#without making extra work for myself

[accirax]

Revisiting My Original DRDT Death Predictions

If you haven't been following what's going on over at @av-multifangan, Venus and I have been posting one of our fangans, Danganronpa: One Shot. Hooray! But, more relevantly to this post, we also posted the rules to a game that we've been playing for a long time-- a game through which you can score your performance at guessing how a fangan's kill order will go after viewing only its prologue.

Said old game was also invoked when we began watching DRDT, so I thought it would be a fun trip down memory lane to see what my genuine initial predictions for the entire killing game were after viewing just a little over an hour of Despair Time content.

While all of us non-cast-and-crew members obviously don't know the entire kill order at this point, I can rest assured that these predictions, well... ain't it. But, that's part of the point! To prove that even the creators of this predictions game can be terrible at it, and that there's no shame in making a guess and then changing your mind!

... Oh boy.

SPOILERS for DRDT through the end of Chapter 2, and IMPLIED SPOILERS for SDR2 and v3!

Well, no use in dilly-dallying. Here's my predictions sheet:

(god damn why is the quality so bad--)

If you haven't read the rules of our game, I'll quickly summarize them here. You have to predict the killing game using the most standard formula: one Chapter 1 victim and killer, one Chapter 2 victim and killer, double kill in Chapter 3 with one killer, one Chapter 4 victim and killer, one Chapter 5 victim and killer, and four survivors with a "surviving" (until Chapter 6) mastermind. These roles are listed out in rainbow order (Chapter 1 death = red, Chapter 6 = purple), and victims are marked with an X while killers are circled. The survivors are circled in purple, with a cyan star on the suspected mastermind.

At the end of the game, you gain points based on how far off you were, such that a low score is good. It's +2 points for getting the role wrong (victim vs killer/mastermind vs survivor), with an additional +1 point per chapter for how far you are off from the characters' last.

Although the quality is low, hopefully you can figure out what I predicted using those instructions-- or the image ID, if it's still too tricky. And, of course, I'm going to go through all of my choices below, starting with

XANDER in the role of CHAPTER 1 VICTIM

"Accirax," you may ask. "Why are you acting so doomed about your predictions when you literally got 1/4 of the confirmed deaths correct?" Unfortunately, my friend, I was already spoiled about Xander's death before I started watching DRDT. I'm very grateful that I had no idea about the circumstances of Xander's death (AKA, him stabbing Teruko) going in. But, I think I'd seen some thumbnail somewhere of Xander's BDA and knew he was a goner.

Hence, this was a free 0 pointer for me. I'm not that cool.

ARTURO in the role of CHAPTER 1 KILLER

Now, why I thought Arturo of all people would be the one to kill Xander is beyond me. I think my rationale was that, at the time, Arturo was giving me early death vibes, and this was the only spot I could put him in?*

This is one of the predictions that I know is wrong, because the Chapter 1 killer spot has already elapsed. The best I could do now points-wise is if Arturo is the Chapter 3 killer (I'd get +2 points for being two chapters off), which is definitely still feasible! Still, I wonder now if Arturo's vibe is too obvious for being a killer, and if he would ever be willing to put ~Julia Rosales'~ life in jeopardy by attempting to escape. J certainly isn't doing herself any favors with that Felicity reveal, at least.

ROSE in the role of CHAPTER 2 VICTIM

*This is where things get... a little complicated. As I already said, I had been spoiled to the fact that Xander was the Chapter 1 victim. However... I also thought I had been spoiled to the "fact" that Rose was the Chapter 2 victim?

I really don't know how this happened. I have a distinct memory of seeing a Tumblr post containing something that sort of looked like what I imagine an Ultimate Art Forger Lab could look like(?) talking about how the characters needed to investigate to figure out who killed the Ultimate it belonged to. I thought I remembered seeing Rose's face, but this was before I had ever watched any DRDT content. So, it's possible I had the wrong fangan, or accidentally stumbled into someone's AU.

It was pretty funny looking back on my Chapter 2 viewing experience, though. When Teruko got Rose's secret, I was like, "oh, it totally makes sense that DRDTdev would give Teruko Rose's secret as a natural way to hear about Rose's backstory before she dies. Clever." And then we got to the day of the motive reveal, and Rose is there, and David says that Arei of all people is missing, and my jaw dropped. "Spoilers," indeed.

It sucked for me at the time of making this sheet, though, because Rose was, like, the only woman I got survivor vibes from (other than Teruko). But, I thought I couldn't mark her as such! Of course, Rose could be a Chapter 3 victim for all I know, meaning that being "forced" to put her in this spot could actually be good for my predictions. However, scoring 0 points on Rose is fully off the table now, which is a bummer.

DAVID in the role of CHAPTER 2 KILLER

"Why couldn't you have put Arturo as Chapter 2 killer--" I also thought I had been spoiled that David was the Chapter 2 killer. If I didn't make Arturo the first killer, the earliest I could have put him would be Chapter 3 victim, which is hardly early at all. And yes, I thought I'd been spoiled on three out of "four" of the canonical deaths when I originally watched the series. That's just my life (/lh).

At least this one is obvious to figure out why I thought it was the case. I started watching DRDT in May of 2023, about a month and a half after 2-11 dropped. Hence, I knew DRDT was on hiatus, but I was under the impression that it was a hiatus after Chapter 2 had finished. I'd also seen 2-11's thumbnail, recognized it as David, and (along with having spoilers about David's "true personality") concluded that David must be the Chapter 2 killer.

Live footage of me watching 2-11 for the first time:

"Ah, there he goes... Man, we're gonna have to wrap this murder up quick, huh? I guess that's why he's admitting to it... Haha, 'Teruko, we fucked up'... WAIT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S A HIATUS ON AN UNSOLVED MURDER?!"

I decided quickly afterwards that I no longer believed that David would be the Chapter 2 killer.

Finally, we're done with roles that already happened/that I had "spoilers" for! You'd think that would automatically make them better (because most of them, at least, have not been disproven), but there are still plenty of things that contradict what I believe will happen now, at least.

LEVI and HU in the role of CHAPTER 3 VICTIMS

Relatively, though, this one isn't that bad. Don't get me wrong, these two aren't my leading candidates for Chapter 3 victims, but I'm not actively opposed to this happening.

The idea of Levi nearly evading dying at the end of Chapter 2 only to actually become a victim in Chapter 3 is a little puzzling, but still narratively on the table, imo. So much happens in a DRDT Chapter's worth of daily life that Levi could definitely still serve enough of a narrative purpose to justify his continued survival/eventual victimhood in that Chapter. Especially if that purpose had something to do with the fact that he was injured-- for instance, if it's important for an Arturo arc of learning that he actually enjoys taking care of others, or if the killer has to exploit Levi's injuries in order to have the strength necessary to take him out.

Meanwhile, I've long held the opinion that Hu will be a big character in the Chapter 3 Daily Life by virtue of not having done a whole lot in the Chapter 1 or 2 Daily Lives-- she definitely has content, but the majority of the important stuff occurs in the Chapter 2 Trial. Currently, I'm of the opinion that that spike of content wouldn't result in a same-Chapter death, but following in the footsteps of Xander and Arei, it definitely could. Same with Levi if he's a Chapter 3 focus, honestly.

J in the role of CHAPTER 3 KILLER

I really still want to believe that J will be a killer. Why? It's because, in my opinion, Ultimate Effects Artist is a talent that is totally optimized for being a blackened, whether it actually happens or not. You know why the idea of J and Arei swapping places was so popular? Because Ultimate Effects Artist is the kind of talent you give someone if you want to pull a trick like that off!

However, all of that "murder is despicable" talk is really cramping my style. Why would J ever become a blackened after opposing the idea of murder so openly?

(It'd be pretty funny if it was all an act so that people would use that as an argument to her credit down the road.)

It's possible she could have a crisis of faith/breaking point that would change her mind, but I doubt that would occur as quickly as Chapter 3. Or result in her killing two people. Sigh.

AREI in the role of CHAPTER 4 VICTIM and EDEN in the role of CHAPTER 4 KILLER

OKAY HEAR ME OUT BEFORE YOU ACCUSE ME OF CALLING EDEN EVIL--

Chapter 4 is, oftentimes, the sacrifice chapter, right? It's a killer that makes everybody cry, because they'd never normally do something like this, but ultimately decided to kill in order to spare their friends and take the bullet themselves. I'm, like, 99% sure that's what I was imagining for Eden. Whatever the motive may be, Eden would be the small and scrawny sacrifice killer in sort of a reversal of the buff curse...

... taking out the mean bully girl that everybody hated as the victim, if she had to choose someone.

I'M SORRY I'M SORRY STOP HITTING ME WITH ROCKS-- (/j)

But yeah, I definitely remember predicting that part of the surprise of the case was that the small nerdy girl was able to take out the Ultimate athlete mean girl. I don't know how I managed to deduce that Eden and Arei would have an important relationship with one another after the prologue (in which they don't really talk at all, to my memory), yet managed to get it so horribly wrong. Predicting that Eden would kill Arei was just in my DNA, I guess, even if I originally envisioned it for a different chapter.

In the light of Ace being declared the Chapter 2 killer, this one is just embarrassingly wrong. Evidently, Eden would never stoop as low as to kill Arei. The good news for me, I suppose, is that Arei will only net me +2 points, as the role was correct (V=V) while the chapter was 2 off (4->2).

As for Eden being the Chapter 4 killer, that's not one of my top spots for her. If I had to pick, I'd probably guess either Chapter 3 victim (especially if paired with Charles Ch3 Victim, this could really knock the wind out of Teruko's sails if needed), Chapter 5 victim (allows her a long period in the story that isn't a survivor nor a killer), or just a survivor (and/or mastermind). If she were to be a killer, then maybe I'd predict Chapter 4 along the sacrifice angle? Not with Arei, though.

MIN in the role of CHAPTER 5 VICTIM

+6 points (5->1) (V->K) on Min is... not the greatest score. In fact, it's only one fewer than the general max possible character score of 7, reserved for Chapter 1 deaths mistaken as Survivors and vice versa.

I think my original prediction for Min was that she would not necessarily be Teruko's support character emotionally, but that she would be a useful aide when it came to solving the mysteries of the Class Trial. Then in Chapter 5, to force Teruko/the other innocent students to solve the high-stakes Trial on their own, she would have to disappear.

Looking back on it, I really enjoy how Teruko is far and away the best at solving the Class Trials in DRDT-- she would have already earned the title through her connections to, like, literally every character and theme in the story, but making her the principal mystery solver really hammers the idea that she should be the protagonist home. Having Min be on Team Spotless for even one Trial might have diminished that effect, so it makes sense that she became the first blackened. Girl was too powerful to live, smh.

WHIT in the role of CHAPTER 5 KILLER

Personally, I've always gotten the vibe that Whit is one of DRDTdev's Special Little Guys. Perhaps it was the way that he showed up in three character introductions-- Charles', Hu's, and his own-- that made me think he had Favorite Character Privileges. As such, even when (get ready for a truth bomb) I didn't really like Whit after watching the Prologue for the first time, I always thought he had late game energy.

(I don't know how much it really comes across from my blog, but I'm actually fairly critical of new series when I pick them up for the first time, unless I've heard many positive recommendations from friends/online personalities I admire. Other than the spoilers, I hadn't heard too much about DRDT before I started watching it, so, unaware of DRDTdev's writing skills, I was worried that Whit would essentially be a poor man's Kokichi. As someone who really likes Kokichi, that biased me against Whit. Then, of course, I actually watched the series and Whit won me over very quickly. And the rest is history :) )

I’m not really sure why I went killer over victim, other than the possible “I’m making Min the victim and therefore Whit has to be the killer.” Maybe it was that Kokichi-ness that made me think that he'd be the man behind the slaughter? ... Even if Kokichi wasn't actually the blackened in that case? It might've also been an effect of wanting him to be just that much closer to surviving, to fully break the hearts of everyone who was rooting for this Special Little Guy to survive.

Like, uh... me. Um. Well, I do genuinely currently think Whit will survive right now, so... I'm willing to take a +3 if that's true!

TERUKO in the role of MASTERMIND

Yeah, I predicted that Teruko would be the mastermind because I'm a basic bitch (/aff). Uh, I'm not being affectionate towards myself, to be clear. I'm only being affectionate to those who still hold the (fairly, I think) popular opinion that Teruko will be the mastermind of DRDT. She's a popular choice because there's a lot going for her! I still ranked her as third most likely back in my mastermind analysis!

Everyone who plays Venus' and my game is forced into the same default formula (to make comparative scoring easier), and that formula locks in the protagonist as a Chapter 6-er, because of how frequently that is the case. Even so, I feel fairly confident now that Teruko will survive until Chapter 6 anyways. The more times she says "I'm the Ultimate Lucky Student and I can't die" and then doesn't die, the weirder it would be if she suddenly did drop dead in, like, Chapter 4.

As for whether she actually is the mastermind... dude, I have no idea. Back at the time I wrote that post, I named J and Rose as my most likely candidates, but now J has gone on a whole anti-murder bend and I'm growing increasingly worried that Rose is going to be the Chapter 3 killer (probably unfounded, but still). That would leave Teruko as the most likely option, but Teruko's behavior at the end of Chapter 2 felt anti-mastermind coded to me, too, even if she forgot about it...!

We are not reviewing my mastermind theories here and now. Next!

CHARLES in the role of SURVIVOR

If you're a giant fucking nerd (/j), you might have noticed that I said I made my DRDT predictions after viewing "just a little bit over an hour of Despair Time content." However, the Prologue is under an hour. What gives?

Well, I... broke the rules of our game, actually. You're supposed to make your predictions sheet after viewing the Prologue only, but I went straight from watching the Prologue into Chapter 1 on the same day, and I forgot to make my sheet until watching Chapter 1 Episode 1. Sue me.

At any rate, I'm sure you can figure out how watching 1-1 would make me think that Charles would survive. Obviously, I knew that other characters beyond Charles would get focus in later episodes, but that still doesn't change the fact that DRDTdev chose to highlight Charles and Teruko's relationship as the first thing we saw in the first chapter of their story. Even without that extra content, though, he's also very reminiscent of Danganronpa's "Jerk" archetype, which survived in every canon DR game.

All that said... obviously, I don't think he's going to survive anymore.

I've been saying that Charles is a Chapter 3 victim-- at least since that analysis I just linked, even-- and I will probably continue to say it until proven false by the story itself. He is simply arcing too fast, and Whit needs to be confronted with that grief he prefers to ignore, no matter what his eventual placement is. We got one real Trial with Charles to prove what a smarty-pants he is, but now that he's pulled that "out of your element" card, he's off to break down into two or more simpler substances. AKA, decompose.

If he's not a Chapter 3 victim, though, Survivor is at least back on the table.

ACE in the role of SURVIVOR

Here we have it! Proof positive that I (falsely) believed that Ace would be a survivor all on my own, without taking into account anyone else's opinions! My incorrectness is mine and mine alone!!! (/j)

So, yeah. Funny coward man go brrrr and character arc into survival, except then he didn't. I have to imagine that's the basic premise behind why so many people believed that Ace would survive. I don't really have much to say about this choice beyond that.

I don't like that I'm already tanking another +6 points (S->K) (6->2) from Ace, though. Save me Xander-zero-point spoilers, you're my only hope.

VERONIKA in the role of SURVIVOR

Whaaaaaaaat was I cooking here?

I guess I kind of remember. I think I was imagining Veronika along the lines of a poor man's Sonia (like I said, critical) due to her more apologetic attitude towards rambling and presenting others with horror concepts in the Prologue. With my prediction that Whit would die in Chapter 5, I guess I might've also been thinking that Veronika could then fill in that "comic relief" void in his absence? I also had Ace there, though. Moot point; every DRDT character has the capacity to be hilarious.

There are a lot of places I could see Veronika landing in this killing game, but survivor really isn't one of them. I could see Veronika as a Chapter 3 victim or killer for The Vibes, Chapter 5 victim or killer if she takes on more of a main antagonist role, or Mastermind also for The Vibes. But survivor is just... odd. At least from this point in the story, what business does the "fangirling over acevi dying" girl have taking up one of those coveted survivor slots? Surely either someone would think to kill her or she would decide to kill before four more chapters elapse!

That being said, locking in Veronika as a late game character isn't terrible in my eyes. Being "barred" from making Rose a survivor, I remember that Veronika was the girl who I initially got the second most late game energy from. Those Chapter 5 or Mastermind scenarios won't score terribly here if they come to pass.

NICO in the role of SURVIVOR

I want to mention here that, despite my other spoilers, I did not know that Nico was nonbinary going into Despair Time. Therefore, I didn't make Nico a survivor under the premise of "I'll have two girls, two boys, and one enby survive!" I don't really remember why I did make Nico a survivor, though.

My best guess is that I put them there for cast composition purposes. From the Prologue, all of Charles, Ace, and Veronika are pretty over-the-top in their own ways: Charles is overly condescending, Ace is really loud, and Veronika is an exaggerated fangirl. Adding in a quieter character like Nico would have been a nice way balance to the others... or at least, so I thought with only the Prologue to go off of. Now I know that Ace and Nico surviving together was incredibly unlikely to be the case.

Speaking of Ace, now that he's dead (and therefore can't be a survivor), my opinions of whether Nico could survive have definitely gone up. However, I still don't think that Nico surviving is particularly likely.

There's definitely potential for redemptive survivors in DRDT with the "fighting your fate" theme they seem to be setting up. But, I think that's more likely to play out with someone who might have committed murder before the killing game (like Levi) or someone who did terrible things, but never went so far as to physically attempt another student's murder (like David), than someone who actually attacked someone else and nearly succeeded. For media in general, I think it's much easier for audiences to forgive something that happened off-screen and/or to characters that barely exist than something that we saw visible evidence of on a character who many people adore. Nico's attempted murder just seems like a big hurdle to overcome on their path to survival, dude.

That being said, I've written before that for both in-universe and meta reasons, I don't think we'll ever see Nico as a blackened, which already eliminates, like, half of my options moving forward. Logically, that would conclude that if I don't think that Nico will become a victim, then they're likely to survive. I do (currently) think that Nico will probably be a victim sometime in the future, even if I'm not certain in which chapter. For the sake of my score on Nico specifically, I guess I'm rooting for Chapter 5. I already know that they wouldn't be robbing Min of a perfect zero, at least.

And that's my tally so far, a total of 14 points out of a possible... well, I actually don't know what the highest possible score is, both because math is hard and because I don't know what bonus rules, if any, will come into play in DRDT's future. It's 14 points across 4 characters, which comes out to an average of 3.5 points per character.

Comparatively, most of our game sheets have come out somewhere in the high-30 to mid-40 points range (predicting is hard). Across 16 characters, means that it's usually an average of, like, 3 points per character. So, I'm doing worse than usual, but not by a whole lot...!

But, how well I do isn't what matters. The important thing is that I had fun while making it, and got to think about what patterns and possibilities can arise when you look at the basic facts of a character's simplified personality and talent in time with their role in the story!

So if you want to have fun making a predictions sheet like this of your own, you should totally go read Danganronpa: One Shot's Prologue (before Chapter 1 starts airing on Friday) over at @av-multifangan and fill out that game's prediction sheet. That would mean that this shameful shameless attempt at cross-promotion would have succeeded at one of its desired effects! Or, if that's not your cup of tea, you could also fill out a predictions sheet for DRDT moving forward, and just acknowledge that Xander, Min, Arei, and Ace were placed after the fact. Who knows, maybe I'll make a sheet like that too, so we can compare.

Thanks for walking down memory lane with me, and I hope to be back with more DRDT content soon!

[baldurs-gate-official]

Thinking about how Astarion insisted on staying up to keep watch in the beginning of the game

Yeah, it could be because he needs to go hunt at night without anyone noticing, or because he's keeping an eye out for Cazador/his minions. But... It could also be because he's scared of sleeping/trancing in general?

He's got severe C-PTSD. I have that too. And one of the things I experience from it is a fear of falling asleep.

Sleeping is vulnerability. You're completely defenseless. It's terrifying to fall asleep when you're used to danger! And some abusers will purposefully do things to you when you sleep. I wouldn't put it past Cazador to have done something like that.

It's especially terrifying when you're sleeping somewhere unfamiliar, or as out and open as a forest. With strangers.

Add in the elvish reverie (if we assume Astarion still experiences it as he would if he were alive at his current age)... and he might even be reliving horrible memories every time he tries to rest.

(If you're unfamiliar with elvish trancing/dreaming, I made a post about it and some ways it might affect Astarion as a vampire spawn a while ago)

One of the reasons I think this could be the case is actually the other spawn, specifically what I noticed when we first meet Dalyria and Petras. At first I thought Astarion's eye bags were just a product of being undead. But... Petras, the very human looking spawn, doesn't have that. Dalyria is an elf as well, and like Astarion, she's got some of that tired sleep-deprived purple under and around her eyes.

So all this considered... I think it's very possible that Astarion has a fear of sleeping too. Or at the very least, trouble resting. Him and the other elvish spawn.

It also makes me wonder if he sleeps any better later on in the game. By Act 3 he probably feels more comfortable with you and the group. Sleeping near familiar people (especially people you're very comfortable with, but that's very dependant on your own choices in your game), and having established night time routines can make sleeping feel a little safer.

Plus by that point he's made many new memories he can visit in his reverie. Maybe instead of remembering the terrible things, sometimes he dreams of sun bathing, the first time he bit you or that bear, or any other happy memory he's created since being tadpoled.

Maybe for the first time in centuries, sleeping isn't such a terrible prospect.

[averlym]

ghostwriter (their grandma would tell them she'd lose half her soul)

[cherrysnax]

havin the weirdest crisis of my life

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

one thing abt being disabled/chronically ill that some people don’t get is that sometimes body maintenance that ensures you have the absolute minimum amount of function can also be something that takes away a lot of control and autonomy. you can argue till the cows come home that making those decisions to try and help yourself (or realistically to try to make sure things aren’t worse than they already are) is something that exhibits control and autonomy and stuff, but they can be so limiting in practice because they’re things that take up so much time but have to be done to do anything else

[pallaspally]

i love people and humanity and should not explode them ilovepeopleandhumanityandshouldnotexplodethem

[cuntwrap--supreme]

Dog has a swollen lymph node. Just one for now. Which means her cancer is getting worse already. The longer this goes on, the more detached I feel from reality.

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

My roommate and I had a conversation last night and I keep rotating it in my brain and I Don’t Like It

[sevenyeargap]

practicing gratitude about this past year tonight and it IS actually helping?? a lot????????? unbelievable

[phagodyke]

okay can we have a new rule that if you're my friend and know I struggle with rsd from adhd + you're planning on hanging out with mutual friends but specifically aren't inviting me for whatever reason. Maybe Don't Tell Me About It

[marshmallowgoop]

It seems you're mixing the dub audio with remastered footage which I was planning on doing but are you actually gonna upload full episodes anywhere?

I don't share much information about the project on Tumblr, but I talk about it more on Discord!

My workbench in the DCMK Fanworks Server (join link here) has the most comprehensive and up-to-date info, but I also post updates in the Detective Conan EN Community (join link here). As of right now, I've mixed Episodes 1-71, 76-78, and 118.

That said: I would be very happy if anyone else would like to take over! I am very slow 😅

[bitchfitch]

i just got done with my third chiro appointment, and like. I've noticed a significant improvement in terms of how much pain I'm in but I'm also noticing i can't like. stay sitting up. I can sit, which isn't always the case, but the muscles in my back are so loosey goosey/ not responding/ spasming that I keep curling forward until my head is almost pressed to the bed in front of me while I'm sitting cross legged. Don't know what that's about but it's affecting productivity something awful.

[nowendil]

i miss my little dog so much but i'm being so brave about it. i'm so brave and normal and not in the brink of tears at any given moment. i'm going to lecture i am i am i am i'm gonna make it to class and not cry during. might have to wear the same clothes as yesterday to do it though

[gabriel-posts-here]

my head is spinning I HATE NEUROTYPICAL EXPECTATIONS SO MUCH

[onrainynights]

JOB ACHIEVED. FINALLY

[neverendingford]

.