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Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 14 Dissection

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

SPOILERS for Danganronpa: Despair Time Chapter 2 Episode 14.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TERUROSE REAL??????

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

Yahoo, lockdown logic strikes again! Also, a quick

Is Teruko Correct In This Assumption?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She was WILD for this. Hilarious line of reasoning.

What's Up With the Body Discovery Announcement?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wholeheartedly agree.

Does Ace Have Nothing To Do With Arei?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OUGH AND THE MIN PARALLELS TOOOOOOO

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

Jumping back in time for just a moment...

A Piece of Evidence That Lines Up to Them Only

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

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

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

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

UNLIKELY FINAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOMEWHAT LIKELY FINAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE

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

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

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

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

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

MOST LIKELY FINAL PIECES OF EVIDENCE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Concluding Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thefandomenchantress]

Who do you believe?

drdt chapter 2 part 14 spoilers!!!

On top of a drawing, I'm gonna make this a poll for curiosities' sake:

if you wanna give your reasonings or theories in the reblogs or comments, please do! i'm interested to see what people think :3

[thefandomenchantress]

I know I predicted radio silence from me...But I had what I think is a cool idea and wanted to share it before anything gets disproven in the next episode (Brief, singular mention of the Eden!Culprit theory).

So, I saw a lot of people talking about the Arei-Eden parallels, and the Ace-Arei parallels (and differences), and the Min-Eden parallels in the hug scene...Because of that, I started thinking about how Eden and Ace relate to all the others. And then I remembered the very obvious Teruko-Ace parallels.

Ace and Teruko both trusted someone who betrayed them in one way or another. Teruko with...Well, everyone, and especially Min, and Ace with Levi. In chapter two, they're both pretty similar, being closed-off and trying to not care about others with varying degrees of success. And, of course, Ace almost dies just like Teruko did, in an attempted murder.

All those things are fairly obvious, especially them being the only participants to be almost-victims. And I'd always noticed that, but it got me thinking...

In chapter one, Teruko was the victim of an attempted murder, surviving on the pure luck of the knife just-so-happening to miss anything vital in her abdomen. Then, instead of sympathy for her life almost being taken, people are upset with/suspicious of her because they think she was the one who killed Xander. And that fact is no fault of Teruko's, she just had the misfortune of being at the scene of the crime (and Min moving the evidence to further incriminate her). Barely anyone asks if she's okay or shows much concern other than Min, who betrays her, and Eden. She is then forced to defend herself in the trial almost completely alone until finally some others start to come to her defense.

In chapter two, Ace has been put in the position of being the victim of a murder attempt but surviving through the pure luck of Eden and Teruko just-so-happening to come to the second floor late at night. If Teruko hadn't happened to forget her clothes on the second floor, chances are that Ace would be dead. No one feels sorry for what Ace went through, because he was a total asshole to Nico and along with no one taking him seriously to begin with, they think he, in a way, had it coming, trauma and injuries be damned. Now, he is forced to defend himself, presumably alone unless Levi decides he wants to help and be the Eden equivalent. And Ace has been blamed for Arei's death not through any fault of his own, but because he had the misfortune of being at the scene of the crime, where someone else tried to murder him.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it would honestly be pretty cool if Ace finished this chapter going through rather similar events to the ones Teruko experienced last chapter. Some people say that Ace being her parallel will show her during this chapter that distrusting isn't the right way to go, but he doesn't have to die to show her that at this very moment. Hell, it might hit even harder if he manages to go through everything she did, since it would make them even more similar.

Plus, if Eden is the Min parallel, and Ace is the Teruko parallel, that's pretty dang cool! Of course, if Ace does all the Teruko stuff during the trial, it makes sense for Eden to have done all the Min stuff...And I mean, the episode seems to be saying that's depressingly possible, so maybe.

So yeah, I just thought Ace and Teruko's similarities continuing into the trial would be fun. After all, he's been pretty consistent about following in her footsteps so far, so you never know. Like imagine if he says a protag line or something it'd be hilarious. Especially if all his points during his defense are like Teruko's, but with an Ace-y twist that makes them more funny or stupid or whatever. Fun!

Or who knows, maybe Ace will just hire David as his defense attorney, since he's the only one to have successfully defended Ace so far. /j

[thefandomenchantress]

guys I’m crying irl I just…Ace can’t die. He just can’t…The worst part is that I’m not even sure I’d be able to stay in the fandom if he’s the culprit. My favorite character is supposed to be a source of happiness for me, if he dies I’m not sure I could keep being as invested while having the painful reminder that he’s gone. Every time this happens in a fan game, (Nikei and Haruhiko) I can’t even finish binge watching an already finished game, let alone wait out a years-long hiatus in baited breath. I’ve grown such an attachment to this character and I won’t be able to stand seeing him go so soon.

Obviously I’ll respect the DRDTdev’s decision if Ace is the culprit, I’m not gonna be a jerk about it or anything, but…I’d be crushed, man.

…Sigh. My account might be less active this week, since looking at people saying Ace is gonna die makes me sad. So if I go radio silent, don’t worry, I’m just mourning prematurely haha.

[thefandomenchantress]

with many people speculating that the identity of the culprit will finally come to light next episode and many theories running abound, i'd like to make a masterlist of all of the theories people have written out guessing who the culprit will be. that includes the main murder of Arei, the attempt on Ace, and any theories synthesizing the two. i think it would be fun to read up on before the episode, and fun to look back at once all is said and done :D

so, if you've made a theory speculating about the murder, please leave a comment on this post (preferably with a link to the theory)! i'll only be adding the theories of those who comment on the post, just so that i don't accidentally make anyone feel excluded/highlight someone's post that doesn't want to be shouted out.

all i ask is that you only submit whatever the most current version of your theory per character/combination of characters. for instance, if you wrote a theory based on the evidence from part 1, but wrote a new version taking into account what happened in episode 12 or 13, i'm only going to add the newer one. if you only have a version from part 1, though, that's fine!

(also, for all theoretical theorists out there, a reminder that i made an episode guide that breaks down all the episodes into easier-to-find sections. i just updated it for 2-13!)

[thefandomenchantress]

Woah! Is the elevator stuck?

[thefandomenchantress]

(Sorry for not just answering this in the comments, I had a feeling I was gonna go over the word limit (I was correct haha) and figured maybe I should just make a post about it).

Spoilers for Chapter Two Episode 13!

I'll be honest...I am very scared for Ace right now. A lot of his trial behavior is kinda suspicious if you squint, but then again, he's Ace, so he's always going to be hastily throwing around suspicion and be generally incompetent when it comes to solving the murder. And after watching all of chapter two...I just can't accept that it's him.

Now, it's fair to say that's just favoritism on my part. After all, I'm willingly to make a lot of stretches to keep on believing in my Eden's The Culprit agenda. And...Yeah, true, you are kinda right. Even if I was in a scenario where I couldn't find a single objective reason for him not to be the culprit, I still wouldn't be able to accept it was him until he was executed.

But I can't help but think I do have at least a little evidence to prove Ace isn't the culprit.

I actually made a post a while back about the Ace culprit theory, and how I don't think it works. And I'm going to reiterate a point I made there, since I'm not sure if I conveyed what I meant all that clearly.

This is about the tape.

Yes, yes, I know. Everything's about the tape these days, but I still think it's important!! After all, the grippy tape was used in the murder mechanism, and disappeared while only Ace, Eden, and Teruko were in the room. Meaning one of them has to be the one connected to the murder, (meaning they are at the very least an accomplice).

Teruko and Eden both technically could've taken it, Eden much more so than Teruko, but this isn't about them, so I'll skip that. I'm sure you've heard stuff about that before somewhere, anyhow.

Let's get to the main point:

Could Ace have taken the tape?

Okay, okay, fine, real answer time. In my opinion? It doesn't make much sense to me. After all, if Ace took the tape, we have two options:

Ace was planning to murder someone and already had a plan in mind when he took the tape, knowing he'd need it for a mechanism.

Ace didn't have a plan in mind and wanted to murder Nico when he took the tape.

Now, let's take those one at a time so I can tell you why I don't buy them.

Let's start with option one.

Ace knew he was going to murder someone with the tape down the line and took it.

Now, let's put this into perspective for a moment. Ace is actively being murdered. Even if we assume that Nico is not the true person behind Ace's almost-death, we can assume that someone was cutting Ace's neck open before this. And if Ace was conscious, he wouldn't wait for them or anyone else who can take advantage of his weakened state to come back. So Ace must be unconscious at least until Teruko and Eden make Nico run away.

That means the only time Ace can be having even sort of coherent thoughts is in the minute or so Teruko is investigating his body. He is actively bleeding out, someone just tried to murder him, and everything has gone to shit. On top of it all, he's a character who's usually rather impulsive.

And in order for him to have known he'd need the tape for his new murder plan, he'd need to have thought of a whole murder mechanism scheme while under those conditions. Seems a little iffy, but let's assume, for the sake of this post, he's secretly a murder-plan-making genius! So of course he easily thought of that entire extremely complex murder plan that far in advance!

That means Ace has a plan when he manages to get the strength to stand up. He knows he needs the tape, so he grabs it, while knocking Eden over and shouting in hopes it will distract them enough to not notice he took it (Let's also ignore that Teruko is watching him this whole time and probably would've noticed him taking it). He then pretends he's going to go kill Nico immediately, while secretly plotting to kill them or someone else in the future.

But if Ace isn't planning to murder Nico immediately like he says, then why is he so insistent on it? Non-culprit!Ace readings make this easily understandable; Ace's emotions are running high from the murder attempt and he's running off to find Nico because he's angry and thinks they tried to kill him. However, if Ace doesn't actually want to kill Nico, why does he bother putting on such a big act pretending he does?

If this is an act, color me impressed. Ace has, in the past, shown himself to be a pretty terrible liar who is also not very good at keeping secrets. So him being able to pull this off while bleeding out...Yeah, he definitely deserves an Oscar, haha. Because he really sells it. He's banging on Nico's door, yelling in a very aggressive and convincing manner, and tells Levi he is going to murder Nico almost nonchalantly. If this scene was later revealed to all be an elaborate 4D-chess move by Ace, I would be super surprised.

And none of it is even that necessary if it is an act. Ace could've stomped out of the room without telling them he was going to kill Nico if he wanted to, it's not like it was necessary for his plan. After all, if he was planning a murder, why would he purposely prove that he would be willingly to commit one? It's way better to play into his scaredy-cat tendencies here, instead, if he's trying not to gain suspicion. Like, imagine:

Eden: O-oh my god! Ace, are you alright?!? Y-you're bleeding a lot, let's go to the infirma--

Ace: Get the fuck away from me! I'm not trusting any of you fuckers to get anywhere near me! I was totally right to not trust any of you in the first place, you're all gonna try some shit like this eventually! You probably think that now's the perfect time to strangle me while pretending to help, huh?! Well, too bad! I can do it myself.

(Cue Ace getting the fuck out of there before they can realize he took the tape).

I mean, why would he possibly think that pretending he's going to murder Nico while secretly planning another murder is a good idea?! Even if people don't connect the tape to him, they're going to think that he's completely capable of an act like that if he's desperate enough. If he hadn't done this, his classmates might've kept on thinking he was too much of a scaredy-cat to seriously consider hurting anyone, which would help his chances of winning the trial.

You could say he did it to disguise the fact that he had a plan to murder someone later. No one would suspect that he was planning to murder someone later if he pretended to try to murder someone now. But no one was accusing him of plotting anything in the first place? So I really don't see how it's necessary. Better to play it safe than to risk actually running into Nico when he doesn't actually plan to harm them. His little charade can only go so far. The only way this even sort of benefits him is if in the trial, people say maybe he was plotting something, and he can refute with his reckless behavior here. But, uh...Would it really be realistic to say Ace, of all people, thought that far ahead and meticulously planned out every detail in the mere moments he woke up from the turpentine? I don't know, seems like a little bit of a stretch to me.

Let's remind ourselves that, in this scenario, Ace is most likely scared for his life. He is scared someone else is going to murder him now that Nico tried, and that is why he is planning a murder now. In that case, I think the most important thing is that Ace's primary emotion is that moment is fear. Which he doesn't have a very good track record of hiding. When Ace is scared, you will know. So if Ace was scared and planning a murder in result during that moment, I don't think he'd have masked it as well as he did. Ace doesn't seem scared, just angry. Because he hates that, in his eyes, Nico was able to make him vulnerable like this.

I just...Don't think the dialog of Ace in the hallway scene after his almost-death would work as well if he was secretly not trying to murder Nico and only refusing help from the others because he was planning a different murder, and not because of his own character flaws. None of his lines seem disingenuous in the slightest to me. Which is weird, considering all the other times Ace has lied, it's pretty easy to tell.

In short, I simply don't understand why Ace would do the things he did if he was just secretly planning to murder someone. To me, his behavior makes much more sense if he's actually blinded by rage instead of secretly planning something super smart and complex.

...Alright, let's move on to scenario two.

Ace was actually planning to murder Nico when he took the tape, but plans change, and he uses the tape for murdering Arei instead.

Unsurprisingly, I don't buy this either.

If Ace really did plan to murder Nico in this moment and was admitting it full-heartedly, with no qualms about getting caught, why would he hide that he took the tape? He tells Levi he's going to murder Nico upfront, so obviously he doesn't care that they know what he's doing.

In that case, he wouldn't have stealthily picked up the tape while Teruko wasn't looking and put it in his pocket immediately (Both of Ace's hands are seen in his sprites, so it's not like he was just holding it in his hand, if he did take the tape he took it as quickly and unnoticeably as possible, hid it somewhere on his person, then didn't mention it).

If he's planning to murder Nico and hasn't thought about what happens afterwards, or knows he will be executed and still doesn't care, then it's not like he has anything he's going to do with the tape after he murders Nico. Meaning the only reason he would take it, is if it had something to do with murdering Nico.

And in that case, Ace doesn't care about how much the others know when it comes to how he does the murder. So he wouldn't be shy about admitting he was going to use the tape to uh...Idk, strangle Nico? Or restrain them? I don't even really know how he would use only grippy tape to murder them anyways. It's not like he'd use it to put over their mouth to keep them quiet, he's shouting threats to them in the middle of the hallway for everyone to hear. He could not give less of a fuck about who knows Nico is in danger.

Ace has literally no reason to be secretive about taking the tape in this scenario. The only way it would work is if Teruko and Eden just so happened to not notice even though Ace wasn't bothering to be subtle, which is...Kinda weird, since Teruko's usually pretty damn observant.

Plus, Ace has a lot of blood on his hands during the gym waking-up scene, but maybe he managed to get the tape in his pocket before any blood could get on it? Since there wasn't as much on his hands before he woke up? Idk, possibly still notable.

To summarize this whole section a bit, if Ace was planning to murder Nico when he took the tape, he'd have little reason to take it and no reason to take it sneakily. If he was secretly planning another murder, it's hard to justify why he pretends he wants to murder Nico in the first place, or how he even thought up his murder plan so quickly and under such intense circumstances. And since Teruko was presumably looking at Ace the whole time, Ace would have a hard time even picking up the tape in the first place without Teruko noticing.

(I've also seen people say that if Teruko and Ace can't 100% confirm each other's witness testimony about the other not taking it while Eden was on the ground, you can't really prove who took it in the trial).

...So that's it with the tape, I think. All in all, I don't think Ace taking it makes much sense, or at least not as much sense as Eden does.

That's my main reason for being doubtful of Ace being the culprit, but I guess there's maybe some other things I could mention...

Ace is supposed to be the Mondo of the Chihiro-Mondo = Nico-Ace murder situation.

This can be seen by how the almost-murder takes place in the gym, and how Ace is the one who wants to be strong despite feeling deep down that he is weak. He's also the one who is afraid of getting hit by cars, and the one who's friend mysteriously died...

Yeah, I'm willing to bet Ace's friend being dead and Ace weirdly mentioning being afraid of cars hitting him in chapter 1 probably means his friend met a similar fate to Mondo's brother. Except without all the biker gang stuff, haha.

Which, uh, isn't good if we're trying to make Ace not the culprit, since that secret was one of the major reasons Mondo killed and all that. And I was worried about that...Until Ace just sorta brought Taylor up unprompted in the middle of trial. Like, if that was a big, personal, secret reason for why he murdered Arei, not sure why he would just randomly bring it up now when the DRDTdev could just--Have him talk about it later, when he's the culprit. And if we assume Ace thought that Taylor dying was his secret and killed so that secret wouldn't get out, then that wouldn't make sense, since Ace brings it up in conversation without hesitating. Even Ace wouldn't kill for a secret and then blab about it only a day later. So I doubt Taylor's death is going to play any sort of role in Ace's motive to murder.

(Unlike Eden, who's secret does include someone she was close to and probably regrets not being honest with when it came to her feelings and--okay okay fine I'll shut up now sorry--).

Plus, Ace having Mondo parallels doesn't mean he has to be the culprit. Nico wasn't the victim just because they had Chihiro parallels, so the same can be true for Ace. It does make him a little more suspicious, though, sadly.

Also...

I wonder how this would pay off if Ace died? I immediately assumed that oh, Levi will die, and Ace will realize that this statement was not true. But it could go in way more directions than that.

This line has to be pretty damn important if it got the bold yellow letter treatment. That statement is going to affect Ace or Levi (or both) in a very major way.

If Ace dies, then...I guess I'm not sure if that statement would affect Levi as much without Ace being there. Levi has already said that he would not care if Ace died. It would simply be as if he never knew him, like he was a stranger. And I guess, in my mind, it makes a lot more sense if Ace is a living embodiment of what he said to Levi than him just being gone.

I mean, imagine if Levi threatened Ace and then Ace was the culprit in chapter 1. Levi would not care nearly as much about what he said, because everyone thinks Ace did a bad thing by framing Teruko and not admitting to the class that he murdered Xander, even if it was with good intentions.

Now imagine that Ace is the culprit of chapter two. He murdered Arei with not-good intentions, framed Eden, and never admitted he did it until the bitter end. No one liked Ace before, and they certainly don't like him now. He took advantage of Arei's trust in Eden and for that no one will forgive him. Ace was not a good person, and most of Levi's classmates will reinforce this. So if Ace wanted Levi to die, it doesn't matter, right? Levi tried his best to help him, and he failed, but he tried his best, like Eden said.

What I'm trying to say is that if Ace dies here, I'm not sure how one would make it so that this line really resonates with Levi enough to make a significant enough impact on him that it's highlighted. If Ace is gone and made out to be a no-good murderer by the killing game system they're trapped in, and no one thought Ace was a good person as is, Levi wouldn't put stock in Ace's opinion nearly as much as he would, say, Eden's. Ace was a bully and a murderer, so his opinion doesn't matter, right? I doubt anyone else in the killing game will disagree, so I'm guessing none of them will be ecstatic to defend Ace's honor if Levi asks anyone about it in chapter three.

Long story short, this line makes a lot more sense to me if both Levi and Ace survive trial two (Or I guess if Levi gets executed because of that 'all murderers must pay for their crimes' rule but still).

Other than that, a few other points that make Ace being the culprit less likely are that we have no evidence of Ace knowing about where to find Hu and Teruko's old clothes and that sort of thing. Then there's the spelling mistake I don't think Ace would make given how he acts in the investigation and trial, as I said in another post (Would they really make a point to have Ace of all people correct Teruko's language twice only to have a sticking point be that a word was misspelled in a letter he wrote?).

Plus there's the fact that, allegedly, the culprit made the time ambiguous so that no one would know they did the murder at AM not PM, and Ace didn't have an alibi for either time slot. It'd be weird to do that and then not get yourself an alibi for the fake PM murder time. If the culprit didn't do that on purpose, then I guess they just got really, really lucky when no one found the small piece saying pm or am. Like, that's a smaller piece, so it's not surprising no one found it, but it being such a small piece of the note makes it look like it was ripped out purposefully.

Honestly, the only thing I'd sort of like about Ace culprit theory is that it would confirm Ace writes all fancy and nice, haha. Which would be a really funny subversion of expectations, but not funny enough for me to not be sad he's the culprit and is going to die.

Another thing I've seen floating around is that if the culprit really did copy/reuse the Nico-Ace murder contraption, they would need to know how it works. And if Ace was in the gym that night, that would mean he knows how it works and would be able to replicate it!

But this entire time, we've gone under the assumption that Nico (or whoever almost-murdered Ace) knocked Ace out with the turpentine, and that's why they stole it. Ace is pretty strong physically, so someone needing to knock him out to overpower him isn't too unbelievable. And in that case, Ace wouldn't have gotten much of a chance to look at the crime scene, since he was unconscious for the whole murder attempt. The only time we saw him awake was in the time he woke up bleeding out. And seeing as Ace isn't exactly the brightest, I doubt he could've just looked around while actively dying and immediately have known exactly what was up and how he almost got murdered. And on top of all that, if he was secretly planning a murder, he'd have been focusing on his whole pretending-to-want-to-kill-Nico thing, too, further dividing his attention. Whoever set up the mechanism or saw it for a longer period of time without bleeding out, probably would've had a better shot at knowing how the mechanism worked.

Oh, and before I go: I've mentioned this before, but "All That Glitters" and "A Good Person" aren't really themes that I think would suit Ace as a culprit. After all, they mean 'not as good as it seems' and 'being a good person'. Unlike some other characters, Ace hasn't had any involvement in the Good Person dilemma except telling Levi he's not one. And I don't think anyone thought Ace was 'good' in the first place, let alone not as good as he seems.

I could probably go more in-depth...But I'm tired so short, straightforward theme explanation it is, haha.

I...Think that's all? Honestly, I might be able to think of more reasons in the future...But for now, I think I'm done. I refuse to accept the culprit is Ace, so I'm just trying to point out any evidence I can that it's not him. My heart wouldn't be able to take it...

Still, I don't judge anyone who does buy the ace culprit theory, I just don't buy it personally. So there's the answer you were probably looking for, in way less words, haha.

[thefandomenchantress]

Ah, I hadn't considered that there might be a chance the jugs were hung from the rope and not Arei. I guess that since the characters were talking about weighing Arei's body down, I assumed that the jugs would have to be attached to her body somehow. Nice to know what you were thinking, though!

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.

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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 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

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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!

[thefandomenchantress]

Okay, I could just be missing something or misunderstanding, but when I was watching the episode I assumed--Actually, wait. I'll now assume my secret identity! The red evil voice!!!

Wait a second, the irritation on Arei's wrists could've easily been caused by taping the jugs of minnow water to Arei's wrists! The culprit attached the jugs to her wrists via the tape, then the jugs broke when the mechanism came to an abrupt stop, like Teruko said. The killer then took the tape off of her wrists and threw it in the trash with the used jugs! Which means Teruko's theory about the mechanism makes total sense! Mwahaha! I've definitely got you now!!!

(All joking aside, that's what I assumed all this time so I'm a little confused as to why you say the tape isn't explained in the mechanism Teruko proposed. Maybe I just misunderstood what Teruko was saying?)

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.

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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 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

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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!

[thefandomenchantress]

im suffering from doomed yaoi someone save me /hj

Chapter 2 Episode 13 spoilers!

Yeaaaaah Acevi seems to have...Uh...Changed a lot after last episode. I'll be honest, I still liked the ship before that episode premiered, but I had other ships I liked more, so I wasn't too sad at its definitive downfall, even in a platonic sense.

I mean, how could I be sad when it seems Ace's small showing of vulnerability has made more people like him haha (That's mostly a joke but I am happy to see more people growing to like his character a little more!).

I definitely wasn't expecting Levi's character to be that unempathetic, so much so as to say he couldn't care less whether Ace died or not. I've always read him as using Ace to feel like a good person, (since it never really seemed like Levi liked Ace in the first place, even in chapter one), but now that reading hits a little differently than I'd initially intended, what with all our new information.

That's not to say I don't like what Levi's character is turning out to be, though. I still like him. I might actually like him a little more now, since we've got more information and backstory, and more insight into why he does what he does. Definitely a cool character with more depth than I'd previously considered.

Providing Ace and Levi both keep on living after this trial, I can't wait to see how things will turn out. Now that Levi has shown Ace his honest feelings towards him (or I suppose his lack of feelings towards him), Ace certainly isn't going to want to hang around him anymore. Not without his imagined net of safety. As for Levi, I assume he's going to completely give up on gaining Ace's favor, but you never know.

But yeah, Acevi in the romantic sense is definitely in a different state than before. One-sided Acevi is interesting to me, though, especially if you go with the theory that Ace had feelings for his only other friend, Taylor, as well. Both of his friends ended up breaking his heart, whether that be by dying or revealing they don't feel the same way about him. Sad.

I guess the main point of this post was to say I'm not nearly as devastated as I thought I would be if this ever happened--Maybe it's because we got confirmation Ace did care about Levi at one point, so even if Levi doesn't care about him in the same way, it's still really interesting...Wow I sound like Veronika with all my "it's so interesting" talk--

I feel for the hard-core Acevi shippers who were hurt in the making of this episode though, haha. I suppose when Xanvid sailed (kinda), another ship had to sink.

[thefandomenchantress]

so.. haha... uh... i did.. something..

whit fixed charles. maybe with the combined efforts of whit and charles, ace can be fixed too!

[thefandomenchantress]

I’m coping hard with this old theory—GUYS IT’S NOT HIM I SWEAR OKAY?!? cries

So. The Ace culprit theory.

I’m sure my stance on this is not surprising. Am I aware there is some evidence for it? Yes. Will I also ignore said evidence due to extreme bias? Also yes.

No but seriously. Does the Ace culprit theory hold water? While I’ll bring some of the most damning pieces of evidence up in this post, I also want to analyze if the Ace culprit theory works thematically. Or at least that’s the goal.

Okay? Okay. Let’s get started.

First things first, this motherfucker:

The Tape

As anyone who’s seen an Ace or Eden culprit theory is most likely aware of, the tape disappears from the background in this scene.

Not only that, but it can’t be a mistake. Later, Rose and Teruko can’t find the tape, even though no one has been to the gym that morning besides them. That means one of these three must’ve taken it.

Which means our only potential culprits are Eden, Ace, and Teruko…Or I guess one of them could be an accomplice who helped the real culprit. Either way, who is most likely involved in the murder?

Well, we can take Teruko off the list. Not only would it make almost no sense to kill her off right now, but she was standing the whole time and never bent down to grab the tape. If she did, it would’ve been extremely obvious to the other two and they would have said something about it.

Eden makes a lot more sense. She was shoved to the ground as it disappears, so while she was on the ground she could’ve grabbed it without anyone noticing, especially since Teruko is distracted by Ace and Ace is distracted by Nico almost murdering him. She was also already on the second floor and possibly planning her murder/setting some of her plans into action before this happened.

But Eden’s not the focus of this post. What about Ace? Can we justify why he would’ve taken the tape?

In my opinion…Not really?

See, if Ace took the tape, it would hinge on the idea that, while bleeding out and mostly unconscious, he decided he would need to commit a murder. After all, he was almost just killed and if he doesn’t act fast someone could try to murder him again. This isn’t a bad idea, per se. But I just can’t believe it.

After all, as Eden and Teruko walked in, we know Ace must be unconscious, (if we assume Nico is actually trying to kill him, which I do), since Nico is approaching him and presumably getting ready to make the final blow with the wire they’re carrying. If Ace was conscious, he wouldn’t be just sitting there accepting his fate. So that means that in the minute or so of Nico leaving and Teruko investigating, Ace would’ve had to have woken up and made enough of a coherent murder plan to know he would need the tape.

While Ace isn’t as braindead as the DRDT cast assume, this still seems like a bit of a reach for a character who lends to not think things through, especially when he’s bleeding heavily and emotions are running high. But hey, characterization is pretty subjective, so I won’t go too deep into this. Who knows, maybe Ace is a murder-plan-making genius.

But if Ace was planning a murder in order to escape the school and not get killed like he almost just was, then he would have known he needed to pass a class trial. Meaning he shouldn’t be publicly declaring he’s going to murder Nico, since if people know he was the one who murdered them, he would be executed. So if this theory were true, Ace would’ve had to have been lying about wanting to kill Nico and going off to do just that.

But if Ace was just pretending to want to kill Nico un-secretly, then why? He would need to act angry at Nico in order to not be suspicious, since that’s what he would normally do, but he doesn’t need to pretend to try and murder them to sell his act. If he took the tape and the other two saw, it would make sense for him to use “I’m going to kill Nico with it” as an excuse. But if he did steal the tape, he did it secretly, eliminating that option.

Okay, but what if we go with the theory that his plan at the time was to kill Nico with it, then plans switched and he decided to use it to kill someone else? Well, that would still leave the question of why he sneakily stole the tape. He already announced he was killing Nico, hiding the ‘weapon’ he planned to use wouldn’t do anything. Also, tape isn’t exactly a top-tier murder weapon.

All this is to say that I just can’t see why Ace would’ve acted the way he did if he was planning a murder already. Stealing the tape as he was bleeding out is the only way Ace could’ve gotten his hands on the tape, and therefore the only way he could’ve set up the murder contraption. And if that’s the case, I just don’t think it makes enough sense to me for me to believe it.

Next piece of evidence:

Arei’s crime scene

This murder method appears to be…Weirdly complicated? Especially for a chapter two case. The culprit would need a good reason to complicate their plans like this. After all, the more preparation and supplies need for your method, the more evidence that’s left behind.

The Ace Culprit theory offers a good explanation for all this. The more complicated (or clever) the murder method, the less likely it is that people are going to assume the class idiot is the culprit.

I do think this is something I…Can’t really refute? Presuming Ace somehow got his hands on the tape, maybe he had enough time to think of this plan. I can’t know for sure he didn’t.

So let’s move on to something else.

The theme(s) of Chapter Two

The most obvious title/theme of the chapter is ‘All That Glitters’, coming from the saying, ‘Not all that glitters is gold’.

At first, I thought of this as a simple, ‘people aren’t what they seem’ theme. In that case, Ace fits, because the character who’s seen as dumb and cowardly killing someone is such a clever way would be unexpected.

But I don’t think that’s quite what the saying the title is referencing means. It’s more along the lines of something not being as good as it seems. Gold is valuable, but not everything that looks like it is.

And in that case…Yeah, it doesn’t quite work for Ace anymore, since no one saw Ace as good or valuable to begin with, or at least a good majority of the cast doesn’t.

Eden, Levi, or Hu, the top murderer choices from what I’ve seen, all make more sense. The person people thought was good, and who cared about/wanted to protect everyone there, was plotting to kill one of them. Their friendly demeanor, (or in Levi’s case attempts to be friendly), misled people into thinking they were good when they weren’t…Or at least they weren’t once they were pushed to the brink.

There’s also the secret title/theme, A Good Person. This one also doesn’t quite extend to Ace, besides the fact that he and Levi are pretty interconnected. But his and Levi’s connection alone doesn’t quite prove anything. Levi never speaks to Ace about being a good person, at least from what we’ve seen, and something like that doesn’t seem to be on Ace’s mind.

Levi and Eden, however, are both major players in the notion of a good person, because of their talk at the beginning of the chapter. You could make it work for Hu, too, but I’d say she’s more looking to be a useful or reliable person than a good one. But close enough.

All in all, I don’t think culprit-Ace makes much sense, logic-wise or thematically. Especially since, at least to me, it doesn’t feel like his story is supposed to end here. That’s just how I feel, though.

If you want to bring up any other pieces of evidence, or why you think Ace is the culprit, I’d love to hear it! Since Ace is my favorite, there’s always a chance I accidentally overlooked a key piece of evidence while trying to prove his innocence.

[thefandomenchantress]

Good thing.

(spoilers for most recent drdt ep)

[thefandomenchantress]

Wait a second. (Spoilers for Chapter 2 Episode 13)

I always knew that Ace being a smartass about what the word for carousel is was important!!

The killer actually does misspell responsible as “responsibel”, meaning Teruko actually can use their comments as evidence that none of them would make this grammatical error. In fact, Ace does it twice.

Which means that Ace is 100% not the culprit, right??? RIGHT???

No but seriously making a point to show Ace is a stickler for grammar twice is very funny and also kinda weird. Drdt hides important stuff in jokes sometimes, so part of me does wonder if it will somehow be relevant to the case.

Time for a random shot in the dark as to how that would happen:

Maybe people start to get suspicious of Ace, since he saw the contraption that Nico may or may not have tried to kill him with, had a chance to grab the tape, and has been directing suspicion at people all trial. And when they get to the note and explaining how it was written, someone says that Ace would totally be dumb enough to misspell responsible.

Teruko doesn’t want them putting all their eggs in the Ace Did It basket, and knows that she didn’t see Ace grab the tape when he was getting up off the floor, so she is searching for contradictions. Cue the random guess mini game as she looks through the evidence for anything that can prove Ace isn’t the culprit. The wheel lands on Spinny Thing, and Teruko remembers this moment and tries to use it as evidence. It, at the very least, buys her time to figure out actual reasons for Ace’s innocence other than “Guys don’t just rely on Ace’s stupidity to explain any and every contradiction in logic this causes”.

Anyways yeah I wanted to point out that there is a small chance that this joke could actually help prove Ace’s, Charles’, or Nico’s innocence. They know big words and they wouldn’t misspell responsible haha.

Also, on the truth bullet it says “Carousel” but Teruko says “spinny thing” out loud. Which makes me think she was just mad about Ace correcting her earlier and, despite knowing the real term, used “spinny thing” just to piss him off.

[thefandomenchantress]

🐊🥲

tag game!

Your last emojis are your gender

🇺🇲👍

Uh

@erikaskblog @fymo-blogs

[thefandomenchantress]

Hi there 👋,

My name is Mohammad, and I’m reaching out in a moment of desperate need. I’m a father of three young children living in Gaza, and we are caught in the midst of a catastrophic war. Our home is no longer a safe haven, and the future here seems increasingly uncertain. 💔

I’ve launched a fundraising campaign with the goal of raising $40,000 to relocate my family to a safer place where my children can grow up in peace and have a chance at a brighter future. 🕊️🇵🇸

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Thank you for your time, compassion, and support. ❤

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Unvetted, but most likely real!

[thefandomenchantress]

Ooh, fun! Thanks for the tag!

Gasp! My favorite color, green! (The Fandom Enchantress was too long and wouldn’t fit in the box haha).

Everyone I would’ve tagged has already participated, I believe, so anyone else who wants to join can!

saw this on instagram and thought it was fun!! so let’s do a chain thingy, shall we?

what’s the colour palette of your name?

@paysomeonetopaysomeone @waitingforthesunrise @coffeeforkai @betweenthetimeandsound @27fanficlilies @wishtobefictional @trashmeowcan @ashlakh @malencholic-nyx