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[jacksmusesdrv3]

So this Twilight Syndrome Game Over screen in DR2 has a double meaning in it originally: ‘you’ve misunderstood’, and ‘down five times’- for starters, making it a bit more evident you have to engage with a motive’s cryptic instruction.

At first, Hajime missed out on two days on the game’s normal run, versus the truth run. As a result, the truth of the situation was distorted by omissions.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Well. This would be talking about the Virtual World happenings, but..

Unknown species of insects? Insects that spread disease…?

Suddenly, Gonta’s talent sounds a hell of a lot more dangerous.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Still working on that but it needs special care for reasons:

It's a tricky subject and I have to tread carefully

This is the 'piss on the poor' website so clarity is vital

I want to either add on to Rye's commentary of that post or make a new one later explaining in a further detail- this has been a long time coming and I wanna make sure I cover everything that's needed

(Side note: this is not a hit piece for the people responsible for our grief, but an explanation for mechanics of the problem we've been dealing with from them, as well as text issues I want to bring to light)

[jacksmusesdrv3]

In thirteen countries, 21 is the age of majority. See also: Coming of age.

The number of spots on a standard cubical (six-sided) die (1+2+3+4+5+6)

There are 21 trump cards of the tarot deck if one does not consider The Fool to be a proper trump card.

The number of firings in a 21-gun salute honoring royalty or leaders of countries

It is very often the day of the solstices in both June and December, though the precise date varies by year.

This was a list of odd (potential) significances I found regarding Ouma's birthday before I ended up streamlining to two of them here, so I thought I'd pull them up and share those too.

The significances? Let's see...

'Age'- at times is wiser than he appears, if mostly acting childish

'Six-sided die'- a nod to his group DICE, idea explained in link

'Tarot deck'- predictions, maybe even supernatural gift a la Junko

'Royalty/leaders'- he's a leader, his name (and lab door) has 'king'

'Solstice'- the opposite solstice to Junko/Mukuro. Consider, an opposite to Junko, despite the story labelling him a 'follower'

Well, that's just from a glance anyway~

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Golly, I can still remember this wild situation. Cue internal screaming a little because compared to that, DRV3′s weird/conspiracy shit isn’t even that well hidden, it’s just considerably more… ‘jumbled around’

Hell the only ‘edit’ thing as far as I know is the script book in Chapter 5, but there’s definitely encoded things too like ‘sleep in peace’ in Kaede’s lab, double meaning in the TDR logo showing 呪, who knows how much more there is

[jacksmusesdrv3]

A LOT of interesting commentary from respondents on this one- had me stuck for a while before making my own choice. Though it gave me the impression the final result would be more split! Darn, I was hoping for more of a battle

[jacksmusesdrv3]

...Woah. That did NOT go as I expected at all. The sample was kinda low here, but the split is quite fun as well as what ended up winning- I got a little bit of an idea of peoples' thoughts behind the scenes but the commentary on the poll itself was super quiet this time :' D (Never having any luck with 'elaborate' options, huh)

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Okay DRV3 Fans Let's Talk about Canon Ages.

Because I woke up and my brain connected the dots, and because some of you are fucking weird about High-school students. So let's clear the air here--and let's just say they're probably over 18 years old.

In my Gonta rant (which yes I'm linking here, go read it) I call him a young adult. Some people are under the impression (like that anon I got last night) that the V3 cast is canonly 16 or younger due to... whatever the fuck reason. But! I am here to argue a counter point--that the V3 Cast is actually much older and are more college age than young highschoolers.

First of all, let's remember the fact that in all DR games, the cast has gone to high school for some amount of years before their memories are wiped. V3 Also has this feature, and it is within the canon story that these kids remember attending HPA.

Now whether or not you believe this to be true is irrelevant right now because I need you to remember that the backstory for these characters was that they were being hunted down by the Ultimate Hunt, which means they were Ultimate Students at HPA first. Then they had their memories wiped to go into hiding. Yada yada.

The important part actually comes from Kirumi, however. Kirumi is the character that proves that the V3 cast is older than 18 years old.

Remember this tidbit--where Kirumi was the maid of the Prime Minister? Well, when do you think she became the maid for the Prime Minister, do you think?

I have an answer for you.

This is the dialogue from Kaito's "My Future" cutscene from DR:S. The "My Future" Cutscenes take place at the end of the run with the character chosen, and DR:S takes place right at the end of their 3rd year of attending HPA.

Kirumi doesn't specify who she will be working for, but considering that this person is such a big deal what she felt the need to consult Kaito about it, to help her sort out her feelings, I think we can all agree this is heavily referencing V3's plot where she is the Prime Minister's Maid.

This means that Kirumi only took the job as the Prime Minister's Maid at the very end of high school.

That means that by the time V3 runs around, she's well out of high school.

Now you can argue that V3 and DR:S aren't in the same canon--and you'd be right! I would never consider them to be canon to one another. However, this scene shows that in DRV3 and in DR:S, the intention for Kirumi to have been the Prime Minister's maid started at the very tail end of her time in high school. Same character, same backstory, different situation.

Meaning by that logic, Kirumi--as well as her other classmates--are over 18 years old in V3.

They are young adults.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Ooh! This one got interesting. Pretty good sample too :0

Since it was brought up in the notes, as to what meant what: I mean the tulpa as a purely psychological thing hence 'coping mechanism' (from what I gather on the link in the DR wiki, a tulpa is more psychologically based) and the supernatural thing (the possession) being separated. It was hard to word it without being too clunky or weird though, I hope it was clear enough

[Note: I have to emphasise 'or similar' because I'm not sure if what happened can even be described as a tulpa, or at least I'm somewhat aware of some controversy about that]

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Unsure why I am being @ with a post that's literally six years old but for the record: OP, if you have something you want to address, don't @ a six years old rant at me with stuff I don't care about any more and haven't talked about/circulated for years, address something that's current (like the pinned post and the comments I put in it?)

If this however is a glitch on Tumblr's part then Tumblr please get your fucking act together

[jacksmusesdrv3]

I want to either add on to Rye's commentary of that post or make a new one later explaining in a further detail- this has been a long time coming and I wanna make sure I cover everything that's needed

(Side note: this is not a hit piece for the people responsible for our grief, but an explanation for mechanics of the problem we've been dealing with from them, as well as text issues I want to bring to light)

[jacksmusesdrv3]

The whole Gonta = Innocent Child™ thing is so annoying by itself but people also seem to forget that he can lie when given a cause to. Just because he’s not called out for it doesn’t mean he isn’t doing it; by the same token, just because Ouma is called out on lying for every other thing, doesn’t mean he is doing so. 

Give me a Gonta who knows that part of being a gentleman is being a noble liar, and that ‘keeping up appearances’ is a necessary part of navigating the human world. Give me a Gonta who pressures and even outright manipulates someone, partly because he’s just that overpowering, but also because his strength of will - for those closest to him - is strong enough that he can and will fight dirty. And oh my goodness me, give me a Gonta who’s an expert at reading the air after a lifetime of parsing the chattering animal and bug voices.

Really, I’m so over the (frankly boring) idea that Ouma manipulated Gonta when the reality is, these two have a great deal more in common than it looks.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

I know I've twisted myself into a goddamn pretzel the past five or so years trying not to be 'too much' and backing off when I am

but

A good deal of why I started the #dr literacy tag is precisely because of this- I am beyond tired and fed up, with the kinds of things that people have ignored and left on my back- whether it's to do with Kokichi, or V3 overall. It's easy to deflect and call me 'delusional', and five years later never even consider the implications of having called me that over what I've been trying to grapple with, much less apologise to me sincerely and genuinely try to understand where I'm coming from and why it's so hard to discuss in the first place- not to mention why it's so easy to make mistakes not least because the way Kodaka plays with themes can be decidedly insensitive (and I was clearly out of my depth with that when I started this blog)

This isn't about all of you. A good number of people here have been wonderful about this, even if they don't understand all too well. But frankly such people are the exception rather than the rule, and the rule is that people don't bother to interrogate their own biases about Kokichi, or really grapple with the way him and V3's narrative might be constructed with bias. And this unwillingness to accept ambiguity and nuance results in some genuinely hurtful behaviour towards people who try to point out that, maybe, not everything was even his fault, or that his character and situation is far more layered than it appears on a first run of the game. Or even a second, or third.

So I'm gonna need people in that camp to swear that you'll do better about this going forward. No really. This situation I've been in didn't come out of nowhere, and while I've beaten the proverbial horse to death that I haven't always been fair or reasonable either, that does not mean I should just back myself into a wall and take the status quo that is 'Tsumugi is telling the truth and Kokichi is just a clown' as a 'fact of canon'. Because there's a very good chance that that might not even be true, and that there's even more tangled messes Kodaka left in the text to unpack that you never even thought of, and that really NEED extra care and nuance to fully understand.

I know you're probably sick of hearing this from me by now. But this is an issue that can never be helped until it's faced head on, and the effect of basically being pathologised over it (due to *checks notes* autism), is seriously damaging- the inability of people to address things as serious issues and themes rather than 'just the pet theory that came out of my nutty head', is something I cannot, on principle, force myself to accept. So please just think about the way you're approaching issues in the future. I will try to do the same.

[jacksmusesdrv3]

Okay in all seriousness. There's something that I REALLY want to talk about as an open discussion with the fandom, but. This is not going to be a very nice thing to hear/talk about.

It's about how Gonta is treated by the fandom.

As a fan of all the V3 characters now, and as someone who has always been a fan of Gonta, and as someone who has many mental disabilities and two diagnosed neurodivergancies... I'm tired of playing nice about it.

You all need to stop being ableist towards Gonta.

I've mentioned in the past that I don't like shitting on personal interpretations. I don't like saying something is or is not canon because narration is just a big web of text that you try to decipher with your own personal biases, experiences, and thoughts. That's why two literary analysts analyzing the same text with the same literary criticism rules can come to wildly different conclusions--why people develop different headcanons from the same canonical information.

But one of the things that challenged my integrity is just how many people view Gonta as this innocent, naive, ignorant, baby boy who can do no harm/never has a complicated/dirty/violent/sexual thought in his life ever.

This incredibly ableist interpretation of the character bothered me for, well, obvious reasons (See: It's fucking ableist, need I say more?) but I never challenged it as harshly as I am now because to be frank, it's not my place to tell people how to HC a character. It still isn't. But I've pretty much given up on my integrity on the subject and have decided to go all in on discussing why this interpretation of Gonta is just. Really bad.

First of all, not to promote my own analyses here or anything, but I think this analysis I did of Gonta explains a LOT in regards to the ableism the cast gives him in canon. I also think that this subtle ableism is why the fandom is so bad with Gonta's characterization in headcanons and fanfic--because they've seen how the cast treats him, and they think it's normal. They don't see the microaggressions, they don't see the subtle ableism in the cast--they just see this big giant idiot who speaks like Tarzan in the English version (which... I don't actually know why people assume Tarzan (Thinking of Disney's version) is stupid. Like as a boy he had to reinvent the spear with no one to guide him on how to do it. He was able to strategize and outsmart "civilized" men in the final showdown. Still I digress) and don't see the literal genius behind his social awkwardness.

There is also another very important point I'm going to make in addition to this, and it's going to be very uncomfortable to Gonta fans who insist he's nothing but a sweet baby who only has pure thoughts. Especially to the fans who insist he "can't be sexual" or think it's weird to ship him with his peers.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but... Gonta blatantly has sexual desire and gets horny right in canon.

This is further clarified here:

It wasn't a matter of Gonta didn't want to touch her because touching someone in their underwear was inappropriate, or being flustered because she was in her underwear which is inappropriate...

It was literally a "weird feeling" that made him unable to approach her or touch her. A "weird feeling" that Miu makes pretty obvious as to what it was--sexual arousal.

He literally was sexually attracted to and felt sexual arousal from looking at Miu in her underwear. He had sexual feelings and thoughts about Miu. Why?

Because Gonta is a young man.

Gonta is a brilliant, talented young man who has normal human thoughts for someone his age--sexual desires, upsetting thoughts, complicated thoughts, ectect. He is not a child, he is not mentally stunted (I've been informed that people have literally said this on Ao3 for the NSFW Gonta fics, please for the love of god stop that)

I think the reason why Gonta fans typically want to keep him as a "pure baby child who can do no wrong" is because treating him like the young adult that he is makes it harder for them to justify Chapter 4. Every time I've seen a Gonta fan that hates Kokichi, it's always followed by the sentiment of "Kokichi manipulated and abused Gonta into killing Miu, so it's all Kokichi's fault." They're afraid of nuance and liking a character with the grey morality of genuinely thinking Mercy Killing the cast is a viable option, because it challenges their own morals about the character they adore.

To those people who read this and are upset: You can and should like Gonta! Gonta is a magnificent character who showcases the subtle way microaggressions can manifest and hurt people, he's a good-hearted person and a literal genius, he cares deeply for his friends and loves everyone with upmost sincerity.

But.

You need to re-evaluate your stance on Gonta if you think he's a stupid, naive fool who Kokichi manipulated. You need to re-evaluate why you think those thoughts, why you think Gonta being shipped with anyone is "Kinda weird" or "has weird consent problems" or "give you the ick." You have to challenge yourself and ask yourself uncomfortable questions in regards to why you treat Gonta like a child when canon has proven otherwise, why you think he cannot have violent or sexual thoughts, why he can't think mercy killing his class is the only way to save them.

This isn't an attack on you--but understand that these specific takes on Gonta? They are ableist in nature. They belittle and dismiss him, they treat him like a child, an idiot who can't think for himself--and you have to come to terms with the fact that Gonta is a far more complex character with complicated thoughts and feelings who is a young adult. Not a child. A young adult.

So again, ask yourself this: Why are you treating this young adult like he's a toddler?

[jacksmusesdrv3]

I have many thoughts about Rantaro potentially being a blackened and I need to know if anyone else sees it

[jacksmusesdrv3]

[Note: I have to emphasise 'or similar' because I'm not sure if what happened can even be described as a tulpa, or at least I'm somewhat aware of some controversy about that]

[jacksmusesdrv3]

I swear to- here I am capping some stuff due to an analytical discussion with a friend, I lag for too long and this shit happens-

Introducing: Hardjime and Nagithoe