#I'd say I'm feeling very inspired in that regard so that's good :]

[yeleltaan]

//Hello! I just got done with an exam that was bugging me, and I’ve been a bit quiet lately, so here’s another update on how things are going.

As I mentioned in my previous ooc post, study stress and overall difficulty concentrating has been a persistent annoyance and obstacle from writing, so I’ve been taking steps to improve my habits.

Probably my best decision, I’ve recently started going to BJJ and MMA classes! My physical activity has been sorely lacking since the covid pandemic began, so I knew that was one of the main issues to tackle. I’ve been enjoying them a lot and I think this is going to prove a very good change for my mental and physical health, the effects of which should become more noticeable in the mid-term. I kinda went from 0 to 100 with them, so last week was exhausting and rather painful, but I don’t regret it. This week was a lot more pleasant and I can already tell I’ve regained much of my discipline and reflexes.

Besides that, I’ve been trying to be more mindful of my sleeping habits and go to bed at the right hour. This is still very much a work in progress, it’s tough to beat that self-feeding cycle of “I can’t focus so studies take longer, I have less time to myself and I can’t make full use of it either so I’m reluctant to end the day, I didn’t sleep enough so I can’t focus”. I think this will be a gradual process, though I can already tell that the greater physical activity helps make me feel more tired and willing to rest.

I’m diversifying my workspace as well, since that can help your brain distinguish when it’s time to work and when it’s time to rest. But I’ve been inconsistent on which spots I use for work, which I use for (thinking-heavy) hobbies and which I use to rest, so I’ll need to correct that in order to really make this effective.

Anyways, I was hesitant to make this post until I could really show this progress as opposed to talking about it, but I figure it’s better than staying quiet for very long. I also don’t quite now how early I’ll really start to improve my pace in writing, setting goals is tempting but too many times my predictions on this blog (or Ornstein’s blog, my God) have been proven wrong so... we’ll see how that goes.

Besides working on replies, I might also do a few of those headcanon prompts I’ve been tagged in (thanks all who did! Even though I haven’t really been doing them lately, I appreciate that you still thought to mention me). Also wondering if some tweaks to the blog might also help with motivation (reviewing the rules, the about page, using more “distinct” and consistent tags... might even try making tags for each dynamic, maybe even for alternate versions of the same muse as well, but I’m still undecided and can’t promise anything yet).

Oh, and I fixed the issue that was making submissions impossible to send, so that’s a start. With that said, hope you’re all doing well, and if not, may that change soon!

[wispscribbles]

hi i just discovered your beautiful art so i obviously needed to scroll down your whole blog to catch up on everything you posted haha

i just wanted to say that i got way too emotional after reading that post of yours regarding mw3 and your mental health… on one hand i’m so sorry that you felt that way, but on the other i feel it with my whole heart

ghoap content especially for me helped me these past few months with my mental health in ways i would never have expected, it was my solace and inspiration, i started working out too and got back into drawing, got a lot better at it as well!

but unfortunately i get way too fixated on fictional stuff and there comes a time that my brain switches up and connects the things i liked and comforted me with things that make me extremely uncomfortable and stressed out, especially if i fall down a fandom rabbit hole that i would never have searched up, beacuse i know myself, i know my limits and triggers but i feel like i’m not a part of the fandom if i don’t like and interact with every single headcanon, art and ship

these past days i was really down because of that, and the things i read (why did i do that???) and now when i think of ghoap i think of that stuff and im scared that i alienated myself from the one thing that made me happy

but discovering your art and with that your post reminded me that im not alone in these feelings, even if it’s not the same exactly, and i wanted to thank you, for sharing your thoughts that time i guess haha <33

((sorry for rambling))

Long reply under 'keep reading' !! CW: talk of triggers and MCD

Always feel free to ramble my way!!! How nice you could find some comfort in my art and ghoap stuff. Especially in my mw3 post. I've been considering deleting it a few times, but hearing it maybe helped to read in some way makes me happy I left it up.

I get where you're coming from - I very much use these fictional characters as a safe space, but ppl view them very differently. There's room for it all, "don't like, don't interact" is very much a policy I agree with. It's important to mute words and be aware of your own triggers as you browse stuff in this fandom, because there's such a wide variety of stuff out there. You do NOT have to interact and agree with every thought people have on this ship, that's impossible and super stressful. There's plenty of stuff and headcanons I don't vibe with. There are no 'requirements' that you have to meet in order to enjoy fiction.

It's part of why I enjoy ghoap - that their dynamic resonates and has sparked so much creativity and outlets for so many - but it also means there's gonna be a lot of stuff u don't necessarily agree with or feel comfortable with. For example, a lot of folks use the MCD in mw3 as a way to explore grief, which I think is really cool, but on a bad day that could potentially get my brain in a bad headspace, so I only check out that art and those fics when I feel okay. There's also a bunch of stuff I'd never want to interact with, and that’s fine !!

I'm personally quite vanilla and a sucker for exploring the softer, more domestic aspects of these characters. It's what brings me joy. I know there are parts of this fandom who don’t vibe with what I make at all, and would call it untrue to the characters. Some creators enjoy exploring the more violent or toxic sides to the source material. That's just how it is, we all need different things from fiction. As long as we're capable of chilling in our respective sandboxes, then all's good.

But if you're like me, and enjoy the softer things, then definitely be aware and careful while exploring this ship and fandom. I've seen takes on these characters that are so far removed from how I view them, that they're basically the complete opposite, and it can leave a very bad taste, especially if you're the type to hinge your safe space on fiction.

Just... be mindful of yourself and your potential triggers, be respectful and don't interact with things that make you uncomfortable to the point of feeling unsafe. Shape your own online experience to your best ability.

Hope you're doing okay and still find joy in ghoap <3

[dancingundermoonlight101]

-Orion Pax's Diary-

Is there a right way to love? Or is love subjective to the one experiencing it? It is not often me and Megaronus speak on the subject. He thinks it is something only those privileged enough to not worry about death are allowed to feel and pursue. But that doesn't mean we haven't talked about it.

I have heard, whether he knows it or not, the exact way he'd love. He'd not be shy on compliments. Megaronus would admire the one he loves from head to pede and say out loud how beautiful they'd be. Gorgeous. He'd admire their frame silently, too. His optics full of worship.

It has me thinking about the way I love him. I feel like I'm lacking. I know subjectively that Megatronus is a very attractive mech, yet that's not what I think about when I'm with him. I think on the way he makes me feel, how his presence draws me in, and how his words always capture my attention. He is a melody I'd never tire of hearing. A flawed painting that I'd never tire of seeing. But even so, do I truly love him if I can't even compliment his looks? It feels like a no-brainer in my processor. Megatronus is undeniably attractive. But I feel like since it's such an obvious thing that it would be alright to not mention it. Primus, why am I even thinking about this? Megatronus doesn't love me. But.. if we were to be together. Would this be the cause of some problems? Would he want to receive compliments but find none with me? I don't want that. I want Megatronus to always know how much I love him! But do I really love him? Well, the answer is yes. But what if it's just deep admiration? Sure, my spark aches to think him betrothed to another, and I might already be planning a lonely future for myself where he's already conjuxed, and I can't let go of these feelings. But what if they're just that? Daydreams? Could I be in love with how unattainable he is?

My reason for thinking this is how often dreams I'm having include me and Megaronus possibly being together. Megatronus confessed to me in one of them, yet I felt conflicted. I wanted to emediatly say yes, but another part of me felt speechless. I didn't want to accept, but I didn't want to deny either. Neither I nor him are ready for commitment. He himself has told me that. I wouldn't want to selfishly jump into a relationship that won't last. I want me and Megaronus to be together for a long, long time. But these dreams keep reminding me how I'm likely not going to want a relationship with him without that trust that I'm not just a spur of the moment choice.

It's foolish and an insult to Megatronus to think him so shallow. He would definitely put a lot of thought into his decision. But the anxiety in my spark can't help but think that I'm not going to be worthy of such thought. That if he were to confess to me, I would just be the easy option because of how much I want to be with him. It hurts. I have never felt such conflicting feelings inside me. Would others judge me? "Why love a mech you can't trust?" Or "If you don't want to be something with him right now, why still pursue him?"

I love him, and I do trust him. I just don't trust myself. Who would love and cherish the thoughts and ideas of a boring librarian like me? I'm not even that attractive, nor am I strong. He would definitely want to be with someone as strong as him. His equal. Megatronus has a mind like no other. I hope that, if I try hard enough, I can stand together with him. At least in that regard.

He challenges my thinking, my way of life. I love how he inspires change in me like no other. Perhaps I have tunnel vision, but I see no other future I'd rather have than one where me and him are together. There would never be a day I wouldn't thank Primus for letting me be lucky enough to be with him. Where I wouldn't try my best to let him know how much he is loved. How he is worthy of every achievement. I would comfort him, too, to the best of my abilities when something is wrong.

I just.. want to experience all the good and bad that life has to offer with him. Forever. It's just.. not the right time.

Will there ever be a right time?

[campbyler]

our chapters average at 27,000 words, the total fic length is already 3x the average novel length, and we lost one of the authors working on this fic. it must be so nice to only have to endure the wait for a chapter to be uploaded so that you can interact with it rather than being the one to actually write it.

im going to be cruel (no pun intended) to be kind: this is such an intense externalisation of blame. you are the ones in control of the fic length; the chapters could handle some heavy editing and it wouldnt make them any less wonderful (such as regarding the descriptions of mike and will's internal thoughts, not the action between the characters themselves). fic is free and its a gift to be able to read works that inspire our hearts and minds while we wait for the show, but then again, when at the stern of a juggernaut work such as this, one that will inevitably have many followers chomping at the bit on tumblr as well as ao3 (as you designed it to have!), you surely must be aware of something that only usually exists in professional marketing spaces involving customers + brand IP: the relationship between consumer and creator, and what they can give each other.

not 'owe each other' - nothing is owed, except perhaps basic human kindness. fans want your work, and its free, so we should be grateful; likewise, you want readers, feedback and clicks, and that should be free, too. but in order for this to work smoothly, there has to be fair give and take. i mean, if you wanted to monetize the fic i'm sure many people would pay to read it, but thats beside the point here.

what fans of this fic simply want is the same honesty and self-awareness from you that they might expect from any artist who has embarked on such am ambitious project. and this doesnt just mean transparency about potential uploading dates (which is already much appreciated by the majority!), or notifications about how hard it is to balance work and life (something most people on the planet struggle with). it means total honesty and hard answers. people like to know where they stand. plenty of writers (both professional and fan alike) abandon works for months, years at a time, and if the work is THAT good, people will always be thrilled to see a return. it's the mucking people about that is what destroys relationships - no matter how good your reasons are.

your fic is wonderful and very, very memorable. you could take a big, undefined hiatus and people would, im sure, return, including me. seeing you admit that you have been prioritizing this fic over your mental health does not inspire confidence either, or even comfort - do i want to read something that has caused the creator such harm?

i think everything about this process would be happier for everyone if you set boundaries that work for you and didn't place blame elsewhere. after all, as you said, it's just a fanfic. it doesnt matter if you don't finish it. it doesnt matter if it takes all the way to s5 for 10.2 to release. everyone would, though, appreciate you taking a stance and being consistent (and therefore fair) to both yourselves and the readers.

please feel free to not post this publicly or do as you wish with it.

hello! thank you for your feedback and for sharing it in a way that is both kind and respectful. you make many valid points that i agree with -- we are in control of the word counts and could stand to edit down more, and we do recognize where being transparent about the reasons behind the chapter delays might not inspire confidence or comfort. i do, however, think that isolating one response/chain of responses to a particular ask is a little unfair, so i'd like to provide additional context.

i do not think that it's fair to say that we haven't been honest, self-aware, or fair, because we have been incredibly transparent throughout the entire run of the fic (over a year) about our writing process. just last month suni said she hadn't been working on 10.2 at all because abby had been visiting her house, and readily took ownership of that fact. there was a 4-month wait between chapters 9.1 and 9.2, and i was very open about the fact that i simply needed a break for at least the first of those months because i didn't want to write it. we have continued to maintain several times that we are not abandoning the fic, even if it takes longer between chapters, and have tried to stay as active as possible on the blog because we know that seeing us interact with asks Does inspire confidence. if you just scroll down and see how we have answered other asks inquiring about the upload, we responded kindly and respectfully.

what you interpreted as externalization of blame in that one (1!) ask response was me trying to provide perspective to someone who clearly lacked it. we understand that people will be frustrated about chapter delays, especially if we keep pushing them back, and this is also something that we have received feedback about before and tried to implement; however, it is also a double-edged sword where if we don't give an estimated upload, people get upset, or we give an estimated upload that we think is completely reasonable for us to achieve and then hurdles get in the way, whether it's writer's block or work or time with friends. i absolutely get the frustration on the receiving end, but something i have learned from being in this fandom for two years is that a pretty big majority of those who are interacting with fanworks are not creating it themselves, hence why my response -- while snippy and annoyed, because i was matching the energy, and will not apologize for that -- was contextualizing the whys behind the chapter delay: the chapters are long, the fic is long, we are down one entire body from where we started. the intention was not to shuck blame off of ourselves, but i get that intentions don't always translate into effect, so it's understandable that it was received differently.

we don't always respond to things perfectly. when we have a million and one asks inquiring about the next upload, one stray one that comes off the wrong way is likely going to set us off, because we are people, and this is not a job. we have set a boundary by disabling anon, and again, i cannot stress enough how much i appreciate that you've come to us with this feedback off-anon and with respect and decency. i get where you are coming from and again, agree with a lot of your points.

the only other thing i want to make clear is that this fic, no matter how much attention its garnered, should not be treated as a creator/consumer relationship that mirrors anything where the exchange of money is involved. not only is it unfair to apply this standard to fanworks, where it is illegal to monetize such content, but the entire purpose of fanworks is to celebrate what you are a fan of together. when you apply expectations on either end -- i am a fan of this work, therefore, people should create timely content for it; i am creating this fanwork, therefore, people should interact with it -- defeats the entire nature of fan-created work as a whole. while we have continued to be vocally grateful for the love and support our fic has been shown, we both maintain that we would continue writing and continue uploading even if we were getting less than half of the amount of interaction that we do. it's nice to have interaction, but not necessary, because we what write and post is done because we love it, and it's shared so that we can look back on it, so our friends can enjoy it, and anyone else who might want to. we are, of course, excited to share that world with anyone who cares -- we created the blog and the promo because we wanted to share it -- but that does not mean that the relationship between us and our readers should have expectations. we are all creating and enjoying this work for free for the sake of love for the characters, as the star trek obsessed housewives of the 60s (and the law) have intended.

i feel like this response is a bit jumbled so i apologize if anything isn't clear or hard to understand. thank you again for your time!

[runawaymun]

so.. reading and looking at your fics and art kinda makes me wanna try my hand at some stuff too (they are just so beautiful and elicit so many feels), but. you seem so knowledgeable and familiar with tolkien/elves lore (and so does everyone else i've started reading in this community of elf-lovers on tumblr haha) and i'm most assuredly not. i don't get so many of the world-building allusions authors make about the history/culture/magic, which is easy enough to deal with when reading, but do you think i'd be able to write anything good with such limited understanding of the world i'm writing in? i'm not even confident enough for modern au's because idek that much about the character's relationships/connections with each other, y'know? but what do you think? would the holes i have or straight up inaccuracies rly weaken the story and interrupt the reader's connection to the world/character's, or could i still get by? tolkien's worldbuilding is so intimidating lol

Oh my goodness, this is such a sweet ask.

I'm really glad that you love my art and writing so much, and I consider it SUCH a huge compliment that it inspires you to make your own! That's what it's all about, honestly.

So first off I just want to address the anxiety around the lore-knowledge and the Tolkien fandom because listen listen listen, there are people of every level of knowledge creating art and fics here. Let me just say that when I first published And the Stars Shine the Same three years ago, I was mostly working off of film knowledge and some vague book knowledge, and I was petrified to post it because of how intimidating the Tolkien fandom seemed. I was so worried about getting this wrong and making mistakes -- so know that you're not alone in that, and it is a very common anxiety in this fandom. The thing is, when I posted that fic I found that people loved it, and that everyone was so nice, and really I have not had anybody (save maybe...one person off the top of my head) get very nitpicky about the lore/language/etc. Everybody else was very nice, loved the fic, and super receptive and friendly.

I promise you that there are so many lovely people in this fandom and that, while they're extremely knowledgeable they're also so friendly. Nearly everybody I know would be delighted if you came into their inbox and asked them a question about their specific area of interest with regards to the Silm and LOTR. There are amazing resources in this fandom, and everybody is very happy to help when asked. When I was getting started I mostly talked to friends, looked at other fanart (because honestly there is a LOT of information packed into how people portray characters in fanart for this fandom), and when I wasn't sure on something I just checked the wikis. I believe Tolkien Gateway is one of the best resources, though I also use The One Wiki to Rule Them All, and this is one of the best resources I've found for just a quick look at common Sindarin phrases, and for everything else I use Parf Edhellen which is an incredibly comprehensive dictionary for Tolkien's various elvish languages. And if you're not sure on something, just send a call out into the void because there are dozens of besties on Tumblr who are happy to offer suggestions for names or phrase translations. There's also so much information on Youtube.

I didn't even get around to reading the Silm and rereading LOTR until I felt like it. Honest to god I looked at the wikis and asked friends for most of the stuff I needed.

And I know how intimidating it can be to build your own story within Tolkien's world, but for me what I liked so much about his work is that--- while he is specific on some things, he's also very vague on others. There is a lot of room for interpretation and your own headcannons and worldbuilding. That was part of why I chose the historical spot I did for Stars and Boundless Sky, because it was sort of "dead space" so to speak with regards to Tolkien's own worldbuilding, and so I was able to play around and do my own thing without worrying too much about stepping all over lore.

But okay, all of that to say: yes you can write good stories without being super knowledgeable. Please believe me you can. You can write whatever you want, so long as you love it, and it is yours. If you have a story you want to tell in Tolkien's little legendarium then please, please do. Tolkien's legendarium is a mythology, and mythologies are meant to be retold and reinterpreted. Tolkien's canon is incredibly loosy-goosey. There are parts of unfinished tales where Christopher Tolkien wrote: "I really couldn't make sense of my dad's notes, so here's everything. Knock yourself out ig" (notably, "Of Galadriel and Celeborn").

And Peter Jackson was fairly faithful when it comes to the og trilogy. Like there are things that I take issue with that are pet peeves of mine, and I know that's the same for a lot of people as well. Everybody has their things they take umbrage with and things they like, but generally if that's your base for knowledge you're going to be just fine to start writing fic. If you decide you want to research more, then that's up to you and the story you are trying to tell! If you're working off of the Hobbit films, that's a little different, but in general the Hobbit fandom is pretty chill when it comes to that. I would suggest reading the book if you can find the time to. It's an easy read and short, and it is very, very different to the films.

With the LOTR books...I know a lot of people are book purists and that's okay, and a lot of people go "oh you really SHOULD read the books", but tbqh as a lover of both, I think the films do a good job of telling you the heart of the story (barring a few characters like...uh. Elrond, whom PJ absolutely butchers, but I digress sorry sorry). The books do add a lot and deepen the meaning for a lot of things, and flesh a lot of characters out (and they're just fun to read), but again... yes you can write good stories without being super knowledgeable. I will say that over and over again nonnie I am grabbing you by the shoulders and looking you dead in the eye: please write your story if you want to. Please do not be afraid to just give it a stab. If you find that your lack of knowledge is holding you back for some reason, just ask! So many people will be happy to answer your questions.

Fanfiction is for everybody. Tolkien is for everybody. You do not have to be the most incredible skilled writer or know the lore really well to be able to write it. Please believe me as a person who was scared to write for the Tolkien fandom and then fell in love: people really do not gatekeep much, and if they do they're assholes. I have met so many lovely, friendly, genuine people by creating stuff for this fandom. You will be okay.

So...ough this got long, sorry. But TLDR: Yes. You can write a good story. If you are worried about holes/the story/characterization getting weakened, try to find a beta reader. They're absolute life-savers. Barring that, start posting, find a friend who as insane about your blorbos as you are, and then share snippets and plot ideas with them and within that kind of community you can get a feel for what's working in your story and what isn't. All of my best friends I have made on here are people who read my fics and have been so helpful in offering suggestions.

There are many resources, everybody is friendly, it is not as scary as it looks. The most important thing is that you have fun. Write what you want to write. It doesn't have to be good. All that matters is that you enjoy it.

[ariaste]

Hi! Regarding your recent post about how you taught your writing workshops, I was reading through it and was feeling very inspired (you sound amazing as a teacher), but I also really wish I had a community like that. Since I'm currently focusing on an original work, I was wondering how do you go about finding fellow writers/betas that you can trust with work and form a mutual writing relationship with? I've looked for and joined many communities like Nanowrimo and discord servers over the years, yet nothing seemed to click? So yeah sorry for the bother but I was wondering if you had any advice :D

Re: "you sound amazing as a teacher" -- aw thanks! I was an INCREDIBLE teacher. That might sound kind of vain to say with so much assurance, but it truly was the first time in my life where I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was doing a really, really fucking good job. (And that's WITH my anxiety, so like. Oof.) I just set out on purpose to be the kind of teacher I always longed to have when I was an apprentice writer, and that got me most of the way there. The rest was just spite for all the shitty creative writing classes I'd had before LOL. I'd already seen all the mistakes myself from the other side, so I just came up with better ways of doing things. And then day one of class, I had them all do a self-assessment of what they wanted to learn in the class, what fears they had, etc, and I was really struck by how universal the sense of insecurity and under-confidence was in all their replies. So that just confirmed what I already suspected, to wit: my ONE JOB (and again, this was a "writing and publishing scifi/fantasy" class) was just to hammer in the idea of, "Your ideas ARE cool, the things you think are cool ARE IN FACT COOL, you ARE allowed to write about queer dragons or whatever and that's an awesome thing to be doing and I'm HERE FOR IT." If the one thing a student takes from a creative writing class is more confidence in their writing and more trust in themself, then the goal has been achieved. If a teacher says anything else, we're verging on snobbery (Iowa Writer's Workshop can go get fucked btw)

ANYWAY.

Finding a beta you click with is a lot like finding a friend or a romantic partner who you click with. That is: there's a lot of fish in the sea, but not all of them are going to be right for you, and sometimes it takes a while to find that special person. It sounds like you're doing all of the right things, though, so just keep at it.

That said, a couple lifehacks: do NOT talk about your work with the vibes of "hey, i'm looking for a beta, does anyone want to beta for me?" because (at least in my experience) those acquaintances often turn out to be sort of transactional and shallow -- think of people who walk into any situation like "hey will you be my girlfriend? i'm looking for a girlfriend. do you want to date me as my girlfriend??? will someone please be my girlfriend?" rather than trying to make genuine connections with people as *people* versus the role that the girlfriend-seeker wants to put them in. (Exception to this: Fandom-specific servers where you are looking for a beta for a fic. Then it's less weird to ask out loud for a beta, because you've already established a mutual shared interest/passion. It's not cold-calling in the same way, you get me??)

Instead, aim to project vibes of "I'm having so much fun playing in my sandbox :) I am having so much fun by myself, maybe too much fun in fact [psychically broadcasting that the fun is in such abundance around here that there would be enough to share if someone happened to wander past...]" Post about your work, talk about it in public, give people little excerpts or tidbits you're proud of. Look for people who express interest in the sort of fun you're having, and then start up conversations about it. Look for people who are having the sort of fun of their own that you're interested in, compliment them on it and ask questions, and build a relationship. (If they're writing the sort of thing you're into, chances are that you're writing the sort of thing they're into. Not always, but frequently!)

Sometimes it is possible to take an existing friend who is interested in your work (or at least supportive of it and loving of you) and kind of train them into being a great beta reader even if they themselves are not really a writer. It takes a lot of self-knowledge of what you're looking for and what you need in terms of feedback, it takes some patience and trust in your relationship with them, it takes the ability to negotiate boundaries and ask really good questions, and it takes a friend who is game to try and who likes the sort of things you like. (Personal recommendation: Don't try to get feedback from someone who isn't even interested in the genre that you're writing. A dedicated literary fiction fan is probably going to have a REAL hard time appreciating your gruesome scifi horror book for what it is, and if they're not familiar with the genre conventions, their suggestions are predisposed to be kind of Weird and Not Right For What You're Writing. Accept their love and support, but also accept that neither of you are going to have a good time if they try to beta for you.)

Trying to build relationships in an open community like a forum or a Discord server is a good way to cast a wide net, but all deep lasting relationships happen on a single line between you and the other person, so look for opportunities to talk to people one-on-one in DMs to build that kind of creative intimacy.

It takes time! But if you're open about the things that are bringing you joy and you're talking about them and setting them out in plain sight, the right people will eventually be drawn to your joy/fun like moths to a flame. Humans cannot resist that shit.

If you've been doing that and it's still not working, check in with yourself -- is your project actually bringing you joy, or are you going through the motions? Readjust, reorient yourself, try again. Lean into it. Go hard or go home. If you're really truly genuinely having fun by yourself, then your eventual readers will too.

If you're doing all THAT and it's STILL not working (that is, if people are expressing initial interest but you can't hold their attention and they wander off once they read your work), then that's a signal that you've got a tension problem.

GOOD LUCK. You will find your people eventually, just keep going! :)

[kalivasquezart]

Just wanted to say that I absolutely love your au about the Pioneer. Its so well thought out and just overall amazing and oh boy dont even get me started on your art— absolutely beautiful💖💕

I also am working on an au based off of Artis pups and when I found you I was like 🫢🫵 Very similar ideas 👀👀👀Also Hunter as Pioneer’s mentor is SUCH A COOL CONCEPT— Like like cause Hunters my favorite scug and the fact that you included him in your au and as Marbles’ mentor is just *squeals* but it also makes a lot of sense considering he comes a little bit after Arti and is one of the few scugs who can encounter pups in their campaign. I also wanted to ask if its okay with you if I use that idea/concept in my own au 👉👈

I was also thinking about Pioneer’s brother— Ik you said that you hc him as being dead, like officially, but I thought it would be interesting if he was still alive. I personally was inspired to let him live in my au simply because of some official art of Gorum (specifically his endings art especially the food quest one where he has a suspiciously familiar green slugpup). I was thinking something like what happened to Surv and Monk (the one-way pipe considering the fact that he kind of began to drift to the right as he sank) happened to him and Gorum found him. Idk these are just ideas Im using for my own au but thought I would share.

I just realized this is super long sorry HANDNAND I am insane and write too much

ahhhh thank you for the kind words skek YOU FLATTER ME~

[there are rain world spoilers regarding artificer's capaign below, be warned]

while my current headcanon is that the green pup died, i've been thinking very hard about it for the last week or so, and IMO there's a high chance i will retcon that. if the pipe thing is canon to Surv/Monk campaigns then i'm even more eager to adopt that idea. my only real hold-up about the pup was that we clearly see it drown in Arti's dream (the same flashing aura behaviour when you swim underwater), and if he really did drown then the only way to bring him back to life would be through karmic rebirth "last checkpoint save" kind of thing… which feels a bit cheap? a little too simple for me. i'm heavily biased here, because a while ago i read an interesting lore post of someone trying to explain why Arti's pups wouldn't "respawn" if they were killed, while Arti did. in short, the pups were too young to be bound by karma and so when they died, they died for good (reincarnated as a different creature, maybe) - but Artificer being an adult and already having experienced the urges before, was brought back. if i can, i will try to find that post again, and link it here.

ANYWAY yeah, personal AUs don't have to strictly comform to the game's canon, i keep forgetting about that. hell, i've seen people revive scav king or, i dunno, SOS from the dead, and they made it work.

speaking of my AU again, i may also have headcanon'd Arti's mate as a semi-aquatic scug (less freaky than riv tho), and so Bryn/green pup would have inherited some of those genes, making him more likely to survive the drowning. so yeah, i think i like the storytelling potential of keeping the pup alive, althought i'd have to sit down and do a proper brainstorming on what that means… when Arti and Marbles eventually reunite with their long lost other half of the family.

by the way, if you (or anyone else reading this post) wants to use my ideas in their own AU then i'm okay with that! no need to credit or anything. many people come up with similar concepts anyway, it'd be silly to try and police them on it.

[jjs-brainrot]

Are there any yuri manga/anime that you would recommend to a new fan of the genre? Everyone swears by Utena but I don't think I have the mental fortitude for a show like that yet.

Sure thing!

Bloom Into You by Nio Nakatani

(manga and anime)

It's the classic newcomer entry point but there's a reason it's still as highly lauded as it is: It is just that good. It's got excellent drama, the main two characters have a really great and intriguing dynamic between them and it much more openly acknowledge the queerness of it's characters then a lot of yuri before it did. A lot of the more recent yuri mangakas regard it as a major inspiration, and the anime getting as big as it did tends to be seen as one of the major factors in the yuri boom we've been experiencing the last 4 years or so.

Both the anime and manga for it are excellent, though the anime only covers the first couple of volumes (which unfortunately is something I can say about about most stuff on this list as yuri anime tend to not get more then a single cour...)

Whisper Me a Love Song by Eku Takeshima

(manga and anime (not recommended))

Had to get at least one band yuri on the list. Unfortunately, the recent anime for Whisper Me a Love Song kind of turned into a trash fire. Which sucks as the manga itself is quite excellent. Early chapters are very cute and sweet and the later chapters have some very spicy drama.

I really can't recommend the anime for this one so it's a manga only recommendation outside of maybe checking out a playlist of the songs from the anime when they appear in the manga.

How Do We Relationship? by Tamifull

(manga only atm)

Hands down one of the best examinations/dissection of what it means to be in a relationship from any romance series I've ever read. Every character feels like they're written as people with their own likes/dislikes and feelings towards romance and sex instead of romance character archetypes. it genuinely feels like you're watching people navigate their differences to make a relationship work rather than a "these two were made for each other" style romance series.

That being said, this is probably the hardest to read series on this list as it can absolutely get way too real at times and also does not shy away from talking about heavier subject such as homophobia, trauma, etc.

School Zone Girls by Ningiyau

(manga only atm)

This is basically a Nichijou/Daily Lives of High School Boys style slapstick comedy but full blown yuri. If you're a fan of stupid x stupid, this is the series for you as there are so many morons (affectionate) in love with each other here.

Unfortunately, the manga is currently on indefinite hiatus while the mangaka works on other projects which is the main downside of this one but it's still def worth checking out.

I'm in Love with the Villainess by Inori

(light novel(audiobook version also available), manga and anime)

Otome game villainess isekai romcom that is very gay while also being extremely frank when it comes to discussing queerness, bigotry and uneven wealth/power distribution. It's a series that that ardently refuses to use subtext at every turn which is quite respectable given how many yuri tend to dance around discussing queerness outside of "they're in love". It's not perfect and does have its flaws (enough to get labelled as "problematic" by the usual ingrates) but its strengths easily elevate it to one best yuri series from last couple of years.

The anime and manga are both excellent (with both the JP and EN dubs of the anime being fantastic) but they are pretty behind compared to the light novels (anime only goes up to the first chapter of the second book and the manga is roughly 70% through the second book). The light novels are genuinely excellent reads so if you get caught up on the other two, I'd def recommend picking up the LNs.

Superwomen in Love! Honey Trap and Rapid Rabbit by sometime

(manga only atm)

What if Kamen Rider but yuri?... That's basically it on my sale tbh. It's an extremely gay yuri tokusatsu. It's genuinely a crime that it has not gotten an anime or an actual live action tokusatsu...

[wachtelspinat]

I have a serious question! What references did you use to learn to draw Roadhog's body type? It's my first time trying to draw a body like his and I'm STRUGGLING. I'm using your art as reference because your depictions of him are godly, but I could use any tips you have. He's my babygirl and I want to be able to do him justice 💓

hey ! good question and thank you very much for your kind words <3

i've been drawing body types like his not enough to say very comfortably that i know what i'm doing, this is mostly due to me not having done a lot of studies in this regards (i wanna change that)... but i've been trying to push it ever since the midnight crew days (since i love drawing our fabulous boy hearts boxcars and he's kinda the same category)...

i kind of looked at various references through out the years, starting with concept art from bioshock 2...

... to pictures of strongmen (they sometimes lack roadie's gut but pictures of them are amazing for arms, the chest area, necks, backs and all that)

(these are dennis kohlruss, eddie hall and rongo keene as examples)

this is older but you get the idea, just to see how things flow when there is more than just skinny muscles and skin.

sometimes it helps just tracing their ingame models, altho i'm more often changing a bit here and there (mostly roadie's giant hands... they’re just not... they just don't go with my stupid idea to go more realistic lol) but i think it's a good way to get a feeling of his body dimensions, especially length of legs, torso etc.

as a general tip i'd say don't be afraid to experiment! you know how to draw a skinny leaf of a guy? try adding more volume to it, try defining muscles through layers of skin. always google ref if you need, you don't know how a double chin rounds exactly? or how some skin folds at the sides move when twisting the torso? google it, or make ref yourself, see what your body does. because in the end we're all consistent of the same parts, it's just a matter of dimensions and volume i think

there are also a LOT of amazing artists out there i draw inspiration from drawing the best, beefiest bears... and yes i mean that in a literal way... they are mostly furry artists on the nsfw side of things, hence i'm not linking them here (i'm sorry)... but in general... idk if you're on twitter or what your preferences are, but a lot of artists specialize in drawing roadhog-type-o-guys and they're so much better at this than i am. and it's not just artists... to be perfectly honest a lot of people upload very good ref on twitter in form of photos of them it's just... mostly... nsfw x') last but not least, i can always recommend the book "morpho fat and skin folds" for certain things

hope this helped a little and if you got any more questions or idk, need help with a certain pose?? feel free to ask

[insecateur]

do you have any tips on where and/or how to make blinkies? i want to learn how to make them but don't know how. have a good day btw :3

hiiii i will do my best to give tips!! o7

first of all if you want to get a feel for blinkie making without diving in directly i recommend using a site like blinkies.cafe which lets you just add text to premade blinkie templates! i think it's a good way to get an eye for the blinkies "aesthetic" especially regarding the actual blinking part, the borders, all of that. and ofc the size (which for the record is traditionally 150x20px!)

if you want to actually get into Real Custom-Made Blinkies, studying ones you like up close is a great idea because it'll help you see what works and what doesn't. obviously everyone will have different design sensibilities, but that's why it's always good to take inspiration from things that you personally like!

here are things that i like, as an example:

dotted/dashed borders that blink between two colors

shadows

outlines

pixel art

keep in mind that blinking can be upsetting to the eyes for some people! i always try to not overdo it, but at the same time, they are blinkies, so it seems kind of like a waste when they don't blink at all...

traditionally, blinkies include two things: a picture, and text. they don't always! sometimes there's only a picture, and sometimes there's only text. for example, this blinkie i made of lysandre only has his card art and little hearts. this is once again going to depend on your preferences. but for the sake of explaining, let's say you want one or two simple pictures, and some text.

i find pokémon to be a pretty easy thing to make blinkies for, because you have a large panel of pixel art to choose from! for example, i made this blinkie for my blog using one of the mini scyther sprites. a lot of them are animated, too, which is fun. i can't really advise you on what program to use for animated stuff because i use really old ones LMAO but i've always had a good time using ezgif! you can just feed it your frames and use the website to put them together into an animation.

the text imo is the trickiest part. the blinkies you find on blinkies.cafe use pixelated fonts, but i've had a really hard time using them outside of that context. it's hard to get them to look good imo, especially at the small scale that blinkies end up at... so what i've been doing is making my own little pixel art alphabet. it's very fun for me and i don't think it's as difficult as it sounds, so i definitely recommend it because it gives you a lot more flexibility imo. i handdrew the text for all of my PSS blinkies, as well as the aforementioned scyther one, and this trans rights one. i actually have the trans rights and PSS alphabets completed and saved in a file for later use in case i need them, lmao:

you can see what the process is like: i make a rectangle, draw one letter, and then copy the rectangle to draw the other ones at the same size and in the same style. it's very, um, vibe-based, i guess? you just have to figure out what looks good for your Vision. but i find it super fun... so it's easy for me to do, i guess...

if you want to see the scyther blinkies text closer up, here it is at 500% size:

uncapitalized letters are more difficult than capitalized letters imo, but i think i did an ok job! maybe i'll make a full alphabet for that one too at some point, lmao. for the "tumblr" text i just copied the style of the logo (hopefully that comes through...)

i'm not sure what else to say, so feel free to ask more specific questions if you'd like! i think a lot of the other stuff is more general art/graphics advice, like color theory and the likes, which i'm not sure is worth going over LOL. but as a parting note, i'd definitely suggest not going overboard on the color palette. blinkies are pretty small at their default size, and too many colors will make them really hard to look at, let alone understand. in general, keep in mind the final size when working on something like blinkies, and make sure to zoom out periodically to double check you've got something readable!

and don't forget to have fun 👍👍👍

[idk-im-just-here-now]

I just had a really wild experience, actually, so this'll be a longer post than usual!

So, the other day, I was discussing with someone the concept of a turtle having life on or inside its shell, and they mentioned inspiration being taken from the movie Strange World. Now, if you haven't seen Strange World, I HIGHLY recommend you go watch it, especially all of you who like speculative biology and complex worldbuilding. It may be a movie directed toward younger audiences, but there was a lot of time and care put into the world, and I can promise you won't regret it (Plus, some really nicely done LGBTQ+ and other minority rep!)! I'm gonna be spoiling the ending to the movie here, so ye, spoilers, beware!

So we were talking about that, and when they brought it up, I got really excited, because the end of that movie revealed that the people were living on and in a giant turtle swimming across a giant ocean. Now, yes, that sounds very cool, but I was especially excited because it was a reference to mythology I both like and am personally connected to: a North American native myth, that tells the tale of how the world was built on Turtle's shell, which became Turtle Island - which is nowadays known as North America.

I mentioned this to them, and they got excited and asked to know more about it so they could see if there were any ideas they could glean from the myth. I got really excited, because it meant I got to share a piece of my culture with somebody, for the first time ever.

So, I told them the version of the myth that I'd first heard, the story of a Sky Woman descending to the ocean that was Earth while animals tried to help retrieve mud from the bottom of the ocean to create the world. In the end, Muskrat managed to retrieve it, but the creature died in the process. Sky Woman made the world on the Turtle's shell and planted the medicine she'd brought with her from her world. The island was named Turtle Island to honor the creature who carried it.

I know there are a lot of different versions of the myth, but this was the one I heard. It belongs to the Haudenosaunee tribe from the Great Plains. None of my elders, or the ones I have, would have been able to tell me my tribe's myth because residential schools did so much damage to my family.

But while I was telling the story, something truly incredible was happening.

I slipped into the same words, the same story, that I'd first heard only a few months ago. I told it almost word-for-word, the same way the person who'd read it to me had spoken it. It was easy to say, and even though I did need to look at some resources at first to confirm the telling I was going to my friend, at some point I stopped checking and just kept speaking.

Now, I'm not saying it was like a trance or magic or anything mystic or voodoo like that. That's not how it works, and frankly, I can see how my wording would mistake it to be something like that.

But no. It just felt completely natural, like I was passing on my knowledge from one person to the next, from one generation to another; the way the oral storytelling in my native tribes worked. There was no drum circle or sage burning or dance - just me on Discord, passing on knowledge to someone who was genuinely interested to learn.

And I don't think I've ever felt more connected to my past and my culture and my people than I did in that moment. And I'm really happy it happened, because it was something that didn't require me to go learn or feel like I didn't know how to get into - its something I'm already good at, and I'm re-learning how to tell stories from my culture and I feel like I CAN reconnect - I just have to go looking for it.

TL;DR: Got to tell a story from my native culture, and that was singlehandedly the most empowering experience I've had regarding my culture in years. I now feel a lot more confident in going out and learning about it and learning to be part of it.

[elysiansparadise]

Hi! I also have a question, not astrology related.

How did you become such a good writer?

I'm looking for inspiration to put my thoughts into words. I'm socially awkward and introverted, so I'm not the best always at expressing myself.

Thanks.

I'd love to start by saying that I'm deeply touched that you consider me so good at writing, it is one of the compliments I am most happy to hear/read, so thank you very much. I prefer to share with you how I improved and felt confident about my writing.

🤎I wrote daily. I used to daydream about writing and not doing it actively, one day I got tired and preferred to get in front of the computer and write a bit. I made writing a habit, not just any habit, but my favorite. If I didn't feel well I would write about my own feelings, in addition to practicing writing I would vent.

🤎I worried about my surroundings. I made sure to turn off the television, put on my favorite music, wear comfortable clothes, have a comfort drink with me before getting back to writing.

🤎I made my passions the main theme of my writing. Astrology? I made notes in my notebook until I filled dozens of them. New crush? Hundreds of poems describing in a thousand different ways my feelings when looking at that person. Find out what topics you are passionate about so you can write about them.

🤎I practiced different styles. From the most technical, clean and to the point writing, to the most poetic and metaphorical that you can imagine. The trick is not to be afraid to experiment, let yourself be carried away by what you write.

🤎Reading is as important as writing. Reading can help you find out which styles you like and which you don't. I found that while I love romantic and poetic language, but when it's "too much" to such a degree that the main point vanishes, I lose interest. It also expands your vocabulary and helps you find new interests.

🤎I got rid of the idea of ​​writing for others before writing for me. Public opinion is a weight that you carry on your back that can harm your posture regarding writing all your life. Although listening to opinions is crucial to improve, you have to discern which to listen to and which to ignore. Care more about writing for you and topics you like before caring which topics other may rather.

🤎Music was my greatest company. And it still is. Random Playlist and my mind is in charge of creating interesting scenarios. Music helped me explore emotions that were foreign to me at that time.

🤎I hung out with people who were PASSIONATE about writing or watched videos of writers talking about their next novel. Passion is contagious, you know? There is nothing more empowering for our inner writer than seeing the sparkle in the eyes, the huge smile or the fire with which other people express themselves when they talk about writing. It just motivated me not to stop writing.

These are just a couple of things, I think it depends a lot on the person. I sincerely hope you find a method that allows you to put what you think into words, I'm sure that what you have to tell is interesting and valuable. All the best to you, love. 🤎

[pekoeboo]

I haven't finished reading everything you've written about your characters, but I have two questions! What would their favorite food and/or snacks be and why? Is it something that's simply a matter of taste or does it hold a strong memory for them? It seems silly to ask but food can be very important to people, both the familiar and experimental.

And second question: Are there any biomes that your characters have found they love? (Real, minecraft, or original.) Traveling all over and seeing different places means your OC's probably have firsthand opinions, good and bad. ;)

ooooooh honestly I've thought about the food thing to an extent before! not so much on Antony's side of things for some reason, but definitely in regards to Khalan (and also kind of Aya by extension) ;o;

gonna also put this under a cut because boy howdy my responses tend to get so long hahaha xD

I know Antony's village has a heavy focus on apples as a main food product that has cultural and religious significance, so I do think that the smell and taste of apples is incredibly comforting and nostalgic for him. wine was also culturally-significant for his village, and Antony has a pretty refined palate in that regard as well. as far as specific foods go, though, I'm not entirely sure what he prefers yet. I'll have to give it some thought.

a bit of a trigger warning I suppose, but Khalan has... a complicated relationship with food. probably bordering on the lines of an eating disorder, if I'm being honest. he sees it as something that he has to "earn," because of how his dad would withhold food from him sometimes as punishment, so the idea of just. being Allowed to eat anything he wants whenever he wants is something that's really difficult for him to learn over time. he'll usually deny himself food if he feels he deserves it for whatever reason and feels incredibly guilty over the idea of enjoying it.

but there are some things he really does like, if he allows himself to. for one, he finds fresh bread to be comforting and versatile - he grew up farming wheat so he's used to the whole process of turning it into bread. it's one of those foods for him that makes him feel "safe" in a way, because it's familiar (it's also Aya's favorite, according to @cookieg122 ;u;). coffee is something else he enjoys, typically with cardamom and cinnamon ;o; he tends to like warm, savory, or spiced foods, but as far as sweets are concerned, he genuinely loves pumpkin pie the most - which is something he got to try for the first time at a tavern in Drehmal and immediately fell in love with it <3

ah! the traveling question!!! that one's a really exciting concept because all three characters (Khalan, Aya, and Antony) had never really left their places of origin until their respective story events take place. traveling was a huge culture shock for all of them, and they're constantly exploring new places, so they end up seeing SO many different biomes over time.

I'd say Khalan's personal favorite would be something like a temperate forest, especially within a mountainous region. he finds forests and rivers to be especially lovely, and the ability to scale a mountain to see so far into the distance from such an impossible height is incredibly thrilling for him... but it's also a location where he feels the most at peace during the day. he likes to catalogue what flora and fauna he comes across in a trail journal by drawing what he sees and describing it to the best of his ability (as I've done away with his cartography profession since it didn't fit as well anymore).

he's the kind of person who tends to consider most forms of nature to be beautiful and awe-inspiring, as it fills his creative mind with ideas and stories and poems and songs that he'll frantically write down whenever the inspiration hits. adventuring is difficult and dangerous, but looking back on his time in Drehmal, he only remembers the most romantic aspects of traveling because his brain blocked out a lot of the traumatic stuff.

however, his least favorite biome is definitely a frozen tundra. they were forced to camp out in a region like that before and he 100% ended up freezing to death a few times just to make sure that Aya was able to use whatever provisions they had so she could stay warm and survive;; not a fun time. another bad kind of area would be anything volcanic in nature, like the Hellcrags/Carmine within Drehmal.

Antony has a few he enjoys and hates, as well. his first impression of a different biome was the temperate sakura blossom grove that Khalan and Aya were staying in within Atria, as that was the first time he had ever traveled beyond his home village. but I don't really think he'd count that as a favorite location because being there was such a stressful and awful time for him, unfortunately. The Nether is obviously another location that has a lot of trauma attached to it for him, too.

as far as more positive experiences go, he's definitely most comfortable within a Mediterranean biome - since that's where he grew up - but he tends to enjoy warm, subtropical beaches and also finds a lot of beauty in the snowy northern mountains/taiga; two locations he only experienced within Bocca. temperature isn't exactly an issue for him after becoming a demigod (his body naturally regulates to adapt to whatever temperature he's in, meaning he's never uncomfortable unless we're talking extreme hot or cold), so he can enjoy a lot of environments without feeling the effects of the weather all that much. out of those two locations, however, I'd say he considers the snow to be the most magical - especially the day after a storm when it's all fluffy and sparkly in the morning sunlight ;o;

there's probably more that I'm missing tho but that's about all I can think of to cover those questions!! thank you so much for the ask, I genuinely appreciate the enthusiasm <33 take care! ;u;;

[thebadjoe]

BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY PART 5

...It's been a while, hasn't it? I spent time working on a different project and I suppose I needed a break.

I'm here to give you an update regarding my culprit theory in DRDT chapter 2. So of course, SPOILERS WARNING FOR DANGANRONPA DESPAIR TIME CHAPTER 2 in case it wasn't obvious enough. It's also a very long read, so...sorry about that! Before I start, I'd like to say something. This is a message for DRDT-dev.

Not gonna dwelve on the past except for one specific moment : the appeciation/thank you e-mails you've received ever since the start of your hiatus after episode 11 was launched.

I wanted to give you words of appreciation at the time, but it completly slipped my mind because of real life + me working on my crazy theories. I felt bad that I missed it because I seriously wanted to thank you and your team for the amazing work that you've done in this fangan.

I've never been this attached to a fangan before and it's not like I've played/watched through a lot of those eitheir. But this one... it was really enjoyable! I don't think there's a single character that I dislike in this fangan. Like they all got something interesting going on or something interesting that might be bound to unfold. The mystery's also really good. I got really hooked to trying to figure out the truth behind the murder mystery of chapter 2.

I can't do art nor music, but the least I can do to show how much I appreciate the amount of work put into this is by proving it to you. This... is the final time I'm making a theory post for the murder case of chapter 2. After that, I have my own projects to work on.

Of course, I can't ask you to read it all (it's super long anyways), but the post itself is proof that I'm truly passionate about this fangan and that I truly appreciate the amazing work. It's a good source of inspiration. So honestly, thank you! Looking forward to see the future of DRDT!

So... I know I've pretty much covered everything I could explain from part 1 to 4 regarding my Eden Culprit theory. However, I feel like that this is a big confusing mess. After all, I changed a lot of things over the course of these 4 parts and even past that, I updated my culprit theory even further, but didn't provide any updates or edits to my posts.

So I'm gonna go over my whole theory once again, from beginning to the end, in a more logical order. I'll start with the easiest topics being the whodunnit and whydunnit. After that, I'll talk about the rather long howdunnit and give a better and updated explanation as to what I believe happened in each scenario.

I will also have a few texts in bolded blue to represent my evil ego personality trying to take down my whole theory, which really, they're just pretend questions/arguments based on things I believe people will think about or things that's been brought up before in the past.

Then, I'll finish it off with a section to talk about a certain something that may possibly change people's mind about not just mine, but many other theories. Let's do this!

Whodunnit

Of course, if it wasn't obvious enough, I accuse Eden of being the culprit of DRDT Chapter 2. There's a couple reasons why I suspect her, but let's focus on only one for now : the smoking gun evidence.

The decisive evidence lies in this video. Chapter 2, Episode 6 : The "Body Discovery" of Ace in the fitness room.

I skipped it to the proper scene, so no need to worry about that. So there are 4 characters involved in this scene. There's Teruko, Eden, Nico and Ace. At first sight, it really looks like Nico was trying to kill Ace, so Teruko yells at them and then they run away.

So since then, we need to focus on the following three characters : Teruko, Eden and Ace. So judging that Ace is probably dead, Teruko decides to investigate while Eden needed a minute to process this.

Not gonna list everything. For now, let's just focus on what's important to prove that Eden's the culprit : the roll of grippy tape.

This is an important clue because even though it wasn't pointed out by Teruko herself, it was clearly shown in the background (you can see it clearly at 19:55). This clue in question is what the culprit clearly used to set up their murder mechanism for the murder of Arei considering what was found in the playground in episode 8.

At 20:32, Eden decides to give a hand to Teruko with the investigation.

For the following couple seconds, it's a bit hard to see, but behind those speech bubbles, you can still see the roll of tape.

At 20:50, Ace wakes up and shouts that he's not dead. Then at 20:54...

The tape is no longer there, where it's supposed to be.

So what happened there? Was it a creator error? That's actually very unlikely considering how important this clue is. So the only logical explanation to this is that someone took the roll of grippy tape in that moment. Therefore, eitheir Teruko, Eden or Ace took it meaning that eitheir one of them is the true culprit behind the murder of Arei!

It can't be Teruko because she'd literally have no reason to commit murder and we've been under her POV most of the time, so it's very unlikely that there were windows for her to commit murder. Nothing would make sense if she was the culprit, so it's not Teruko.

Ace... there's a slight possibility, but it's still unlikely. I have a couple ideas that could make him seem like he could be the culprit (that I might explain later in the howdunnit), but it's still really difficult because of the fact that Ace is clearly wounded and he probably wouldn't be thinking about killing Arei at some point later. It would be hard to explain certain events, so it's not Ace.

So by process of elimination, that only leaves Eden. She would definitly have a perfect window to grab the roll of tape without being seen. The proof lies in 20:32 in the video. She wanted to help out Teruko in the investigation, which would've been the perfect opportunity to grab it.

This is a very sneaky and demonic trick that the DRDT creator pulled here. Giving us an incriminating evidence that was so hard to spot that they must've been wondering when it'd be found out. It really makes me wonder what would've happened if I was never part of this. Would someone actually discover this damning clue?

Let's move on.

Whydunnit

Man, I came up with plenty wild theories for the motive a while back. It went from "she wants to eliminate bullies" to "she has a dark secret she wants to keep it hidden" to "she misses her beloved dearly".

Eventually, the "she misses her beloved dearly" motive become the official one for my theory and it's not just applied to mine eitheir. There's a few others who seem to approve this motive and use it in their own theories as well.

To give some context as a reminder, Eden Tobisa is a very kind girl. We also know that her secret is "Ever since you kissed her, you were afraid your sexuality would ruin your friendship." This would indicate that she's most potentially in love with someone.

She tries to help whenever she can and tries to organize fun activities with a few, become friends with as many people as possible.

She's basically trying to keep her hopes up. Especially considering her reaction during the prologue...

She appears to be quite a tad desperate in wanting to get out. Anyways, the murder and trial happened in chapter 1. That inflicted quite a mental hit to most of the cast.

Right before the beginning of chapter 2, we get the following quote : "I still miss you. I miss you so much that I wish I you had never been a part of my life. The worst part is, even though you left me like this, there's nothing I can blame you for."

Then in chapter 2, after monoTV reveals the motives, Eden suggests that they should take that opportunity to work together and escape. She's the first person who brings up the escape topic.

Even though she tried to keep her and everyone's spirits up, most of the time, it's been people arguing over everything and nothing. It's mostly a few specific people, but still, it was definitly unpleasant. But the worst part of it all is the event that unfolded in the first 4 minutes of Chapter 2, Episode 5.

That bullying that Eden received was the final straw. She had enough of all of this. That made her realise that there's only one thing that matters to her : getting the heck out of here to meet her beloved, the person she kissed.

This is mostly my logical explanation for the motive based on all the possible clues that were given to be able to find a viable motive for the murder.

For those who believe that it'd be bad writing or whatever, I'm not really gonna delve into this myself, but I'd heavily suggest reading @venus-is-thinking's post here. There's some interesting points related to the narrative possibilities. (Might not fully support my theory, but you get the idea). In any case, whether you believe it or not, the fact remains that this is a possible motive that can be used to explain why Eden commited murder.

Howdunnit

Oh boy, here we go. The most difficult, yet most fun part to explain in this theory. Even though it's only a chapter 2 murder case, there's A LOT that happened that led to the crime. This time around, I'm gonna make sure to list everything in chronological order while also providing the most updated information regarding my theory.

I'll also separate certain events in Acts, to make it easier to comprehend. Let's do this!

Act 1

It all began a few days ago, when monoTV announced the motive reveal. MonoTV gave each participant a troubling secret and told them that if no one commits murder, the secrets would be revealed to the whole world.

MonoTV is a dumb dumb however because it made a mistake and all the secrets have been swapped around, meaning that no one has their own secret. So each participant has a secret that belongs to someone else.

For a few of them, it was pretty much "eh, it's whatever!", but it was especially troubling for David. The reason why is because he knows deep down what his secret is, it's a pretty meaningful one, after all.

We already know by now that his secret is "You exist to manipulate others. Everyone else exists to be taken advantage of." Considering his talent, it would totally ruin his career. So he needed to come up with a plan to not be exposed, and fast.

MonoTV also reveals that the second floor is unlocked and they're free to explore. We're not gonna go over each one of them yet, but I want to talk about this particular scene in the fitness room.

During the investigation of the new rooms, Teruko meets up with Ace and Levi in the gym. There's an argument going on because Levi is trying to apologize to Ace for his behavior in the trial of chapter 1 (when he threatened Ace). Ace is having none of it.

Ace was also arguing with Teruko a bit regarding some comments she made behind his back that he heard, which made him behave like so...

So what is he actually gonna do about it? You'll see shortly in the next coming acts.

Act 2

Teruko spends the rest of the first day secluded in her own room until next morning because girl has to eat, ya know? As soon as she gets out of her dorm, this happens...

Eden sneaks up on Teruko to surprise her, which she didn't see this coming at all. On top of that, she claims that she could hear Teruko clearly in her dorm doing a puppet show with the cactuses. The walls are pretty thin, therefore not really soundproof. This was also shown in Act 1 when Teruko talked behind Ace's back, but could hear that conversation.

Truth bullet acquired : Eden's sneakiness

Truth bullet acquired : Non-soundproof walls

Because of that embarassing reveal, Eden used it to her advantage to blackmail Teruko, forcing her to do friendly activities with her. So Teruko has no choice but to follow her orders and go eat breakfast with Eden.

As they're preparing something in the kitchen, they suddenly hear people arguing in the cafeteria, so they go check it out. It's of course that scene where 3 different pairs fighting against each other.

So first we have J (Julia Rosales) asking Arturo to leave her alone and to stop pestering her with her secret. Nothing too relevant for the murder.

Then we have Ace bullying Nico hardcore all of a sudden. Considering the events that happened in the gym in Act 1 and the purpose of a bully, it's safe to deduce that he's doing this because he's trying to act tough. Ace is trying to display superiority over a targetted victim by bullying them. Ace wasn't really hostile towards Nico before that.

It's also very important to take this into consideration since in chapter 1, most of the time, he was behaving like an absolute coward and that's no pretending. He really has a fear of a lot of things.

Well, actually... Ace bullied Nico once in chapter 1!

Sure, he made a dumb mean comment by calling them losers for liking animals or whatever, but that wasn't just directed at Nico, it was directed at Xander as well. I think he was mostly trying to get attention by being provocative.

Besides, that was only one time compared to the multiple times that Ace bullied Nico throughout the whole chapter 2, so there's clearly a behavior change there.

Truth bullet acquired : Ace's phobias

Truth bullet acquired : Ace acting tough

Moving on... We also have Arei arguing with monoTV about getting rid of the rope. Arei believes that this is a cruel joke of a custom weapon for her since it reminds her a lot of her past. She wants to dispose it, but monoTV refuses.

They eventually come to some kind of agreement and monoTV places that rope in the storage room, so anyone can take it if they wish.

Truth bullet acquired : Easily accessible rope

They arguing kept going for a while until David comes in, telling them to shut up and that he has an announcement to make. He reveals his secret : "My family has a history of depression."

He makes that reveal because he is suggesting that it would be best for everyone to share their secrets before the time is up. That way, once it's already out in the open, no one would have any remaining motive to commit murder according to David.

But as we know already, that was all a lie. He revealed a fake secret and wanted others to share secrets since it would help create even more conflicts which could lead to more dramatic results... like murder.

That was his master plan to instigate a murder. He wanted to have others cause a murder before the deadline, which would keep his secret safe.

Truth bullet acquired : David's plan

Act 3

Eden tells Teruko about her fun activity plan being decorating the clocks in this killing game establishment, but she wanted to invite one more person. She wanted to invite someone who complained that she wasn't invited at the cake decorating activity back in chapter 1 : Arei.

So they both enter the playground, meeting up with David and Arei who were about to have a discussion about secrets. You know the rest of that scene afterwards, I've also brought it up in the whydunnit.

Arei bullies Eden, putting the blame on her for Min's death. Eden gets out of the playground, crying in utter sadness. Then right after that, Arei laughs and...

Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls

Even though she got out of the room, it's very possible that Eden heard it which would be the absolute final straw. She had enough of all of this, then her actual motive kicked in : she wanted to get out of her as soon as possible to meet her beloved.

Of course, we know by now that Arei wasn't really that spiteful. She just wanted to give a tough and harsh lesson about this killing. To stop being so nice and naive as that would make Eden the most vulnerable target to any murder cases in the future. But alas, Eden didn't stick long enough to listen to that part, which makes me wonder if it would've made a drastic different in how chapter 2 would play out.

Well, it's possible that Eden actually heard that part of the conversation!

But we don't know that for sure. Considering the smoking gun evidence, it makes more sense to believe that she didn't hear the rest of the conversation happening in the playground.

Anyways, this was the very beginning to Eden's murder scheme. She had a lot of work to do.

Act 4

Teruko proceeds to meet up with Rose in the dress-up room who was currently having a painting session. She had Rose's secret, so she figured she might as well share the secret, which Rose agreed to.

Then they have a chat about various things, then to Teruko's surprise, she realises that Nico was here this whole time, laying down on the ground.

Nico asks Rose if she could teach him how to paint, which Rose said yes.

Let me pause for a bit to mention an important clue : Rose's custom weapon. It's turpentine. It wouldn't be out of the question to think that since this is a painting supply, she would bring it with her during painting sessions and based on what we know in later episodes...

Well, realisticly, that's not how turpentine is supposed to work!

Probably not, but this is made very clear that the author wants us to believe that it works that way in their world. There's no reason for them to make something up about it other than explaining its intended purpose.

This turpentine is meant to be served as a tool/weapon to knock someone out, kind of like chloroform.

Truth bullet acquired : Turpentine

Teruko was already out of that room to head to the cafeteria while the other two were thinking about going there because they were hungry.

Fast forward a bit in the cafeteria, Ace is having another argument with poor Nico.

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

He's bullying Nico once again to make himself look tough. He's even ready to threaten Nico that he would reveal their secret (we learned in the trial that Nico and Ace have each other's secret).

This failed however because David managed to snatch it from Ace's hands while he was distracted. Then Ace proceeds to keep on bullying Nico, asking : "What are you gonna do about it?"

This surprised Ace, no doubt. Then afterwards, he gets slapped by Hu. She defends Nico, telling Ace that she's had enough of this.

At the time, I thought that Nico's death threat would've been the main reason why Ace kept suspecting that Nico tried to kill him, but it's actually a lot more simple than that. I'll explain it later...

While I'm at it, let's keep in mind that Hu's custom weapon is wires.

Truth bullet acquired : Nico's motive to kill Ace

Truth bullet acquired : Hu being protective of Nico

Truth bullet acquired : Hu's wires

Then we later have Nico's secret reveal, which is not too relevant to the actual murder. What's important however are two things.

Not everyone was present in the cafeteria at the time

Rose was later sleeping in the cafeteria for an unknown amount of time

Let's go back a little bit and talk about what happened to the few other relevant characters.

Meanwhile...

Eden was working on her murder scheme. Based on a Q&A that the DRDT creator did a while ago, we learned that Eden's not very strong or fit. So if she wanted to pull a good murder, she needed to be really smart about it.

So she needed to come up with a murder mechanism to pull it off. So to make it happen, she needed the right materials.

Truth bullet used : Turpentine

She remembered the list of custom weapons written by Charles that Whit showed during the trial. Considering the hidden purpose of this weapon according to this world, she knew that she could use it to knock someone out.

It would be very easy to get a target unconscious without resorting to physical force. Next up, she needed some kind of murder weapon that would do the deed for her.

Truth bullet used : Hu's wires

Eden probably considered using Hu's custom weapon, but that would've been incredibly risky. Even if she was friends with Hu, how would she be able to get her weapon without seeming suspicious?

She needed to use something else. Something that could work just as well as Hu's wires.

Initially, I was thinking of the analog clocks that could be found in the killing game building, a specific wire within it, but it seems quite convoluted on top of being unsure if that would've been enough wire to pull it off.

So I kept looking into it, and I discovered two interesting facts about this fangan.

During the prologue, we learn a few things about Eden, but most importantly, she loves hand-making antique clocks. Meaning it's not wrong to assume that she loves antique clocks overall.

The other fact is the following...

Whoever made this killing game, everyone's dorm has been customized to fit their needs and style. So if we combine this fact, Eden's talent and her love for antique clocks, then it's safe to deduce that she must have antique clocks in her dorm, don't you think?

Not only that, but it could very well be a grandfather clock! There's a seemingly grand variety of grandfather clocks, but what's important is that you can find clock cables in them. They're usually used to maintain the clock's weights.

This could very well be the weapon that she used for the murder attempt on Ace. Otherwise, it could very well be some kind of material that she already had available considering her talent and her love to craft antique clocks.

Truth bullet created : Eden's cables

Murder attempt on Ace? Isn't it Nico who tried to kill Ace in the gym?

I'll explain that confusion later... For now, let's just say that her initial plan was not killing Arei in particular. At least, not the things we've seen in the playground. Whatever we discovered in the fitness room instead was her initial plan.

Well, there's no way to know for sure that Eden had those wires.

No, but as long as it's a possibility, it can work.

But that's only based on your assumptions, that's just wrong!

It's a logical deduction based on facts about this fangan. But you know what? I refuse to elaborate further on this. I'll explain why in the finale.

Moving on, Eden did something else while there was an argument happening in the cafeteria. She decided to have a meeting with Arturo in the infirmary to share his secret. Eden has Arturo's secret : "Your younger sister killed herself because of you. You should have never left."

This is pretty much the flashback scene that we see in Chapter 2, Episode 10. Eden reveals the secret, Arturo threatens her, Arei comes in to save the day. Arei then apologies for her bullying back in playground. Then Arei and Eden become friends.

There's of course more to it than that, but you get the idea.

Wouldn't your motive become null and void when Eden became friends with Arei?

Not necessarily. Eden probably made up her mind already about leaving this place. Besides, there's no guarantee that she fully believed what Arei said.

I personally think that this was a perfect opportunity for Eden to take advantage of Arei when she would need it most.

But this was supposed to be a meeting with Arturo. How would Eden know that Arei would come to the infirmary?

That's the thing. She didn't know. The fact that Arei came in to save her was an unexpected, yet pleasant event. It was literally a golden opportunity for the culprit.

Then she was only expecting Arturo. What would be the point of that meeting if she intended to murder someone that wasn't necessarily Arei?

Right, cause back in episode 10, we were led to believe for a while that Arturo could've been a suspect of the murder of Arei. It was also because of the fake letter that was adressed to Arei.

Well, we know that Eden knew Arturo's secret and that's no light secret eitheir. It's a pretty bad one. So she must've been expecting a negative reaction out of Arturo.

Truth bullet used : David's plan

I doubt that she was aware of David's intentions, but she could've used David's idea to her advantage. She had a feeling that some of these secrets could cause conflicts. Which is precisely why she decided to share it to Arturo.

She was creating a potential suspect for her plan in the future.

Why would that matter if she was only meeting up with Arturo? She would have no other witnesses if that went according to plan!

Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls

She knew that any conversations could be heard from outside of said room, so she made a gamble on it. She was hoping that someone else would hear the conversation happening and they would be the potential witness.

Luckily for her, that worked out a lot better than anticipated when Arei came in to save and befriend her.

Truth bullet acquired : Eden's incident in the infirmary

Before getting her murder scheme in motion, all that was left was grabbing Rose's turpentine.

Wasn't it Nico who stole the turpentine from Rose?

I'll explain the thing about Nico later, but no, it could've been anyone else. Like I said before, she was painting in the dress-up room, her turpentine could've been there.

Also, after the argument between Ace and Nico, Rose fell asleep, so for an unknown period of time, the dress-up room was left unattended, meaning that anyone could've stolen it, not just Nico.

But how would Eden know that the turpentine was there?

Normally, she would think that it's in Rose's dorm, but it's very likely that she saw Rose painting in the distance and spotted the turpentine. It's not because we don't see her since the bullying that we should expect her to be secluded in her room for an unknown amount of time.

But then she would rely on luck yet again to get what she wants!

It's possible that she considered to use something else to knock someone unconscious, but when she came across that turpentine in the dress-up room, she figured it would've been a much better option.

But wouldn't Rose have noticed the turpentine missing during the practice session she was supposed to have with Nico later?

Not necessarily, she tends to be easily distracted and absent-minded. So she might've not noticed until later.

Well, she also has a photographic memory. She can precisely remember things. Wouldn't she remember when it was missing?

Not if she didn't notice it beforehand. Anyways, we're getting nowhere with this, so I refuse to elaborate further. I'll explain why later in the finale.

Act 5

During the evening of DAY 2, a few things happened on the second floor. Ace was working out alone in the gym and a meeting was about to happen between Arei and David in the relaxation room.

Hold up, didn't that happen on the evening of DAY 3?

That's what we're all led to believe, but there are plenty reasons to believe that's not what happened. I'll explain it later when the time comes. For now, whether you believe it or not, let's say that this happened in the evening of DAY 2.

So Ace is working out during that time, most likely doing benchpress. The reason why is somewhat related to this...

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

Obviously he's not pretending to work out, he's actually a fairly fit and strong person, which was also shown during the Q&A with DRDT creator. He's also an athlete.

Even since the scene in the fitness room in DAY 1, he's trying to rely on himself alone and doesn't want others to see him as a joke. So he's also working out to stay in shape.

Truth bullet acquired : Ace working out

Isn't that because of his eating disorder that he's working out?

Probably, but I don't think it's just that. I think it also has something to do with trying to get stronger to make sure he can survive the killing game.

He then hears a conversation happening between Arei and David in the relaxation room. Ace got curious, so he stopped training and decided to eavesdrop on them.

This is pretty much the flashback scene that we get in Chapter 2, Episode 11. Of course, the events according to my theory are different compared to what's shown in episode 11. Aside from it happening at a different day, there's a few other details that Ace tricked us into believing that this truly happened on DAY 3.

Truth bullet acquired : Ace's testimony

I'll explain them later once we get to this particular Act. There is one thing that's very important thing to recall right now though.

He said that right after Arei asked David to say something. That was after she revealed David's secret in private because she was seeking an explanation for his actions. Since she knows David's actual secret, it means that she knew that he lied about "family history of depression" secret and that his secret share plan is suspicious.

So Ace claiming that he didn't hear anything else right after that moment is just incredibly suspicious. It just wouldn't make sense! David must have said something to Arei. He couldn't have simply ran away because he would've run into Ace otherwise.

David must have said something afterwards, regardless of what it is.

Then can you explain what happened then? Why didn't Ace hear anything else.

Ace truly didn't hear anything else, but not for the reason that most are led to believe.

What's that supposed to mean?!

Something happened shortly afterwards that made Ace physically unable to hear anything else.

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

Truth bullet used : Turpentine

In that precise moment, Eden snuck up on Ace and knocked him unconscious with the turpentine that she stole in the dress-up room earlier. Ace became the intended victim target for Eden's murder scheme.

Wouldn't Arei and David hear anything happening?

Probably not. As long as she's stealthy enough and that the turpentine is strong enough, it could knock him out pretty quick with having time to react to it. It's entirely possible to do this quietly.

Alright, but wouldn't they see the unconscious body sometime later after the discussion?

Not if Eden dragged the body to hide it. Initially, I thought she would bring it to the dress-up room and hide it in the changing room, but I think it'd ask too much physically for Eden. So the only option remaining is dragging the body back to the gym. This should work as long as it's not in the hallway and the door is closed.

But earlier, you said that Eden's weak and not fit. How would she be able to drag a body?

In a real life scenario, it would probably be really different and incredibly difficult. But that's the only explanation I can come up with to explain how she was able to do that without getting caught.

It's not like she waited for Ace inside the gym. Otherwise, he would've prolly heard more about the conversation.

Anyways, I refuse to elaborate further on this. I'll explain why later in the finale.

Moving on... After capturing Ace, she had one remaining step to do before preparing the murder mechanism : she needed a scapegoat. Arei was the perfect target for that.

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

Truth bullet used : Turpentine

So Eden knocked her unconscious at the most appropriate time when no one else was around.

Wasn't David here? Wouldn't he have known?

Obviously, the culprit didn't do that while they were both present. Considering the matter of the discussion, it's probably likely that David got out of the relaxation room first, before Arei. So Eden simply needed to wait for David to use the elevator.

Otherwise, she could've also prepared a fake letter, asking Arei to meet up in the playground so that she could knock her out. This is probably the most logical explanation to this. It would match up the contents of the letter that was revealed in Chapter 2, Episode 10.

Truth bullet created : Eden's letter

Before I proceed with the next Acts, I'd like to pause it to explain every other possible clues that was found on the second floor that could be relevant to the murder mystery.

The 2nd Floor

The dress-up room

A few things to note about this room that even though none of the characters talked about, as long as it's presented, it can be used as a potential clue. We got some wigs on the left and the pink heart shaped case looks most likely to be a makeup-kit. It would make a lot of sense, considering where it is.

Truth bullet acquired : Wigs

Truth bullet acquired : Makeup-kit

Then post Arei's murder, Charles finds a ball of clothes in this room.

Truth bullet acquired : Ball of clothes

The relaxation room

There's a few things I'll list that may seem mundane at first, but they will become important as I explain it later.

First, we got those green mats, they look like light green yoga mats? Let's call em green yoga mats, why not?

Then, we have the incense sticks. They give a pretty good smell inside that room. Burning a whole stick can take up to an hour, but the lingering smell can last for multiple hours. They originally come the incense box that we're seeing to the right.

Truth bullet acquired : Green yoga mats

Truth bullet acquired : Incense sticks

Truth bullet acquired : Box of incense

We also learn about a special feature within this room in Episode 2.

We also learn that the room becomes locked at 10:00 PM up until 8:00 AM because of this misting system that monoTV implemented. He doesn't want anyone to enter that room at night while this is happening since it would leave a mess.

Truth bullet acquired : Relax room's nighttime features

The fitness room

I decided to use the crime scene in Episode 6 since most of the much needed clues are found in here.

Let's start with both the broom and the stepladder. They're not from the gym originally, so someone must have brought them here. They must've played a role in setting up some kind of murder scheme in here. Are they from the storage room, perhaps?

Truth bullet acquired : Broom

Truth bullet acquired : Stepladder

Next up, we have the whole weight rack. It wasn't there originally. Uh... I mean, it came from the gym, but not in this unusual position. So someone moved it. Was it part of the murder scheme?

Truth bullet acquired : Moved weight rack

Then, we have those benches adjacent to Ace that's been moved. We also have the right fan that fell down. It was ripped out according to Teruko. Also, the left side fan isn't working.

This is strange because the first time Teruko explored that room, it was working just fine and even after monoTV finishing cleaning up that failed murder attempt mess, the left side fan was working again. Why would it suddenly stop turning if that fan wasn't ripped out?

We have two weight plates neatly placed next to the threadmills. Why are they here?

Truth bullet acquired : Moved benches

Truth bullet acquired : Ripped out right fan

Truth bullet acquired : Left fan not spinning

Truth bullet acquired : Weight plates next to treadmill

Onto the more important clues.

We have a piece of wire that's attached to a blade of the fan with tape. A part of it has blood on it. The other piece of the wire, which was held by Nico when Teruko and Eden came across this crime scene, but then they dropped it. There's also blood on it, but there's a couple spots where there's no blood somehow. Is it two wires or the same wire snapped in two?

Truth bullet acquired : Piece of wire attached to fan

Truth bullet acquired : Other piece of wire

Speaking of tape, this is the roll of grippy tape that I was talking about in the Whodunnit part of my post. According to Rose in Episode 7, when she failed to do a pull-up, she says that there was originally grippy tape on that bar, which Teruko didn't believe.

But if you rewind back to the previous episodes, you can clearly see that there was something on that pull-up bar, but then during the crime scene of the attempted murder, it's no longer there. It's very safe to presume that the roll of tape and what was on the pull-up bar are the same kind of grippy tape.

Truth bullet acquired : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet acquired : Missing tape on pull-up bar

Let's take a closer look at the body.

A couple things to note...

The neck wounds on Ace. We were first led to believe that he died to those wounds, but it turns out, he's still alive. They must still hurt though. Right behind that we can see a glimpse of smeared blood on the wall, behind his neck. Even when Ace wakes up, the blood on the wall is still trying, so it's no magic trick or illusion there. It's very real.

Then, even more subtle than that, there's blood on his Ace's fingers (on his right hand). Because of the way it's positioned and because the other hand is hidden, it's possible that there's more blood on these hands.

And then we have Nico being "caught in the act". Anyone who sees this will immediatly think that Nico tried to kill him, no doubt about it. While I'm at it, let's keep in mind the odd position that Ace's body is found. Another thing even weirder than that is the utter lack of other traces of blood. There's no blood on any of the equipments, other walls and so on. What happened here?

Truth bullet acquired : Neck wounds

Truth bullet acquired : Smeared blood on the wall

Truth bullet acquired : Blood on Ace's fingers

Truth bullet acquired : Nico caught in the act

Truth bullet acquired : Ace's sitting position

Truth bullet acquired : Lack of blood anywhere else

Quite a lot of truth bullets in that room, ain't it?

The playground

(I can't find a good screenshot to take to see the whole crime scene without any distractions, so I'll trust that you have a fairly good idea of what it looked like. Also, I'm getting close to the limit of pictures I can send, so...)

Let's start with the body.

She is seen hanging by a rope on the swing set. Someone tied her up there, but who would be strong enough to pull that off? Then when Arturo inspected the body, he found out that Arei has a broken neck, so something with the rope must caused her neck to snap somehow.

We also find red marks on her wrists, indicating that her wrists must've been tied up with something. Other than that, there's no other visible wounds or details regarding the body. Well, there is one thing... it's not mentioned by the cast, but it's clearly visible : Arei's glove is missing.

Truth bullet acquired : Rope attached to Arei's neck

Truth bullet acquired : Arei's broken neck

Truth bullet acquired : Red marks on Arei's wrists

Truth bullet acquired : Arei's missing glove

Close to the seasaw, which is like in front of the swing set, we can find scuffed marks on the ground, which is caused by something being scraped against it. Seemingly easy to damage the ground.

And there's also the dead fishes found close by. Why are they here? According to Nico, the fishes were fed last evening/night by them, so the fishes were still alive by then.

Truth bullet acquired : Scuffed ground

Truth bullet acquired : Dead fishes

Moving on... to the right, if we look at the carousel aka the spinny thing, there are two clues. First one is the long rope found under the carousel. The bars of the carousel are wrapped with tape. It looks like the very same tape that was found in the fitness room.

Truth bullet acquired : Long rope under carousel

Truth bullet acquired : Carousel wrapped with tape

Oh right, before I forget... according to MonoTV, there was also a broken ceiling light on the ceiling, so they turned it off for now.

Truth bullet acquired : Broken ceiling light

Then in the hallway, Rose knocks over the only trash can available on the second floor and they find a couple clues.

We have the empty water jugs with broken handles. Quite peculiar, don't you think? Then we have a torn-up note which we already what it is by now. It's the letter "signed by Eden" adressing to Arei to ask her to meet in the playground about an issue regarding a secret being exposed.

We also have scrunched up tape, which looks very similar to the tapes we found in both the playground and the gym. Can't be a coincidence!

More subtle and not mentioned by the characters, there's a needle with a black string attached to it.

Truth bullet acquired : Empty jugs with broken handles

Truth bullet acquired : Torn-up note

Truth bullet acquired : Scrunched up tape

Truth bullet acquired : Needle with black string attached

I believe that's all the relevant clues I can find in each of these rooms. Time to get back on track!

Act 6

So to give a tiny recap to where we were last time in Act 5, Eden knocked Ace unconscious, dragged him back to the gym. Then sometime later, she knocked Arei unconscious.

Why would she knock Arei unconscious?! The culprit already found her intended victim for the murder!

There's only one possible explanation for this. Arei was supposed to be the scapegoat for her murder scheme. She was supposed to be the main suspect.

That makes no sense! If it went according to plan, during the trial, Arei would've mentioned that she's been knocked unconscious by Eden.

Not quite!

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

If she can sneak up on Teruko without her noticing, then she can also sneak up on Ace to knock him unconscious without being noticed. Therefore, if she can do that with Ace, she can do the exact same thing with Arei.

So sure, she would've mentioned that she's been knocked out, but who would believe her? Would they rather believe Eden or Arei? I think the answer is pretty clear.

But she must've been knocked unconscious not too late at night, meaning that she could've woken up sometime later at night and no one would suspect a thing about her!

There's no way to tell if the turpentine's effect would make someone go unconscious for a short or long time. That aside, there's a simple solution to explain how she couldn't escape without being suspected. To make sure that she doesn't go anywhere, you just need to trap Arei somewhere, lock her somewhere.

But there's no such place for that!

Truth bullet used : Relax's room nighttime features

The culprit hid Arei's unconscious body inside the relaxation room. Even if Arei somehow woke up early, she would be unable to get out of here because of the features of that room.

The room closes at 10:00 PM and only reopens at 8:00 AM. It's heavily implied that it would be locked. If someone wouldn't be able to enter that room at night, it's possible that someone wouldn't be able to exit that room eitheir if they were stuck inside.

But according to said features, it's locked because of a misting system that uses an enriched formula for the plants inside. Wouldn't Arei be covered in said enriched formula as well?

She would, unless the culprit used something to cover her body.

Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes

Truth bullet used : Needle with black string attached

The ball of clothes has starch on it and according to some google research, starch is actually very beneficial in plant growth. So it's safe to presume that this enriched formula that monoTV mentioned has something to do with starch. Meaning that the ball of clothes is physical proof that it was used in the relaxation room for the night.

This ball of clothes in question is a bundle of all the old uniforms that Teruko and Hu used to have until monoTV changed their style.

Then, it's possible that the culprit used a needle with string to attach pieces of clothes together to make a custom blanket of sorts.

But the turf in the relaxation room would get wet at night and that would stick to Arei's body!

Truth bullet used : Green yoga mats

The culprit placed the body on top of a yoga mat. That way, it wouldn't leave any traces on the back side of her body. Then add the blanket of clothes as mentioned earlier and she'd be covered from all sides.

To summarize this act, after hiding Ace's body in the gym, she knocked Arei unconscious with the turpentine and made sure that Arei would be locked up inside the relaxation room and covered from the misting system. She did all of that before 10:00 PM.

Act 7

Now that Arei's unconscious body was taken care of, it was now time to set up the murder mechanism!

Truth bullet used : Moved weight rack

Let's get that out of the way right off the bat. We know Eden's weak, so there's no way she could've moved the weight rack, even though it seemed to have been moved to make space for the murder mechanism. I doubt that Eden would put the time and physical efforts to move the weight plates one by one, then the weight rack and then putting back the weight plates.

So if she didn't do it, who did?

Truth bullet used : Ace working out

According to my theory, Ace was working out that evening, so wouldn't it make more sense to believe that he's the one who moved that weight rack? That would also be evidence that he was working out during the evening of DAY 2, not DAY 3 (I know what some of you think about this, but I'll get back to it later, don't worry).

But that doesn't make sense! The way that the weight rack was moved and toppled over, it's facing away from the bench where he would be doing the bench pressing.

Maybe, but we don't quite know what the characters are truly thinking. For all we know, this could be his actual workout preference, as weird as it may seem. With that said, I refuse to elaborate further. I will explain why in the finale.

Besides, we know that Ace is fairly fit, so he could move a bunch of these weight plates easily. Moving on...

Truth bullet used : Missing tape on pull-up bar

Since we know that Eden took the roll of tape with her as shown in the whodunnit, sometime after the failed murder reveal, it's logical to conclude that she's also the person who removed the tape on that bar. She removed all of the available tape on the pull-up bars to make a single roll of grippy tape.

Ha! There's a problem with that! It doesn't seem like there's a lot of tape on that pull-up bar, it's highly doubtful that it would be the same quantity as what's shown on the roll of tape. She must have gotten that tape somewhere else.

There's a very simple explanation for it...

See this on the left? That's also a pull-up bar, but slightly hidden by the weird workout contraption directly in front. But still, there's definitly a pull-up bar there.

So tell me... if there was grippy tape on the pull-up bar to the right, wouldn't there be tape on the pull-up bar to the left as well? There was a reason why I mentioned "available tape on the pull-up bars" and it wasn't a typo.

If you combine the tape from both pull-up bars, there would surely be enough to make a complete roll of tape. Moving on...

Truth bullet used : Eden's cables

Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan

Truth bullet used : Other piece of wire

Since the culprit didn't use Hu's custom weapon according to my theory, it's safe to presume to the wire that was found in the gym is the exact same as Eden's cables that I came up with. This also means that both pieces of the wire were originally a single, longer piece of wire.

So she used her accessible weapon for the next step...

Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet used : Stepladder

She attached one end of the wire to one of the blades of the right fan. The culprit circled the cable around the blade a few times and then did the finishing touches by sticking tape to it to make sure it'll stay there.

Of course, she's not as tall as a giraffe or as tall as Arturo, so she needed something to boost her height. That's where the stepladder comes into play. She placed it below the fan, climbed up and did the thing.

But when Teruko finds the body, you can see that the tape is facing upwards, above the fan. Wouldn't it be much easier to place it under the blade?

Sure, it would make sense, but from a mystery game/novel perspective, what would happen if the tape was placed under? You wouldn't really be able to see it now, would you? Granted, some could easily arrive at the conclusion that the wire was attached with tape since there was a roll of tape found at the scene.

So in that case, there's another simple and logical explanation to it. If you had the option to place tape eitheir above or under the fan, which would be the most efficient?

The right answer would be above the fan! Think about it. The wire is supposed to be holding something, so there would be weight attached to it. If the tape was applied under the blade, it could've easily come off because of the pressure of the weight. If it was taped above the blade instead, even though there would be weight pressure, it wouldn't affect the tape much in that situation.

Therefore, Eden placed the tape above the blade of the fan because that was the most efficient option. While I'm at it...

Truth bullet used : Ripped out right fan

Truth bullet used : Left fan not spinning

Considering what I've said previously regarding the left fan not spinning during the body discovery of Ace, there's a simple solution for this mystery.

The left fan stopped spinning because it was turned off. There is most likely a switch in the gym to turn on and off the fans.

That would easily explain why the left fan started spinning again after monoTV cleaned up the room the following day. That would also easily explain how the culprit managed to place tape on the right fan as well. Even though we have no one mentioning the existence of a switch for the fan, it's very easy to come up with that conclusion.

Truth bullet created : On/Off switch for the fans

Act 8

Now that the cable was set up on one end, it was time to take care of the other hand of the cable. That part would require more steps and efforts than what's shown in Act 7.

First off, to make sure her murder mechanism worked, the end result required Ace's body to be standing up with the wire attached to his neck. So it needed to be just kinda long enough to make it work.

So the body needed to remain in a standing up position while Eden is setting up the other end of the cable to his neck. Of course, she didn't have an accomplice nor would she want to work with one, so she relied on a few materials she planned beforehand to make it work.

Truth bullet used : Moved benches

Truth bullet used : Weight plates next to treadmill

Truth bullet used : Broom

The culprit used the back wall so that Ace's body would rest against it. That way, it wouldn't move backwards. Then, she squeezed the victim's legs with the benches, placing one of them on each side so that the body wouldn't move sideways. She also placed a weight plate on each foot so that his feet wouldn't move around, which could move the body if that were to happen. It would help keep the body stable.

Even with these steps however, it still wouldn't be enough to keep the body still. After all, these steps I mentioned only affect the lower part of the body. So if the culprit let things play out like that, the upper body would simply bend forward which would make all that stability effort go to waste.

Fortunately, the culprit is smart, she thought about that beforehand. That's why she brought the broom to the gym. That was the final step needed to keep the body still.

All Eden had to do next was place the broom through Ace's shirt in the back. As long as the body is standing against the wall, Ace would be unable to bend forward because of the broom. It's physically impossible.

You can even try it out yourself at home if you'd like. Pass a broom (preferably a clean one) through your shirt in the back, stand against a wall and try to bend forward. The broom blocks you from doing that.

Wouldn't the upper body be able to move sideways though?

Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't really matter though because the culprit simply needed to hold the body for a bit and all Eden needed to focus on is making sure that it wouldn't move sideways, everything else was taken care of. Moving on...

Truth bullet used : Eden's cables

Truth bullet used : Neck wounds

Truth bullet used : Smeared blood on the wall

Truth bullet used : Lack of blood anywhere else

Now that the body is stable, she needed to place that wire around Ace's neck, but how? Well, if we look at the neck wounds, you can see multiple slashes across his neck. And judging by the smeared blood on the wall, it seems to heavily imply that the neck wounds also reach the back side of his neck.

Well, actually, there's some incredibly minor pixelly details that seem to indicate that the neck wounds doesn't extend to the back. There's also this and-

Those are incredibly niche and minor details to claim that neck wounds doesn't go around the back of his neck which is still incredibly odd to me that people believe is the case considering the smeared blood. To me, it seems more like the creator added that blood on the wall to indicate that the neck wounds also go around his back even if we can't physically see it. In any case, I refuse to elaborate further on that. I'll explain why in the finale.

Anyways, there's also the lack of blood anywhere else during Teruko's investigation of the attempted murder. It seems really weird that there's not much other signs of blood considering how seemingly complex that mechanism must be. Some claim that some of these bloody spots must've been wiped off somehow, but I think there's a much, much simpler solution to this.

The culprit wrapped the cable around Ace's neck multiple times.

The best part in all this is that the culprit doesn't even need to tie it up. Even though it's simply going around his neck multiple times without a noose, the cable wouldn't come off. Heck, if you were to pull the wire one way, it would just tighten up Ace's neck.

If you're not convinced, you can try wrapping a plastic water bottle with some long wire and then try to pull it. It usually doesn't come off.

Act 9

Now that the cable was properly wrapped around Ace's neck, Eden had a few remaining finishing touches to complete the murder mechanism.

First off, now that Ace is properly tied up with the fan, all the materials that was used to keep the body stable was no longer needed and could be discarded.

Truth bullet used : Moved benches

Truth bullet used : Weight plates next to treadmill

Truth bullet used : Broom

Truth buller used : Stepladder

She removed the broom that was stuck in Ace's shirt. Then, she moved at least the left bench so that she'd have an easier access to drag the unconscious body. After that, she removed the weight plates on his feet and put it next to the treadmills. To finish it off, she moved the stepladder away from the fan since it was in the way.

After doing so, she then dragged Ace's standing body closer to the fan. Or rather, right below it, at the center.

Why didn't she place Ace's body under the fan to begin with? Moving it towards the wall seem unnecessary!

No, it was very much needed. Remember, Eden's not strong and she needed to make sure that the unconscious body wouldn't move while she's setting up the murder mechanism. Even if she were to make the body sit down, she would then need to make him stand up to tighten up the wire, but if there's no way to stabilize the backside, it would just fall backwards. Then if she would try to make sure it wouldn't go backwards, it could bend forward and so on. It wouldn't be practical.

That's precisely why she needed to make his body lean against the wall initially. Anyways, once Eden placed the body under the fan, she readjusted the wire a bit to make sure it would remain tight.

Couldn't she just leave the body standing against the wall for the murder mechanism?

Not really. The way the murder mechanism is supposed is work is like so..

Ace's body would be held by the wire which is attached by a blade of the fan. The fans are currently turned off. The only thing the culprit needed to do to commit murder is turn on the switch. By turning on the switch, the fan would spin along with the wire.

If the body was standing against the wall at the time, the wire would somewhat try to drag the body forward, which could potentially make the body fall, which could potentially break the fan.

If the body is standing right below the fan however, the wire wouldn't really drag his body since it is at the very center of the rotation. Once the fan spins along with the wire, the wire would wrap around his neck further, which tightens it even further, which could be what caused those neck wounds.

And that's what I think is what the murder mechanism is supposed to be.

Why would she go through so much work and efforts to make that kind of mechanism?

There's a couple reasons. Eden's not strong, as stated before, so there's a bunch of murder methods that she couldn't do by herself. Granted, she could easily do something like stabbing, but it's possible that she's the kind of the person who doesn't want to do the actual murder action herself. So the culprit would be more at ease if it was some kind of mechanism that would do the dirty deed for her.

But for a more reasonable explanation, working on a murder mechanism like that reminds her of her time spent working on clocks. Since clocks usually involve mechanisms, Eden would be more at ease working on something that's closer to her talents.

Truth bullet used : Hu's wires

Also, less practical reason, but still a reason nonetheless, since the culprit used some kind of wire as murder weapon, it could've been served as a way to throw in suspicions towards Hu. Even though the plan was meant to have Arei be the main suspect, it doesn't mean she couldn't throw suspicions indirectly on others as well. Besides, the more suspicions that's thrown at others, the less likely she would be caught.

Another good reason to it is because of the BDA rule. The rule states that "The Body Announcement will play when three or more people who did not witness the murder discover the body." She crafted that whole killing machine so that she would be able commit murder without witness the moment of murder.

Truth bullet used : On/Off switch for the fans

Eden simply needed to turn the switch of the fans back on and then exit the gym. She could go back to the dorm, letting the mechanism do its work and then next morning, if she goes with 2 other people to find Ace's dead body in the gym, it would trigger the BDA.

Act 10

That sounds great and all, but the murder plan failed anyways. What is even the point of all this?

Well, if everything went according to plan, it could've been a nearly perfect crime. But that didn't happen, as we all know. So what happened instead? Well, there's a simple reason why I suspect why Eden is the person responsible for the attempted murder on Ace.

Truth bullet used : Nico's motive to kill Ace

Truth bullet used : Nico caught in the act

Consider that Teruko and Eden found Nico next to Ace's that night, they're definitly involved in some shape or form. But since the murder mechanism was all of Eden's work, it would mean that Nico is the third party behind this fiasco.

While Eden was working on her murder mechanism, Nico decided that they wanted to murder Ace. The constant bullying pushed them to the edge. So they were desperatly looking for their target to commit murder.

But wait... if Nico was caught in the gym, how would they know to find Ace in here? Wouldn't they think that Ace would be sleeping at night in his dorm? Why wouldn't they look for him in the evening.

It's hard to say. I think there's honestly a lot of things that we don't know about Nico. They're quite the mystery. What we do know is that they were willing to murder Ace. We don't know their whole thought process, but they probably wanted to kill him at night since they would be less likely to be found out.

They probably tried knocking on Ace's door first, or maybe they kept a close eye to when Ace would come back to his dorm, but it never happened. So they probably eventually decided to go take a look around the building to see where he could be hiding.

But apparently, Nico never really thought about it when Veronika asked about how they envisioned killing Ace.

Maybe, but like I said, there's a lot that we don't know about Nico and from the looks of it, when Ace bullied Nico and they then replied that they would kill him, it seemed like a totally different behavior.

I don't know what's up with that, but that sinister behavior makes me believe that this is like a different form of Nico. Like a split personality, or his true self or something. We don't know for sure what it could be, but that different behavior could be what caused them to want to kill Ace at night.

My point is... because there's so much unknown about Nico, there's a vast amount of possibilities that would explain why they decided to murder Ace then and now. Moving on...

So Nico's looking around for his prey (hehe), they probably look around the first floor, but don't find him anywhere. So the only remaining option is taking the elevator to go on the second floor, he must be there after all.

Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls

Meanwhile, Eden suddenly hears the elevator making sounds. She realises that someone is approaching, but who and why this late at night?

Even though she completed the murder mechanism, she still wanted to clean up the crime scene a bit. Like... you know... placing the broom and stepladder back where it came from (storage room maybe), placing the discarded weight plates and moved benches back to their original position.

Unfortunatly, she can't do that, someone's coming, she needs to hide. So what does she do? She turns the switch of the fan back on, exits the gym and then hides in the dress-up room. Now, all she can do is hope and pray that whoever arrived will go back to the first floor.

But how would she not be aware that someone would arrive late at night? Wouldn't she have known that Nico probably wanted to kill Ace?

That's actually impossible. She couldn't have expected this at all.

Truth bullet used : Eden's incident in the infirmary

While the argument between Nico and Ace happened that day, Eden was busy having a private discussion with Arturo in the infirmary. She had a meeting so that she could reveal his secret and cause a potential conflict.

When Ace was threatening Nico that he would reveal their secret, at the time, Arturo, Eden and Arei was nowhere to be seen in the cafeteria, so it matches up perfectly.

So yeah... that was an unpleasant and unexpected surprise for Eden. The worst part in all of this is that when Nico reached the second floor, they actually entered the gym and that's when they discovered Ace about to be murdered by this weird mechanism.

This just became a disaster for Eden, someone found out about it too early and there's nothing she can do about it at the moment except to wait. So what does Nico do next?

Truth bullet used : On/Off switch for the fans

They turn off the fans.

What?! What would be the point of that?! He wants Ace dead, he doesn't want to save him! That doesn't make sense!

This is a golden opportunity for Nico! Think about it. They want to murder Ace, but then they see that potentially someone else already tried to murder him. It's hard to say if they knew what this whole mechanism meant, but they could see that the fan was playing a part to it.

So they probably realised : "Wait, I could turn it off and then kill him myself." That way, if the group somehow figures out the murder mechanism, they might not realise that someone else killed Ace in that moment.

But then Eden would've told the group about it. She would've been a witness and Nico would've been doomed at the trial.

Maybe, but the thing to keep in mind is that at the time, Nico didn't know that the person responsible for the murder mechanism was hiding somewhere on the second floor. After all...

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

Even though the walls are not soundproof, Eden is really sneaky, so she might've been able to hide without being noticed by Nico.

But like I said before, Nico never really thought about it when Veronika asked about how they envisioned killing Ace.

...Again with this. Like I said before, there's a lot that we don't know about Nico yet. It's precisely because he never thought about it that it makes me think that something's going on with Nico.

If Nico had something like a split personality, similar to Toko Fukawa, it would explain those oddities. Cliché'd or not, this is a fangan. So creators could definitly take inspiration from the original ones without a doubt. It would also explain why they weren't willing to share to Charles what happened there. Whether they was filled with regret or not, it's possible that they don't quite clearly remember how it went.

In any case, I refuse to elaborate further on that. I'll explain why in the finale.

Now that the fan is turned off, there are eitheir two things Nico could do : Kill Ace directly with a slightly different method, like physically strangling him or they simply turn the switch back on.

As long as they get the finishing blow, that should work.

Act 11

It's around this time that someone else joins the murder party on the second floor. We must not forget about Teruko! Based on what we saw on Episode 6, Teruko realises that she forgot her spare uniforms in the dress-up room on the second floor because she didn't want to use the same ol stinky clothes after taking a shower. So she then uses the elevator to go get her clothes on the second floor.

Eden hears footsteps, noticing that someone's approaching the dress-up room. Thinking it's the person who was in the gym, she goes : "W-who's there? I know you've been following me!"

But that was in fact Teruko who entered that room, so she replies : "What? No, I'm not. What are you talking about?"

Then Eden gets embarassed and nervous. She asks : "Oh, it's just you, Teruko. What are you doing here?" At the time, the culprit thought that it was the other person who visited the gym : Nico.

Teruko replies : "I could say the same to you. What are *you* doing here, at a time like this?" She makes a very good point. It's very suspicious of Eden to be present in here this late at night and Eden is aware of that. She's in trouble. If she doesn't come up with a valid excuse quickly, her plan will be completly ruined.

Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes

She then remembered that when she was gathering clothes to make some kind of blanket to cover Arei from the starched water, she noticed spares of Teruko's uniform. So with her quick wit, she came up with this : "Hu told me all about how MonoTV gave you both new outfits. I noticed you didn't take any of your new clothes, so I was going to deliver them to you! But I'm guessing that's also why you're here right now."

That excuse worked like a charm. Teruko believed it, as mistrusting as she may be. She was even nearly about to thank Eden for being so nice, but then remembered she needs to retain a mean and mistrusting persona.

So then they talk for a bit, they're about to go back to the first floor. Or at the very least, Teruko was about to go there first because she doesn't trust anyone else to take the elevator with her. Then all of a sudden, they hear loud noises coming from the gym. They enter the room and then we get to the scene of the attempted murder on Ace with Nico being caught in the act.

Act 12

While this whole scene between both girls happened, something else was happening back in the gym. So according to my theory, Nico turned off the fans. That wasn't just because of malicious intents by the way, there was also a logical reason behind it.

Truth bullet used : Left fan not spinning

Truth bullet used : Nico caught in the act

When Teruko and Eden discovered Ace's body while Nico was holding a piece of the wire, in that moment, the left fan wasn't working. It wouldn't make sense for the left fan to be broken like the one on the right since it was working just fine the next day.

This means that someone must've turned off the fans and the only possibility I can think of is if Nico turned them off for their own personal reasons. It just makes sense.

Anyways, as they were about plotting to murder Ace, something else happened that put a stop to their plan.

Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls

They heard someone using the elevator. Not only that, but they could hear Teruko and Eden talking in the dress-up room. They are now aware that there are people close by. They can't afford to do any funny business like murder if there are witnesses close by. They had no choice but to wait for them to go back to the first floor.

To make sure that they were indeed gone, they put their head against the door to listen closely to what's going on outside the fitness room.

While this was happening... yet another unexpected thing happend. Ace came back to consciousness!

That makes no sense! You have no proof of that!

You'll understand why I make that claim shortly. Be quiet and let me continue!

So let's think about Ace's point of view for a minute here. He wakes up in the fitness room. What are some of the things that he notices? Well, he sees Nico in the distance, by the door. Nico doesn't notice Ace who came back to consciousness because they were busy listening to the conversation between Teruko and Eden.

Truth bullet used : Neck wounds

Shortly afterwards, he would notice that his neck hurts. Confused, he's wondering what's going.

Truth bullet used : Eden's cables

Truth bullet used : Blood on Ace's fingers

Truth bullet used : Nico's motive to kill Ace

Truth bullet used : Ace's phobias

So Ace touches his neck and that's when he notices that there's blood. Then upon closer inspection, he realises that he's stuck with a wire wrapped around his neck. The terrifying conclusion comes to him in a flash : "Oh my god! Nico is about to freaking kill me! I don't wanna die!" This is partly why there's blood on Ace's fingers. He's having a moment of panic, but...

Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls

He can also hear two girls talking from outside the gym. So Ace knows that there's people around. He probably wanted to scream, but his neck probably hurt so bad that it might've been nearly impossible to speak at the moment.

So he needed to come up with another plan. What could he possibly do to get everyone's attention?

Truth bullet used : Ace working out

Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan

Truth bullet used : Other piece of wire

Truth bullet used : Blood on Ace's fingers

There's only one possible option he could do in a situation like this : brute force his way out of this death trap. So he grabs the wire from the front of his neck with both hands, tries to break that wire with all his might. While doing that, he's also pulling his body backwards.

That way, it would put stress on both the wires and the fan. So as long as eitheir breaks, that would do the trick. That would certainly explain why there spots on the wire that didn't have blood : Ace wiped them simply with his hands.

HOLD ON JUST A MINUTE! That can't be possible! You can't fully wipe blood on wires with just your hands that way. You'd need something to clean it up. Also, the position of the spots wouldn't quite realisticly match up the positions of where his hands would be and-

.........I refuse to elaborate on that. I'll explain why later in the finale.

Moving on... Fortunately for Ace, when he tried to eitheir break the wire or the fan, both happened at the same time.

Truth bullet used : Moved benches

Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan

Truth bullet used : Other piece of wire

Truth bullet used : Ripped out right fan

Truth bullet used : Ace's sitting position

Truth bullet used : Smeared blood on the wall

So what exactly happened when he succeeded in brute forcing his way out? Well, the cable break in two, which would explain both pieces of wire found. Then, the right fan would be ripped out of the ceiling, which would perfectly explain why it was found on the ground.

As the fan breaks, Ace's backwards momemtum would make him fall behind. This would result in him having a sitting position with his back against the wall. The impact of his head against the wall, would make his head move a bit, which would perfectly explain the smear on the wall.

Also, while he's falling backwards, he would also hit the right bench, which would make it topple over. That would cleanly explain why Teruko found a toppled bench during Ace's body discovery.

And of course, all of that creates a very loud noise, which got Teruko and Eden curious.

But what about Nico?

Well... they're kinda screwed. But more importantly, they're as confused as the girls outside. After all, they were busy listening to the conversation, so they have no idea what the hell just happened there.

So when they turn around, they just see this mess... They can't help but wonder what in the heavens happened here. So they approach the "crime scene" and get rather curious about the broken wire. So they grab one piece of the wire and...

Act 13

Truth bullet used : Nico caught in the act

Truth bullet used : Nico's motive to kill Ace

Truth bullet used : Hu's wires

Truth bullet used : Hu being protective of Nico

Truth bullet used : Turpentine

That's when we get the scene where Teruko and Eden finds Ace presumably dead. They also find Nico holding a piece of the wire that has blood on it. This, ladies and gentleman, is how the whole attempted murder on Ace went down in my opinion. It would perfectly explain all the clues found here.

Not only that, but that would be perfect to make us believe without a shred of a doubt that it was Nico who truly did all of that.

Why? It's simple! Teruko catches Nico in the act, so that's already very suspicious. We also know that they wanted to have a painting session with Rose, so it's very easy to believe that Nico might've stolen the turpentine to knock Ace unconscious.

Then, we see that the murder weapon looks like some kind of wire. What do we know about wires? According to the list of custom weapons, Hu's weapon are wires.

Add that to the fact that she's trying to protect Nico from all the bullying like an overprotective mother, we get the following result : Nico really wanted to kill Ace and Hu wanted to help, so Hu became the accomplice by giving them wires.

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to believe that all of this is just a giant red herring?! A devil trick pulled by the DRDT creator themselves! If that's truly what happened, then I can't help but applaud the creator for coming up with such an elaborate mystery.

Another thing to take note : Eden is really surprised and confused upon seeing the chaotic mess. Her whole mechanical creation broken apart. She couldn't but utter those words : "AHHHHHHH! Wh...What?? What is this??"

Also, Eden notices something else that's entirely wrong : she knows that Ace is not dead.

Huh? How come?!

Think about it. The reason why she made this murder mechanism is to be able to count as a person for the BDA rule since she didn't need to be in the gym for the murder to happen. So when they came across this whole mess, there were at least 3 alive people : Teruko, Eden and Nico. If Ace was truly dead, the BDA would've triggered by now, but that's not what happened.

So Eden knew that her whole murder attempt on Ace failed. Her whole plan failed.

Anyways, Teruko shouts at Nico, they run away and leave the crime scene. So what about Ace? Well...

Act 14

Ace is supposed to be back to consciousness, yet at the time, he's presumably. Well... it's more accurate to say that we were led to believe that he's unconscious. So what's up with that?

There's two options. He eitheir hit his head so hard against the wall that he lost consciousness again. It's a funny theory to think about, but I seriously don't think that's what happened.

So that means it's most likely the other option : Ace pretended to be dead/unconscious.

That's just insane! Why would Ace do that?!

Well, initially, I think it was to fool Nico. Since Ace was absolutely that he was the murderer, he didn't know what to expect of them. So by pretending to be unconscious still, Nico would turn around to see the mess and they would probably not immediatly suspect that this was caused by Ace. It would make sense since they were seen holding a piece of wire, probably wondering what the hell happened.

Well, Nico's gone though. Couldn't he have dropped the act?

He probably could've, but there was something that made him not want to reveal it.

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

By that, I don't mean that he's pretending to be dead because he wants to act tough. That wouldn't make sense. I'm referring to the argument scene with Levi way back in Episode 2. He had a change of behavior since then and he even stated that he would rely on himself alone.

In simpler terms, he's practically acting like Teruko : not trusting anyone and working on his own. In essence, when Teruko does that, it really does make her look tough. Maybe Ace took a little bit of inspiration from it, who knows?

Wouldn't it make more sense to reveal to the girls what truly happened? That would make him look like a tough badass!

Maybe, but remember, he doesn't trust anyone else anymore and wants to work on his own. So by pretending to be dead at the time, no one would realise what truly transpired in the fitness room. So by doing that, he's hiding secrets from others, kind of like hiding the real strength of his hand in poker by making it look weak. That's also why Ace refuses to share anything to Charles about what happened in the gym. Moving on...

Teruko proceeds with the investigation while Eden is busy crying over this "body discovery".

What is Eden truly plotting here? It's simple. She's trying to think of an plan B and quick. After all, like I mentioned in the whydunnit, she really wants to get out of here, so she needs to murder someone.

On top of that, Arei is still stuck inside the relaxation room. If no murder happens real soon, things would look pretty bad for Eden. But then, she realised something... Arei is still trapped inside the relaxation room. This is the perfect opportunity.

As long as Arei is trapped in here, she could proceed to kill her next morning at the earliest time. She would rather not do it, but she has no choice, especially if she wants to complete her goal of exiting this killing game. This is the only remaining move possible. It's all or nothing!

So by the time Teruko finishes the investigation, Eden finally comes up with a proper plan B for the murder scheme. For that to work, she needed something in that gym.

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

So Eden tells Teruko : "Okay, I'm ready. I'm okay. Am I needed, Teruko? Let me help investigate." She would then proceed to "investigate" the crime scene when in reality, she's trying to grab the roll of tape while she's distracted.

The distraction happens around the time where Teruko approaches Ace's body to inspect it more closely.

This is bad for Ace for two reasons. One, she would notice that Ace is still alive which we do notice her reaction in Episode 6. Two, she would notice the blood on his fingers/hands. If she were to notice that, it would help her get closer to learning the truth about what happened here and that's not what Ace wants at all.

That's why he comes up with potentially the best bluff I've ever seen.

Act 15

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

Truth bullet used : Blood on Ace's fingers

Truth bullet used : Neck wounds

Ace decides that now's the best time to pretend to wake up to consciousness and make this hilariously loud shout to showcase that he's not dead. Here's something really interesting about this pose however.

Look at his hands. He put his left hand on his neck wounds while he's clenching his right hand. What do they both have in common? Well, it's meant to hide the fact that there was blood on his fingers beforehand, of course! The same thing happens later on.

Ace now placed his right hand on his neck wounds, covering his hand with blood to make it look like the blood on his hands originally came from touching his wounds at the moment, not before.

So by putting on this act, Ace was able to disguise his bloody hands which hides the truth behind what may have truly happened while also putting on this tough guy act. Neitheir Teruko or Eden would suspect a thing.

And of course, this would also explain why Ace is so insistent on believing that Nico tried to kill him : He saw them with his own eyes. Anyone in Ace's shoes would believe the same thing.

Truth bullet created : Ace's actions in the gym

So later on, Ace tries to chase after Nico back to their dorm. MonoTV kicks Eden and Teruko out of the gym and locks it. Then they back to the first floor to follow Ace. Then there's the scene with Teruko, Eden, Ace and Levi involved. Ace claims that he doesn't need help because he doesn't trust the others and wants to act tough and on his own.

Ace goes back to his dorm, Levi goes back to his dorm and Teruko doesn't care about Ace's condition, so she goes back to her dorm. What about Eden? Well... it's time for plan B!

Act 16

Now that everyone went back to bed. Eden shouldn't have to worry about any other surprises, so late night of DAY 2 should be the perfect time to set up the second murder mechanism among other things. There was yet again a lot of work to do. But that's fine, she mentioned in the prologue that she can work on something for many hours without taking a break.

She had two main goals in mind to make her whole murder scheme work.

Create a murder mechanism at a different location so that the mechanism would do the dirty deed for her. The best possible location for this would be the playground.

Create a perfect alibi so that no one would suspect her. For that to work, she would need to disguise the actual time of death so that people would presume the victim died at a later died, which would be a time where the culprit would have an alibi.

So while Arei is still trapped inside the relaxation room, Eden could work on gathering the materials to make a nearly perfect disguise and make the necessary preparations for the murder mechanism in the playground. Let's start with gathering the materials for the disguise.

Why would Eden need to make a disguise?

It's simple. What would be the best way to make it look like Arei was still alive on DAY 3? By having someone disguised practically like her and being present in a place where there's multiple people for a short period of time.

But she looks nothing like Arei! That's impossible!

We have a lot of clues that could make it possible, as unbelievable as it may sound.

Truth bullet used : Wigs

Truth bullet used : Make-up kit

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

First, she stealthily entered Arei's dorm (she probably had Arei's monopad or whatever it was to unlock that door) to take a look at her spare uniforms. Upon closer inspection, she notices that there's a small problem : there are no spare gloves. It would appear that this is a unique kind of accessory for Arei, so she's gonna have no choice but to take it from Arei's body after killing her.

Truth bullet created : Arei's spare uniform

Next up, she would go to the second floor to grab a certain wig and the make-up kit in the dress-up room. There's this blue wig that looks like Arei's hairstyle, so that should do the trick. Once it's been gathered, she temporarily placed them in Arei's dorm. Most of the disguise materials were collected, time for the next step.

Act 17

It was time to gather the materials for the second murder mechanism.

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel

Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck

Truth bullet used : Empty jugs with broken handles

Eden already had the roll of grippy tape with her, so we don't have to worry about that. She first grabbed the water jugs that probably came from the fridge. Of course, the handles weren't broken at the time.

And finally, she took the rope that belonged to Arei, but was sent to the storage room. I don't know if there were two ropes or only one very long rope. But if there was only one, then Eden must've used a knife in the kitchen to cut it in two. That was necessary to make her murder mechanism work. That would explain the two ropes found in the playground on Episode 8.

Truth bullet created : Water jugs

Now that this was all gathered, she then needed to move them to the playground to start building that murder machinery.

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel

Truth bullet used : Broken ceiling light

Once she arrived at the playground, Eden first needed to throw that rope above this metal railing by the ceiling, whatever it's called. She wanted to create a pulley system, so that step was important.

The culprit picked the longer rope of the two, then she put the rope through the roll of tape, tied it up and then threw it upwards as hard as possible.

It's two floors high, Eden's not strong enough to throw it up there!

She may be weak, but she can definitly pull that task. There's a specific reason why I believe the culprit used the roll of tape. It'd be incredibly light and it has a handle, which makes it really easy to chuck it high up in the air.

Even if she doesn't succeed the first, she had plenty time to keep trying until she succeeded. Eventually, she would succeed, but she would accidently hit the lights which would break it in the process.

The weight of the tape is probably not enough to break it.

We don't know that for sure. Besides, if I recall, MonoTV mentioned that the lights were flickering, which can simply be caused by a misplaced light bulb. So it could very well do the trick with enough speed. But in case you think that's not enough, I'll go ahead and say that I refuse to elaborate further on that matter, I'll explain why in the finale. Moving on...

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet used : Carousel wrapped with tape

Next up, the culprit wrapped the bars of the spinny thing with tape. The reason why was because the carousel was essential for the pulley system. She needed to spin it to raise the rope among other things

At the moment, the bars are pretty slippery, so she needed something applied to the bars so that she wouldn't the grip. Hence, the grippy tape.

Well, that's impossible! The roll of tape by itself wouldn't be enough to cover all the bars of that carousel. Where would she get more of that tape?!

Eden didn't need more tape, that was all that she needed to wrap all those bars.

Now, you're just being delusional! It can't cover all the bars with that alone!

Heh! Are you sure about that? I know that most of you are under the impression that the bars of the spinny thing must be wrapped up horizontally, kind of like putting tape on a tennis racket's handle.

By thinking outside the box, there's actually a way to explain this issue. It's very simple once you realise it. The culprit wrapped the bars vertically!

By that, I mean that she starts applying the tape from the top of the bar and then drags it straight down. Once it reaches the bottom, she just needs to cut the tape and then the extra width of the tape will go around the carousel bar. That way, Eden can save a lot of tape and would have plenty with that roll of tape.

The bars seem fairly large though. I doubt it would be enough to cover the bar with only one length of tape.

Hard to say. But if that's truly a problem, you can easily fix it by using a second length of tape on that same bar. So each bar would have 2 lengths of tape.

And if that somehow makes you think that there wouldn't be enough tape by doing it that way, then there's nothing else I can do to please you. I refuse to elaborate further on that. I will explain why in the finale. Moving on...

Truth bullet used : Water jugs

Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel

It's not time to attach that rope to the appropriate items. On one end, she would tie both water jugs together in such a way that it would be hanging from the handles. At the other end of that rope, Eden makes a noose around one of the bars of the carousel.

She then tests out the pulley system to see if it actually works. If the pulley system doesn't properly work from simply tying up the rope to one of the bars, then there's an alternative. As @1moreff-creator suggested in the past, you just weave the rope through some of the handlebars and that should do the trick.

Truth bullet created : Pulley system

And with that, the preparations for the second murder mechanism would be complete at the moment. There are a few remaining steps, but she can't do it without the body, so she'll have to wait next morning.

Act 18

While Eden is waiting for the door of the relaxation room to unlock at 8:00 AM, there were a few things that she could do. Those are not necessarily things that she did, but could've happened to make sure the plan was perfect.

Truth bullet used : Wigs

Truth bullet used : Make-up kit

Truth bullet used : Arei's spare uniform

Truth bullet used : Needle with black string attached

Of course, she didn't put on the disguise at night even though that would technicly save time. The reason why is because if Eden proceeded to disguise herself into Arei at night, waited for the doors to unlock next morning, murder her, then hide back the body, it would take so much physical efforts out of her that she would be sweating. This would ruin the disguise.

So instead, she tested out the products to make sure that they worked perfectly. For the wig, the culprit could try to readjust the hair so that it would look a lot more like Arei's hairstyle.

Then, for the make-up kit, she would find the right materials to change her skin tone so that it would match Arei's. She probably puts it on her hand or wrist and tries out various combinations until she finds the perfect color. Once she's done with that, she can simply wash it away for the time being. Oh, also, she would take the time to find proper contacts to match Arei's eye colors as well.

Next up would be the uniform. She tried it on to make sure it would fit perfectly. Eden probably knows that she's a bit smaller than Arei, so there could be some differences. She cannot recreate Arei's height, that would be impossible. It's not like Arei is wearing high heels anyways.

If the disguise is not quite perfect, she could probably try to readjust it somehow with a needle and a few basic sewing skills. I'm no expert in this, and it's unsure if Eden truly did that anyways. What matters is that there was the option available before her if needed.

Now that she's fully prepared for the murder scheme, it was time for the culprit to wait in front of the relaxation room until the door unlocks.

Act 19

It is now 8:00 AM of DAY 3, it's time to retrieve the body!

As the door of the relax room unlocks, Eden would proceed to grab Arei's body and drag it to the playground. The turf would probably be dry by now. Otherwise, why would MonoTV allow others to enter that room this early and potentially make a mess if the ground happened to still be wet and gross?

There's no way Arei would still be unconscious for such a long time. Ace woke up in fewer hours than the time it took for the culprit to wait for the doors of the relax room to open.

Ace woke up earlier because of the neck wounds, most likely. We don't really know how effective or potent this turpentine actually is. But based on my deductions, it would make a lot more sense to believe that Arei was unconscious this whole time.

Otherwise, she would have starch all over her if she woke up at night and wandered around that room. For all we know, maybe she was about to come back to consciousness very soon that morning. Maybe the culprit brought the turpentine with her just in case to make sure she remains unconscious. With that said, I refuse to elaborate further on that. I'll explain why in the finale.

Anyways, now that the culprit brought the body back to the playground, she now had access to the missing piece to complete the perfect disguise.

Truth bullet used : Arei's missing glove

It appears to be unique. So Eden took it off Arei's hand and stored it somewhere safe... like her pouch that's around her belt. That would perfectly explain why the victim's glove was missing during the investigation in Episode 8.

Act 20

The final preparations are complete, it's now time for murder! Eden needed to place the body at the right position along with a few remaining props.

Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape

Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck

Truth bullet used : Red marks on Arei's wrists

Truth bullet used : Scrunched up tape

Truth bullet used : Scuffed ground

Considering the red marks on Arei's wrists when she was found dead alongside the scrunched up tape found in the trash, the obvious logical conclusion we can get out of this is that her wrists were tied up with the grippy tape. The real question though is for what purpose did she do that?

According to my theory, the victim would still be unconscious, so there's no point in tying her wrists to make sure she doesn't escape or fight back or whatever. So by thinking outside the box, I've concluded that the culprit did it because it was a necessary step for the murder scheme.

Then you have to consider the scuffed marks that was found on the ground of the playground in a specific location. It couldn't have been from a fight or struggle since Arei should've been unconscious, so something else should've happened. That's when I came up with this brilliant idea.

For reference, the scuffed marks were found a few feet away from the seasaw (Don't mind the drawing). Also, the yellow stickman where we can't see the legs represents the victim : Arei. The green scribbles represent the other piece of rope, the one that's not as long as the one used for the pulley, but still somewhat long. The subtle grey scribbles by the seasaw and the yellow man's hands represents the grippy tape applied to Arei's wrists.

So here's how it's supposed to work. First, Eden brings the body close by the seasaw and then place Arei's arms between both poles (supports) of the seasaw. Next up, she would bind tightly the victim's wrists together with the grippy tape so that the body wouldn't be able to easily move away from the seasaw through a forceful pulling motion.

Then, she would use the other rope to make a noose around Arei's neck. However, she wouldn't tie the other end of the rope to the spinny thing just yet, she will do that later. For now, she placed that end of the rope as close to the carousel as possible.

I still don't see how that would create scuffed marks to the ground...

That's because I haven't shown you the magic trick yet! Let's continue!

Truth bullet used : Pulley system

Now that the other rope was set up, it was now time to use the pulley system she created last night. First, the culprit spins the carousel in the rotation (let's say clockwise) that would pull the water jugs (that are hanging by the other rope of that rope) upwards. She would pull as much as she possibly can. Then once the water jugs reach the maximum height, it was time for the next step.

Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck

The culprit needed her hands to tie the other rope that was close by her with the spinny thing's handlebar. Of course, there's a bit of weight from the water jugs, so she couldn't simply let go of the pulley. Therefore, she must've been holding the carousel with one or both legs. If tying the rope with one of the handlebars wasn't enough, Eden could've also weaved through a few of them like before.

Now, here comes to most exciting part, the "tada!" of the murder trick! She takes out her leg(s) from the spinny thing, she holds it again with her hands and then... she spins it counterclockwise as hard and as fast as possible!

That way, the water jugs would fall down pretty fast, especially if the spinny were to cause resistence of friction (making it fall slowly if it was the culprit only released). So they would fall fast, while the other rope would wind up along the carousel up until that rope reaches the limit.

As the rope reaches the limit... SNAP!

Truth bullet used : Arei's broken neck

Truth bullet used : Empty jugs with broken handles

Truth bullet used : Scuffed ground

So what happened in that moment? Well, Arei's dead. It breaks Arei's neck because of the immediate stop of the rope attached to her neck which was also pulled in by spinny thing in a pretty fast rate. This is the mainly reason why her wrists were bound. Otherwise, her whole body would've been dragged towards the carousel, which wouldn't really guarantee a killing blow.

But since the victim's wrists were stuck around the seasaw, it wouldn't move much... except for her lower body. It created a knee jerk movement reaction of her legs because of that violent pulling motion. Because of that, this would scrape the ground, which would cause the scuffed marks on the ground.

Hold on! Would it actually be enough to explain ALL these scuffed marks on the ground?

Maybe, maybe not. At the very least, the culprit could've simply created more marks on the ground to make it look more like it came from a struggle. That wouldn't be a problem at all since it's very easy to do damage the ground purposefully.

Anyways, that wouldn't be the only thing that would break. There's also the water jugs! As the rope holding Arei's neck would come to an abrupt stop, it would also make an abrupt stop to the longer rope used for the pulley system which is also what was holding the jugs by the handles. The violent motion would make the rope cut through these flimsy plastic handles, which the jugs would then fall to the ground and spill all over the playground.

The water spill is no issue at all whatsoever and was already planned by the culprit because she knew beforehand that the wet ground would dry up fairly quickly because of the fans at the ceiling.

And there you go! This... is how the actual murder happened... in my opinion. That would explain a lot of clues found perfectly, wouldn't it?

Anyways, Eden's nowhere done yet. That would only her first goal achieved : create a murder mechanism at a different location so that the mechanism would do the dirty deed for her.

Next up, it was time to create a perfect alibi so that no one would suspect her. There was still a lot of work to do.

Act 21

She had a disguise trick to do, but before doing that, she needed to get rid of a couple pieces of evidence. The main issue however is that because she had no choice but to murder Arei past 8:00 AM, someone could wake up very soon if they haven't done so already. But Eden couldn't leave all that evidence behind, especially the body. So whatever she needed to get rid of or hide, it needed to be done really fast. So anything that wasn't too essential in hiding could help her save time. So here's what she did...

Truth bullet used : Scrunched up tape

Truth bullet used : Red marks on Arei's wrists

Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel

Truth bullet used : Eden's letter

Truth bullet used : Torn-up note

Truth bullet used : Empty jugs with broken handles

Truth bullet used : Needle with black string attached

Eden took off the tape that kept the victim's wrists bound. Even though it leaves red marks which would make it fairly easy to deduce for the others to figure out that she was bound, she had no choice but to remove that tap if she wanted to move that body and hide it.

She untied both ropes that had a noose on the spinny thing. She then pulled the longer rope used for the pulley system and then put all that rope under the carousel. She left the tape stuck on the handlebars, it would take too long and there was not enough time.

Next up, Eden's letter. It's hard to say if the culprit truly made that letter as a mean to lure Arei into the playground earlier in the evening of DAY 2 and then knock her unconscious or if she simply made up that whole message at nighttime instead for the whole purpose of fabricating a perfect alibi.

Whichever it is, the culprit needed to tear up that note and throw it in the trash can. She didn't want to downright get rid of it. She wanted the others to find out about it sometime during the investigation. It was a necessary step of her plan to both make her alibi look more credible and also make herself look the least suspicious.

She also threw away the tape that was bound to Arei's wrists previously (which would now be scrunched up), the empty jugs and that needle to the trash. She no longer needed them and it wouldn't make it as easy to figure out the crime if the jugs were separated from the playground. Of course, she couldn't bring those jugs with her and get rid of them completly in case that she ends up running into someone back on the first floor.

Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck

Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes

Later on, Eden would drag the body away from the playground to then hide it in the relaxation room. She knew a decent spot to hide the body. She didn't undo the rope attached to the victim's neck since it was unnecessary.

People would know that her cause of death has to be related to the rope. It was also a waste of time, so not doing anything about it would save time which is exactly what the culprit needs. Also, she probably put the blanket of old clothes above the dead body to hide it better.

Ridiculous! Where would Eden even hide the body?

Truth bullet used : Box of incense

If I had to guess... probably somewhere behind those blue curtains. Preferably close by the box of incense. This spot appears to be further away from where most of the people would be relaxing. Most people would relax where there's the yoga mats and pillows. So that spot by the box of incense wouldn't be as obvious. Besides, there was another reason behind it.

Considering that the culprit is hiding it to fabricate their alibi, it would mean that the corpse would be here for a full day possibly. Wouldn't it mean that the body would decompose and create a noticeable smell?

It's honestly hard to say. I have sources that tells me that it doesn't go through that stage of body decomposition after 24 hours, it's usually more than that. But it also depends on various conditions. We don't know eitheir if the creator took that into account at all. But whether or not it was intended, I have an idea that would suggest that Eden planned ahead and used something in the relaxation room to make her alibi even stronger.

That's just utter nonsense! There's no such thing!

That's where you're wrong!

Truth bullet used : Incense sticks

The culprit used the incense sticks to create a natural timer mechanism!

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!

Do you remember what I've said about these incense sticks before act 6? "Burning a whole stick can take up to an hour, but the lingering smell can last for multiple hours." That wasn't made up. That was something that I found out with a simple google search.

So let's rewind the story back to DAY 1. MonoTV announces that they have access to the 2nd floor. Teruko proceeds to investigate and finds out interesting facts about each room. It's very possible that Eden was also investigating at a different time period that day.

That would explain how she was able to come up with such complex and ingenius murder schemes according to my theory.

Culprit complimentations aside, she learned things about the relaxation room and probably noticed the smell of the incense sticks. Because we had a timeskip due to Teruko isolating herself to her dorm most of DAY 1, it's possible that Eden came back to the relaxation room later in the evening and noticed that the smell of the incense sticks disappeared. She would then have a rough idea of how long this incense smell lasts.

Now fast forward to the night of DAY 2, after the attempted murder on Ace failed. When she was plotting a new murder plan and figured out her only remaining option was killing Arei, she would remember the time of the lingering smell of said incense sticks. She would use that seemingly minor detail to her advantage.

Why does it matter having a timer?! That doesn't make sense!

It all has to do with her second goal : creating the perfect alibi. She didn't just want to hide the body for an unknown period of time, she wanted someone to find the body at some point while she's busy building her alibi with someone else.

So by using the incense sticks as a timer mechanism, she would just need to wait for someone to spend time in the relaxation room sometime in the evening. That person would eitheir notice a weird smell (of the corpse decomposing) or a lack of incense sticks smell and they would approach the box of incense to eitheir burn new sticks or to follow the source of the weird smell.

And that's how it works!

Act 22

Now that Eden cleaned up most of the important clues, she then went back to the first floor, back to Arei's dorm.

Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness

As long as she's sneaky enough and waits for the right time, I'm sure she would be able to enter Arei's dorm without being noticed. And then she would spend a couple hours putting on the make up and the disguise. Well actually... maybe she took a shower first.

You don't have a single shred of proof that any of this happened! Your theory just doesn't work!

If that was the case, then why does my theory line up perfectly with most of the clues found. But more importantly, why does it line up perfectly with what happened to Teruko in the morning of DAY 3?

Teruko overslept at the most convenient time for someone like Eden to commit murder around the morning of DAY 3 while also setting up her disguise.

This also lines up perfectly with what's happening afterwards. Teruko wakes, decides to go to the cafeteria during lunchtime. She finds a group of people there. Ace is having an argument with Nico because he's pretty sure that Nico tried to kill him, which is understandable. The others have their eyes on that heated argument and then...

Truth bullet used : Wigs

Truth bullet used : Make-up kit

Truth bullet used : Arei's spare uniform

Truth bullet used : Arei's missing glove

That's all you get from Arei and you don't see her anytime afterwards up until the BDA. Not only that, but she doesn't say a single thing, she's staying quiet. There's no way you can't find that suspicious in any way. Having Eden pull off a disguise trick would explain it perfectly!

Truth bullet created : Eden's disguise trick

This can't work! Teruko was staring at Arei, she would've noticed something strange about her!

Nope, she wouldn't. It's heavily implied that Teruko has prosopagnosia. This defines as having the inability of recognizing faces. She can only recognize people with their hair, eye color, skin tone. At least, that's what it seems to be when she's having a chat with Veronika in the movie screening room in Episode 7, in the evening of DAY 3. Therefore, she couldn't have recognised that something's off about her.

Anyone else who was in the cafeteria would've noticed something strange about her!

Aside from the fact that she's being quiet, not really. Why? It's simple.

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

Truth bullet used : Hu being protective of Nico

The constant bullying and arguing that Ace is doing towards Nico is causing a big distraction within the cafeteria. Hu was also busy defending Nico, which also plays a part in the distraction. Also, Ace is doing this because he's trying to show how much of a badass he is, despite being nearly killed. He's not holding back.

Well, Rose would've noticed! She saw her at lunch and she has a photographic memory!

Maybe, maybe not. Granted, she did see her, but we don't know for sure if she truly saw something off. After all, she tends to be absent-minded. It is possible that in future episodes, she will remember something that was a little different about Arei thanks to her photographic memory. We shouldn't fully deny the disguise trick just because of a potential witness.

Even then, it would be ridiculously risky! What if someone wanted to talk to her? The wig's light blue, not blue like Arei's hair! Is Eden even good at using make-up? I don't think she'd be able to replicate a good skin tone. And there's also that bowling pin, it's an accessory, shouldn't it be unique like the glove? What about-

Enough! ...I refuse to elaborate further on that matter. You'll understand why later in the finale. What matters for now is that I found a way to explain how the disguise trick could work and fit in with most of the clues.

Act 23

Now that the disguise trick is completed, what happens next? Well, now that the hardest part of the plan is done, she no longer needs to stick around as Arei, so she probably goes back to her actual dorm when no one's around.

Next up to the plan would be to create her alibi, but she only needs to do that from evening to night. So for the time being, Eden can take a good, hot shower and take a good nap. She did a good job, she deserved it! Let's go Eden! (We're proud of you!)

While it's not evening yet, let's take a look at two other characters who had some pretty big events happening to them yesterday. Let's start with Ace! He... had a very terrifying and traumatic experience last night, that's for sure.

Truth bullet used : Ace's phobias

I mean... He's afraid of a lot of things. Death is especially one of them. So there's no doubt in my mind that this scared the crap out of him. I'd like to believe that when he was arguing with Levi, Teruko and Eden last night sometime after the murder attempt, when he went back to his dorm, he probably shattered.

He was probably shaking at the thought that he honestly seriously died. Not only that, but it was Nico, of all people, who tried to kll him (according to him, of course). Nico, the person that he bullied constantly because they were inferior to him was able to pull that off? He has a weak mental fortitude, so for him to not break down at all anytime we see him after the attempted murder just seems suspicious to me.

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

Of course, he's trying to act tough, he doesn't want to show it. Or maybe he wants to be in control of his emotions or whatever. Which, it kinda makes sense, but... there's only so much you can manage mentally. As much as he tries to put on a tough guy act, eventually, the phobias will get to you, the old habits will come back.

Of course, you can improve those kind of issues to the point where it barely becomes a major issue anymore, but these kind of things take time. But of course, that's just my perception and assumption of things. What matters is that there's the possibility that this near death experience affected him a lot more than it seems which will be important later.

As for the other person... let's talk about David for a bit.

Truth bullet used : David's plan

He didn't have an experience as traumatic as Ace, but something happened that messed up with his manipulative plan : Arei knows about his secret and his plan. Well, she doesn't quite know precisely about David's intents regarding the plan of sharing secrets, but she knew something was off and wanted to make sure that there was no ill intent behind it.

Regardless, learning that someone else found out about his secret and their suspicious plan gives a pretty bad taste in his mouth. Not only that, but if his murder instigating plan succeeds, if the victim was someone else than Arei, she could've called him out on it, which would ruin his whole plan.

David is probably constantly thinking about that. He's realising that he's in a very bad spot right now. If no murder happens in the next days, then his secret would be exposed still. So no matter which will it'll go, he's always gonna have his secret exposed. David is literally screwed. That's why he's not in a good mood as shown in the evening of DAY 3.

So what does he do for the afternoon? Nothing much, really. He's probably pondering about a lot of negative things, thinking how miserable he is or something. In any case, he needs some time to be alone.

Act 24

We are now approaching the evening of DAY 3, what happens next?

Let's start with the obvious. Eden wakes up from her nice nap and proceeds to meet up with Hu to spend time with her for the evening. This is pretty much confirmed ever since Chapter 2 Episode 10 when Hu explained her alibi with Eden. According to my theory, that would be part of the culprit's plan to fabricate the perfect alibi.

Next up is Ace. Under normal circumstances, he would've spent the evening working out in the fitness room. However, because of that horrifying near death experience, he didn't want to bother with that at all and he doesn't trust anyone else. So he figured that the best thing to do was isolating himself in his dorm for the night.

But his eating disorder would've compel him to work out in the gym anyways!

Maybe, maybe not. There's no way to tell if the creator really intended for that to happen. So eitheir option would be possible, but the one that would make the most sense is if he stayed in his room. It would match up perfectly with my theory alongside a few other events I haven't explained yet. As long as my method is possible and makes sense, it should do.

And finally, we have David. His plan became a mess, he's in a bad mood. He doesn't know what to do. In any case, he somehow decides to go to the kitchen in the evening.

Why's that? Unsure, there must've been some reason, or maybe there wasn't. Maybe he just wanted to wander in the kitchen. Or maybe he thought he was gonna be able to spend time alone in kitchen, but he didn't think there would be people here at that time. Who knows?

What matters is the following...

Whit suggests to David to chill in the relaxation room, which is exactly what he does. This would conveniently line up well with Eden's plan.

Act 25

At this point during the evening of DAY 3, sometime before 10:00 AM, we only need to focus on David. So upon entering the relaxation room to... you know... relax, David notices at some point something that's off with that room.

Truth bullet used : Incense sticks

There's no longer a lingering smell of a burning incense stick (or maybe it was the weird smell from the corpse).

Truth bullet used : Box of incense

So he approaches the box of incense and then he notices something different about the blue curtains. There's something there! So David removes anything that was in the way and that's when he discovers the dead body of Arei.

David is the first person to discover the victim's corpse.

I object to that! Nico was feeding the fishes earlier that evening. Shouldn't they have noticed something odd about the smell?

Not if the lingering smell of the incense sticks was still there at the time. They wouldn't have noticed if the smell is the same as usual.

The lingering smell of the incense stopped sometime between Nico's visit and David's visit to the relax room. That was a pretty convenient timing, but it makes sense.

Now, we gotta wonder how David reacted to it. He was obviously surprised and shocked. It's hard to say if he felt happy, angry or sad about for one particular reason.

Truth bullet used : David's plan

Earlier, his plan was ruined because Arei knew about most of it. The only way he could make sure that he gets away with his secret hidden would be to have Arei dead. This... is exactly what happened. Arei's been murdered. His secret is now safe again.

Maybe he had a mix of many emotions. His plan was no longer ruined after all. There was a problem however : if he leaves things as is and the group later finds the body, David would become a prime suspect and they would force their way to find out about David's secret.

Not only that, but if they seriously suspect that he's the killer, then he, alongside the others, would lose the class trial and die. David's in big trouble.

Uh... why would David care about the trial? In chapter 1, after the execution, he commented that everyone's gonna die.

Truth bullet used : David's plan

Oh, he does care about death for sure. His whole plan was creating conflicts with others through sharing secrets in the attempt of instigating a murder.

If he didn't care about death or the trial, why wouldn't he simply kill someone instead. There's only one possible explanation : he doesn't want to die. He wanted someone else to do the dirty deed so that he would both have his secret and safe and live to see another day. He tried to kill two birds with one stone.

So anyways, David finds the body, he's shocked and confused. He needs some time to take in what happened. Actually, what happened to the body? He surely doesn't know aside that she's been murdered, of course. Was it a dream? No, it's very real, Arei's dead.

So what did he do afterwards? Well, he probably started doing his own investigation, to try to process how this happened.

Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck

Truth bullet used : Arei's broken neck

Truth bullet used : Red marks on Arei's wrists

Truth bullet used : Arei's missing glove

Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes

As far as he's aware, Arei's neck is broken, which must have something to do with the rope, but it doesn't seem like the relaxation room would be the right place to pull that off. Otherwise, it wouldn't be hidden here. Maybe he notices the red marks as well, but doesn't quite know what to make of it. Same thing for the missing glove. It's really hard to say if he actually paid attention to it.

And there's the blanket of Hu and Teruko's old clothes that are used to hide and cover the body. Aside from hiding the body, is there even any other uses for it? He doesn't know the answer to it. Eitheir way, he at least knows that this murder couldn't have happened here, so it was time to look at the other rooms.

He didn't have to look too hard to find out where the crime actually took place. He simply needed to go to the nearest room : the playground.

Truth bullet used : Scuffed ground

Truth bullet used : Carousel wrapped with tape

Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel

The scuffed ground is the first thing David would probably notice. He's probably wondering if there was a struggle happening here. If so, then whoever killed her must be someone pretty strong. Or maybe it's a trick? After all, he remembers that in the first trial, they've been easily fooled into thinking that Teruko was the murderer. So he can't jump to conclusions just yet.

Next up, he finds something strange with the spinny thing. There's some under there and the handlebars are wrapped up with some kind of tape. What does that even mean? He has frankly no idea.

Also, one thing that I need to point out regarding what David might've done investigation wise... Aside from it being a big assumption, it's possible that he didn't do much of that. At the very least, he was probably trying to figure out where the crime actually took place.

Whether he actually put some kind of efforts into investigating or not, there was still another problem that he needed to deal with quickly...

Act 26

Truth bullet used : Relax room's nighttime features

The relax room is about to close soon. This is bad for David because if he doesn't move the dead body, it will remain locked inside that room for the whole night and early morning. Then someone would definitly discover her corpse next morning, which would get him in big trouble since it would lead to having his secret exposed.

There was no time to waste. He needed to get that corpse out of here and that's what he exactly did. David dragged the corpse back to the playground. Now, he needed to figure out what he could do to indirectly help the group with the investigation.

He must've imagined that her cause of death must be from something like hanging. So he decided to hang her at the swingset. He couldn't quite exactly figure out how it was done, but that's all he could think of. As long as they don't think that it was hidden in the relaxation room to begin with, then he wouldn't be suspected.

But then he realised another problem : How will the others know when she died? If things are left out as is, they might think she was eitheir murdered at night or very early in the morning? There's a lot of possible time of deaths which would stray the group further away from the truth. In David's mind, he's pretty sure she must've been killed sometime in the evening, before he entered that room.

Why would he believe that this was the only possible time of death?

Truth bullet used : Eden's disguise trick

Even though we know, according to my theory, that Eden used a disguise trick to hide Arei's real time of death, the others don't know about it. David saw Arei alive at lunchtime, which means that she was definitly killed sometime after according to his logic. He probably figured it wasn't in the afternoon since it would be much easier for the killer to run into potential witnesses, so the evening was the only option.

Wouldn't David deduce that Nico might be the prime suspect? They were feeding the fishes sometime before David entered that room. Nico saw David use the elevator.

He might've been seen by Nico, but it doesn't mean the opposite applies. It's very likely possible that when David used the elevator, he never saw anyone passing through because Nico had already gone out a while ago. Nico probably noticed David when they were roaming around the first floor.

In any case, he needed to figure what he could do to make the others follow the "right path" into deducing that the crime happened sometime around the evening. David couldn't directly tell them, as ridiculous as it may sound. Remember, he doesn't want his secret to be found out. If he told the group about the actual time of death, they would start questioning him.

They'd be like : "How do you know that she died at that time?" That'd just make him become suspicious no matter what he tries to come up with. Because of that suspicious, they would then press on David which would lead to uncovering his secret.

So what could he possibly do to help them without directly telling them about the "right" time of death? That's when he came up with this crazy idea!

Truth bullet used : Dead fishes

Truth bullet used : Relax room's nighttime features

Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes

He remembered about the fishes in the pond and the nighttime features of the relaxation room. What if he brought those fishes to the playground? It would seem very weird and confusing that there's dead fishes found in the playground, but because of the fact that the relax room closes at 10:00 PM and reopens at 8:00 AM, they would conclude that the fishes were brought to the playground before the relaxation room closes.

Even though the fishes has most likely nothing to do with the whole crime in itself, the others would probably not think too hard about it since it's a seemingly very convoluted crime scene to begin with. He figured that a little "red herring" wouldn't hurt as long as it helps them in knowing the time of death.

That way, he wouldn't need to open up about what he found out, the dead fishes would tell the story for him. Of course, he couldn't simply grab them with his hands. Maybe one by one, but that would be incredibly inefficient.

That's why he used the blanket of old clothes instead. He used that to scoop as many fishes as possible and then brought them to the playground. It's confirmed, everyone! David is a mass murderer! He killed all those fishes that we saw in the playground! (Oh nooo!)

Anyways, once that was taken care of, there was one more thing that he needed to do : get rid of these darn clothes. He doesn't want to leave them in the relaxation room, that would obviously indicate that something or someone must've been hidden there. He can't bring it back to the first floor eitheir, that would be incredibly risky since he could run into someone.

So the next best thing he can do is hide them and also hide what they were supposed to be to begin with. David rolled up that blanket of clothes into a perfectly shaped ball and hid it in the changing room inside the dress-up room. This would explain why Charles found a ball of clothes in the dress-up room.

Now that all of that was done, he headed back to the first floor and called it a day. Nothing else significant happened that night.

Act 27

It is now DAY 4, 8:00 in the morning. Everyone gathers up to the movie screening room. Everyone except... well... you obviously know who by now. It's been 4 days already, so it was time for MonoTV to reveal the secrets, but before that happens... David goes : "Wait! Stop!"

So everyone starts counting and they notice that there's indeed someone missing. So David leads them by saying : "Arei isn't here."

So people start to panic and proceed to look for Arei. Teruko picks up Whit and Eden to make a group of 3 people to find her if she's indeed dead. That way, it would definitly trigger the BDA if all three of them are innocent. Otherwise, one of these three would be suspicious.

Of course, Eden expected that to happen, but she was prepared with her whole murder scheme. Someone should've found the dead body first already last night so it shouldn't be an issue.

So Teruko's group investigates the second floor. Teruko looks inside the gym, she's not here. Whit looks inside the dress-up room, she's not here eitheir. Eden looks inside the relaxation room...

Two things of note here...

Eden did not find the dead body in here even though that was the last place she left it. So she knows for sure someone found the body first and moved it somewhere else.

She could've easily lied about claiming that there's no place where she could be hiding. That would make a lot of sense for her to lie if she was indeed the culprit and hid the body there previously.

So everything's going really well for Eden. It's all going according to plan. The last room remaining to explore was the playground. At this point, the culprit knew that it must be hidden there. There's no way someone would drag a dead body back to the first floor.

But then, before they enter, Whit makes this silly comment : "Do you really think that she'd be hanging out in the playground right now?"

It seems absolutely goofy at first since whether the viewers were making the prediction or they already saw how she died, they would find Whit's comment to be pretty unintentionally punny (or perhaps intentionally even).

For Eden however, that was literally the worst case scenario. She took Whit's comment seriously. Or maybe she didn't at first, but then quickly started to doubt that he was joking. At some point, she must've thought : "What if it was Whit that discovered the body first?"

So as Teruko's about to open the door, in a moment of panic, Eden shouts : "Teruko, wait--" And that's when they discover the corpse of Arei hanging by the swing set, which then triggers the BDA later on.

Unfortunatly for Eden, she made a little slip-up there which could be really troublesome if Teruko catches on to this. Fortunately for Eden however, the BDA still happened, so she's still looking innocent there. On top of that, it doesn't seem like eitheir Teruko or Whit noticed her slip-up (...yet).

And that's how this whole murder mystery happened. From DAY 1 to DAY 4. And you know what? I'm not even done yet. I still have a few remaining events to explain after the body discovery announcement. Let's get into it! We're almost there!

Act 28

Everyone gathers at the playground, they find the body and they're all shocked and stuff. It's investigation time! Obviously, I won't talk about the investigation much details since I've already explained all of the evidence that was found there. Instead, I'm gonna talk about a few noteworthy things that happened during the investigation.

Eden's reaction to finding Arei's dead body is kinda suspicious. Naturally, she would act all sad and in grief upon losing dear Arei. The suspicious thing is what happens afterwards.

Not even a minute after finding the body, she quickly recovers and claims that she's ready to investigate. I know this is a class trial and that they need to take it seriously, but wouldn't it be more natural for Eden to need more time to recover from this? Especially when she was supposed to be friends with Arei according to her narrative.

The next thing is the secrets reveal. J was about to ask MonoTV about the secrets reveal since it would probably help in solving the murder. But then David interjects by claiming that MonoTV would only reveal the motive if a murder didn't happen in the allocated time. But since a murder happened, he's not obligated to reveal them.

Then he goes on about if MonoTV were to reveal the secrets based on the deadline (8:00 in the morning on DAY 4), it would mean that she died very recently, which would narrow down the time of death.

Of course, David knew that she didn't die then. He was just practically forcing MonoTV to not reveal the secrets since he knows that Arei died in the evening of DAY 3, according to his deductions. Basically playing with the rules of the motive reveal deadline. He didn't want his secret exposed, after all.

Sadly for him, MonoTV claims that it's based on the time of the body discovery and not the time of death. So if it was found shortly after the deadline, then it's already past the deadline.

This messes up with his plan to keep his secret from being exposed. So he has no choice but to see that list to find out what this is really all about. At the very least, David knows that it won't directly show whose secret it is since MonoTV himself doesn't know who it belonged to (because of the mixed up secrets).

So later on, David goes to the movie screening room to see the list and he sadly sees that his dark secret is actually there. So he's gonna have to do everything he can to make sure it doesn't get exposed. Of course, all of the actions David's done ever since the beginning of Chapter 2 made Teruko grow very suspicious of him. At least a lot more than the Prologue and Chapter 1.

Enough talk about the investigation. Let's talk about the trial!

Act 29

Kinda like the investigation phase, I'm not gonna go too much into details. I'll only reveal parts of the trial that would line up and make sense if it went according to my theory. So there are three characters who play a big role in this trial.

Eden wants to make sure that no suspicions would be thrown at her. She wants to be the most innocent out of everyone in that trial.

Ace wants to keep up the tough guy act, doesn't want to be seen as someone useless in trial and he doesn't want others to find out what really happened during the attempted murder.

David is hoping that the group will figure out the truth of the trial with a narrowed down time of death (dead fishes) while also being able to keep his secret from being exposed.

Let's start with episode 9! Eden doesn't reveal Arturo's secret. She's going to later, but she needs to build up an innocent girl narrative first.

We get a confirm from Nico that they intentionally try to make a serious attempt on Ace's life when Charles asks the question. The important thing to note here is that this could mean a lot of things. Their mind was most likely set on wanting to kill him, but it doesn't mean that they did all the setup required to make that attempt.

But Rose claimed that they lied and stole from her. Nico's response was : "I--! I didn't kill Arei! I swear!". He didn't deny Rose's claim. That's practically a confession!

Not necessarily! Despite the implication, it could also very well be them wanting to deny that claim, but stopped themselves to simply swear that they didn't kill Arei. There could be various reasons for it, but one that could be the most reasonable is if they were having doubts about it. What if they weren't sure if they actually stole from her or not? His mind could've definitly been chaotic ever since they snapped. So they probably were unable to remember it.

But they were able to remember feeding the fishes and seeing David use the elevator during the evening!

Sure, but that was on DAY 3, not DAY 2. Like I said before, there's still a lot that we don't know about Nico during the events the evening/night of DAY 2. And because it's such an unknown variable, it also leads to a massive amount of possibilities.

Besides, remember what I said in Act 12? It could've been a massive red herring by making us easily believe that Nico's the one responsible for everything involved in the attempted murder on Ace. That trial interaction could also be another trick made by the creator to make us further believe that they're indeed respondible for it all.

Anyways, sometime later, Rose believed that Arei's death was an assisted suicide where the victim played a big role into this. Eden goes out of her way to convince everyone that can't be true. There's no way that someone like Arei would commit suicide.

Why would she do that if she was the true culprit? Wouldn't it make sense to let them believe it was suicide to end the trial early?

There's no guarantee that the smarter people out there (especially Teruko) would let it end that soon. She would've figured out by herself that there's no way it could've been a suicide. So Eden went out of her way to deny the suicide claim simply to direct the group into the proper narrative in regards to Arei. It was a necessary step since she wanted to reveal the incident that happened in the infirmary. That would further confirm that this wasn't suicide.

Next up, Teruko manages to narrow down the time of death by bringing up the dead fish. Based on their knowledge that they last saw the victim at 12:00 PM on DAY 3 and the features of the relaxation room. They were able to narrow it down to sometime between 12:00 PM to 10:00 PM.

Not a satisfying time window for what David had in mind when he placed those fishes, but that will do for now. At least, his plan kind of worked. They won't think that it happened during nighttime. Maybe they'll find out a more accurate time later on.

Act 30

On episode 10, before Eden gives the note, she quickly claims that she didn't do it, whoever did it is trying to impersonate her. So we get the reveal of the torn up note which gives us the letter we all know by now.

She would seem a tiny bit suspicious at first, but that was all part of her plan. Most wouldn't think that she'd be the killer if she wanted to help put the note back together. But in fact, she needed to help for both the narrative and making sure that the ripped apart note would be properly put back together.

She needed to play the scene of the revealed note to make sure that it would eventually lead to the reveal of Arturo's secret. When she would feel like that it'd be best for her to tell the truth, she would also explain the incident in the infirmary.

That would explain why she's friends with Arei. That would explain why she was insistent on believing that she wouldn't kill herself. That whole play would make Eden look the least suspicious so far. Everything's going according to her plan.

Fortunately for David, that note helped narrow down the time of death more accurately. Unfortunatly for him however, this is a fake time of death trick pulled by Eden, the real culprit. Until something major happens, no one's going to believe that Arei actually died in the morning of DAY 3, slightly past 8:00 AM.

Moving on... everyone's discussing their alibis now that the suggested time of death is sometime between 7:30 PM and 10:00 PM.

Hu talks about her time spent with Eden in the kitchen during that whole evening. Which further proves her innocence thanks to Eden's carefully crafted alibi plan. A few have alibis, a few don't have one like Nico.

So Ace lashes out at them as usual, nothing new here. Hu gets defensive and asks for his alibi.

Truth bullet used : Ace's actions in the gym

Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough

He thought about it for a little bit, but then he came up with a great idea. He lied about going to the gym that evening. That'd make him look kinda badass going there the day after being nearly killed.

Also, he doesn't want the others to know the truth about what he actually did during the night of DAY 2 as he wants to hide that kind of strength from the others since he doesn't trust them.

That doesn't make sense. Ace is actively trying to act tough according to your theory!

I know, it seems kinda contradictory, but here's the thing. Ace's kind of an idiot. He's trying not to, but you just can't really improve that in an instant as if you drank an intelligence potion or something.

Truth bullet used : Ace's testimony

There's another reason however. He really wants to tell the others about David's secret. About what he saw and heard in the relaxation room. But so far, he only knows that David's been to the second floor that night. He couldn't have known about DAY 3 since according to my theory, he stayed in his dorm.

So if he decided to reveal it at the earliest time of the trial, he would have no choice but to admit that this happened during the night of DAY 2 which would then lead to others asking "wait, isn't that the night where you almost died?"

This would lead to more questions and getting closer to the truth and they'd find about what Ace was hiding from them since then. Ace doesn't want that to happen. So he holds that information for the time being.

But then a golden opportunity arrived! Teruko calls out David that he should've been in the relaxation room during the evening of DAY 3.

At first, David was starting to play dumb, hoping that no one actually saw him so that he could lie about it and pretend that he went somewhere else. That didn't happen however, Nico saw him use the elevator, so David can't lie his way out of this sadly. Luckily for Ace, that was the perfect opportunity to expose David. He was in the same location both nights? Sweet!

So then Teruko asks the two if they saw anything strange going on in the playground. Ace claims he saw nothing. This is technicly the truth, even though he lied about being in the gym during the evening of DAY 3.

David claims that he didn't find anything odd and never looked at the playground. That's obviously a lie. He doesn't want others to suspect him. Otherwise, that would make them start being curious about his secret.

Then he adds that he never saw Ace once, which he finds strange. You could believe that he's just lying to put the suspicion on Ace, but there's a better idea that would make a lot more sense. David is telling the truth about never seeing Ace because Ace never went to the second floor during the evening of DAY 3 to begin with.

Unfortunatly for him, that was the perfect time for Ace to expose David's secret and making his claim of being in the gym on DAY 3 more believable.

Act 31

Almost done! Time to tackle episode 11!

So Ace starts explaining what he saw and heard in the relax room. We get a flashback scene regarding that event and then-

We literally get a flashback scene! There's a few details that would indicate that Ace is telling the whole truth, including the fact that he heard this on DAY 3, not DAY 2!!!

No, that's wrong! You should never take everything from granted once the author starts giving us more than 1 character point of view. Some could easily lie about the events to fit their narrative and fantasy.

I haven't read or played a lot of mystery novels, but there's a certain tactic that's sometimes used by the author, if not often. It's called unreliable narrator. From a google search, it says : "An unreliable narrator can be defined as any narrator who misleads readers, either deliberately or unwittingly."

Ace could've easily been an unreliable narrator. Here are a couple things that he could've lied about.

There's a missing fan on the right side. Could've been an illusion to make us believe it happened on DAY 3.

We see Ace with neck bandages. Could've been an illusion to make us believe it happened on DAY 3.

When Ace was eavesdropping, Arei says : "Nico got super pissy and tried to turn Ace into cat food." Could've been a line of dialogue that Ace made up to make others believe that it happened on DAY 3.

Then Ace claims he didn't catch anything else. Which, once again, would make sense if he's been knocked unconscious right after that. But he doesn't want to admit that since it would reveal the truth on when the meeting actually happened.

As a few others claimed, it's very strange that Ace brings up that important testimony this late into the trial. So it would make sense if he didn't want to expose him just yet because he didn't want the others to know the actual truth in the gym.

In any case, David's plan is ruined. He eventually gives up and confesses that the manipulative liar secret is actually his secret. (pretty amazing reveal, by the way!) His career's officially over.

We get a few interesting lines from David that would match up insanely well with my theory.

"Normally, I would continue to insist that Ace is an unreliable witness, and a worthless lying piece of shit as well... But I know how it is with you people. Once you've reached a conclusion, you'll refuse to believe any evidence that contradicts it. So I'm not going to bother."

Unreliable witness and a liar... interesting. Doesn't that match perfectly with my claim that Ace is lying about being at the gym during the evening of DAY 3 as well as my claim that he is an unreliable narrator?

"But I will admit, I did indeed meet with Arei last night in the relaxation room." He's telling the truth. He met with her alright on DAY 3. Doesn't mean she was alive though.

"As for what I actually talked about... Well, I've already forgotten! She's dead now, so who cares?" He's lying... or to be more accurate, he's hiding the truth. He doesn't want the others to know that he found her dead body.

Why not? Why wouldn't he tell the whole truth?

For a few reasons. First off, everyone just learned he's a liar. So they might simply think that he's lying about it. Secondly, that would make him incredibly suspicious. He wants to avoid being seen as the main suspect if he can avoid it. Not that it matters anyways since most of them think he's the culprit shortly afterwards.

Also, another reason to explain it is because he's probably still angry about the fact that they exposed his secret. He's been letting all out ever since the reveal anyways. So he probably wants to act like a butthole as a mean to vent off.

But still, he tries to convince them that he's not the culprit (in his own way), but quickly realises that this is pointless since most of them are so stupid and quick to draw to conclusions, just like last trial.

So then he got an idea. He gives up and confesses that he's the murderer. He's gonna lie all the way through up until someone calls him out on it. The interesting thing to note here is that as soon as he made that confession, he looked incredibly nervous. It's almost like... he's afraid of something. Something like being afraid of losing the trial if no one realises that he's lying?

By the way, another interesting thing to add here : As soon as David confessed, Eden starting being "emotional" and "seriously believes" that he actually did it. The real culprit figured that she may as well push the direction of that accusation to end the trial and be the sole winner.

Here's another interesting thing about Eden. I think she made another slip-up and created a contradiction. No one seemed to have noticed though, thankfully. She made those comments about David that she couldn't believe that he would mentally push Arei into commiting suicide.

That's strange... because I'm pretty sure that at the beginning of the trial, she was very insistent on claiming that Arei would never commit suicide.

Anyways... Teruko asks David about how he killed Arei into more details, but will later realise that his story doesn't make sense and that he's just lying. Then Teruko and David argues about it back and forth up until Charles stops the argument.

He realised something major and says : "Teruko, we really fucked up." Most of us fans seem to believe that this refers to the time of death being wrong (7:30 PM ish on DAY 3). My theory that the actual time of death was slightly after 8:00 AM on DAY 3 would match that up perfectly.

Time For The Finale

Phew! That was quite the long closing argument! With everything I've written here, hopefully that should explain the whole truth behind that murder mystery and explain most of the clues out there. So... what do you guys think about this theory?

.......NO!! It just doesn't work! It's incredibly CONVOLUTED! Way too convoluted for such a murder mystery! It's also very RISKY! Eden is doing a lot of risks to make her murder scheme work. A single mistake could've ruined it all. There's no way that plan works! It's impossible. Also, there's still a lot of things that wouldn't work. Like the disguise trick, there's just no way! She doesn't look anything like Arei! She doesn't have her physique. You've overthinking this! There are certain things about your theory that wouldn't be able to explain how things actually work in real life, like the blood wipe. It's just not realistic! Your theory doesn't work!

...It's pointless... all of this is just pointless...

...huh?!

You heard me. This is all pointless. All these counterarguments, even those that I refused to elaborate and would talk about it here instead... they're all actually meaningless in DanganRonpa Despair Time.

When it gets to finding errors in a theory by relying on reality or very niche or minute details. Or things like risk factor or things like no one would be able to pull off x trick, unless it's an actual contradiction of the actual facts of the fangan, then all of these arguments are actually pointless!

How dare you?! You can't just simply ignore these arguments because they hurt your theory!

As a matter of fact, I actually can ignore those. After all... most of these arguments fail to follow a certain rule in this murder mystery.

What are you even talking about?!

Alright... let me tell you! THIS IS FICTION, NOT REALITY!!!

!!!

Let me explain. For quite some time, we've been trying to prove/disprove certain theories by claiming that a certain event would be impossible because that's not how it works in real life.

One of the examples in regards to debunking my theory would be that the disguise trick would be impossible because it would've been incredibly risky and the plan could've easily failed if someone decided to speak with her or looked at her closely. Another example would be when Eden knocked out Ace without being noticed by Arei or David, seems incredibly unlikely and really risky.

From a reality perspective, it would be indeed ridiculous of a plan and nearly impossible to pull it off. But that's exactly the problem! Danganronpa Despair Time is a work of fiction, not reality! Anything that seems completly ridiculous or painfully impossible can become a miracle in the world of fiction!

You don't even have any proof that the DRDT creator is using that rule!

I do, actually. Think back on Chapter 1. I don't know if this chapter had weekly releases like Chapter 2 but regardless, let's give ourselves a scenario in regards to what would happen if the latest trial episodes of chapter 1 were not revealed, then the creator takes a break, so the fans have time to investigate and come up with theories to solve the murder mystery. I personally believe that this is made so that you could solve the murder mystery without watching the climax of the trial.

Anyways, let's say there's someone out there who comes up with a theory that's practically the solution of chapter 1. Then, we get to the actual murder method which is from the light switch that's been stripped. So Xander got electrocuted by trying to turn on the lights when he was soaking wet.

Most people who would see this without knowing what the actual solution is would simply believe that this is just impossible. This seems extremely likely. Like even if it was really dark and Xander wanted to turn the lights back on, he should've heard the sound of something being removed. Otherwise, he should've still been able to see light since the door would've been opened anyways.

Or what if the theorist came up with the idea that the culprit lure Xander into the light switch by taunting him or something? What exactly would be the odds that Xander would charge straight towards the light switch?

Yet, Xander truly died from the light switch because he wanted to turn on the lights. Seems really crazy and unbelievable, but when we think about it, the creator made it possible because this is fiction.

So there you have it! I'm sure none of you see it that way (and it's fine!), but to me, this is the perfect solution to the murder case of Chapter 2. I'm running out of lines to write, so there are two things I wanna say before I go.

Feel free to try to debunk my theory or come up with alternatives to this theory or anything else that's related to it. I don't mind. I'm most likely not gonna reply to it however since I have other projects unrelated to tumblr to work on.

I'd like to thank @1moreff-creator, @venus-is-thinking, @accirax and most likely a couple others for trying to find faults in my theories or points that I've made. Even though it may not seem like it, there were some points that helped me get closer to an answer that I would be satisfied with. Also huge thanks for anyone else who's been supporting my theory.

While I'm at it, feel free to disregard some points I've made to debunk certain theories that rely on stuff like reality. As long as you believe that it could work within the world of fiction, then that's good enough! Sorry for the long post! Thank you for everything! Take care!

[neechees]

Hi! Before I ask my question, I just want to say that your art is awesome! I especially love the common windmill butterfly OC you came up with. They're so cool! Did you ever decide on a name for them? I just realized that's also a question woops lol that wasn't the main question I wanted to ask. I was curious if you've ever seen the 1999 film Ravenous, and if so, what are your thoughts on it? It's a film that not so subtly almost blatantly denounces the u.s, colonization, and european christianity by comparing it to cannibalism. However, they also incorporate something that I don't think I should spell out cuz I've heard it would be disrespectful of me as a white person to mention the word so I'll just say that it starts with a "W" when written out in english. I wanted to know if, even in a context in which colonization is outright reprimanded, if it's still unintentionally engaging in oppression by adding that specific cultural element into the movie at all. I've been trying to find any indigenous film critics's thoughts on the subject but google and tumblr's search functions are total garbage and I've also been making a point not to write the W word into any search engines cuz as I said earlier I've been told that that's not a good thing to do. But obviously, you don't have to answer any of my questions if you don't want to. I just know you sometimes do art analysis, so I figured you might be interested in giving your thoughts on the subject. Anywho, I hope you're doing well! 🧡

For the first part of your question, tysm, and I'm so glad you like my art!! <33 I actually never named any of the fancy shawl dancers, they're less like fully fledged OC's and more like just a human representation of what a fancy shawl regalia might look like inspired by the moth and butterfly species given. many dancers might have a regalia that represents something or have common motifs/themes surrounding that thing, sometimes very personal, and sometimes just because they like that thing or think it's pretty, and seeing butterflies on fancy shawl regalia is very common, which is partially what inspired me to do the series. I'd love to see if any other people had come up with names for them though!

and as for you main question, no I have never watched that movie, and I don't think I will specifically because it includes that. I also don't know how much Native involvement there was in it. The idea of the ice cannibal representing greed comes from traditional beliefs (which may vary depending on tribe, but there's quite a bit of overlap) of multiple Algonquian Nations, so that's why it pops up in media surrounding it, I don't really think it's particularly groundbreaking or anything because that was OUR beliefs. However, I know most depictions of the ice cannibal, because most are done by Moniyaws, are inaccurate. Generally most beliefs regarding the ice cannibal tend to agree that one shouldn't show it at all, except under specific circumstances and by certain people. You might get differing opinions on whether White depictions on the ice cannibal is contributing DIRECTLY to Native oppression specifically, but in the very least it's disrespectful and maybe a microagression (depends on the content, though). I wish people would STOP doing it, but for the moment I don't know that much can be done about the already released media regarding it.

But even with Native led depictions, let me give you a couple of examples: There was like this live play of a Native retelling take of Macbeth put together by a small group of people that featured the ice cannibal, and they went around various reserves showing this play, and they came to my reserve. My sister was there, and she said whenever it (the ice cannibal) came onto stage, multiple people, which included most of those in the audience, screamed and ran out of the room, only returning when the character was off stage. So that should give you an idea of how many Cree people feel about even fictional depictions of the monster lol.

As another example, there's this Native artist who's work you might have seen at some point, named Norval Morrisseau (he's almost like the Native American Michelangelo of Woodland Art, and he's described as "the Picasso of the North", that's how legendary he is), and while he's still very very famous, of course he's most well known by Native people. He did a painting of the Ice Cannibal, and it was very controversial among Natives when it was done and displayed. Many people believed he shouldn't have painted it at all. So even though the monster and his art was a bit more obscure at the time he painted it, this was still highly controversial.

So even when it's coming from a Native perspective, any representation of the ice cannibal will be controversial and subject to differing opinions, which might vary depending on their specific beliefs. If it's THIS controversial when NATIVES do it, imagine how much worse it is if it's a White depiction with bastardization (not that we necessarily want an accurate depiction, either). I can't offer a review on the film since I've never watched it and likely won't, but if another Algonquian has, feel free to share your thoughts!

[viaetor]

hi everyone! i hope you're all doing well and taking care of yourselves and having good days. i haven't been very active here because of my surgeries, but i plan on being more active soon since i've been missing writing a lot. before that though, i need to state something very important for my blog going forward: i will not be interacting with any natlan characters/blogs or characters related/inspired by the region (including ocs), only if they're canon divergent. this will not change with the release of the archon quests. i will simply take whatever i feel is relevant to my aether and that’s it. my reasons for this drastic decision will be explained below. please take this post not only as an announcement but as well as a vent and an attempt to call for awareness, especially since many of us are not only roleplayers but writers, artists and content creators. i'd appreciate it if you could all read this post in full.

this post is also not directed at my mutuals or any people i have contact with. this is just me trying to make my boundaries clear, explaining them, and hoping you can understand (and perhaps relate to) my hurt. read this post and make your own judgement. i appreciate your time regardless. 

i'm latin american, proudly born and raised. my parents fought in the dictatorship of our country, my grandparents were of indigenous settlements. i'm a history graduate with honours, and before that, i studied social and political sciences. i've been a part of political movements in my university to guarantee equality and education, and i only stopped being part of some of them because i received threats by alt-right extremists targeting my family. even so, i still continue to be a constant participant in assemblies and projects. i'm an avid volunteer worker in local schools, and i worked in hospitals, too. i speak portuguese, spanish, french and english with varying levels of fluency. i've lived most of my childhood and early adolescence in villages. i've participated in many religious rituals, invited by practising people of those beliefs, and i've shared so many wonderful memories with people from so many latin american backgrounds that i can't even make a cohesive timeline of all my adventures. 

i'm saying all this to emphasise that i'm speaking from a place of experience, knowledge, and culture. my word is by no means the law, but i sure do believe it holds weight. you're free to disagree with me and think otherwise, of course. but i do think that, if that's the case and you have very strong positive feelings regarding natlan as a whole, it'd be best if you would unfollow and block me for both of our sakes.

i've been playing genshin impact since its launch, and ever since the release of inazuma as a region, i've been discontent with how the game has been progressing in design. i've also written and published scientific articles about the inherent colourism, racism and orientalism found in genshin, specifically in sumeru, while also nodding in acknowledgement to some of the research that the design team put in some characters—namely al-haitham, nilou and cyno. i know the issues we are seeing today are not new. however, it for sure has gotten worse. 

with these disclaimers out, i'd like to put some of my grievances out in the open. 

when you play genshin, you can feel that liyue is china. mondstadt feels like germany. inazuma resembles japan. fontaine is an ode of love to french steampunk and was very well designed. even sumeru, with all its issues of blending all of swana in one single region, has some research done when it comes to the islamic golden ages and pre-islamic mythologies. so if you see anyone arguing that hoyoverse is “just a videogame company”, know that they can and have done better. as their popularity and revenue grow, as players—free to play or otherwise—we are entitled to expect the same quality or more from them.

i don't feel the same way about everything we've seen of natlan so far, and i've been feeling more and more disrespected. 

i was sceptical when natlan was first announced, and some leaks were happening. i expected the worst, and honestly, it sunk even deeper than i thought. the names of the characters we've got, alongside some leaks, suggest that the characters we will be getting are based on the north, central, and south americas, africa, and oceania. this worried me very, very deeply and today, with the newest released trailer, i just gave up hoping for anything good, really.

although some people may (ignorantly? optimistically? blindly?) claim that all these continents are connected—and they certainly have many influences on each other through religion, culture and economics, born from colonisation processes—, it's at best stupidly naive to believe that one single entire region in an online videogame will tactfully tackle complex non-western and non-asian cultures and customs. because, yes, those are non-western and non-asian societies: we are progressively denied a place in western politics and cultures, we are treated as lesser, and we do not participate in global economics. when did you last buy a chilean videogame in the united states or europe? or a fiji pair of shoes? or a nigerian movie ticket in your city theatres? if you've answered "never" to just one of those questions, you've proven my point that these countries and regions are not "part" of the west or even asia. we are outsiders. we have always been treated as outsiders. while these european and asian powerhouses were allowed to stand as their own regions, genshin muddled all these cultures and ethnicities into one melting pot that they are calling natlan. the game is quite literally a global phenomenon now. imagine the impression natlan will be projecting to an audience that is none-the-wiser to the cultures natlan is meant to be inspired from.

so, again: when it was announced that natlan would take inspiration from all these regions, my heart sank. it feels like we're all being put together in one single frying pan of "exotic," "distant," and "unknown." everything that is considered "tribal" (because that's how westerners and asians tend to see us) is being thrown in natlan. it's demoralising. 

this is not to mention the clear money-grabbing and capitalist recycling of character designs going on with some of the characters—something never seen before in genshin impact’s history, by the way! they always came up with new concepts—and the abhorrent colourism that has been intensified. 

the disrespect has been getting rampant. some of the already shown characters have tribal tattoos that are used by some of the indigenous people for important rituals. the patterns of clothes they've shown also mix many cultures and peoples (sometimes even historically rivalling ones, to top that off) that are disrespectful. they went for a streetwear/biker kind of look that looks completely soulless and unimaginative, instead of doing the bare minimum of researching beautiful contemporary indigenous-owned fashion companies. because it's easier. i think it’s also easier to hire voice actors who aren’t latines, right? we must be “scarce, barely existent”.

and, what kicked the bucket for me, after trying so hard to give genshin the benefit of the doubt: an important deity for the yorubá people, iansã/iansan/oyá, has been shown as a fucking child in the game. she… and olorun, who you might know as ororon if you play in english, even though in all other translations (japanese, korean and chinese), his name is written correctly as olorun. but of course, the english translation team for hoyoverse, as usual, couldn’t do the bare fucking minimum. because it’s a nigerian name, right? why do they/you care? but just so you know, in case you’re the least bit curious: iansan and olorun are two of the most important orixás/deities in african and african-latin american religions. they’re worshipped to this day. they’re real, representative religious symbols. not tokens. not your average dead gods. i want to ask you, sincerely: what would you think and how would you feel if genshin named a guy "mohammed", or "allah", or “jesus christ”, or a girl "mary magdalene"? what do you think happened when cod vanguard showed the quran's pages on the floor? people were pissed. and of course, people should be pissed. and don't try to "oh, but people do that with greek and egyptian gods". don't be disingenuous, i know you’re smarter than that and that you know there's a difference and creeping power dynamic here. 

if this is not enough for you, then please, enlighten me. where are the beautiful forests of natlan that could have been inspired by the amazon? where are the amazing deserts inspired in bolivia or chile? how about the colourful cities of el salvador or cuba? is it truly enough for you guys to have something slightly resembling the aztec empire and its continuous fetishisation? wouldn't it be easier to play crash bandicoot or the old indiana jones games? why are we celebrating this?

i'm beyond heartbroken. 

to my latine siblings, whether you’re celebrating/enjoying natlan in your own way and finding light in it or if you’re as disappointed as i am, we deserve better than this. 

to my usamerican, canadian, european and asian friends, please, please, please listen to people who have lived and loved latam and all the other regions. i already did what i could: i've sent tickets to hoyoverse, i'll be muting natlan-specific words, and i will not be rolling on any upcoming natlan banners. 

so this here is just the nail of the coffin: i will not be accepting anything natlan-related on this blog.

thank you for reading!