#whit and david too probably

[evacommitscrimes]

i think if you gave ace a hot cheeto he would pass away

[drdt-headcanons]

Are survivors predictions fine for headcanons? I have two right now, so I thought I'd share them. It's Chapter 2 so I don't really believe either of them, it's just for fun.

Thanks!

:(

[slightlytoastedbagel]

also Levi was who I thought the culprit was (like many others did) but. after that?? would he go out of his way to say that if he did it??

[acevid]

DRDT X DESPAIR DISEASE

what if the danganronpa despair time cast had the motive of despair disease? well, i’ve made diseases for everyone! (i may write a oneshot for this but to be determined..)

╔═════ஓ๑♡๑ஓ═════╗

Teruko Tawaki - Childish Disease. Since her childhood is..probably not the best, considering what information we have about her thus far—it causes her to act childishly and to make up for what had once lost! (And makes her an easier target.)

Xander Matthews - Lazy Disease. This disease is exactly how it sounds. This makes it so that Xander is no longer the energetic and determined person that he is, but rather someone who doesn’t put much effort into things, or sees the reason to care about others too much.

Min Jeung - Confidence Disease. This disease makes it so that Min is completely confident in her abilities and whatever she does. This makes it so that she is much less anti-social towards others, and not afraid to prove anyone wrong.

Arei Nageishi - Cowardice Disease. Because Arei has this disease, she will act meekly due to pretty much everything. Often times another student will see her shaking or on the verge of tears. She can be comforted, but many things can set her off again.

Ace Markey - Truth Disease. This strain of disease makes it so that Ace can only say the truth. While, yes, he can simply change the subject by saying random but true stuff like “It’s cold right now”, but it’s harder to fight the more he does it—and it’s especially hard whenever somebody directs a question towards him.

Levi Fontana - Empathetic Disease. This gives Levi what he’s always been lacking—empathy! And not just any old empathy. His empathy is seriously high, like off the charts. 

J Rosales - Villain Disease. While, yes, making it so that J had some ‘murder’ disease would’ve been funny, considering how she hates murder—that would’ve been too easy. And so, we’ve resorted to making her act like a really bad cartoon villain. Why? Comedy. Makes the show go up in ratings.

Rose Lacroix - Forgetfulness Disease. Pretty self explanatory, Rose simply is unable to keep long-term memories. (..Actually, change that to memories in general, as she seems to forget a lot that happened in a short time-span as well. Such as—half an hour.)

Arturo Giles - Kindness Disease. This disease makes it so that Arturo doesn’t see the ugliness in people, but rather the good qualities about them. He’s rather vocal about this too.

Hu Jing - Antagonist Disease. This causes her to act rudely to everyone, as if she is above them, and cause troubles just so that her classmates struggle. She doesn’t seem to have any want to cooperate with everyone like this.

Nico Hakobyan - Aggressive Disease. This makes it so that Nico is more easily aggravated, and will lash out more. He’s becoming Ace-core

Whit Young - Stoic Disease. This disease makes it so that Whit can no longer use the humor and carelessness that he so desperately loves. In fact, he acts the opposite of how he typically does.

Eden Tobisa - Jester Disease. This is different to Charles’ disease. While he makes jokes and acts somewhat childishly, Eden does so somewhat maliciously. Her jokes always seem to hit hard in someone’s core (and definitely not in a pleasant way). Her way of making others laugh seems to be by putting others down. On the outside, she may look the same—but there is a certain evil aura around her.

Charles Cuevas - Jokester Disease. This disease makes it so that Charles can easily find humour in situations. (He uses so many puns it is ridiculous.) It’s almost as if Whit and Charles switched personalities.

Veronika Grebenschikova - Considerate Disease. Veronika will act respectful towards others, always trying to help and never breaking any boundaries. (Think Ibuki’s disease except she actually has a personality.)

David Chiem - Naivety Disease. This disease makes it so that David believes everything that others are saying—or at least makes it easier to. Because of this trust that he’s putting into others, it’s also much easier to get the truth out of him about matters important and unimportant.

╚═════ஓ๑♡๑ஓ═════╝

[1moreff-creator]

Is there some type of masterpost for all the crazy hidden stuff for Despair Time? like the hidden quotes, the Mai stuff, a comprehensive guide to LGI?

Well, there’s been a few really useful posts over the years. There’s the Secret Quotes, “All you have to do…” Page, Mai Quotes, About Page Text masterpost by despairing-disaster, which I must have visited 15000 times; accirax’s episode guide is a great resource even if it’s not exactly what you asked for; and at the risk of sounding a bit arrogant, I think my Mai post and my full LGI analysis video “A Full Vivisection of the David MV” are good for their respective subject, though they're more analysis than "masterpost". But, for the purposes of having it all in one place, here’s my

DRDT SECRETS MASTERPOST

Spoilers up to and including CH2 EP16

-About Page Text

The source code of DRDT's About Page holds (or held at some point?) the following text:

“You don’t understand, do you? I used to be like you. I barely remember, but I used to be like you. I cared so much about people, I cried everytime someone was hurt. I suffered for a long time stuck in here caring about people." "I know what you’re going through. You’re going to hold on as long as you have, with hope that you can make it out of here with everyone. Then you’re going to despair. That lasts a while, too." Then you’ll get bored. Like me. And you’ll wish you were still suffering. Anything else is better than boredom. "I wish I could feel something, anything else, other than being bored. I’m stuck in here for eternity, and I know everything that could possibly happen. I know how everyone reacts to a murder, what makes people turn to despair, what fills people with hope and make them survive until we all run out of food and starve to death." "I wish I could feel terrified, or afraid, or angry. But I can’t anymore. I don’t feel anything at all except boredom." Do you understand, Teacher? "This is why I’m letting you suffer as long as possible. Because it’s better than the alternative." I’m sorry. I don’t envy you. You’ll understand eventually.

(Note: The quotations marks are placed exactly as they are in the code, but the importance of this is debatable)

-Secret Quotes

Quotes hidden in the source code of each character’s personal page. Ordered here by the order in the cast list.

Teruko: It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust no one at all. Xander: survivor guilt(n): feelings of guilt for having survived a catastrophe in which others died. Charles: If you forgot it, then it probably wasn’t important to begin with. None of those memories should ever be kept, anyway. Ace: I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. Arei: Because that’s what friends do. Rose: In the end, the only thing I can do is watch my wretched life go on. Hu: I want to pay for what I’ve done. But even then, I still want to live. Eden: You can’t go back, no matter how hard you try. Levi: I always believed that a person is defined by their actions alone. But maybe that’s just a poor excuse for my heartlessness. Arturo: You hated them, but even that doesn’t justify what you did. Min: I wanted to save you. David: I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. I wish you could just die. Veronika: Once something is broken, it can never be pieced together in quite the same way again. The same goes for people. J: Please don’t call me your daughter ever again. Whit: We tend to idolize the dead. Nico: Why should I own up for the mistakes that someone else made? MonoTV: Her name is Mai Akasaki.

-"All you have to do..." Page

By using MonoTV's quote to get the name, typing in https://danganronpadespairtime.tumblr.com/maiakasaki into search shows a page with this text:

“All you have to do is ask for my hand, and I’ll give it to you. Ask for my life, and I’ll give it to you as well. Don’t apologize for asking. I’ll give you my forgiveness too.”

(Bolded text highlighted for reading comfort)

Source code hides the following text:

“Are you still searching for a secret? For some explanation that will satisfy you? There’s no answer I can give you that will make you happy. Maybe I should have lied instead. I’m sorry.”

The bolded letters in this page gives you the code AOAVIEPKRO, which when typed in the same way as Mai's name (https://danganronpadespairtime.tumblr.com/AOAVIEPKRO) gives you the linked Mai Akasaki character page (you can also just Google it nowadays).

-Mai Quotes

Entering the Mai page displays, at random, one of the following quotes. The source code gives them an order and relates them to a specific character. Ordered here in the same way the code does it.

Teruko: Some years ago, she was searching for someone named 'Teruko Tawaki.' Charles: A girl who loves her family. Rose: She remembers everything that is important to others. Arturo: A girl who sees the beauty in everyone. Levi: A girl with a floral tattoo on her arm. Whit: A girl with many friends. Eden: She kept calling the number, even though no one picked it up. J: She kept it a secret, and told no one. Hu: A girl who wanted to keep everyone safe. Nico: Everyone confided in her. Ace: A girl who had a bright future. Arei: She doesn't like it when her friends fight. Min: An average girl with nothing special at all about her. Xander: She couldn't stand to do nothing. Veronika: A girl who didn't foresee the consequences. David: She forgives everyone. MonoTV: It's all your fault.

-Second Anniversary Secret Code

There are two columns, one with letters, a dot, apostrophes and spaces, across from the other, with numbers. By rearranging the "rows" in order (1-2-3...), you get "It's all your fault." (Dot included).

-Character Playlist

At one point, dev uploaded a playlist of sixteen songs, where each one was meant to be connected to one of the characters in some way. The playlist has been privated/deleted, so here’s a recreation made by venus-is-thinking. Below are listed the songs in the order they show up in the playlist, although it’s unclear if the order means anything or they’re completely randomized. I find the latter more likely btw.

-Diamond is Unbreakable from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure OST -Sing Along by Sturgill Simpson -RUNAWAY by half•alive -cartoons by Louie Zong -asymptotic by Louie Zong, Unofficial Extended Edit by Axolotl Dreams -アイアルの勘違い (A Mistaken Belief of Love) by Niru Kajitsu, cover by yama -春嵐 (Shunran) by John -イヱスマン (Yesman) by NILFRUITS, covered by Noristry and カケリネ (Kakerine) -アンデッドエネミー (Undead Enemy) by Suzumu and Giga-P, covered by 松下 (Matsushita) -Drawing Pins by Nothing but Thieves -ハイファイ進化論 (Hi-fi Evolution Theory) by 稀雨 ("Rare Rain") and ふぁるすてぃ (Farusti) -tip toes by half•alive -ポリゴナル (Polygonal) by ふぁるすてぃ (Farusti) -Spitfire (05 Version) by The Prodigy -desk rotation by HALLEY LABS -Good Grief by Bastille

******

Literature Girl Insane

Naturally this gets a whole section for itself. That said, I will ask that you watch Vivisection (linked above) for every visual detail, piece of text, color connection theory, language theory... basically everything that wouldn't be considered a puzzle or a code in some way.

-Footnotes

Numbers which appear attached to certain parts of text, which are referenced in the video's description to give them extra meaning. Refer to this post for images of all the footnotes, as well as a first impression analysis.

[Footnote Number] Description Text -> Text it's attached to in the video. [Time of appearance and link] {Notes}

[1] In this situation, it is better to use full names over nicknames. Exclude our protagonist—he is not “that person.” -> Now [1:22] {Crosswords puzzle}

[2] Other examples include Drosophila melanogaster and E. coli. -> an albino mouse, arabidopsis. [3:02]

[3] From Title 17 of the United States Code. -> A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”. [2:18] {Tumblr why did you remove yellow you're fucking up my color scheme}

[4] The practice of avoiding the number four; it is most common in East Asia. This superstition arises from the fact that the number four can be read similar to the word “death” in multiple languages. -> subtract 4, due to tetraphobia [1:46]

[5] As the translation has been intentionally botched in many parts, it should not be considered accurate. -> (translation needed) [3:10] {The text is "(translation needed)", not that I need a tanslation :v}

[6] (Prayer) -> 🙏 [2:02] {Extremely small and almost invisible, bottom right of the hands}

[7] Seven is considered an auspicious number in many Western cultures. Let's just skip it. -> Mind [2:41]

[8] ‘Tut, tut, child!’ said the Duchess. ‘Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.’ -/> N/A. This footnote cannot be found, as it is not in the video. [N/A]

[9] no respect for the classics smh -> So sing a degraded copy [2:07]

[10] The Roman numeral for 10 is X -> X [2:00] {Very small, top right of X}

[11] I admit to lying. There is no one named ••••• •••••. I am, and always have been, an only child -> suspicious gaps [1:32] {Still no idea what the hell is going on here}

[12] “Majority rule” is known to be the fairest method of making decisions for a group. That’s why murderers never complained when we voted for them to die -> Tallying votes… [2:02]

[13] 正 -> correct [2:40] {Refer to "Tally 5" for further information}

[14] Hint: word length of 256 -> = [3:52] {Refer to "Footnote 14 Puzzle" for further information}

[15] “Ignorance is bliss” is an idiom used to say that it is better to remain ignorant about certain harsh truths, in order to avoid causing oneself stress. The expression comes from a 1742 Thomas Gray poem (“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"): “Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.” -> Remaining ignorant, isn't that "happiness"? [1:47] {Again excuse the lack of yellow}

[16] While it was originally intended to serve as a military march, today it is most commonly recognized for its association with circuses and tomfoolery. -> [sheet of music] [2:49] {The song referenced is "Entry of the Gladiators," so it's presumed that's what the sheet shows. I couldn't find an exact match, but online sheets look similar enough}

[17] Not a real word. Can't be found in any dictionary. -> Democratic-ly [2:00]

[18] A/N: soz not very good at drawing flowers lol!!! -> dandelions (weed) [3:04]

[19] A dialogue between two individuals that serves as a discussion of moral and philosophical issues. -> Will you forget what you've done, I wonder? [3:42]

[20] It is considered by many to be outdated, providing little-to-no insight on human nature. -> The Kübler-Ross model postulates that those who experience grief go through a s[] of five consecutive stages: [1:53]

[21] Deriving from the Latin phrase “Et cetera” : meaning “and other (similar) things”, “and so forth”, or “and the rest (of such things)” : abbreviated to etc., etc, et cet., &c. or &c -> etc. [3:48]

[22] The rest is silence. -> [4:21] {This footnote shows up on its own on a black screen, that's why there's no associated text}

-Roman Numerals

The crosswords attached to footnote 1 can be completed in the following way, attaching each character (minus David plus Mai) to a numeral.

Below are all the numerals, listed in numerical order. Refer to this post for images.

[Numeral] [Character] Text it's attached to *Background text* *Other background text* [Time stamp and link] {Notes}

[I] [Xander] (the world of abnormal sentiment dances) *I have always looked up to you* [3:50] {Refer to "Footnote 14 Puzzle" for further information}

[II] [Rose] Ego cogito ergo (turbatus) sum [1:34] {Translation: I think therefore I am (disturbed)}

[III] [Charles] If you doubt brittle things are broken *And now here’s my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye* [1:37]

[IV] [Arei] Right now, why do you cry? [1:39]

[V] [Ace] Right now, why you go insane? *A cat has 9 additional lives* *I am but mad north-northwest. When the wind is  southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.* [1:42]

[VI] [Arturo] mind exercises 1 2 3 4 [2:41]

[VII] [J] Do it like that, let’s live together! *The Moral La[w] causes the people to be in com[plete accord] with their ruler, so that they wi[ll f]ollo[w] [him] regard[less of] their lives, undis[mayed] by any danger* [2:10]

[VIII] [Nico] even if i try to think, idk!!! [2:44]

[IX] [Levi] look, aside from that, give me the usual medicine *[Extract from a scientific paper on Shoemaker-Levy 9]* [2:46]

[X] [Min] Democratic-ly *In the case of a murder, all survivors must participate in a class trial. During this trial, everyone must discuss and vote for one of the remaining participants as the "blackened" murderer* *👈👈* *👉👉* *🙏* [2:00]

[XI] [Mai] God is dead [1:48]

[XII] [Eden] ???: But you're in my way, aren't you? [2:28]

[XIII] [Teruko] or *Only the eyes belied this assumption. They were small, deep set and crafty. Not only that. As the man, making some remark to his young companion, glanced across the room, his gaze stopped on Poirot for a moment, and just for that second there was a strange malevolence, and unnatural tensity in the glance* *Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.* [1:55]

[XIV] [Veronika] Things like substance of the arts *subtract 4, due to tetraphobia* [1:44]

[XV] [Whit] Remaining ignorant, isn't that "happiness"? *subtract 4, due to tetraphobia* [1:46]

[XVI] [Hu] ???: Go and cry. [2:27]

Windings

At 0:35, windings text flashes on screen. It's the beginning of Never Gonna Give you Up by Rick Astley. Yep.

-"What is the most important thing?"

To this day the best answer we have to this is replacing each question mark with the corresponding letter of "RESOLVE." If you find something else, please tell me.

-Bullet-Finding

The MV tells us to find six bullets, but if you look at the top left book, it says "(hint: no you can't)" Here are the five bullets which can be found.

-Morse Code

At the end of LGI, the following Morse code flashes on screen.

-.-- --- ..- / … - .. .-.. .-.. / -… . .-.. .. . …- . -.. / .. -. / -- . / -.. . … .--. .. - . / . …- . .-. -.-- - …. .. -. --. / .. .----. …- . / -.. --- -. . .-.-.-

-… ..- - / - …. .- - .----. … / .--- ..- … - / ..-. .- -. - .- … -.-- --..-- / .. … -. .----. - / .. - ..--..

.. / … .. -- .--. .-.. -.-- / -.-. …. --- … . / - --- / -… . .-.. .. . …- . / - …. .- - / -.-- --- ..- / -.. .. -.. .-.-.-

.- ..-. - . .-. / .- .-.. .-.. --..-- / .. .----. -- / .. -. -.-. .- .--. .- -… .-.. . / --- ..-. / -… . .. -. --. / … --- -- . --- -. . / .-- .. - …. --- ..- - / -.-- --- ..- .-.-.-

Which translates to:

YOU STILL BELIEVED IN ME DESPITE EVERYTHING I’VE DONE.

BUT THAT’S JUST FANTASY, ISN’T IT?

I SIMPLY CHOSE TO BELIEVE THAT YOU DID.

AFTER ALL, I’M INCAPABLE OF BEING SOMEONE WITHOUT YOU.

-Footnote 14 Puzzle

(Solved by y-prime) (Apologies if I get any of the technicalities wrong, I'm not good with codes)

After Numeral I flashes on screen, you get a bunch of numbers, followed by an ampersand (&), more numbers, an equal symbol (=) attached to footnote 14, and a bunch of question marks. Footnote 14 is "Hint: word length of 256," and 256 is 2^8, which is 8 bits in binary. This tells us we need to get a binary code using the bitwise AND (&). If you're uninformed, I was too, but basically, & first transforms decimal numbers into 5 digit binary, giving the next values:

14631484268173741020143036451175923368636278930404923743082436772069705217326 -> 10000001011001001000000110101001101001011101100110010110101000111100010110110001110111011000010111100111110011001000001110110011101111011011110110101101100101011101000010100001110101011101000010000101111100111011110011000011111001111111110111010100101110

43607886503718811525798764321686495628071353085956330717581498375291444100526 -> 110000001101001001100000110100001100001011101110110010100100000011010010110110001111111011000010111100101110011011100100110110101101111011011110110101101110101011001110010000101111101011100000010100001110100011011110110000001111001011011110111110110101110

Note: The second value is actually 255 digits long in binary, the first is 254 (don't- do not ask me how this happens, it's what the decoder gave me). Arbitrarily, you have to delete the first 1 from the second value.

Then, & compares each number in the binary, and returns 0 if at least one of the values is 0, or 1 if both values are 1. This gives you:

10000001001001001000000110100001100001011101100110010100100000011000010110110001110111011000010111100101110011001000000110110001101111011011110110101101100101011001000010000001110101011100000010000001110100011011110010000001111001011011110111010100101110

Which is 254 characters, you need 256. Arbitrarily, add two 0s at the beginning of that final code. When converted from 8 digit binary to text, you get "I have always looked up to you."

(I hope you appreciate the detailed explanation it took me hours to figure out what y-prime did they're so much better at this than me T_T)

-Tally 5

(Originally solved, to my knowledge, by anderscim)

Although originally we weren't meant to share the solution, I think over a full year after the video, with Part 2 fully out, the embargo is surely over by now.

On the books in LGI, there is a QR code which takes you to https://danganronpadespairtime.tumblr.com/tally5. This page has only a text box where you can input text, and a title asking "Was I correct?"

The "Was I correct?" connects this to the "correct/incorrect" scene attached to footnote 13, which itself is 正, a Chinese symbol which can mean "just" or "correct." Additionally, this is a way that people in eastern countries tally up sets of five, the way you might see someone use something like 卌, which connects it to the infamous "tally5" URL.

Transcribe the text, and separate it in sets of up to five characters (hence the whole "tally 5" thing), and ignore line breaks (the end of line two has four at the end, completed by the d in row three. I more or less followed the line breaks for visual clarity). Pick the first number of each set, as highlighted below.

3aqxw 97pkt c8uki 458fb dpfoa cllex 2f07b f8mg2 4b4mp fx2a(d) c6v3f 5yhxj d8i7s f1l31 2zaj5  1azet 47jod 5jcze c5mvb 6bz2o 59r14 3sf2p e916s czen7 emvbl 55ehe 9iqb2 708tt 83482 c8tw3 c77gn 47ojc a634g bcfz0 0l6s6 47wwl akcn4 6bre1 e0eam 9

Provided you've done everything correctly, you should get39c4dc2f4fc5df2145c653ece5978cc4ab04a6e9. Put that in the "Was I correct?" text box and you get the following image (you will most likely only see the top part, but copying the image and pasting it elsewhere shows the text at the bottom as well):

I became a villain in pursuit of your dream.

I threw away my humanity for an ideal I couldn't understand.

But I don't regret it. To "regret" is to imply that I could have done anything else.

I never told you, but the truth is, I wasn't capable of ever becoming human in the first place.

So in the end, you are always-

****

-Notable Visual Details

This part is mostly subjective. If you feel something shouldn't be here or I missed something, it's because these are just the details I personally consider noteworthy, or I forgot to add something (I'm open to suggestions here). Also I'm ignoring LGI in this section otherwise I would need 15000 screenshots.

+Fork Fun

(From left to right: Pre-prologue scene of bloody hands, Xander's eye wound from the Trial 1 investigation, Eden CG from CH2 Ep13. The first shows a bloody fork on the table, Xander's eye wound is consistent with a slash of a fork, and Eden's hand is bloody, holding a fork)

+Teruko's Mystery Voter

(Voting results in each trial so far. Teruko received two votes in T1, and one in T2)

+Camellias (Unnamed Classmate and Mai connection)

(Left: Mai profile, her tattoo. Right: Bonus episode 2. Same flowers)

+Matching tattoo? (Teruko and Mai)

(Left: CH2 EP2 Teruko changing, a small black line can be seen on her left arm, similar to the stems of the flowers of Mai's tattoo. Right: Jacket off reference, a question mark is shown besides Teruko's left arm)

+Matching phone charms (Teruko and Mai)

(Left: Teruko's Monopad, CH2 Ep1. Right: Unnamed Classmate's phone, from Bonus Episode 1)

+Drawing on Teruko's Floor

(A drawing which appears on the floor of Teruko's room in CH2 EP3, and disappears in CH2 EP7)

+Whit's Hand Behind the Back.

(After the cast learns the elevator won't open after Levi gets shot, Whit pulls out his unhinged sprite, where he has his hand behind his back. Personally I don't find this important, but I'll feel stupid if it is and I didn't add it, so)

+Thanatophobia: Names on the graves.

(From left to right: "Elliot Cuevas", "Felicity Giles", "Taylor Riley." I promise it's easier to see when Tumblr doesn't compress the images. This is the main series way we get the names of Charles' brother, Arturo's sister, and Ace's old friend)

+(AltDRDT) Teacher's ID Card

(Transcript: "This ID card is the property of Hope’s Peak Academy. Use of this ID card by any person other than the rightful holder is prohibited. Report lost or stolen ID cards by contacted 555-483-7367.")

+(AltDRDT) XF and Min's matching pin.

(Yep, matching tie pin. Btw, Min doesn't have it in her Bonus Episode or the Sleepy MV. Did she only get this at the start of the killing game?)

-Potentially Important Posts

Nothing "secret," per say, but a compilation of some of the posts the dev has made which I consider to contain important information.

-CH1 QnA.

-Bonus Episode QnA.

-2 Year Anniversary (Already mentioned).

-Jacket off Reference (Already mentioned).

-CH2 PT1 QnA. Note: Certain answers were deleted. Here's a reblog with some of them, and below is a screenshot of a particularly interesting answer which was not saved by any reblog.

-Teruko's Brother Back Reveal (4 year anniversary).

---

That's everything I currently remember for now. If you feel I missed anything, feel free to tell me about it! I'll try to edit this post to remain up-to-date with all the insane stuff in this series.

Anyways, hope that's enough for the ask! Thanks for giving me an excuse to make this!

[drdtfuitgumies]

special event coming up next month!

for the entirety of April 2025, not only are daily posts returning, all of them will also feature the cast of tetro danganronpa pink! and of course, you can send requests for what situations you'd like to put them in! more details under cut

for this year's april fools, i was just going to do a little joke for the continuity. possible candidates were "artstyle change specifically for whit", "swapping certain characters' heights", "arei and whit disguising themselves as each other", and my personal favorite: "everyone dressing up as xander". but none of these called to me. i was just going to do that last idea until Me, Stupid Idiot, Booboo The Fool, near-exactly a month after my DRDT anniversary, decided to finally watch Tetro Danganronpa Pink and "find out what that fox-masked girl's deal was"

I love her more even after That, for the record.

anyways. april situations are about to be weird. here are some rules that will apply for april 2025: -) some of our current continuity bits will be disregarded. this means whit will miraculously recover from his wound (singular), while ace and nico will no longer be trapped in a get-along sweater! design changes however will stay, and that especially goes for our resident invasive species (arei). i have accepted that i'll keep mistakenly giving her david's hairclips even outside the fuit gumy blog -) i'm calling the tetro pink cast by their last names. i tried using first names and it felt Wrong. they will probably be referred to with first names in-universe though -) i am fully caught up on tetro pink, but i will try my absolute fucking best to limit spoilers, particularly those of character deaths. as little tetro pink spoilers here as possible! ...with the exception of You-Know-Who's "theatrics", so to say, which i'll tag properly. (hint: this tetro pink character would be veronika's best friend) -) all thirty posts will feature at least one character from BOTH despair time and tetro pink's casts. i'm leaning onto the "crossover event" aspect -) this includes birthdays! those with good memory will also recall that both j and yanagi share the exact same birthdate (20/04), so That's gonna be fun -) right now, i plan to have seventeen situations with only two characters; one from each series. the rest of the month is reserved for Group Shenanigans. the entire month is going to be So Crowded and it's going to be Very Fun -) i would like YOUR help. i IMPLORE you. please pleasepleaseplease send me requests ESPECIALLY for the "pair situations". give me ANY combos. do you want charles and kamimura to infodump battle in the chemistry lab? do you want watari to induct arei to staff shenanigans? do you want combos that don't make sense but you have a situation in mind for them, no matter how oddly specific or fantastical? go CRAZY go WILD with it SEND PIPEBOMBS TO MY INBOX FOR ALL I CARE. I WILL HEAR YOU OUT!!!! I APPRECIATE EVERYTHING I RECEIVE IN THE INBOX BE IT SITUATIONS OR MESSAGES EVEN IF THEY MIGHT NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY -) for the record i could try to make my own prompts for the entire month i just want to hear the Voices of the People . -) i want to have fun, and i hope everyone has fun too! daily posts can be quite taxing because i'm Picky about characterization and dialogue but. out of the fire into the deep fryer or however that goes

[accirax]

Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 12 Dissection

DANGANRONPA DESPAIR TIME IS BACK, BABY!!!

And in the vein of what many others have being doing since the episode came out, I will here be posting my thoughts on what this latest episode has brought to the table. This post will be a mixture of pointing out things I found fun/interesting and more serious theorizing about the murder and the events of the surrounding chapter. I also tried not to read too many other people's opinions or theories before writing my own post so that I hopefully wouldn't have my immediate opinions swayed, so I apologize if I've missed any critical easter eggs that others have pointed out or if I'm just beating a dead horse.

Let the episode commence!

SPOILERS for Danganronpa: Despair Time through Chapter 2, Episode 12!

Really important/long stuff will probably have a header-y title under it as well. I also might skip around in time a bit to put relevant pieces of evidence together? IDK, I'm kinda winging this for this first episode.

The Whole AM/PM Thing

Charles: The evidence against David-- in fact, our entire line of reasoning hinges on the fact that Arei must have been killed at around 7:30 PM last night. But the primary reason we believe the murder occurred at that time is because of the fish found at the crime scene. From that, Teruko concluded that since the killer accessed the relaxation room for water, the murder couldn't have occurred during night time. So, unless I'm missing some other piece of evidence that could explain it... Why couldn't the killer simply have taken the water during daytime and stored it for later use?

Well, by this point I think that pretty much everyone (on Tumblr, at least) was in agreement that Arei was killed in the morning rather than the evening, no matter who their personal choice of killer was. So, the murder happening in the morning isn't much of a surprise.

For all my talk of trying not to look at others' theories, I did talk with my sister @venus-is-thinking in person after we watched the episode, and she brought up a really good point that I'd like to reiterate here. Sorry for stealing something that you'll certainly bring up in your post as well! I just want as many people to be aware of it as possible.

During the investigation, Nico says that they fed the fish last night after they ate dinner, and didn't notice any fish missing at that time. To be fair, Teruko tries to press them for a specific time, and Nico responds that they don't remember at what hour exactly they fed the fish or ate dinner.

However (likely relevantly to the murder) we do have specific intel about last night's dinner to get a better sense of some timing. When Teruko is talking to Charles and Whit in the Computer Room, Whit remarks that it's "past dinner time," and Teruko's stomach growls. This is likely using Whit's internal clock and sense of when dinner time is as opposed to a MonoTV-mandated meal time, but given that no one else is in the Kitchen besides Teruko, Charles, Whit, and David when the former three enter, and we know that Nico must have had dinner before the Relaxation Room closed at 10 PM, we can probably assume that Nico also ate dinner around a regular "dinner time."

However x2, we also know that, after Teruko, Charles, and Whit go to the Kitchen, Whit sends David to the Relaxation Room, and Teruko mentions that she was planning to eat there as well. That means that we have three accounts of students believing that the Relaxation Room was open at that time, so we can assert that the terucharwhit dinner scene occurs before 10 PM.

So, what does this mean? Well, we'll start by assuming that Nico ate dinner at, like... 6:30? Hu says that she and Eden have a tradition of cleaning up after dinner together, starting at 7 PM. I'm ballparking that eating a meal might take about 30 minutes, so that would mean everyone is done at 7:00. Therefore, Nico probably fed the fish at around 7:00 as well.

We'll also set egg dinner (that's what I'm calling terucharwhit + David dinner now) at, like 9:30. Once again assuming that someone could eat dinner in about 30 minutes, that means either David or Teruko could comfortably eat their dinner before the Relaxation Room closed. It also gives the culprit basically the widest possible amount of time to steal the fish, and I like to be as all-inclusive as possible.

To return to the main point for a moment, Venus' argument was that, because Nico interacted with the fish at night and didn't notice any of them missing, the culprit still must have taken the fish at night (but before 10 PM), not just at any point of the day. Based on my time frame, that means that whoever killed Arei (or someone working with them) must have gotten the fish at some time between 7:00 and 9:30. Let's run through who that could possibly be:

Teruko: There's a small window of opportunity for her to have done it before meeting with Charles and Whit in the Computer Lab, but we didn't see her do that, so I'm gonna say no.

Xander: He was dead.

Charles: I'm pretty sure Charles and Whit have claimed to be together all day, and they were at least already together in the Computer Lab working together on something before Teruko entered. Assuming they weren't in on this together, I'm going to give him a tentative no.

Ace: So, assuming that Ace was telling the truth about overhearing David and Arei on the night of Day 7, he would have been in the Gym at ~9:30 on the night the fish were taken. That is to say, if he had just taken the fish (and potentially even hid them in the Gym fridge), he absolutely could have gone to the Gym afterwards. I don't remember him having any sort of alibi otherwise. Easy yes.

Arei: Given that, other than Ace (and David) claiming to have seen her at 9:30, no one is admitting to have seen Arei since lunchtime, Arei did have a window of opportunity to take the fish. Obviously, why she would (inadvertently or not) help her killer to kill her is still a huge question mark, but we're talking possibility, so it's a yes.

Rose: Rose has no alibi ever because she's asleep. Yes.

Hu: Hu and Eden claim to have a continuous alibi together between 7 and 10 PM. Again, unless they're in on it together, tentative no.

Eden: Same as Hu. Tentative no.

Levi: Levi was "doing his laundry," which even he admits is shaky at best. He's a yes.

Arturo: J says that Arturo was by her side from the entire time between 7:30 and 10 PM. Third time's the charm-- unless Arturo and J were in on it together, Arturo is a tentative no.

Min: She was dead.

David: David entered the Kitchen for egg dinner at ~9:30, but we don't know where he was before that. Similarly, we don't know what happened at the end of Ace's story, which leaves David a window of opportunity to have taken the fish just before the Relaxation Room closed. Either way, definite yes.

Veronika: Veronika was with Teruko at the end of the night, but we don't know where she was before that. She had an opportunity; yes.

J: Arturo's alibi goes both ways. Tentative no.

Whit: Same as Charles. Tentative no.

Nico: Nico both had ample opportunity to have taken the fish before 9:30, and could have been lying about the timing of the fish despite that. Another easy yes.

So, what does that tell us? Well, it likely means that either the killer has to be Ace, Arei, Rose, Levi, David, Veronika, Nico, or someone who has one of those seven as an accomplice, or I/the students have something wrong about the timing. Venus' other point was that it's weird that that hasn't come up at this point in the Trial, so don't be surprised if we come back to it later. Or we're wrong.

And those were my notes on... the first two minutes of the Trial! That whole ramble that probably could have been a whole theory post by itself! God, I need to pick up the pace...

Dang, what a cool detail that literally none of us picked up on (as far as I remember). Seriously, how did nobody even throw that out as an off-the-wall possibility? Anyways, if the body was still swinging, that means the murder-- or at least the hanging-- was recent recent. Sadly, given that no detail is given as to who arrives in the Motive Screening Room when, I don't think we have any further evidence to pin down who this might have been at the moment. Keep it in mind, though.

Okay, so I believe that J is right about "answering her own question" here, but that does therefore lead us to the conclusion that the body probably was drenched in water at some point. I do not know why. It'd be interesting if it was to clean blood off of Arei's body, although Artruro-not-being-the-killer pending there weren't any cuts or scrapes on her body. It could have also been a mistake, it's just weirder to have a mistake that covers the entire body in water. Or, it could be a failure in Arturo's alibi, which is obviously a major point of the episode.

I literally said exactly this while Ace was talking. Thank you Charles <3

First point that I feel people have commented on already: we now know that the DRDT cast believes that they are about 18! This makes sense, given that they believed that they were about to enter their first year of college, which, in the United States, happens at about 18.

Secondly...

Arturo: I started studying medicine when I was twelve. Twelve! All that amounts to is six years of medical training!

Arturo: I was only able to get this far in such a short amount of time because I specialized in plastic surgery, and nothing else. I neglected everything that wasn't immediately relevant to my goals.

Felicity is 3-4 years younger than Arturo. Therefore, she was 8-9 when Arturo started studying medicine. I don't think we have enough info at the moment to speculate as to when Arturo might have left home to pursue being a doctor, other than that 14 is generally the minimum possible age of employment in the US, while the legal age to live alone is 18. I'd love to dive into this more, but I don't think we've been given enough to complete a full timeline. Still, important to keep in mind.

A certified W for verturo shippers. "Adorable" is such a word choice.

Oh, so that's where that came from. Convenient that it doesn't seem to be relevant to this murder, because I have no explanation for it. I wonder if it'll be relevant in the future, though, or if it was just a funny gag that DRDTdev wanted to include.

As much as I've tried to refute Whit mastermind theory in the past, I have to admit that this moment was pretty suspicious for Whit. "Because it was funny" could easily be a coverup for "that's an executable offense but I'm programmed to not want to kill my mastermind so I let it go." It's still not concrete proof by any means, but I can tell that I'll be seeing this screenshot more in the future if I try to argue against Whit being the mastermind again.

Mechanisms, you say? 👀

I have been thinking so much about what the fuck this line means ever since Whit said it. Did they actually spend the night together, and Whit is just framing it in a subversively funny way? Is he saying that he's so sure that Charles doesn't have any friends other than him that there's no possibility that Charles could have been with anyone else other than him? Is he secretly the mastermind, and knows that Charles was alone through watching a security camera? Was he just saying that to be random and banking on being correct? Sir, I do not understand you. You're the best <3

Are J, David, and Veronika Telling the Truth?

Given how popular of an option J being the killer is (and to a lesser extent, David as well), I'm sure there are plenty of people out there right now wondering if this alibi, which seemingly clears J, David, and Veronika of being the blackened, could possibly be untrue. That's what we're going to attempt to examine right now.

For starters, I'm going to eliminate the possibility that all three of them are co-conspirators in Arei's death. Like, yeah, it's possible-- I guess-- but I don't understand what any of their motivations would be, or even if they did all have corresponding motivations, why any of them would have shared them with each other prior to the Trial. It also seems like a mess narratively, with three largely unconnected characters coming together to pull off an unsupported major stunt. So, I don't think this was a planned lie to conceal their teamwork.

All of them do also have plausible enough reasons for being out early in the morning. J shared hers with the Class-- she was hoping to have an Arturo-free breakfast. David makes lots of sense, as he was probably looking around hoping that there would be a body so that the secrets wouldn't be revealed. Veronika might have been awake for the same reasons; looking around for a body in hopes of having another exciting Class Trial. Or, maybe she was just so excited about seeing all the motives that she couldn't sleep. Either way, it doesn't seem too unbelievable to think that any of them would be awake in the morning, so I'm not inclined to believe it's a lie.

The only way I think you could get out of this disqualifying these three is if you say that all three of them, but especially J, are exceptionally quick on their feet.

For this to work, J has to realize ahead of time that David was trying to draw votes to himself in order to purposefully fail the Trial, bank on the fact that this is true, and throw this fake alibi out to him, hoping that he'll accept. If J could win the Class Trial as a blackened, this would also end the killing game early, which is David's stated goal. Veronika is an easier get, given that she might agree to a chaotic lie if she found it interesting enough, but it's still a gamble.

However, this situation is incredibly niche, and still really only works if J specifically is the killer. I think we can pretty officially take David and Veronika out of the running with this. Personally, trying to see things from DRDTdev's point of view, I think he just wanted a clean sweep to remove David from killer contention, and added J and Veronika as collateral as two people who aren't the killer.

I would personally take this alibi as concrete proof that J isn't the killer, but I understand if anyone still thinks there are enough holes in its suddenness to keep J in contention. My deepest condolences to J!culprit truthers-- I'm sure that alibi must've stung. (/gen)

"Harm yourself for fun" secret go brrrrrrr.

I'm making this my new tumblr header.

Yeah, seems in accordance with his actions to me.

Oh my god another "good person" name drop AAAAAAAAAA--

Being good corresponding to sacrificing something is super interesting. Whether he's a culprit or an accomplice or what, I can't help but feel like this theme might apply to Levi in the near future.

But also, David is saying that the sacrifice is being seen as a good person, not that you have to sacrifice being seen as a good person to do good things. That part seems like it relates to David's career. He doesn't seem to like being around people very much, but he's seen as a paragon of motivational speaking because he thinks that those speeches, will, overall, do some good. David would rather be a nobody, but he'll sacrifice himself to do some good for others. Or, at least, that's the charitable reading.

And, the other "good person" jumpscare. This brings our "good people" counter up to 6, including Teruko, Eden, Arei, David, Levi, and Xander.

What the Fuck is David Talking About?

David: After all, it's still unbelievable to me... That I'm the only person here who remembered him. Even if you all lost a year of memories for this killing game, there's no reason you shouldn't have recognized who he was.

Alright. So! This was one of the biggest reveals of the episode. Probably unrelated to the Trial at hand, but very intriguing for the story overall.

I went back to rewatch some of the most prominent David/Xander scenes. From David's introduction, here's everything he says before Xander runs off to grab the pen and paper for the autograph. All of these are said directly to Xander.

David: Woah! (chime sound) Sir, is everything alright? You gave me quite the scare.

David: Yes, that's me, although I don't believe we've met before.

David: Ahaha, you flatter me. But yes, it is my goal to inspire others. I wish to make everyone realize that their aspirations are within grasp; all they have to do is find the motivation within their hearts to inspire them.

David: O-oh, wow. I'm incredibly honored, I suppose? Sorry, I don't really know how to respond.

Interestingly, there isn't actually anything to directly contradict the idea that David remembered Xander at this point, if you get a bit creative with it. Just because David "doesn't think they've met before" doesn't mean that he doesn't know who Xander is, and being "genuinely honored" could have been more genuine than most people interpreted.

There are only two points of contention, the first of which being that David calls Xander "sir." That does read more as David not knowing who he is-- he doesn't call Xander "Xander" even though Teruko already said Xander's name. However, depending on how highly David thought of Xander in the past-- because he certainly seems to think highly of Xander in the present-- David might have wanted to call him "sir" at first as a sign of formality and respect, before getting Xander's permission to be on a first name basis. Even if Xander still calls him Mr. David.

(Goddamn I typed Xander so many times in that paragraph)

The other weird point is when David says "anything for a fan" in response to Xander asking for an autograph, but that's far more excusable. Like, Xander is a massive fan of his, so calling Xander a fan is reasonable. David might have been happy that such a cool guy as Xander was a fan of his, and was stressing that fact out of delight. Or, this is after Teruko caught him slipping, so he could have also reverted into default customer service mode and said that in a more scripted mindset.

Meanwhile, in the scene where David approaches Teruko and Xander after Nico flees the lunch table...

... I CAN'T BELIEVE WE FUCKING MISSED THIS.

Do you see that? Do you see where David says "in person"? That strongly implies that David knew Xander not in person prior to the killing game. Good god, it's been there all along.

Other than that, the scene is full of David being embarrassed at Xander speaking highly of him, David speaking highly of Xander, and, of course, the mutual "you're my idol" moment. Dude, I thought that David was just gaslight gatekeep girlbossing here. You're telling me that everything he was saying about thinking that Xander was the coolest guy on earth was legit? Unreal.

Anyways, I don't have the time to rewatch, like, the entire first Trial to check up on every little comment David makes, but I find that comment about knowing Xander in person definite enough to conclude that David knew who Xander was since the very start of the killing game, not that he remembered something about Xander along the way.

How exactly David knew about Xander is still up in the air. I know that Microphony has a theory that David remembered Xander from their time together at Hope's Peak, and while it's a great theory and I don't doubt that the two did go to Hope's Peak together, I have a bit of a hard time believing that. My only holdup is that I feel like letting David remember Hope's Peak would be too powerful, and having him remember being with Xander at Hope's Peak while remembering nothing else about his time there is too... like, specific? Nit-picky? I don't have the word, but I hope you understand what I mean.

Instead, I think that David might remember what Xander did in response to the North C and Chariton incident that presumably earned him the title of Ultimate Rebel. That makes more sense to me as something that would make David idolize Xander in the same way that Xander idolized him-- if David just remembers their time at school, he would probably remember Xander on more friendly terms. It would also be super convenient to have David still be alive with memories of, say, Richard Spurling, to share with the class in future chapters, now that Xander is too dead to say anything more on the subject.

Sadly, I don't remember if there's any information in Literature Girl Insane to point theories in either direction. I'm gonna have to rewatch FF's video again sometime fr.

Is David Telling the Truth?

David: We're... in a television show, after all. That's... what MonoTV said, right? "Entertainment" is an ongoing show. If Min successfully got away with the very first murder and escaped while we all died, then isn't that way less interesting for a TV show? What's the point of roping 14 other people into one murder, only to kill them all off immediately? The killer is supposed to fail and be executed. We're all supposed to catch the killer, again and again, and participate in trial after trial. You're supposed to try to survive. All of you who are trying to survive these class trials to continue living on are playing straight into MonoTV's hands. As if I'll accept that. I don't care how low I'll sink, or how despicable I'll have to become. I'll do anything to carry on Xander's ideals by ending this killing game, even if it means that I have to dirty my hands.

Firstly, I'm so glad that we're returning to the fact that this is a televised killing game! It seems like it has to be really important to whatever the lore is, so I'm glad that the students haven't artificially forgotten that fact until Chapter 6.

Secondly, I phrased this part as "is David telling the truth" because, initially, I thought that David had a different reason for lying about killing Arei. My thought was that he thought that pathetically advocating for himself would only make himself look more guilty, so he switched up tactics by making it look like so easy of a victory that people like Teruko would wind up proving his innocence themselves. Because that seemed plausible, I wanted to examine if David could have come up with this explanation on the fly. He's known for lying and should be socially savvy, so it's possible that this argument was just a red herring to conceal his true intentions.

However, given the prior section in which I argued that it really does seem like David knew and admired Xander prior to the killing game, I'm more inclined to believe that this was the true reason. Furthermore, this was a really interesting scene, and it'd be a shame to introduce such a fascinating character idea to toss it away for an "actually, he was just trying to lie about this Chapter 2 Trial."

There's also the good ol' Literature Girl Insane, for real this time. This plan reminded me so much of the "tallying votes" scene that I had to check it out for myself.

[12] “Majority rule” is known to be the fairest method of making decisions for a group. That's why murderers never complained when we voted for them to die.

The voting results definitely sound like David's plan. If he successfully made himself the killer, everyone would be executed, and while he would have "victory" over the killing game, it would certainly be a hollow one.

The 16 vote tally is still a bit more confusing, but I think you could relate it to David's plan as well. If you assume that David is the one getting all of the votes, you could say that his plan to end the killing game no matter the cost (throwing away his career, being hated by everyone, possibly even killing someone himself) might make him guilty of a crime/worthy of being voted for, whether he literally kills someone or not. Therefore, if the majority hates him and he achieves the closest thing to "victory" that he can, there's no reason for him to complain if it means he has to die. It could be his justification for why he has to fill out his mission, even if, in his heart, he doesn't want to.

I don't know if that's the explanation of footnote 12 or just an explanation with the new scenes given, but I think it's a possibility. There's also certainly far more to dive into regarding both David's worldview and the motivations behind the killing game, but if I started looking into that now, I wouldn't publish this post until way later. I'll have to leave that analysis for another time and/or another person.

Love Hu for this. At least for someone like me, who finds David's mindset sort of relatable at times, it's important to have someone around to point out the flaws of compulsive martyrdom and give a reality check that doing something wrong in the pursuit of what you think is right is still (sometimes) an utterly fucked up thing to do. They're both such good characters, and they work off each other so well.

Furthering the above point, even if David is doing it for what he believes to be "good" reasons, he's still ultimately manipulating people! You know, like his secret said!!! You don't have to believe that everyone is stupid to believe that you're smarter than them and you know what's best. But there's also the delicious irony that, despite Hu being the one to say this to David, she's also the one talking over Nico.

I am so sorry to all the whitvid shippers in the crowd. Unless this is the dynamic you crave, idk.

I wish that this line was voice acted just so that I could hear Ace's "uhh umm" Nico impression.

Are Hu and Nico Lying?

We're back at it again.

Needless to say, this is way more suspicious than J, Veronika, and David's alibi. First of all, Hu and Nico are only two people, which makes it far more believable that they could conspire on the murder together. Second, unlike the former random group of characters, this latter pair are very intertwined. And third, this supposed breakfast occurred in a private location that only Hu and Nico could have possibly seen, as opposed to J, who said she was in a public location. If Ace or whoever had been in the public Dining Room at 7:30 AM, he could have called J out for lying, whereas no one can contradict the idea of Nico and Hu being in Nico's room.

However, for Hu to be lying and for Nico to not oppose her (despite pointing out the fact that they were interrupted) would strongly imply that they'd have to be in on the plan to murder Arei together. The easiest way to get there would be to assume that they were also in on the plan to murder Ace together. Understandable enough; I'm sure we're all aware at this point that Nico and what appears to be Hu's wire were both found at the scene of the Gym crime. They could've tried to murder Ace, got caught, and then switched targets to a different bully because Ace was too on guard? Nico would have been able to grab the fish, so there's no issue there.

I'm inclined to believe that Nico and Hu are telling the truth just because I personally don't believe either of them to be Arei's blackened, and I don't understand what either of their motivations to be an accomplice specifically would be in this situation. It would be pretty hypocritical of Hu to go off on David for trying to control whether everyone else lives or dies if she was currently the blackened trying to get everyone else to die so she could live. Or, even worse, if she was an accomplice trying to get everyone else to die so that Nico could live. That'd basically be what David was trying to do with a different coat of paint!

However, this could easily be a lie, especially given how suspiciously late it was compared to what J said. We had a whole David monologue in the middle. Those things last for ages.

WHAT THE FUCK!!!

Okay, so, obviously, I could try to go over the implications of this, but with the next episode only a week away (I cry tears of joy), I think it's in my best interest to leave whatever I'll have to say about what Levi is doing until we have more information about his mindset. What a cliffhanger, though. Levi accomplice nation, it's currently looking... iffy.

Anyways, that was a fantastic episode! I loved getting a chance to learn more about Arturo, David, Xander, and the rest of the gang, with promise of more interesting things to come in the near future. I can't believe that they still haven't talked about the actual murder method at all. And that there were literally no trial mechanics in this video. Who needs 'em?

I hope you enjoyed my perspective on the episode. If you have any additions or questions, feel free to send me a comment or an ask. There's also a chance that I'll add onto this myself after seeing other people's ideas to respond to them. But for that, I'll have to read other people's ideas. I'm off to see what my mutuals have to say >:D See ya!

[gleamingtempest]

CHAPTER THREE death prospects -- Danganronpa Despair Time

Hi. These are my feelings on how likely it is for the remaining students to die in Chapter Three of DRDT alongside accompanying explanations for each student. There is no objective metric for this because things can change drastically between one chapter to the next but I do have some personal thoughts regardless. Enjoy.

#12 -- Teruko Tawaki

I believe somewhat intuitively Teruko will not die before the finale. The entire narrative is centered around her character both diagetically and non-diagetically so she certainly won't die prematurely IMO. There isn't much else to be said in this regard.

#11 -- Whit Young

Whit has only very recently been getting set up for the second step in his character arc so I sincerely doubt he'll be dying in chapter three. I do believe his relationship with Charles will be developed to include more nuance in Chapter Three though and his backstory will be teased a bit.

The spotlight put on him at the very end of chapter two will probably continue as well in the sense that we will be led to feel more uneasy / distrustful towards his character as a whole going forward. Regardless of his final role in the story I do believe he's bound to be centered as a later game antagonist eventually.

He has too many undeveloped emotional threads to die this early though IMO.

#10 -- Eden Tobisa

With some confidence, I'll say Eden won't die until at least Chapter Five. She's been set up and centered as a deuteragonist too much to die before the later stages of the story. Additionally we're coming in hot off of a chapter where she received very intensive focus, so I don't believe she's primed to retake that spotlight in Chapter Three quite yet.

I do believe she's primed to have some very interesting interactions with Levi, Nico, and David in Chapter Three though. There's a lot of unresolved threads regarding Arei now not to talk about it and Ace is now deeply intertwined with Arei so Levi and Nico are natural bridges to that gap going forward. Levi and David are already primed to have a dynamic with Eden in any case.

#09 -- Charles Cuevas

Charles is a remarkably popular choice for one of the two chapter three victims amongst the fandom. Admittedly I don't really get why. The most common points people state in favor of it aren't very compelling to me, unfortunately. Not that there's anything with this prediction, I'm just intimidated by how robust the enthusiasm for this prediction is.

Fans sometimes discuss it as a foregone conclusion and that is very scary to me.

Regardless I don't really agree. Charles is IMO the main deuteragonist for Teruko and also an otherwise very important character for the progression of this show. He has an abundance of plot points tied to major aspects of the genre itself and there's an underlying expectation that those plot points will absolutely be paid off in the finale. I do occasionally see the rebuttal to this that those points can be resolved after his death but the points I find most compelling about his character in relation to the genre are his intelligence, his blood phobia, and his relation to memory loss.

All three of these plot points are incredibly significant to Danganronpa specifically and I don't believe we've explored them in nearly enough detail for Charles to be cut from the narrative yet. Charles' fear of blood makes it so that he has a very unique relationship to investigations, which he additionally is very useful during because he is in the most conventional terms the most intelligent or "learned" living character by far. Rose and Teruko are both very helpful but they don't have the staunch commitment to rigorous or "scientific learning" which Charles does, something which is very significant to investigations as a whole.

In order for that unique dynamic between being handicapped in trials and being useful in trials to continue to be paid off, Charles would have to make it to at least one more trial and I find it incredibly unlikely that it will only be one more trial as well.

The memory loss plot thread also leads me to believe that he will have some relation to the broader memory loss plot point of Despair Time, something which we would traditionally not see getting pulled away at until Chapter Four-Five. We might get pieces of this during Chapter Three but it seems remarkably unlikely to me that it will be fully opened up until at least Chapter Four and it certainly won't resolve until Chapter Six.

Granted, Charles does not have to be ALIVE in order to resolve this plot point but it would be most compelling for him to at least be alive while it is first being put into the spotlight, something that won't happen at the same time it is resolved.

Considering all this, I do believe that there is a tremendous excess of plot points for Charles to connect to which are genre specific that make it very unlikely to me that he will die during Chapter Three. It is also sometimes asserted that his emotional arc has already completed or progressed so much in Chapters One-Two that he could be considered a nearly complete character, but I believe this may be somewhat presumptuous given how little we actual know about Charles' past.

At the least, I don't really think Charles' callousness was the most pressing flaw of his character and his struggles with memory loss, avoidance, and the underlying themes of generational trauma embedded in his character are all very compelling points which we have barely even scratched the surface of as of now.

I know that characters CAN be resolved within one chapter but the amount of plot points which would have to be resolved in a compelling in one chapter which are attached to Charles is quite a bit bigger than a lot of the other characters still living. While he can die, it just seems pretty unlikely when there are other much easier to pay off candidates still living.

That's just my perspective though -- in conclusion, I'm pretty sure Charles is safe at least until Chapter Five.

#08 -- David Chiem

I know I just gave a huge dissertation on why Charles isn't likely to die in Chapter Three so I should do even more to justify putting David here since there is actually literal tangible text which HEAVILY implies something is happening to him in Chapter Three but I can't be bothered. I really honestly don't know what that means and I can only really justify this placement by saying a lot of the points I had for Charles also apply to David and also I think there are alternatives to 'Disappear' that don't straight up kill him.

I haven't pondered that or David's character enough to elaborate though honestly. He's just kind of a lot.

He probably won't die! But if he does I guess I won't be too surprised because the story will have kind of just straight up told me that's happening. We will see.

#07 -- Levi Fontana

I know he's like on his death bed literally but come on, he's the big character and if we're paying off or subverting the DR "tropes" like people think we are kind of widely then I think it's pretty reasonable to say Levi will probably have more to do with Chapter Four. Additionally Chapter Four is often centered around self sacrifice and the will to live, both things I think are more interesting to explore with Levi anyways.

It's also kind of hard to develop and explore a character who is asleep and he will probably not be up and mobile for a lot of the daily life, making it kind of unlikely that he'll die. Having a character out of commission who can't quite be a reliable witness is also more interesting during a trial than someone who didn't talk or move the whole time dying anyways.

He definitely can though. Like I could just be wrong and he could be mobile. So I don't really know. Oh well

#06 -- Nico Hakobyan

I wouldn't be too surprised if they died in Chapter Three honestly. They have been pretty well set up all considered and their isn't really any reason any of their plot points can't be resolved after they die.

Shy / socially unconventional characters who "crash out" dying during chapter three also isn't super uncommon so I wouldn't exactly be super duper shocked or anything. I just don't think the other candidates are wayyy more compelling than them for the time being.

I also think their potential death being more tied to Levi would probably be more satisfying.

#05 -- Rose Lacroix

Okay. Complicated feelings here.

Rose is logistically entirely reasonable to have die here and has been very well set up to complete her arc. She is tied to a lot of the themes you could expect to anticipated with a money related motive and also the story has been primed to explore her in Chapter Three anyways, so I don't really see why she can't die here.

My only tangible rebuttal is her memory, which I do think would be a very useful and difficult to replicate plot device during the later stages of the story when solving the broader mystery of the killing game. She's kind of a cheat code honestly if they ever get their memories back.

That is also why I think it's entirely possible she dies before then though.

She's so incredibly helpful that it's kind of an issue for any future killers and the mastermind if she's alive. Both narratively and diagetically she's under a lot of pressure. If a killer was smart they'd aim to take her out and if the mastermind was smart they'd know she could ruin the whole operation by getting literally any memories back.

So reasonably I have to put her in High Danger.

On a less rational, more subjective / emotional tangent though I don't want her to die because she's a darker skinned black woman in a Danganronpa game and I want her to survive sooo bad like god I want her to survive. Whatever. If she dies I won't be surprised but I do just really want her to live.

Crossing my fingers. Moving on.

#04 -- Arturo Giles

Arturo fits the archetype of a Chapter Three killer a littleee too well for him to not be up here. Additionally, Ace literally pulling him down by the collar and more or less breathing the theme of redemption from Chapter Two into Arturo's character very explicitly pretty flagrantly sets him up to begin his arc in Chapter Three I would say.

I don't personally believe he'll die because of that but I also fully acknowledge that redemption story lines can be resolved in ways that aren't them being redeemed or surviving. I don't believe he will regress or die before he can be redeemed because we kind of already did that with Arei and Ace but I do believe he could very well die as an act OF redemption rather than survive.

In spite of this, I do sort of think that might be more compelling for a Chapter Four death than a Chapter Three one. He is intensely linked to Veronika though and if you know anything about Chapter Three tropes and believe DRDT is playing with DR tropes -- you know for an undeniable fact that dying or not Veronika Grebenshchikova is going to take the spotlight in Chapter Three, in one way or another.

So chances are Arturo will at least be pretty tied into Chapter Three's trial.

#03 -- J Rosales

I don't actually want to justify why I think J is dying Chapter Three honestly. So I won't.

She's the lowest candidate of the three in my predictions because I do think there's a lot of routes for her going forward if she lives. I just also think she's a good unexpected but set up and compelling character to kill off in Chapter Three. She's tied to a lot of characters who seem like they'll be important to Chapter Three and we basically already know her backstory.

Idk. Sue me but she's dead.

#02 -- Veronika Grebenshchikova

Okay. Hey. So Veronika is definitely getting someone killed in Chapter Three.

I don't really know if she'll be the killer, kill and then be killed, or simply orchestrate a murder but she is going to get SOMEONE killed SOMEHOW during the hours of that chapter. This much I know.

My personal take is that she'll be the killer though I do know this is regarded as too obvious by a lot of the fandom. Personally I don't really care about that and think that makes it more likely. If DRDT is doing DR tropes then the Chapter Three killer will be the most obvious candidate -- which is Veronika.

She has all the hallmarks of a really compelling Chapter Three killer and I think that there is a really obvious simple but compelling execution concept for her which is very in line with how executions have been written so far which would lead me to believe she is a really satisfying killer candidate.

Veronika just kind of fits. I don't really know what else to say. The only reason she's not at the top spot is because I think it's possible she lives. Regardless of that though, she's getting someone killed.

#01 -- Hu Jing

Person she's getting killed.

I don't feel like I have time to explain the many many many many reasons Hu is marked for death in Chapter Three but at the least I need to emphasize just how doomed she is. She's doomed. The doomed one. She is doom.

Hu is gonna die in Chapter Three I don't really know how else to say it.

Bye

I hope that this is insightful, helpful or engaging. Thanks for reading. ^^

[thefandomenchantress]

Who Explored with Who in Chapter 1?

This is a question that has plagued my mind for a very long time, so I'm finally making a post about who I think teamed up with who!

There are three categories: Confirmed, probable, and guess. Confirmed means we saw it confirmed in the episode, probable means I think we can say that it probably happened, and guess is me taking a shot in the dark.

Teruko and Charles: Confirmed

Since Teruko is the character we follow, we saw that she explored with Charles the whole time (except when he ran off for a few minutes to make the weapons list). So they're confirmed.

Xander and David: Confirmed

The reason Teruko is forced to explore with Charles in the first place is because Xander confessed he was ditching her to explore with David. So this pairing is confirmed as well.

Arturo and Levi: Confirmed

Teruko and Charles run into these two in the infirmary, and Arturo states they spent their time together while he bandaged Levi's arm because of the injury the spikes caused. They're also confirmed.

Arei and Whit: Confirmed

Teruko and Charles walk in on them having a toilet paper fight exploring the bathroom together during a CG. Since Whit built a whole toilet paper fort, they were probably in there together for a while. So we can also confirm them as a pair.

Veronika and Ace: Probable

I've always been pretty confident about this one, even though it's never shown. Not only did Veronika and Ace's usual chapter 1 counterparts, Arturo and Levi team up, leaving them to instead team up with each other, but their relationship being established now also sets up Veronika forcing Ace into her movie night. After spending so much time exploring with him, she knew how easily scared he was and that he'd be fun to bring.

Min and Eden: Probable

At first, I was going to put Hu and Eden together, since they're friends later, but in the end I decided on these two, and I'm actually pretty confident about it. Eden probably would've put a little more effort into including Hu in the baking activity if they really were already friends, and Min actually does attend the baking activity despite it not being school-related. Min already being friends with or liking Eden makes that more believable, and them having a friendship or spending a lot of time together during chapter 1 makes Eden's guilt over Min's death also make more sense. If they already had a friendly connection and spent time together outside of that one baking scene, of course Eden feels way worse than if she accidentally caused the death of someone she only talked to once or twice.

J and Nico: Guess

I figured J will probably go with who she thinks is the coolest, and Nico's the only one I could justify her thinking might be kinda cool out of who I had left. Hu's too motherly (maybe reminding J of her Mom a little too much), and Rose...well, she might be the second-best pick, but her sleepiness might frustrate J, so I figured Nico was my best bet. They might be kinda socially awkward, but they're blunt in a way I think J would appreciate (and it's not like J's not socially awkward sometimes either). And I think Nico would end up liking J a fair bit, too. So I've decided to think they explored together.

Rose and Hu: Guess

Other than being the only two I had left, I figured they still work pretty well as a pairing. Hu's a lot more patient than some of the other students, so her being the one to put up with Rose constantly falling asleep mid-conversation would make sense. Plus, Hu says that the pairs are a matter of safety and makes Teruko team up with Charles instead of being nice and doing it herself. Maybe that's because she wanted to protect Rose, who she thinks could quite easily fall into a trap, and didn't want to leave her in Teruko's or especially Charles' hands. If she had teamed up with, say, Eden instead, maybe she would've been more comfortable helping Teruko out and going with Charles for her in her pursuit to be useful.

---

Aaaand that's it! If anyone has any other ideas for who paired up with who, I'd love to hear them. I'm actually pretty happy with my guesses, but I guess I'll never know if I'm right.

[demodraws0606]

The issues of Eden being the culprit

Look, just ignore the fact that I conceaded the fact that Eden being the culprit made sense not a long while ago (and that I also made a post about it). In all honesty the only reason why I accepted the theory was mainly because at the time, Eden was the one who had the most evidence stacked against her + the idea of her doing this with an accompliced solved most of the issues I had.

Now however with any thoughts of accomplices throughouly gutted mainly because I really just don't think Whit is involved in the murder anymore (even if he's overwhelmingly suspicious for no fucking reason). The idea of Levi helping has also pretty much gone out of the window now, so that would mean Eden couldn't rlly have gotten the help of anybody (and I don't want to entertain ideas that Arei might have allowed Eden to do it cause it makes no sense with Arei's characterization).

With all of that, now multiple holes that I've been willing to ignore kinda seem obvious with how the case is taking shape. So I'm gonna list all the reasons why I think that, right now, Eden being the culprit seems kind of unlikely.

-She would have no knowledge and reason to replicate the murder method used against Ace

Teruko has made it obvious now that the murder of Ace and Arei are connected in their method. Meaning there has to be a link between those two murder and who commited them. However, how would Eden have known exactly how the murder of Ace was commited, the murder mechanism was undone when Teruko and Eden both walked in. Even if you use the argument that "well Teruko noticed so maybe Eden did !" that would still leave the question as to why Eden would even try and commit a murder that's similar to the way Ace was almost murdered.

-She doesn't have the ability to get the water required for the murder

This one is the most obvious, unless she has someone who helped her, Eden couldn't have gotten the water. This was fine when Eden could potentially have someon working with her however with Arei's revealed talk with David alongside Levi's behavior last episode, I heavily doubt any of them helped Eden. Meaning Eden couldn't have gotten the water.

-The murderer would have no reason to try and circumvant the BDA rule

This one is something I don't hear a lot of people talk about but it's really important. We know that anyone who has witnessed the murder happen does not count for the BDA announcement. Meaning that unless Whit or Eden circumvented that rule, they are ruled innocent by default.

Obviously the wording is vague enough that you could argue the culprit tried to avoid that rule from applying but why ? We already from a lot of signs that the murder was sloppy and almost done last minute, why would the murderer think of such a niche rule. I'd argue this argument of trying to avoid the BDA rule would only work if another culprit was caught because someone was declared innocent by that rule.

-The wording of the note is simply too weird for it to make sense that it was Eden writing it

This is probably the least convincing argument but I still wanted to put this out there.

I understood at first the idea that Eden wrote the note and then just pretended that it wasn't really her handwriting, however isn't it weird how strange the note is worded (ignoring the mispelling).

Why would Eden do this, why couldn't she have just asked Arei to meet her at the playground ? I mean since they were friends now, why would she need lie so much to get Arei's attention ?

Eden could've lied about being threatened but I'd argue it definitely wouldn't be written out like this.

Unless if the culprit isn't Eden and therefore wanted to make 100 pourcent they get Arei's attention by putting everything they overheard into the note. Considering how sloppily the note seems to be written it also would make sense it just sounds like a rehearsed version of what the culprit overheard.

-She couldn't have gotten the Turpentine that was probably used to knock out Arei

This one is the most damning, we know for a fact Arei had to have been knocked out. The floor of the playground is extremely prone to scrapes and marks that any type of resistance would've been made obvious. Obviously I don't think Arei did this willingly because otherwise she wouldn't have had her wrist bound by tape (and also it just makes 0 sense with her character) so this means she had to have been knocked unconcious.

However, Eden had no way to get the turpentine, the attempted murderer of Ace was the one who had it and unless somone wants to try and make the argument that Eden tried to kill Ace, this means that Eden couldn't have gotten a hold of it.

[thxrgism]

ceiling fan-kun despite not being the cause of death you are in the room and also i posted about you killing arei before so you are the culprit probably

NOT ME PREDICTING THE FUCKING CEILING FAN OF DOOM-

ceiling fan-kun i have no clue whether you're the cause of death or not but you are not being pardoned for this case

[the-sol-eater]

The reason I badly want Whit to interact with David in Chapter 3 is because I'm being so serious when I say I really do feel like Whit is the only person who will be able to see David for what he is Xander and Teruko may have both been able to see past David's smoke and mirrors, but their issues arise from the fact that they both perceive him through biased lenses. Xander looks up to David, and though he sees him as human, he also doesn't see a bad bone in his body. He views David through a strictly positive lens and outright refuses to acknowledge anything negative about him, as seen in the prologue when Teruko brings up David's slip of more unsavory behavior. Teruko on the other hand has basically always seen the negative in David, especially after her heel turn after Chapter 1. She very clearly does not like him, despite the amount of similarities they share. In fact, that's part of why she doesn't like him, because she doesn't like herself. Though she has probably gotten the closest to the core of who David is, it is barely within her reach because she is a pessimist who only sees and acknowledges the worst aspects of him The reason why these two cannot see David for who he truly is, is because their view of him is skewed into boxes of a good and bad, which is coincidentally how David views the people around him too, as well as himself. Someone is either a good person or a bad person with no in-between. However, that is not how Whit sees things.

Whit sees the good in others, but also sees the weaknesses embedded within them, and the flaws that layer their personalities. He doesn't see people as being either good or bad like David does, he sees people as human and all of the beauty and ugly that comes with being human. And it's because of this that I really do think he is the only one in the cast who will be able to see David for the person he really is, especially after CH2-11 which has left pretty much everyone in the cast with a negative opinion on him.

In conclusion: Please let them interact, DT-Dev. I beg of you. I'm on my knees.

[drdt-headcanons]

What would the Despair Time do for a fun night together? And if so, who would even show up 💖

To celebrate the new year (and make up for being gone for so long, sorry about that), I'm finally answering this! Sorry for letting it rot away in the inbox all this time.

To answer the question, I think one of the more sociable classmates, like Eden or Xander, would probably be the one to try planning something for them to do. Maybe a board game night or something they could all do without having to worry about people having to travel or go anywhere that might overwhelm anyone. I'm gonna assume this is a non-killing game au and that Hope's Peak had some sort of Common room area they could host this event in.

As for who would show up...

Teruko: Nearly misses the event because her dorm room door got jammed, but when she does manage to get to the event, she loses every board game. Though she didn't expect anything less, so she still had fun. Watching everyone squabble was quite entertaining for her.

Xander: If he didn't come up with the idea for the event, he probably still helped set it up, so he's attending. He gets very invested in every game they play and is quick to call out anyone who tries to cheat. While he's easily frustrated, he's not a sore loser and will congratulate the winner (...with noticeably grey eyes).

Charles: He didn't want to come, but if Whit and/or Teruko has befriended him by this point, he probably ended up going anyway. Even if he won't admit it, he had fun and maybe, possibly, cracked a few smiles at the others' antics.

Ace: He wasn't going to attend, but then Arei said he was "just afraid he'd lose", and suddenly he was motivated to show up. To say that he wanted to flip over the table at multiple points is not an exaggeration (he lost every game), but much like Charles, he had fun even if he won't admit it.

Arei: She decides to attend in order to kick everyone's asses at all the games. She is the main culprit behind any potential cheating (though she does rope Whit into it). If called out, she will start fake crying on the spot before she's forced to stop whatever she was doing.

Rose: May sleep through the event, but if she does make it there, she'll win any game based on memorization. Other than that, she's overall happy to be there and is happy she gets to experience something she'll actually like remembering.

Hu: Much like Xander, she likely helped set up the event, so she attends. She's happy to watch the others play but can get surprisingly intense when given the chance to play herself. And if anyone sets up Karaoke, she's the best one there without competition.

Eden: Either came up with the idea for the event or helped set it up, so she attends as well. While she doesn't have the best poker face, she will gleefully send three +4 cards towards a classmate in a row without remorse. She assures them it isn't personal, just business in a fake-serious voice.

Levi: He is on the fence about attending, and most likely will if someone encourages him to. Unlike Eden, he does seem a bit unsure about how cruel he can be during a game without making people genuinely upset with him. As such, a few classmates have made it their job to encourage him to do whatever potentially-mean move he's considering during a board game when they see him look unsure.

Arturo: Refuses to attend, but may be swayed into being an onlooker if someone like Veronika pesters him enough. He then exasperatedly sighs the whole night at their chaos, even though if he was really that tired of them, he could just leave.

Min: She doesn't really have too much desire to attend, but could be convinced if someone really tried. She gets surprisingly invested in many of the games and is pretty good at them as well (She may or may not have read some Wikipedia articles on the best strategies for some of them).

David: He doesn't particularly want to attend, but he does so anyway because of both his image and knowing it'll make Xander happy. He pretends not to mind if he loses, but inside he is fuming. He isn't always the best as completely hiding his competitive streak, though, and Arei has teased him for this on multiple occasions.

Veronika: Attends purely to sow as much havoc as possible. Her giggling strikes fear into anyone playing with her, because she gains much glee from inconveniencing them in any way possible, even at the detriment to her own chances at winning.

J: Much like Ace, she doesn't really think she'll attend until someone challenges her. After that, she attends in order to protect her honor...And kinda fails because she usually doesn't win. But that doesn't stop her from trying. She also picks out the music they play during the night because she thinks most of the others have bad taste.

Whit: Attends because he thinks it will be fun. As stated earlier, he will, from time to time, aid Arei in cheating, but he doesn't actually care too much about winning himself, even if he'll pretend to have some sort of dramatic, heart-breaking reaction to losing. So the opposite of David, in a way.

Nico: They didn't really want to attend, but they could potentially be convinced. If you play Monopoly, they WILL be using the dog piece. No exceptions. Even if everyone's arguing can be tiresome, they still have a bit of fun and manage to win a few games.

---

And that's it! Again, sorry for the delayed response, not sure how it took me so long to finally answer this.

[thebadjoe]

BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY PART 6

Wow! It's been a long while, but it's finally here! DRDT Chapter 2 is back with part 2 starting since more than a week ago!

...Oh? What's that? There's some reveals that is damaging my theory and I should get to fixing? Awwww, man.... what a drag.... I am so doomed... nanchatte!

Anyways, hi! It's me, the dude who makes-overly-complex-and-ridiculously-long-theories-in-the-hopes-of-trying-to-solve-the-murder-case-that-not-many-people-agree-with-for-more-reasons-than-my-theory's-word-count. (Okay, the last part about the reasons is probably not true... yet!)

I am back yet again with some more updates regarding my theory.

NOOOOO!!! NOT AGAIN!!! PLEASE, I DON'T WANNA READ ANOTHER GODDAMN DICTIONARY LENGTH OF A THEORY POST!!!!

Woah! Calm down, imaginary self that is under the impression that some people were way too overwhelmed by my latest part of the theory post! You have nothing to worry about!

It would be silly of me to rewrite all of it again with some small changes. I will of course link up my part 5 later as source of reference, but really, all I'm gonna be doing here today is point out the newest problems with my theory ever since episode 12 and 13 and give my personal thoughts on those.

Also, to make sure that people hasn't forgotten what I've been all about since the beginning, I will do a short recap of my theory, displaying only what's most relevant to the murder case.

Besides, ain't no way I'm writing something this long ever again (except for maybe trying to solve the future chapters, but that's a matter for the far future).

With that said, I feel obliged to point out that this is spoilers for the fangan Danganronpa Despair Time Chapter 2, up until episode 13.

With that out of the way, let's get to it!

Hey look! I still remember how to use that show more button again, hurray! (I'm really sorry again to @1moreff-creator and everyone else who's been reading my very first posts last year that didn't have a show more button)

So, first things first, I'd like to apologize in advance because as amazing the episode 12 and 13 were, I will not be doing a reaction post of said episodes. I think I'm just too lazy to actually display my whole stream of consciousness through two whole videos and I think it is safe to say that practically all of us had a very similar reaction to those episodes.

What was the common reaction, you may ask? Well, it's simple, really... it went something like... OMG, THIS IS SO FUCKING HYPE! OMG!!! THAT WAS SO INSANE!!! THE DRAMA!!! DAVID BEING DAVID!!! THE LEVI REVEAL!!! THE FLASHBACK PART 2 SCENE!!! OMG, WHAT IS EDEN DOING?!! AREI IS HOLDING DAVID'S HANDS?! WE'RE FINALLY TALKING ABOUT THE MURDER METHODS?!?! OMG, SO GOOD!!!

...right? Yeah! I thought so! :D

Although I may not be showing proper and precise reactions to these episodes, if you're interested, I'd definitly recommend reading @venus-is-thinking 's, reactions on episode 12 and episode 13, @1moreff-creator 's reactions on episode 12 and episode 13 and @accirax 's reactions on episode 12 and episode 13. They're pretty good reads (and no, I'm not just saying this because they all believe that Eden is the culprit, I swear!).

And for those who are totally blind or new to my shenanigans, yes, I do believe that Eden is the culprit behind this murder case.

There is indeed a few problems that arose ever since the latest episodes, so to make sure that everyone is up to speed with what I'm gonna be talking about, I'm now going to be doing a short recap of the events, according to me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

THE RECAP

DAY 1 : The day where everyone receives their mixed up secrets and explore the second floor. DAY 2 : The day where the attempted murder on Ace happened. DAY 3 : The day where Whit suggests David to chill for the evening in the relaxation room. DAY 4 : The day (morning) of the body discovery announcement.

Ever since Arei bullied Eden who then cried and exited the playground on DAY 2, that was what triggered Eden to decide to commit murder for the sake of escaping this hellish killing game. Knowing that her secret is that she kissed a girl, I deduced that she's probably trying to escape because she misses her beloved dearly.

So while she was off screen during most of that day, she spent time making plans for the murder set up and narrative, which is why she decided to share Arturo's secret (as seen in the flashback).

During the evening of DAY 2, Ace was working out in the gym, then he hears a conversation happening between David and Arei in the relax room. The conversation that Ace was quietly listening to did not happen in the evening of DAY 3, but rather the evening of DAY 2. Ace lied about when he was listening to that conversation.

At some point during the conversation or perhaps even after the conversation, Eden sneaks up on Ace and knocks him out with the turpentine that anyone could've gotten access to that day. Ace is Eden's chosen murder victim.

Sometime later, Eden eitheir used a letter or called out Arei's name to lure her into the playground or somewhere close to knock her unconscious with that very same turpentine. She then moves Arei's body into the relaxation room to lock her up inside because of the specific nighttime rules regarding that room.

Eden also brought old spares of clothing to cover Arei's body to make sure she doesn't get stained with starch from the water misting formula from the relaxation room.

During the night of DAY 2, she prepares the murder mechanism in the gym with some needed tools from the storage room and some wire that she took out from possibly a grandfather clock that she may have in her dorm. I deduced it as such because of Whit's description of everyone's dorms being suited to their needs.

I also deduced that there is actually a switch to turn on and off the fans, which is important since the attempted murder involved the fans. As Eden finished setting it up, as she was about to clear up with evidence, she heard someone using the elevator.

She hid in the dress up room, then Nico enters the second floor, looking for Ace to kill him. As Nico explores the gym, Teruko shortly enters the elevator to get to the second floor as well.

Teruko, looking for her spares, runs into Eden, who was hidden in the dress up room. After some talk, they heard a loud noise coming from the gym, which they both take a look inside.

Upon seeing this mess of a crime, Eden realised that her murder plan failed and that she needs to come up with a plan B really quick. So while she is taking time to "process this emotionally", Teruko was investigating.

Eden finally comes up with a plan B and figured that she needed to get her hands on the roll of tape ASAP. She managed to do so with a sleight of hand when Ace "suddenly wakes up", knocking Eden out of the way, distracting Teruko in the process.

Later that night, Eden proceeds with her plan B by making a murder mechanism in the playground. She also took the rope from the storage room. Once it's all properly set up, all's left was waiting for the relaxation to unlock at 8:00 AM on DAY 3.

In the morning of DAY 3, she retrieves Arei's unconscious body and proceeds with murdering Arei. Then, she proceeds to conceal the body somewhat behind the curtains in the relaxation room. She also grabs her glove, her monopad and the necessary materials in the dress up room for the next step of her plan.

She spends the rest of the morning to prepare her disguise trick. Then during lunchtime, Eden spends a short amount of time disguised as Arei to hide the actual time of death.

Once lunchtime is over, she returns to eitheir her or Arei's dorm to remove the disguise, spend time cleaning up, relax, power nap, etc. Then, during the evening of DAY 3, she spends time with Hu to fabricate her perfect alibi.

Later that evening, David explores the relaxation room. That's when he notices something wrong with the room and becomes the first person to discover Arei's dead body.

For some personal reasons, David brings the body back into the playground and hangs it by the swingset. Eitheir he or Eden (earlier in the morning) balls up the clothes and hides it in the closet of the dress-up room. Then, in the morning of DAY 4, David grabs everyone's attention to the fact that Arei is missing right before the secrets reveal. Then fast forward a bit, then we get the BDA of Arei

--------------------------------------------------------------------

And there ya go, that's my recap regarding how I believe the murder case happened. Pretty short, eh?

HELL NO!!! THAT WAS STILL PRETTY LONG!!! AHHHHH!!!!

Eh... I guess I couldn't really make it that shorter, my bad! If I tried to make it any shorter than that, it would've been extremely confusing.

Ah! Speaking of which, if you're confused in the sense that it feels like none of this should work at all, and there's a lot of contradictions and whatnot, then I would heavily recommend reading my actual theory post. I am not going to spend time refuting with people in the comments about points I've already pointed out in my previous post.

However, if there are things that are unclear to you, things that you do not understand and want to know what I'm talking about, please, feel free to ask away! I will help in any way I can.

With that out the way, I guess I can now start with pointing out the pr-

HAH! THERE IS A MAJOR ISSUE WITH YOUR THEORY!!! BASED ON EPISODE 12, THE MURDER COULD'VE ONLY HAPPENED IN THE MORNING OF DAY 4 BECAUSE OF THE BODY SWING! YOU'RE DONE FOR!

Ah... yeah... that! Of course! That's not a problem!

!!!

Let's talk about it first, shall we? :D

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AREI'S BODY SWING : CONFIRMED TIME OF DEATH???

I'd like to come clean with something, everyone. Ever since I came up with the theory that murder happened at a totally unexpected time, there was something that was constantly bothering me.

That's right, I was very well aware of the body swing happening during the BDA ever since the beginning.

HUH?! Then all this time, you wrote all of this despite knowing that?!

Correct! I'm really sorry about that, but please, understand that I had a very good reason for it. For you see... everytime I saw it, I was often under the impression that this was simply an eerie effect / animation, to give a more dramatic intensity towards the BDA, without meaning anything. I legit thought it could be a thing, I swear!

But despite all that... I couldn't help but feel uneasy about it. Deep down, I felt like that maybe there was an actual meaning to it, maybe it was an actual clue that I shouldn't disregard. But I figured that because of my theory beliefs, then it would be rather unlikely that it would be used as evidence.

But alas, I was wrong about that. The body swing plays a very important rule in determining what happened in this murder case. I cannot deny that fact, especially since Teruko brought it up, plain as day. Despite it seeming like it damages my theory, I'm thankful that the dev finally cleared that little doubt I had since then.

Then you admit it, the murder actually happened in the mor-

Oh, not so fast! Let's not jump to conclusions just yet, alright? Arei's body swinging by the swing set doesn't quite exactly prove that the murder occured during the morning of DAY 4. The body swing only proves that someone messed with the body by the swingset.

W-What?! That doesn't make sense! The murder clearly happened in the morning of DAY 4!

Nuh-uh, not quite. You believe it clearly happened in the morning because that's what the cast concluded on top of Charles pointing out that the culprit could've clearly fake the time of death by saving the fishes for later.

But unless we have decisive evidence that the murder happened in the morning, we can't be 100% sure that the murder happened in the morning of DAY 4.

From the looks of it, you just seem very desperate, if you ask me.

At first, when episode 12 released, I kind of was... up until I figured out a fairly logical solution to it. That's right! I have a way to explain who made the body swing and why.

You're not going to suggest that David did all of what he supposedly did in the evening of DAY 3, but instead in the morning of DAY 4, right?!

Nope! Not at all. Disregarding the facts that it wouldn't really make sense and that he'd have to move the body out of the relax room anyways before nighttime (because of the water misting rules), David actually has an alibi in the morning of DAY 4.

(As does Veronika too as she was with them in the cafeteria)

With all of these reasons mentioned above, as much as I initially wanted to make it somehow possible that David came back to the crime scene to mess with the body somehow, it just isn't possible.

So instead, someone else did it.

Then out with it already, you staller! Who is it?!

There is only one possible candidate that would make the most sense in that scenario : Eden. Eden is the person who messed with Arei's body in the morning of DAY 4.

WHHAAAAT?!?! WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT?! THAT'S SO RISKY!

That's what I initially thought at first, not gonna lie. But then... something hit me : Eden doesn't have an alibi for the morning of DAY 4 eitheir.

I thought that there would be absolutely no need for Eden to come back to the crime scene a certain short amount of time before the BDA, so instead, I needed to reverse my way of thinking.

What could she possibly aim to do that would prompt her to come back to the crime scene last minute?

Considering the facts (based on my theory, mind you) that she killed Arei in the morning of DAY 3, hid the body somewhere in the relaxation room, built up an evening to night alibi with Hu and that David was the first person to discover it during the evening, there is a simple explanation behind it.

Arei's BDA was meant to be triggered much earlier than the morning of DAY 4. The original intent behind this whole scheme was to have the BDA trigger during the evening of DAY 3.

That doesn't make sense!

No, that's wrong! It does make a whole lot of sense. Think about it. Let's say you were a participant in this killing game and were in David's shoes during the evening of DAY 3... you come across a dead body in the relaxation, what would you do?

!!!

That's right, you wouldn't just mess with the body and move it somewhere else, now would you? Aside from freaking out, the most natural and human thing to do would be to gather help.

If it were anyone else than David who discovered the body in that exact scenario, they would cry out for help, tell everyone that they found Arei dead inside the relaxation room, which would then result in a body discovery announcement.

But what if the person who found the body were to personally ask for Hu's and Eden's help, wouldn't that ruin her plan since it wouldn't trigger the BDA?

There's an easy solution to that. Eden could've simply decided to find more people to share the news to meet up with the corpse. This wouldn't ruin her plan in the slightest.

Quite the opposite, actually. If the body were to be discovered and trigger the BDA during the evening, it would solidify her air tight alibi even further as she wouldn't have any possible timeframe to commit murder in the evening as she was spending time with her friend Hu.

Ugh, so what? It didn't really happen anyways because of David being David! That doesn't change anything!

Actually, it does change things considerably. If you put yourself in the culprit's perspective where the whole intent was to have the body discovery happen in the evening of DAY 3 and that during the whole night, nothing happened, you would certainly find that very strange.

The culprit would be clearly confused, yet really curious to find out what even happened.

Couldn't she have taken a look much later during the night?

Perhaps, but she figured it would've been pointless. The reason why is that if she thought that nobody found the body, then the body would've still remained hidden in the relaxation room which would then be currently locked away because of the water misting.

So instead of checking it out during the late night of DAY 3, Eden decided to investigate during the very early morning of DAY 4, sometime past 7:30 AM.

But the relaxation room is still locked up until 8:00 AM! Why not wait until then?

It's simple! She just wanted to be there a little bit in advance to make sure she can enter the room as early as possible. And so... while she is waiting for the relaxation room to unlock, she probably figured that she should take a look around the other rooms, why not?

And thus, that leads to Eden finding the body being hung by the swingset, alongside fishes scattered around the floor for some reason.

To reconfirm, I still believe that David is the first person who discovered Arei's dead body in the relaxation room and that he's responsible for hanging her body alongside placing those fishes by the playground.

Okay, Eden discovers that the body has been moved to the playground? What now? Everything's already in place, so what could she possibly do with the dead body?

Well, since the BDA was not triggered on the evening of DAY 3, she figured that she may as well put Arei's monopad back into the corpse's pockets.

But what about her missing glove? Why didn't she return that as well if she wanted to return her monopad?

That's a good point, that's for sure. But there are two easy fixes to this counter argument. First one being that she simply forgot about the gloves. No one's really perfect, after all. She was so concerned about the body not being discovered yet that this completly slipped her mind.

The second fix would be that it would've been way too risky to try to retrieve the glove. Maybe initially, Eden, after she removed her disguise, she placed the clothes and the glove back into Arei's dorm. So if she wanted to retrieve the glove, she'd have to return to Arei's room, unlocking it with a monopad that isn't her own.

Would she really risk that again after making this much progress without getting caught so far? Like imagine if she tried to take that risk one last time only to get caught, that would be quite the devastating result, wouldn't it?

Ok, fine. Nevermind the gloves. Is that all she did?

Pretty much, yeah. She returned the monopad back into her pockets, which moved the body somewhat.

...

Well, it's also possible that she tripped and moved the body even more by accident. Or perhaps she felt like she was in such a hurry to avoid getting found out that she accidently bumped into Arei's dead body.

...Are you kidding me? There's no way that's gonna be enough to move the body for this long!

Well... maybe her being there at exactly 7:30 AM is not the exact time. She could've been there a couple minutes before 8:00 AM, which could make this possible.

But that's ridiculous! There's no way Eden is strong enough to make the body swing that way. To make the body swing for a good amount of time, she'd need more than just accidently bumping into the body! It needs considerable force.

And I'll stop you there. If you've read my last theory post, you should know by now that I'm a firm believer that because it's a work of fiction, anything that seems unlikely can become possible.

The main thing we should take from Arei's body swinging during the BDA is that at some point in time during the morning, someone messed with the body, proving that someone was there during the morning of DAY 4.

And there you go, that's my whole explanation as to how Arei's body was swinging during the BDA that doesn't necessarily mean that the murder occured during that exact morning.

If you're not quite convinced yet, there is a certain part of my theory that begins to make a lot more logical sense with this solution in mind. Take a look at this!

Thanks to the solution I suggested, these two lines become a lot more fitting to my updated theory. Here's why!

If Eden were to explore and find the body hanging by the swing set during the morning of DAY 4, she would know that at least 1 person found the body, but not who exactly.

Because of Whit's silly comment, Eden immediatly thought of the body in the playground and jumped to the worst conclusion : Whit is the person who found the body first.

So if they were to open the door to the playground, the BDA would not trigger since Eden is the culprit. So in a moment of panic, Eden uttered : "Teruko, wait--".

It is still pretty much the same as what I had in mind according to the previous part of my theory post, except that it works a whole lot better now that Eden personally saw the actual state of the dead body in the morning of DAY 4.

So there you have it. This seemingly major problem for my theory actually turned out to be very beneficial for my theory after all! Ah, the joys of making logical sounding deductions! My theory should be saf-

HAH! YOU THINK YOUR THEORY IS SAFE FROM HARM YET?! WRONG!!!! IN EPISODE 13, THEY ACTUALLY SHOWED HOW THE MURDER MECHANISM WORKED! NOT ONLY IS EDEN TOO WEAK TO OPERATE IT, BUT THEY PUT FISH WATER INSIDE THOSE JUGS! SINCE THEY REVEALED THAT MURDER METHOD, IT HAS TO BE THE SOLUTION. YOUR THEORY IS RUINED! GOOD DAY SIR!

Oh, you mean this?

Oh no, this murder mechanism is different from mine and this one requires a certain amount of strength that Eden possibly doesn't have! And the fishes! Since they brought it up, then there's no way my theory can work! Whatever shall I do??? It's joever.... just kidding!

I don't mean to alarm you guys, but the current proposed murder mechanism idea actually has flaws. Let's talk some more about the murder mechanism in the playground, shall we? :)

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TERUKO'S CURRENT MURDER MECHANISM IDEA : RIGHT OR WRONG???

Before I get into it, I'd like to remind everyone that just because we've been shown how the murder may have been done for the first time means that's how it actually happened. Let's not forget that they spent so much time arguing and discussing about the secrets that they barely ever talked about the murder case in itself.

So if anything, episode 13 is practically just them beginning their actual work! Mistakes are bound to happen. We shouldn't jump to conclusions just yet. Besides, there is actually a problem with this murder mechanism.

I'll present it to you in pictures to show you what I'm talking about.

The taped up wrists. This was practically the decisive proof that this wasn't a suicide nor could it have been an assisted suicide. So now that they've introduced a murder mechanism in an actual episode... what's actually the point of the taped wrists in that scenario?

If the culprit used exactly this kind of murder mechanism, then there would be absolutely no need to tape up her wrists together.

Maybe it was to stop Arei from trying to struggle?

Nope. If that was the case, we would've seen much more signs of struggle coming from Arei. There may be scuffs on the ground, but there's absolutely no other form of injury on Arei aside from her broken neck.

Well, I saw a theory where the accomplice was Levi and he could've easily overpower her!

(I believe that was something that @1moreff-creator theorized, if I recall? At least, that was the theory pre part 2)

It used to be borderline possible, but not this time anymore! Thanks to the first two episodes of part 2 of chapter 2, it seems extremely unlikely that Levi wanted to work with the culprit as an accomplice.

Not only because of what we find out regarding his secret, what kind of character he is, but also because of something he said in episode 12.

I don't know about you, but this doesn't look like something an accomplice would say at all, right? If the culprit was someone who didn't have an alibi in the evening, it would be a different story, but the most fitting theory for having Levi work as an accomplice is to work for Eden, who happens to have an alibi in the evening as you already know.

So since we gotta take Levi out of the equation, then we don't really have much other possible candidates who could've easily overpower Arei to the point where taping up her wrists would've helped better on that regard.

Therefore, the most logical solution would be that Arei was knocked unconscious with the turpentine. But since that's the most likely scenario, then what's up with the taped wrists?

If the taped wrists weren't used to prevent any remote chance for Arei to try to get out of this situation, then it must've been used as part of the murder mechanism.

But since the murder mechanism as shown by Teruko doesn't explain the taped up wrists whatsoever, then this becomes a discrepancy. Therefore, that can't be quite the correct answer to solving the how this murder mechanism works.

And since this murder mechanism idea is flawed, it also means that there's no guarantee that the jugs contained fish water inside, they could've simply gathered water somewhere else or perhaps there jugs were already filled with clean water to begin with.

Because this murder mechanism idea is flawed, there's no guarantee that the culprit used this method which required some unknown amount of strength, but an amount of strength regardless (unless the author wants to pass it off as anyone could've done it since it's easier to do it by spinning it, I'm not sure).

Because of that flaw, my theory isn't affected by the murder mechanism idea that Teruko suggested since there is no guarantee that this is the correct answer.

So yeah, there's no problem whatsoever! Also, as far as I'm aware, since the release of the latest episodes, I have a very logically sound reason to explain the taped up wrists as shown in part 5 of my theory.

To give you a small reminder, it was for something like this!

(Whole murder mechanism not properly shown in the drawing because I'm lazy as heck, but just take a close attention to the arms)

By having Arei's arms go between the pillars of the seasaw, you can make it so that she can't get out of it by taping her wrists together, which plays an important role in the murder mechanism. Not going to elaborate further, if you want to know more, you gotta read the big post right there!

And there you have it! Those were the two main concerns that could've negatively affect my theory, but fortunately for me, it doesn't. In fact, it supports it even more than before.

Especially regarding the David / Arei conversation flashback (shown from David's memory's perspective). This conversation told us a lot more between these two, do you know what that means?

That's right! It means that Ace is full of shit! There's no way he didn't hear anything else. The only way he could've not hear anything else is if he gets snuck up from behind and gets knocked out with the turpentine, but it could've easily simply been Ace witholding that information to make David look more suspicious.

Therefore, if he lied about this, he could've also easily lied about when he actually overheard that conversation for his own selfish gains!

There's also a few couple other points that could further support my theory, but I don't feel like going over every single little detail as of now. I mainly wanted to solve these two issues and nothing else.

So, DRDTers, I need to ask you the following : Do you still believe that I am delusional with this overly complex theory of mine? :)

Thanks for reading another one of my big posts, as usual!

Edit : Go read the finale of my theory next, it's worth it!

[testedcatdraws]

New DRDT MV speculations (DRDT spoilers)

Since there's a new MV coming I'll try to speculate on who it'll be about.

Due to the description we can say it's about two characters (one or both of them don't have to be apart of the main cast.)

The description talks about a person being on the stage with another, and the thumbnail has an apple.

The apple could probably mean many things, I'll just go with the forbidden fruit since I'm most familiar with that type of stuff. Though with how vague it is I guess the apple could mean anything else, or it's just there because it matches the song and there's actually no significant.

List of duos I came up with:

Ace and Levi

Ace and his dead friend

Veronika and her friend

Veronika and Arturo

Arei and Eden

Xander and Teruko

Xander and David

Teruko and Mai

Hu and David

Hu and Nico

Charles and Whit

J and Arturo

Duos who I don't think will be in the MV:

Xander and Teruko (Xander tried to kill Teruko)

Hu and David (David was just manipulating Hu)

Veronika and Arturo (Pretty one-sided)

Hu and Nico (Nico doesn't seem too fond of Hu right now)

J and Arturo (there relationship, though bad from the start, is probably more strained now.)

Duos who don't fit the apple of temptation theme:

Ace and Levi

Arei and Eden (Positive influence)

Charles and Whit (Positive inluence)

Duos we don't know much about:

Ace and his dead friend

Veronika and her friend

Teruko and Mai

Out of all the duos we know of I think it's most likely could be David and Xander. David isn't a good influence per se, so he could be seen as an apple of temptation of sorts. Only issue is that he doesn't seem to lead Xander into doing bad things (unless you think he was the one who got Xander to kill Teruko.)

For characters we don't know about it could possibly be about Mai and Teruko, Teruko obviously met Mai at one point and seems to like her. Teruko could be the tempting apple which leads to Mai demise.

For Ace and Veronika, it's really not enough info to know honestly, so I'll it's a maybe. If it's one of them it's most likely Ace since his friend is probably more important. Only thing we know about Veronika's is that they gave her her green earring from the QnA. But even then that's not much, and she could even have multiple friends that are irrelevant.

[1moreff-creator]

Who do you think will survive the killing game??? ( also if you were already asked this my B )

:D

Hi! Don’t worry, I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it, so I had to give it some thought :p It’s an interesting question, so let’s see!

As a TL;DR, my “most likely,” in order and assuming a standard killing game formula (obviously the amount of survivors could be way different), are Teruko - J - Whit - Rose - Levi

Spoilers up to CH2 EP15

Of course, there’s one character that’s already kinda locked in as a survivor (assuming a more or less standard fangan ending and not an “everyone dies” sorta situation), and that’s Teruko. While there were theories about a possible protag switch post-LGI release, I’ve never found them particularly believable, and I don’t really think they’re very popular anymore.

The next character that’s basically a survivor already is Min, because if I never accept her death, she will always be alive in my books. /j

Yeah honestly after Teruko my confidence on survivor guesses drops dramatically, since there’s obviously no good way to tell.

Still, one character that particularly stands out to me is J. I have my reasons to believe she might become the primary support character a la Kirigiri, and while that doesn’t guarantee survival, I’d say it ups the chances a bit.

As to why I believe that… well here’s the thing. I’m kinda planning to make a mastermind probability ranking post after CH2 ends, and I’ll talk about my predictions for J in more detail there. As a result, I’d just be repeating myself if I talk about it here. So, I'll give you the quick rundown and leave the more detailed explanation for that post.

Basically, I believe the core theme of DRDT is the concept of “fate” and the possibility of change, where the big climax for Teruko’s character arc in particular (the single most important arc for the narrative, protag privilege) will be rejecting the notion that she’s fated to have bad luck forever. She already talked about it with Xander before he stabbed her, and her primary character foil, David, “covered” Literature Girl Insane. You don’t exactly give that song to a character who is very hopeful for a better future. Even Teruko’s trust issues are born from the belief her bad luck makes betrayal inevitable. And with Ace talking about how he’s “a coward who couldn’t fight his fate” (paraphrased), the connection seems more solid than ever.

J is important in that context because her entire character is sorta designed around the concept of rejecting fate, the thing Teruko needs to “learn to do” as it were. J was born into stardom and fame, born “lucky” (LGI numeral number seven symbolism go brr), but hides it and rejects her birthright down to her secret quote, “Please don’t call me your daughter ever again.” If Charles and Eden are the ones who are trying to get Teruko to trust again, I see J as the one who has the best shot at convincing her that she’s not doomed by the universe itself, giving her the best shot at survival out of any non-protag imo.

Also, silly yet existent argument: the CH1 title screen had Teruko (and Xander), the CH2 had J. Is it possible the survivors will each be featured in one screen? Probably not, but still.

The next one’s Whit. DRDT seems committed to explore its characters as much as possible before they die (which I think we all agree is awesome), and that means those that haven’t been fully explored or developed yet have a higher chance of a late run, thus a higher chance of survival. This applies to J and Rose somewhat, but it applies to Whit especially. I sometimes feel that we know more about Mai Akasaki than we do about Whit, which should tell you something.

Contrast that to Charles, who is absolutely dying sometime soon (imo). Even ignoring the “Charles dead at three” Whit comment from the prologue, Charles’ character arc is a little too complete for me to think it’s likely he stays ‘till the end. After we close out the Elliot subplot (which could easily be in CH3 given Elliot’s MV is already out), killing Charles off would be a good way to really kickstart Whit’s inevitable Breakdown Arc.

Final points to consider about Whit are the fact that luck is mentioned in his character bio, which along with J’s LGI numeral VII and Teruko being Teruko gives him an extra connection to the two survivors I’ve pointed out; and the possibility of him being the mastermind. Again something for the MM post, but put briefly; he’s not a bad mastermind guess, but I think it’s very likely that if he is, he won’t survive, so there’s that.

The next one might be Rose? Recap foil with J, so if the dev wants to explore that to its fullest, Rose will probably make a late run at least. There’s a lot to explore with her character too, but frankly that’s a bit of a moot point; every character in DRDT has a lot to explore.

Even if she’s one of, if not the best pick for mastermind imo, it’s very possible she can be the type of MM to be redeemed and survive alongside the cast. Again, details will probably have to wait for the mastermind post :v Hate to be saying that so much, but understandably given some of the reasoning is similar, a lot of good MM guesses are good survivor guesses.

As for the fifth most likely… well, this is the reason this post took me a week (this and I was busy :v). See, if you’d asked me during the hiatus, I would have said Ace. Obviously, that wouldn’t have aged very well now would it?

The ask was sent a bit after Ep14, and by the time I got some free time to write this, it was already Wednesday and anything I said about Ace or Eden could have very realistically been proven wrong in just a few days, so I decided to hold off until culprit reveal. And now that Ace is looking like the blackened, I’m pretty glad I did.

This does bring up a curious issue of gender balance. In theory, there’s nothing stopping DRDT’s survivor cast from leaning one way or the other, but generally survivor casts do try to keep it as equal as possible. And with three women already listed, even putting Nico here would cause an imbalance. But the thing is… I don’t see almost any of the men surviving?

Hence, Levi. I frankly have no clue where his character is going with the recent reveals and the fact Ace is dying soon; I could just as easily see him as the second CH3 victim (if there are two) or fulfilling “buff character curse” by dying in 4. But… not knowing where someone’s arc is going is kinda the reason Whit is up there, so I’m using the same reasoning. It’s my least confident guess, so yeah. He’d certainly be an interesting survivor at least, I wonder how he’d play off the mastermind in trial 6.

To quickly cover the other characters, I’ll go in order of least likely to survive to most likely. Excusing the dead, of course.

-Ace: He’s technically still alive, but, uh… uh…

-David: If he were to survive, he’d need to go on a near identical arc to Teruko, which is… hard to imagine properly working. He’ll make a late run, probably, but I can’t see him reaching the sixth.

-Charles: Already explained.

-Arturo might be a little too insane to work. It’s hard to imagine a sixth trial with Arturo of all damn people around. Especially if J’s there.

And… those are kinda all the guesses I have for who is (in my belief) 100% dying. I could actually see every other character being a survivor :v

-Veronika runs into the same issue as Arturo; it’d be hard to let the mastermind do MM stuff when this girl’s there simping for them. However, I could see a world where dev keeps her for the psychoanalysis of the MM… kinda. Frankly, she should be in the “no chance” list, but… she’s my favorite alongside Min so let me have hope!-

-Nico has the advantage that they’re the only way to make a cast of 5 survivors perfectly balanced in terms of boys and girls; two of each and Nico. But that’s not very strong. The main issue is that I don’t really know what could happen with them in the remaining chapters that would advance their character to a point they’re a survivor, if that makes sense. Maybe if Rose makes it?

-Hu is weird. From what we’ve seen in the series, she would make a pretty compelling survivor. But… her secret quote…

Hu: I want to pay for what I’ve done. But even then, I still want to live.

Like, that’s the most “blackened” line in history; do you wanna state your victim’s name while you’re at it? Part of me wants to say that’s too obvious and the line will have a different context, but… it’s a secret quote in the source code of her character page. It’s not that obvious to anyone who follows the series more casually.

-Eden: I could see the argument of Eden>Rose (and therefore Eden>Levi as he’s only there due to gender balancing), since our favorite Clockmaker is quite easy to imagine in a final trial setting. The main issue is that… assuming a more or less standard formula, it’d be sorta weird to have someone in the sixth trial who can out-hope speech the protag, and Eden definitely fits that bill. It’s possible she makes it, especially given her involvement in the pre-prologue scene with Xander’s eye, but idk.

Here are a few extra survivor configurations I could see happening! Obviously there’s plenty more, so watch absolutely none of them be right.

Teruko-J-Whit-Eden-Levi/Nico (Teruko MM or dead MM with no “two victims” case)

Teruko-J-Rose/Eden-Levi/Nico (Whit MM)

Teruko-Whit-Rose-Nico (J MM)

Teruko-J-Whit-Hu (Veronika MM)

Teruko-Whit-J-Rose/Eden-Levi-Min?!?! (Min MM)

Teruko-Rose-Eden-Whit-Levi/Nico-Min (Baking Squad Cope!!!)

Teruko-J-Whit-Veronika-Levi/Nico (Why not?)

Everyone (The only right answer)

Thanks a lot for the ask! Fun to ramble about this series lol.