thought, "I wonder if MonoTV is just saying this for the sake of engagement with the theoretical audience, because it seems like MonoTV should already know what the answer is due to its role and what the students just said." Based on what happens later in the episode, that was probably about correct? I dunno, there's a lot to unpack with MonoTV here.

Who Voted Teruko?

(For all two people who would understand the reference, please read that header in the tone of "who voted Sifu?" from Survivor 45. Or, really, I should probably say one person, because it's probably just Venus :P)

So, it's happened once again. While the clear majority of the votes are on the correct blackened, Ace, we have a single straggler who decided to vote for Teruko instead. But, who is this mystery person? Let's talk possibilities.

First, however, I think we should take a look at last Trial's voting results.

What I find strange is that the order of the students, even those who weren't voted for, changed. My guess was that students who receive votes are put at the front, students who are dead are put at the end, and the middle seems to be alphabetized by last name order?

Chiem - Cuevas - Fontana - Giles - Grebenshchikova - Hakobyan - Jing - Lacroix - Markey - Nageishi - Rosales - Tobisa - Young

Interestingly, if true, this means that J was being categorized as "J Rosales" even when she was still going by "J Moreno" in Chapter 1. Fascinating.

Anyways, the Chapter 2 board has shuffled things around. Obviously Min and Arei have been moved down since they died, and Ace was moved to the top because he now has votes. However, the end of the lineup also changed, for some reason.

Chiem - Cuevas - Fontana - Giles - Grebenshchikova - Hakobyan - Jing - Lacroix - Young - Tobisa - Rosales

What does this mean? Honestly, I have no clue. None of the students stayed in the same positions relative to each other (as in, Whit is no longer after Eden, Eden is no longer after J, etc), so I don't think it can be used to particularly suspect any of them? If anything, I think Eden would look the least suspicious, because at least she stayed in the middle while J and Whit swapped who was at the beginning or the end.

It's possible this was just an editing mistake, but I figured I'd point it out in case it helps anyone with their theories. (Clearly, it's just evidence that Whit is one step closer to becoming a Cuevas--)

Back to the original point, who was the one Teruko vote? In Chapter 1, I think it's pretty widely agreed upon that Min voted for Teruko. However, Teruko got two votes in Chapter 1, so the possibility remains that it could be the same person who's voted for Teruko twice now. I've gone on the record to say that I thought Arei was the one to provide Teruko her second vote in Chapter 1, but thankfully numberoneanika helped me to see how there could have been other options.

Obviously, Arei wasn't the one to vote for Teruko this time. So, with that in mind, here are my best theories:

Ace

Pros: Doesn't want to die, and therefore might not want to vote for himself. Probably the most obvious option.

Cons: At the end of 2-15, Ace was, all things considered, pretty accepting of his upcoming death. He said that the only reason he was fighting back was to stall for time, but that he knew that there was no way he'd get out of the Trial alive. Voting for Teruko doesn't help him delay the inevitable at all. If he were trying to cast a vote in the vain hope that it would save him from death, I would have expected it to go to Eden. Also, I doubt that Ace would have been the extra vote for Teruko in Chapter 1, to the extent that's important.

David

Pros: Dislikes Teruko and wants to cause chaos. It's also possible he could have cast the extra vote on Teruko in Chapter 1, if he had already made up his mind about wanting to take the killing game off the rails.

Cons: Honestly, I don't know if there are any direct cons to it being David who cast the vote. He might have been able to get more emotional damage for his buck if he'd voted for Eden or something? I don't know.

Teruko

Pros: Believes herself to be at least partially at fault for the deaths of her fellow classmates and doesn't like it. Therefore, if she can't bring herself to have another hand in their deaths by casting a vote on them, she could vote for herself (believing she can't die) instead. This is also an option that could easily be repeated across all Trials, if important.

Cons: If Teruko wants to proceed with not helping all of her other classmates die, it's in her best interest to vote correctly, instead of swaying the votes to an incorrect answer and having everyone but Ace die.

The Mastermind???

Pros: While it's not a guarantee, the mastermind likely has a grudge against Teruko (assuming the mastermind is not Teruko herself), due to the "kill Teruko Tawaki" missive/note. Therefore, they could be voting for her due to their grudge. From a narrative sense, this would also "ensure" that this phenomenon can happen at every Class Trial, if that's what DRDTdev wants.

Cons: Although I just laid out their motive, this would be an incredibly petty thing for the mastermind to do and could potentially give the innocent students needless additional information about their identity.

Conclusion? I think it's most likely to be David. After my blunder last time, though, I'm definitely willing to hear out other options if people have candidates to propose!

Also, it's nice that they updated David's portrait to include his new Look. I imagine some art intern scurrying around behind the scenes trying to find a good screenshot of David to use on the board in the last hour of the Trial.

Yo, wait, is that an anti-MM-coded line for Whit? Because the mastermind would obviously expect there to be more than one Trial? Can we get some more of these??? (/j)

Also kinda anti-Whit-knowingly-being-in-a-time-loop lines, for anyone who's been considering that theory. Unless he's just really deep undercover, to the level where he's interjecting lines that go against the theory to a group of people who have yet to suspect him for it at all.

LET'S GO NICO PARALLELS!!!!!!

Hu: How could you say it's just misfortune? Arei wasn't killed because of an accident. Bad luck or not, Ace had made up his mind to go through with this murder! So we can't possibly blame ourselves for failing to prevent something like that.

🔥🔥🔥THE BLAMING YOURSELF SISTERS🔥🔥🔥

Well, more or less. Teruko is fully blaming herself under the name of "misfortune"-- that much was made clear by the end of the episode, if nothing else. But Hu is coping by continuing to blame Ace convincing herself that there's nothing she could have done, and therefore isn't actually to blame. It doesn't matter how reliable she was-- because she was reliable, she promises-- because Ace was going to kill anyways. Basically, it doesn't matter how much of an immovable object she was because Ace was such an unstoppable force. Ignore the fact that the whole debate is about which of those would win.

Hu's stance is fascinating, though, because it means that she's somewhat buying in to the idea of fate. Arei was fated to die, Ace was fated to kill, no skin off your back. Given that MonoTV itself represents fate, it seems clear that one of the main messages of this story will be fate doesn't exist/is what you make it, which means that, to some degree, all of the characters will have to be representatives of or affected by that, with believing in the concept of immutable fate being represented as the villain. (I'm sure I'll talk about this more next time I talk about mastermind candidates.)

Therefore, Hu cashing in on the fate idea could be good or bad for her. It might be important that we establish that she does believe in fate, much like Teruko does, because she'll need to face it and denounce it on her way to survivor-hood. Or, this could be a subtle indicator that Hu will always lean on fate to protect her own sense of self, a red flag for her being a killer or possibly even a mastermind in the future.

Hu is clearly being set up to be a major player in Chapter 3, though, which is great for me, because that's exactly what I wanted! Let's get you some real daily life screentime, girl :)

Absolutely raw line here.

Eden: I... I can't forgive him. He killed Arei, after all. She was innocent, and he killed her for unfair reasons. But... those unfair reasons were unfair to him as well. Veronika: [...] When we first met Ace a week ago, he was the same person, certainly, but he was also different. He was happier, and he trusted people more. And he wasn't a murderer back then. Still, between then and now, he changed. He had to. Like adding stones to a pane of glass, one after another, until eventually, the glass cracks. The only thing anyone can do in this killing game is to shatter.

And another raw line from Veronika at the end of her section. I can't wait to see both of those lines used as captions for people's fanart.

Still though, on top of being true (and highlighting how Ace did actually change for the worse), this also feels like a reminder to us that the characters are changing over the course of the killing game. Therefore, a character who said one thing in Chapter 1 might not feel the same way once they hit Chapter 3 and beyond. Being in the killing game takes a toll on everyone, and the self-discovery it inspires can lead people to do things that they never would have done before. Case in point, Levi sacrificing himself for Teruko later in this episode.

SO true Veronika. Casual reminder to you all that this is literally only overall Day 8 of the killing game. Xander was alive less than one week ago for these people.

If I had a nickel for every time that Ace was compared to glass in Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 16, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

(Also, the clock-themed music is back. I wonder what it's supposed to represent...? *adds it to my already way too long list of theories to write now that the Chapter has ended*)

Genuinely WHAT was acevi cooking this episode. (/pos) I had never been super into the ship before because of how seemingly incompatible they were after the first trial, but seeing how much they clearly care about each other (or at least how much Ace cares about Levi) I'm kind of compelled to now. This truly was the toxic yaoi Trial ever.

Hey, FF called it in the "Blackened's Blaze of Glory" idea! Also, WOAH WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

Let's go, Ace animation! It's nice to see that he was able to participate in one before he died. And wow, did he participate indeed!

It's kind of crazy how breakable MonoTV is due to its screen face. Like, you can't just do that to a Monokuma; his head is likely too hefty. But, even though MonoTV is breakable, it doesn't mean anything in the end. False hope at its finest.

This is the face of someone going, "wait, was it really that easy?"

HOLY SHIT

Out of all the lines and events of this episode, it's quite possibly this line that has made me go the most insane. Just goes to show that I am way too invested in the lore of this series. (/j)

So, this is a direct confirmation that XF-Ture Tech was involved in the creation of MonoTV, and therefore, quite possibly the implementation of the killing game as well. That's huge. I mean, not too unexpected given how important it clearly was to Xander, Min, and even altDRDT, but I wasn't expecting to get confirmation here and now of all places.

Given this, I would not be at all surprised if the altDRDT character known as XF is the one who created MonoTV. Like, she might be the Ultimate Roboticist or Ultimate Software Developer or something. It also means that the mastermind very likely has some sort of positive association with XF Tech, so sus on Min (sponsored by XF), Rose (has connections to one of the Spurlings), and possibly J (family runs in wealthy circles). Of course, if XF Tech is directly partnered with HPA in some way, it could also be someone who's particularly associated with the school-- although, that would most likely be Min again.

There's also the question, "why did MonoTV have a different personality than the default driver," which is related to the question, "what was the default driver created for?" My immediate thought was that XF Tech might just have robot assistants that generally help them, and that was the default personality that was assigned from MonoTV. However, XF (or whoever else) found that boring for the sake of entertainment, and decided to jazz MonoTV up, possibly to make it more like Monokuma.

Then again, it's been highlighted again and again that MonoTV is really incompetent. Surely, that's not something that someone who wanted the killing game to succeed would want to program into their host. It could have been an accidental side effect, but if MonoTV really was made by the Ultimate Roboticist, would that person really make mistakes? Is it possible that MonoTV's personality could have been made that way to subtly sabotage the killing game?

(I understand I'm furthering logic off of a string of assumptions-- not trying to lay down the law here, just running you through my initial thought process upon considering this evidence.)

Given that MonoTV told us in Chapter 2 Episode 3 that it has a lot of limits and there's a lot it still doesn't know about the killing game, I don't think that this is a situation in which MonoTV's AI expanded so much over time that it developed a new personality. Especially because that means that all that development would have needed to happen before the killing game began, off screen. That's why I think that MonoTV's alternate personality needs to have a human explanation, which I believe might be tied to XF.

I don't have any "answers" to this question because I don't think we're meant to have any at this point, but I also can't make any particularly compelling guesses about it without reviewing a lot of the evidence we already have. (*adds another theory to my mental theory list*) I am thinking about this though. I'm thinking about it a lot...

MonoTV: Full restart scheduled in one hour.

Also, I take this to mean that MonoTV will likely be back to its usual personality come Chapter 3. It might have a slightly different design to take into account the broken screen, but I think the personality will remain the same.

(If MonoTV's body does get fixed, would that mean that there are multiple copies of MonoTV out there, or that someone fixed MonoTV within that tight time window???)

MonoTV is in your walls.

Also, here's a list of all the students who are shown reacting in a confused/scared manner after MonoTV begins to restart: Eden, Rose, Ace, Nico. Doesn't mean that they can't be the mastermind all of a sudden, but it is probably evidence to the contrary. After all, the mastermind would likely be the one most aware that this could happen. And, if you only build in four slots of people reacting in disbelief (such that there are plenty of people who could slip under the radar), it might make more sense to give those lines to people who are actually genuinely shocked, much like the audience.

Also also, I think that the text on MonoTV's screen reads, "Falling back to default driver. Restart in an hour." AKA, not much lore to be taken from there, other than that it's once again called the "default."

It's MonoTV Time Again

More absolutely essential information when it comes to cracking what exactly MonoTV is. This is a killing game that is, first and foremost, designed to kill everyone, not going for anything like "redemption" or "revealing the truth."

It's also fascinating that it says "every participant." Not even "every participant except one"; the killing game wants to kill everybody. What does that tell us?

This killing game is likely NOT an attempt to imitate Junko. In that case, they would be prepared for the possibility of multiple survivors.

The mastermind, assuming they're amidst the cast, is willing to die for the bit. Every participant includes themselves.

XF-Ture Tech also default wants everyone to die. This likely means that they were willing to sacrifice Min for whatever this plan was. Sorry, Min :(

Now, it is definitely possible that any of these ideas are an overstatement. Killing all of the students is stated to be MonoTV's purpose, NOT the purpose of the killing game as a whole. Therefore, it could be that MonoTV is programmed to want all of the students to die, to minimize the chance that it would develop any feelings of sympathy and start to work against the killing game. Meanwhile, the mastermind is expecting there to be one or more survivors, potentially including themselves.

However, that is just a minor potential discrepancy, and I find it likely that DRDTdev intended this scene to comment more on the rationale of the killing game as a whole. In which case, this is a fascinating look into the mastermind and XF Tech's rationale.

He cares about Charles so much :,) <3

I know some people have been using this as reason to suspect him ("why would he be more focused on Charles not getting traumatized than telling Teruko, who he theoretically also cares about, to run"), but personally, I didn't read it that way at all. (I say as, like, the #1 Whit Isn't Evil defender lmao)

First of all, from a pacing perspective, I think it was nice to have a quick break from people just telling Teruko to run. We have Eden saying that, followed by Charles saying that, so having the third instance be something a little different helped break up the repeat information, in my opinion. J tells Teruko to run immediately afterwards anyway, so you still get the same effect of everyone warning Teruko as the clock ticks down.

Secondly (and more importantly), I think that this could easily be an indication of Whit seeing Charles as sort of an extension of his mom. Not in the sense that he sees Charles as family, but that Whit had one person who he really, really cared about, and he couldn't stop them from dying or being hurt. Even though Whit does generally care about the others, after Xander and Min died, he realized that he wouldn't be able to save everyone. And, he wasn't even particularly interested in trying in the first place-- after all, he said that solving the fights between others wasn't his business, so it's not like he's trying to be everyone's savior.

If Teruko is already dead, then that's how it's going to be; there's nothing he can do about it. But he can try to protect the person he cares about most in this killing game from suffering, because he refuses to have that person exit his life again. The fact that Whit is prioritizing Charles' safety over anything else in this moment will only make it all the sadder when Whit fails to prevent Charles from dying in Chapter 3, and make the impact of his returning loneliness all the more catastrophic.

Obviously, that's just my theory and not a fact, but I do think that it's one reasonable way to explain why Whit said that here without having to cast him in any sort of suspicion. It's a possibility.

Yet another instantly iconic line. I'm so happy that DRDTdev is doubling down with this being the reality of Teruko's talent, because pushing the abilities of someone who's talented with luck is so fun!

Although, not gonna lie, in this moment, I was actually flabbergasted and frantically running through options of who I thought the replacement protagonist might be. Like, Eden? Charles?? When people said they thought David might become the protagonist, THEY DIDN'T MEAN FOR CHAPTER 3!!!

Also, absolutely diabolical to hide Teruko's execution in plain sight as the thumbnail, under the guise that this was meant to represent Ace's death. Gosh.

But it was actually Levi who got shot, which is fascinating! I also thought they might kill him here as sort of a pre-emptive double kill (as in, "keep on pace with the typical number of fangan survivors while not actually having to explain why a double kill occurred"), but from the way the rest of the episode plays out, I think it's pretty clear that he'll live through this experience.

He'll almost certainly have some sort of design update, though, which I'm excited to see. Let's hope he doesn't suddenly turn into a robot, a la Nekomaru. (I imagine this scene may have originally been inspired by creating an alternate take on Nekomaru taking a bullet for Akane.)

As for why Levi did this for Teruko, Venus explained to me what I now believe is probably the most likely reason: he's repaying a perceived "debt" he owed to Teruko after she saved him from being executed back in the Prologue. (Other people may have reached this conclusion as well, but I heard it from Venus first)

Teruko already saved his life once before, so now, he believes he owes it to her to save hers. Obviously, Teruko seemed pretty confident about surviving the execution, but he may have still thought that causing her to suffer a coma or the loss of a limb was big enough of a threat that she shouldn't have to suffer through it.

That sort of idea would also tie into what I originally thought might have been some of his reasoning: that he doesn't think very highly of his own life, and was willing to sacrifice it for someone who he considered "good"/more important than him. It would also allow him to die as a hero saving someone's life, rather than a heartless monster who ended lives. Not saying that this is a healthy rationale, but, well, the guy just threw himself in the line of fire for someone who said they'd be fine. Also, it's DRDT. Nobody here has a healthy rationale.

Btw, this ⬇

Levi: I don't understand. I can't understand you, no matter how hard I try.

Is the last thing that Levi was ever able to say to Ace (as well as Levi's last line of the Chapter). Have fun with that, acevi nation.

My heart broke in half when I saw Rose react in this way. Hang in there, queen...

MonoTV: Don't worry. I shut off the gun as soon as I detected that Levi was in the way. His injuries are not fatal.

Also, MonoTV's default programming still includes it saying things like "don't worry"? Fascinating.

Motherfucker Not Another Clearly Important Info Jumpscare-- (/j)

So, uh. Whit got a new sprite in Chapter 2 Part 2 other than his trying not to laugh one. Yaaaaaaay... (dissolves into tears)

Points of interest about the sprite itself: obviously, this is the closest thing that we've gotten to a scary/breakdown sprite for Whit thus far.

If you look at his eyes, you'll see that they've gone gray/black as opposed to his usual blue, and his heart-shaped pupils and arrow-circle design have gone completely missing. This makes him I believe the third character whose eyes turn gray when they're experiencing negative emotions thus far, after Xander and David. Another knight at the table of Sir Light Pollution! Although, notably, Xander and David's eyes always had some gray in them, while Whit's, prior to now, were 100% blue.

Whit is also holding one hand behind his back, which could be concealing something? I saw a comic (which I thought was drawn by gooseagain8, but I checked their account and I couldn't find it--) where he was holding a remote to keep the Trial doors shut behind his back, and now I can't think of anything else, haha. However, I also don't know where Whit would have gotten that remote from, so it's probably not that specifically.

I don't think I even have to explain why people would use this to think that Whit is the mastermind. It's pretty obvious. However, I do think that this probably diminishes the odds of Whit being your standard "revealed in Chapter 6" mastermind, because it's so obvious. Fangan authors, naturally, can do whatever the hell they want, but it seems unfitting for DRDTdev's behavior so far to give such a massive hint for something that's so far down the road. I say this because, with the mysteries of Mai, and XF Tech, and who says the quotes at the beginning of the Chapters, and LGI, DRDTdev seems to have a track record of enjoying a long-running mystery, and making complex, layered puzzles that the most insane of fans can go back and forth on for hours.

If this was meant to be a hint that Whit will be revealed as the mastermind in Chapter 6, I'd think we'd get, like, a sprite with Whit's hand behind his back but without the scary expression, or he'd say something more subtle like "don't you just love it when you can't get the door open?"

Instead, we get this incredibly in-your-face, obviously suspicious sprite, that even someone who had never seen an episode of DRDT before in their life could easily point out to suspect that Whit is evil. So then, why else could it be included?

One option is that it is meant to foreshadow that Whit will take on a more villainous role, but in the shorter term. He could be revealed as a mastermind or traitor in Chapter 3. My problem with this sprite as evidence of Whit as a late-game mastermind is that this is a really big hint. Generally, with a reveal like that, you'd probably want to build up to the reveal with bigger and bigger hints. For instance, you could say that DRDTdev started off with the small hint that Whit knows a lot about what people think, then move up to the medium hint that he and MonoTV have similar styles of humor and meta jokes, then move to the bigger hint that Whit suddenly knows a ton about how hanging works, for some reason. This piece of evidence is such a big hint that Whit is the mastermind (under the assumption that it is that) that I don't really know where you'd go from here without just saying that Whit is the mastermind. We've eliminated the possibility that the hints could grow any bigger, cutting the trail off early. Therefore, at the moment, I think this only (narratively) works if this is the last hint we get that Whit is the mastermind, which would mean that Whit would have to be outed soon.

Alternatively, I definitely think it's possible that DRDTdev is setting up Whit as an intentional red herring, a bait with which to divert the audience's attention away from whoever the real mastermind is. It could just be a fun game for the fandom, or actually come into play in the main plot in the future, if someone accuses him of being the mastermind on these charges. That's sorta the assumption I'd been operating off of before witnessing this scene. However, if that's the case, then DRDTdev shouldn't just have Whit do all of these things without creating an in-universe explanation for why he did them. Whit would have to have a completely innocent reason for striking this pose at this point, which... oh boy.

Not gonna lie, it's been difficult for me to come up with a non-sus explanation for this sprite that doesn't make it sound like I'm 100% coping, but I'll try my best. Anybody got some more of those spare anti-MM-coded Whit lines I asked for earlier?

Given the presentation of DRDT, when we see this sprite of Whit, we don't know what he's looking at. It's easy to jump to the assumption that he's looking at the students who are trying to open the door, but it's also possible that he's just looking at the door itself. Like, he's also just expressing his anger at the door for not opening.

If that's the case, it would probably be for the same rationale that I used to justify his line protecting Charles earlier. He doesn't want Charles to suffer, which means that he wants Charles out of this room now. The hand behind the back, then, is a tad confusing, but there are a few explanations I can think of.

The first is that this sprite was created with further uses in mind down the road. For instance, if Whit later hides a gun behind his back (don't ask how or why he would non-suspiciously have a gun), then this sprite may have been prepared to handle that circumstance so that it doesn't have to be redrawn later. Of course, to this point, DRDTdev hasn't held back with creating unique sprites for unique situations-- check out how many sprites Teruko and Ace have for likely just this episode. So, it's probably more likely that, if Whit does need to hide something behind his back later, it would have been drawn then.

The second is that just the hand is a red herring. The facial expression is real (being mad at the door), but DRDTdev made him hide his hand behind his back so that people would think he was concealing something. Overall, I think that's an acceptable level of red-herring-ness. You aren't faking something as big as the facial expression itself, but you still throw in a little false lead to throw the audience off of the scent. However, in an ideal world, there would still have to be an in-universe explanation for why he did it. Unless he just chose this moment to scratch his lower back, I don't know what that would be.

That's all I have for now, but I don't necessarily think that this sprite means that Whit has to be evil in some capacity. However, it's done the best job so far of making me think that he is, so I'll keep my mind open to that in the future.

This is such an excellent end to Ace's character. Like, I was already nodding my head along with all of the people who expressed why Ace's death here was narratively satisfying, but having him finally accept death in order to save Levi's life is a beautiful cherry on top.

I like it because it doesn't make Ace's death as overall depressing as everyone thought it would be. Ace was about to die believing that he was a piece of shit who never changed, even when everyone else wanted him to and was able to themselves. But, even if he might not have realized it, accelerating his own death for Levi's sake means that he did change. He was finally able to conquer his fears by looking them straight in the face. And, if the theories are correct that Ace had a hand in Taylor's death...

Ace: Because... because Levi is gonna fucking die, and I'm going to have a third goddamn death on my hands!

(Here's iistardust-and-sprinklesii's post, which first brought the idea that "third death" might mean that Ace was adding Levi on to his kill count of Arei and Taylor to my attention, at least.)

...it means that he also got to save a friend this time instead of killing him.

Obviously Ace's death is still a tragedy-- every death in the killing game is-- but just like Arei, he was still able to improve himself from who he was before he died. It's a really poetic ending that really hammers in the point that everyone has the capacity to be a good person, even in their last moments.

Really really really loved Logan's performance as Arturo here. This is the most... I don't know, human? Arturo has ever sounded. He sounds really young and afraid, which is totally befitting of the scene. It's not like I now believe that Arturo is a great guy and shoo-in survivor or anything, but it endeared me a lot to his character.

Also "I have no experience with saving lives" Felicity OOF.

This CG goes so fucking hard. First of all, I love the way that DRDTdev drew the hair and the fabric folds. They're always great, but I think that the extra sharpness and blockiness going on here serves the pointedness yet bluntness of Ace's words. Second of all, THE COLORS. Not only has everything become more red to highlight the fire and passion behind Ace's words, but it's also ACE'S COLOR. Ace is literally dyeing Arturo with his final message before he dies. I don't think we've really seen Arturo and Ace interact before (other than implied horror trio, I guess), so this was a fascinating move to make with regards to Arturo's character moving forward.

This is another way that Ace's character ends satisfyingly. Kind of funny that he's parroting this message when he just internalized it from Teruko, like, 15 minutes ago, but I understand why it resonated with him. And, like Levi, why he might have overstated this lesson so that he could go out as (even more of) a hero.

Execution Rambling Time!

This execution had a lot going on, so I expect to have a lot to say about it. We'll start here, with the name: Thanatophobia. For anyone who wasn't aware, it means, "fear of death." Totally makes sense, especially given Ace's eventual cause of death. I guess MonoTV/the mastermind/XF Tech(??? INSANE) knew enough about Ace to know that he was going to die of fright at the end? Eh, that's how most executions work, so I don't think it gives us too much to work with.

However, this is a confirmation that executions in DRDT are more based on what will cause students despair than directly what their talent is. It was kind of hard to tell with Min, given that her talent (Ultimate Student) and her fear of failing and being wrong kind of went hand in hand. However, horses were not the focus of this execution; Ace's personality was. Cool to keep in mind for future executions.

Drdtblingsceo (and perhaps others, but they were the first person I saw) was able to make out that not only does the grave on the left say "Taylor Riley," but the two other graves also say "Felicity Giles" and "Elliot Cuevas." (You can't really make it out in my screenshots, but you can see it better in the linked post. Sorry, I have a fairly old computer :( ) Terrible news for Mr. Riley, but great news for us when it comes to speculating about Ace's past. I wonder what caused Ace's secret to be about his eating disorder, rather than his dead friend that he seemingly blames himself for?

I was very closely inspecting this frame to see if it would contain any easter eggs about what happened in Xander's past. As far as I can tell, the article titles read, from right to left:

Unexplained Illness Kills Thousands

More People Are Dying of Cancer Than Ever Before

Flu Season Claims Thousands of Lives

Chronic Kidney Disease Mortality Death Toll Continues to Climb

??????? (I don't think this one actually has any text)

Falling Rates of Survival for Hospitalized Patients

Antibiotic-Resistant Infections a Growing Threat in Hospitals

Article #1 is the article that's zoomed in on for dramatic effect. As far as I can see, none of the actual paragraphs of any of the articles are legible.

We can fully rule out #2, #3, and #4 as being related to Xander-- those are all real-world diseases that don't really match up with the sickness Xander described. #5 is also out, because, even if it was meant to relate to Xander, it has no content, and therefore, nothing to analyze. I don't know why it's there, but it gives nothing.

#1, #6, and #7 all have the possibility of being related to Xander-- most likely #1, given that it was the one that was zoomed in on-- but that's only because they're vague. Therefore, we can't really learn anything more about the North C and Chariton incident from them. Still a good idea to check them, in my opinion, but they don't seem to bear any fruit.

Goddammit, do I really have to run out of images *now*? Like, in the middle of the execution? Fine, I'll be back to finish what I've started in a bit. Thank you for reading this far, and look out for the reblog hopefully later today!

#danganronpa despair time #drdt #drdt spoilers #drdt chapter 2 part 2 spoilers #monotv #ace markey #teruko tawaki #eden tobisa #seriously i cannot stress enough how fun it was to watch these episodes drop in real time and see the murder play out #and to have mutuals for basically the first time in my life. hi mutuals!!!!#and also to interact with people who i may not literally be “mutuals” with; but i still frequently read their posts/see their art #you're all special to me :)#can't believe ch3 is next though. what do you mean i have to actually say goodbye to charwhit (theoretically) now #WHIT what were you DOING i'm STILL NOT OVER THAT GAH

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