My thoughts on the latest episode (aka HU IS THE CULPRIT I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL)
Warning : My sassy attitude is not directed towards anyone else, I'm simply amusing myself and also I've only gotten barely 5 hours of sleep god save me.
This is gonna be very long and messy so strap in folks
It's so obviously not Eden or Ace it's painful (idc 'i'll die for my hubris). Not even just because Eden lying and being the culprit after all of that would be both underwelming and just...miserable. But also because of how the way we're getting the reveal in advance that it could only be Ace and Eden. The fact the cast was already on Eden's throat as well just makes this point even more clear to me.
This isn't like fucking Korekiyo in chapter 3 of DRV3, this isn't how a culprit reveal happens. Especially not when there's so much we don't know yet.
So who is the culprit ?
...
It's Hu, it's literally Hu.... and like 1 pourcent chance it's Nico but I think both of them are accomplices here.
The thing is, I don't buy any of the shit Nico is saying, their admission of guilt is strangely quick and detached. They also seem to go along with anything people say about them (like them framing Hu) which makes it even more suspicious, they could've just said they used Hu's weapon out of conveniance ? The only thing this episode has proved me is that Nico is an Active accomplice rather than a Passive one like I thought. For what reason ? I honestly don't know fully yet but again we don't know a lot about Nico anyways.
Hu's behavior really makes me think she did it and is acting out, mostly out of guilt. She seems really stressed this trial which while makes sense for character reasons, it also makes sense if she's the culprit and feeling guilty. It would explain her defending Eden and Nico mainly I think despite her probably being the culprit she doesn't want the perception that Eden/Nico has to be broken (especially not bc of her). I've already explained how Hu being the culprit makes sense from a character perspective so I'm not gonna get more into it.
By the way any arguments in this post being like "it would be out of character for Nico or Hu to do that" should honestly review their own hypocrisy if they think Eden did it, or even Ace for that matter.
Another thing that makes me even more convinced that it can't be Ace or Eden is that...you can't fucking prove any of them did it with 100 pourcent certainty. David fucking threw the BDA rule out of the window, so we can't be sure Eden didn't do it but like what decisive evidence would make it clear between the two of them.
The only pieces of evidence we have left is :
-The sticky ball of clothes (most likely turpentine because the soil of the relexation room would cause the ball to have stains on it)
-The alibi for the relaxation room water
-The missing glove (which I think i've changed my opinion on what it could mean here)
Eden did know about the ball of clothes (but that piece of fucking evidence has strings attached so we'll get to that) and Ace doesn't have an alibi against taking the water like Eden does.
The missing glove is the only evidence left untouched here and honestly I actually don't think it had anything to do with the glove having someone's hair or anything, mainly because first of all the culprit could've technically just removed any hair on the glove even if it was sticky.
And also there's something else that makes more sense.
I think they probably had to use the glove to avoid rope burn while trying to set up the mechanism to kill Arei. Especially with how high the playground's ceilling is, it wouldn't be child's play. I'm not really good at deciphering what could've possibly happenened directly in the murder but I'd argue it's just more likely that the culprit would be put in a situation were rope burn could happen. This murder set up would require a lot of physical effort, and if the culprit even slipped for a second their hands would end up being damaged from rope burn making them obviously look guilty (also ouchie), which I think is what happened.
It would also explain the scuffs on the floor, maybe the culprit was struggling to hold onto the rope leading to them causing marks with their feet while trying to pull on the rope.
The reason why I think the glove is missing is probably because it's damaged and the culprit wanted to avoid the cast knowing they used Arei's glove during the murder. In fact it's the only piece of evidence that is completely missing
But why ?
Has anyone realised something about, I argue, the three other main suspects here ?
Nico, Eden, Ace ?
They all have gloves.
"But a huge portion of the cast has gloves this doesn't mean anything, it's just a stylistic choice !!" Yeah, the majority of the cast has gloves.
I think now you can understand why the culprit wouldn't want the cast to know that the glove was used. Because if the cast did see the glove that was probably damaged, they would assume the culprit wore it and it would narrow down the suspect list to an extremely narrow pool. This forces them to basically take the glove and hope to fucking god the cast doesn't catch on which they clearly haven't yet.
You know who doesn't fucking wear gloves.
HU JING
My girl got no gloves on !!!!
So yeah, with the glove being untouched evidence yet I think it will be the main decisive thing to point out who the culprit truly is, and I just don't think it's just gonna be like "oh let's just search everyone to see which one has the glove !". For all we know the culprit could've fucking eaten the glove, I don't think we're getting another Min in trying to search shit on people's person.
Anyways I'm gonna transition to other stuff to explain how the Nico and Hu theory makes sense from a logical standpoint here.
Let's get on to the sticky ball of clothes.
First I want to get it out there that I do not think the ball being sticky is due to the soil of the relaxation room. Mono-TV's talk about the "special formula" was mostly to foreshadow the floor of the playground's properties, also the fucking ball would have stains on it.
For me this means the ball of clothes has to have been covered in turpentine especially now that we have confirmation from Ace directly.
This is extremely huge and I'm flabbergasted has no one has mentioned this. Pray tell where the fuck did that piece of cloth go, did it get isekai'd into another world ?
This question actually has multiple meaning here because that fucking ball of clothing actually has massive implications. It confirms a lot of things and also puts a lot of doubt in things that seemed to be confirmed.
Before that I also want to say that Arei 100 pourcent got knocked out with turpentine. I don't want to argue over and over again that it was used because I've done this before but I have to since there are multiple reasons why she had to have been knocked out.
The floor is extremely prone to scuffs, if Arei was struggling then we definitely would've seen more than just a few marks in one area.
The method of murder would have been extremely difficult if she was struggling, like to a ridiculous point. Especially with someone like Arei who has been shown to have been sneaky and very prone to attacking people in their weak spots.
The tape binding Arei's hand in hindsight actually probably wasn't to avoid her struggling, it was most likely due to how the mechanism of the murder work. Keep in mind how the murder had to have worked and imagine if Arei's hands were just loose and flopping around. There could have been possible injuries with her arms that would ruin the culprit's obvious plan to make it look like a suicide. It also just makes sense for weight reasons, again Arei having her arms flopping around would make moving her body even more difficult.
And even if you want disagree with all of that, the culprit could've just binded her tape to avoid the same mistake that happened with Ace with him waking up from the turpentine.
Now that I've made my case about Arei being knocked out, let's get on the actual new arguments I want to make.
First, we know for a fact that a piece of cloth was used to knock out Ace meaning it has to have gone somewhere, if you say "well they could've just thrown it away" I will personally come into your home and shit in your shoes. And you're also wrong because I've already proven that Arei had to have been knocked out.
This means the only piece of cloth available to us would be the sticky ball of clothes.
But...like let me just explain everything that's mind boggling about all of this.
-This ball of clothes had to have been made for Ace's murder to knock him out
-The only people who knew about the old clothes were Hu, Teruko and Whit. Eden only knowing later on, way after Ace's murder was planned probably, because Hu told her about it.
-The culprit used this ball of clothing against both Arei and Ace
-The cloth is suspiciously absent from the murder scene, which makes no sense considering Nico's account rely on them not having left the gym while trying to murder Ace. Them leaving to chuck the cloth aside only to come back to the gym doesn't make sense with the timeline in how we discover things.
Yep, I'm making the claim that Nico didn't actually kill Ace here, I still think it's Hu. Again you can try and complain all you want about how it's out of character for Nico but the reality is...shit is not adding up.
It's really suspicious how silent Hu becomes when her weapon is brought up, immediatly clamming up and not defending Nico anymore. When Teruko makes assumption that Nico lied to Hu to get her weapon, she doesn't reply with a betrayed "Nico is that true ?" or even a sentence she responds with "That's...". The amout of ellpises both Nico and Hu give are extremely suspicious and just make me side eye both of them extremely hard.
I'm gonna go on another tangent here, on the subject of Hu being suspicious. Mainly because I do wanna point out a moment that both makes Eden seem a lot more innocent and makes Hu a lot more guilty.
The subject of Arei potentially committing suicide.
Now, it's very clear that the way Arei was hung was meant to make it look like Arei killed herself, this was very much meant to be the culprit's intention. Both to hide the true murder mechanism and probably to mislead the cast. The fact that it's only an incidental red mark of Arei's wrist that proves she didn't kill herself, proves that the culprit intended for it to look like a suicide.
However guess who argues against this...Eden, which, if she is the culprit I don't see why she would do something like that (and if you say "well why is Hu defending Nico and Eden" I already explained it). Clearly the Eden!Culprit theory relies on her being capable of manipulation so there's no reason why she would be so caught up in her own feelings to just ruin her own plan like that.
You know who seems to really be into the idea of Arei killing herself though, Hu.
That's all I have to say on that, now let's get onto how I think Nico actually helped Hu.
I do think there's still a 50/50 on them working directly together or just Nico catching onto Hu's plans and deciding on their own to help her.
I do think Nico directly helped her though in two major ways
First, the water, it's the obvious one. Nico probably ended up giving the water the Hu here weither they did so with/without knowing Hu's intention doesn't really matter since they're deciding to keep quiet about it now.
I also want to quickly mention how Hu getting water from the relaxation room makes a lot of sense. Hu was busy with Eden in the kitchen and Teruko had taken all the drinks from the gym, so it's likely Hu was forced to take the water from the relaxation room.
Second, the note
Oooo baby let's get into my favorite realisation in watching this episode.
One piece of dialogue has made me realize something
This made me puzzled too, because yeah, who would be listening in and how did Arei not notice when she went into the room ?
Let me take you all back to Chapter 2 Episode 5
Rose and Teruko have a conversation about Rose's secret and that conversation lasts a good while, until...
Nico was actually shown to have been there the entire time, Teruko and Rose were talking without noticing they were there.
Nico then explains themselves like this, pretty much proving this is something they just like doing casually sometimes.
This actually would explain everything on how the eavesdropping happened, Nico was on the literal fucking floor of the infirmary leading to them listening to everyone's conversation. Which tmeans they could have had the information to write the note.
This would explain the inconcistencies as to why would the culprit know to eavesdrop and how they didn't get caught by Arei when she was barging into the room (if they were outside by the door).
Now this leads to two possibilities with Nico and their relation to Hu.
Either they worked together with Hu and they both came up with the murder together. Which means either of them could've written the note.
Or Nico helped Hu without her knowledge, making the note to help her (edit : just realised this doesn't make a lot of sense ignore this).
I believe this is all I have so far and I'm very tired so you won't get a conclusion
Oh wait I hear something in the background...
"WHAT ABOUT THE TAAAAAAAAPE"
First of all, y'all gaslit me into thinking Ace couldn't have taken the tape so I'm already sick of this tape bullshit being used as decisive unshakeable evidence.
You know what I think probably happened ? Ace took the tape, after all it disappeared when he woke up and it's possible that he just then threw it away in the trash.
I mean Ace did say he was gonna "commit a murder of his own", it would be in line with him taking the tape.
Why isn't he talking about it then ? Because he'd be seen as the fucking culprit and also Ace is not really the most honest bitch out need i mention Ace witholding info about David and Arei's conversation.
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ok so the new trailer for episode 3 just dropped. big hype. here are some theory's, notes, and observations.
also I took a lot of screenshots...
anyway here we go.
so the adventure is set to be "The Mystery of Mildenhall Manor". Now, I do think that Caine is gonna be the quest giver this time, sending the gang to find something inside the spooky, probably haunted manor.
small guess is that they gotta find Matilda, one of the ghosts haunting the manor, and trap her in a vacuum. idk why, it's literally just a hunch.
Jax also takes a moment to harass Pomni with a vacuum, which just makes me think of Luigi's Mansion.
anyway, the gang (minus Zooble) are gonna go in the manor and try to find whatever they're looking for, and either by agreement or random set of events, the gang is gonna split up, Pomni and Kinger being paired up. I don't really know if Ragatha, Gangle, and Jax stick together or not, as they're not really shown much in the trailer.
I am inclined to believe it is a set of events that separates the gang tho.
it's the one of the reasons I can think of that'd make Pomni climb on the door like that.
I mean... outside of the very spooky decorum.....
which Pomni has a pretty reasonable reaction to
btw, I fucking love Pomni's cartoon physics with the squash and stretch rubber-hose animation. it's so expressive and fun to watch.
anyway, it seems Caine is determined to have Zooble go on adventures. so he literally sits them down and tries to therapize them.
though with Caine being an AI with very little knowledge of how the human mind works, this goes predictably horribly.
I imagine Zooble tries on some level to convey to Caine the ludicrousness of their situation. stuck in a digital world getting repeatedly traumatized by meaningless adventures that seem to do more harm than good. though I get the feeling Caine would miss the point, leading Zooble to correct him, and/or get upset at him for not understanding. watching this verbal fight happen between these 2 will probably lead to us, the viewer, understanding more about Zooble.
anyway, back to the manor with this cute little guy.
look at him, he's so cute and squishable. unfortunately this guy is the only cute and squishable NPC here because Pomni and Kinger seems to really be going through it.
they're mostly poking around, opening drawers and stuff. maybe they're looking for a key to get back with the others or something? who knows.
they both probably stumble around in the dark for a bit, both figuratively and literally.
they might end up stumbling into an antagonist NPC, which is the only way I can explain some of these screenshots.
it looks to me like Kinger is facing something. I mean, He's missing an eye in the first one, smacking something with a gun in the second, and looking really worried in the third. Plus the fist 2 have similar lighting so I'm inclined to believe those 2 pics come from clips in close time frames to each other.
there's also another image that has similar lighting...
now... this may sound weird, but I think that either Pomni got Possessed somehow, or something tried to take her shape. Possession seems more feasible since we know at least 2 of the NPC's in this adventure are ghosts, and at least in media ghosts are known to possess people. seeing as digital circus seems to love pulling from video game mechanics, this wouldn't surprise me at all.
this would also kind of explain why in the "POMNI WAKE UP!! IT'S TIME TO GO ON AN ADVENTURE" video, in the "Kinger with a shotgun" clip, he seems to be hitting Pomni with the gun. it makes a lot more sense if Pomni ends up getting possessed somehow, forcing Kinger to hit her in order to defend himself from the ghost.
this also could tie back to the worried look on Kingers face in the screenshot before Possessed Pomni. Cause he'd know what he has to do, even though he doesn't want to hurt Pomni.
Hell, I'm pretty sure Kinger even openly protects Pomni in this episode.
because of the shot in the trailer taken from this hole's perspective
not only is Pomni hiding behind Kinger, but he has one of his hands out in front of her, as if to protect her from whatever is in that hole.
also in regards to guns, Kinger isn't the only one who gets to have a gun.
Pomni gets to wield a shotgun too, and it's likely to help both herself and Kinger fight off whatever was after them in the hole.
Ghost possession and gun-slinging aside, I do think that Pomni and Kinger have a little heart to heart in this episode.
boy doesn't that screenshot look familiar. reminds me of episode 2 with the blue lighting and concerned expression on Pomni's face. That scene in the test room where Pomni comforts Gumigoo. this time tho, she's comforting Kinger. it almost makes me wonder if this will be a reoccurring theme, with all the other characters eventually having a heart to heart with Pomni, and Pomni comforting them.
it'd really make her live up to her quote in episode 2 "I guess I just don't want you to feel like you're nothing. I don't want anyone to feel like that".
the only thing I do still have questions about, is wtf is Kinger looking at here?
I mean, it looks like the eyes of a ghost, if they could make their eyes glow like that.
ya know what, maybe he's looking at a mound of pillows or something.
yeah, like that.
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I have a lot of thoughts right now about the latest episode (14)
Here's your warning to watch the episode before reading the post:
Okay okay okay
So I went back and watched the sequence of the whole Ace body discovery to try and see if there's anything there after the whole tape debacle this episode.
Here's a little recap of what happened for reference (episode 6 ~ timestamp: 18:36-21:55) :
-Teruko and Eden go to the workout room and see Nico over Ace, They run off
The tape is clearly by Aces feet here and remains there for some time
-The girls have a talk about the situation, Eden freaking out, and Teruko suspects Nico
-Teruko starts investigating, & Eden says she needs to process what just happened, Teruko tells her to sit down and not to touch stuff
-Teruko does her investigation she points out the tape here
-Eden comes over and offers to help after a little bit of this
-Teruko starts to investigate Aces body
-Ace gets up screaming and knocks Eden down
(it's about here the tape dissappeard)
-Eden gets up, surprisee Ace is alive
-after some more screaming Ace bolts out of the room and after Nico
-MonoTV promptly kicks everyone out
Okay, so I have some thoughts about all this. Character and story wise I have a hard time believing Eden did this but I don't think it's possible for Ace to have stolen the tape or mimicked the crime.
I can get behind him killing motive wise, but not with the method presented here.
The mans been scared to death since the start, got even more paranoid after the first case, literally everyone shits on him, he overheard Teruko saying he'd probably die, theres Veronikas whole disection of him in the cafeteria fight scene, and now he's nearly been murdered. So him getting paranoid and desperate isn't too far off. Also, him having nothing to do with Arei would be a good cover for him, so I don'treally count that as a defense of him.
That being said according to Nico, he woke up mid murder and fell unconscious again. How much of the method could Ace have possibly seen? Also, something that strikes me as odd is something in this image:
Ace's hands are covered in blood, so even if he theoretically grabbed the tape, wouldn't there also be blood on it? How would he hide it when using it for Arei's Murder?
Also the minute he woke up he was the center of attention, so I highly doubt he would even have time to properly hide the tape from both Teruko and Eden, or that he'd even be thinking of that the second he wakes up from nearly dying.
So because of all that, I don't think it's possible for him to be the killer here.
Opportunity wise, Eden has the most chance at staying undetected, seeing as she was on the floor around when the tape disappeared. She also had the opportunity when she was resting to observe the crime scene so she could more easily figure out and mimic the murder method.
That being said, Eden as a killer confuses me so freaking much, I feel there has to be some curveball here????? Like she'd have to have a pretty clear head directly after seeing a whole ass body so?????
I get Arei said she's likely not as innocent as she appears, but this feels like a bit much. Unless she's being blackmailed leading to some traitor reveal? It's really hard to say.
Anyway, that's my two cents here.
The two people I thought would least likely be the killer are the two main suspects, and now my brain is soup.
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(you don't need to publish this because a) it's not a question and b) I don't want that maybe you're getting attacked/vagueblogged over it) I just wanted to say, that I originally came to your blog because of your nuanced, deep and really really good Caleb meta and that Imogenfans are missing out big time. I think, if Im/odna fans wouldn't have acted the way they did and talented people hadn't stopped writing meta about them, at least I would have warmed up to the characters way more....
Hi anon,
I hope you don't mind me publishing it anyway just because it's a good opportunity to elaborate on a few rather fanwanky feelings in one brief-ish statement.
I don't really care if people vague me and I think people who don't like being vagued are valid, but people who don't like being vagued, whine about it, and then continue to vague others are, understandably, idiots making the situation worse. Most people who had issues with being vagued re: the above simply stopped writing meta, which is why there's not much of it. Also a lot of what people call vaguing is just meta that disagrees with theirs, to be honest. I mean I do vague, a lot, and I'm very good at it, but I've also written 100% good faith meta about things I was thinking about the narrative without consideration of other peoples' opinions and it was called vaguing because I used aggressive tactics like citing my sources.
I've covered the fact that Imogen was actually treated very similarly to Caleb with the key difference that people who wrote meta about Caleb were treated badly by his haters, whereas people who wrote meta about Imogen were treated badly by her then-supporters who are now mostly defending Ashton and Dorian because Imogen started saying things they don't like and don't want to address. I just want to reiterate that if someone ever says that The Male Characters Played By White Actors Never Receive Hate you should just block them and stop taking them seriously. The hate is obviously not motivated by bigotry against real people, typically (though some criticism of Veth was certainly misogynistic even though Sam is a man, for example) but they still did receive pretty intense hate. It is kind of telling, personally, re a certain lack of backbone that people will bring up the horrible things people said about Liam or Travis or Taliesin in their own defense and then turn around and willingly engage with the people making these accusations they clearly know to be false, but you know. Unsurprising.
I tried to write something longer that really dug into the outline of events but it really comes down to this: a lot of the direct harassment (not vagueing) of meta writers, especially with regards to Imogen or Laudna, occurred during episodes like...20-50 of this campaign, and I think those doing the harassment either thought this would somehow make meta writers go "oh my god you're so right about the thing that you said I should die for not agreeing with, I'm going to write meta for you now" or that this would shut them down but wouldn't make other meta writers say "oh this environment has become hostile", which obviously it would. Coupled with the fact that this is when a lot of meta writers realized the campaign pacing was fucked and the party wasn't clicking in the same way past ones had and it really turned into a case of high risk of unpleasantness for a not really worth it reward for many of the meta writers who were around in earlier campaigns, and that in TURN meant that it's harder to have a good conversation without having existing chats so it's a less pleasant place for new fans. Anyway uh. I think the lesson here is that those C2 meta writers ARE around for Midst and Candela Obscura so it's also kind of a waiting game in the event that there is a future campaign (and if not, they will still be here for Midst/Candela/Possibly Daggerheart or future EXUs); they're just not here to write about Imogen or Laudna because it's not worth the trouble.
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This is a selfcest headcanon thing between Dark Sun x Sun so yeah scroll if you don’t like it please. All SFW btw :3
They’d make each other better first of all, Dark Sun would be a little nicer and his goals would be better and Sun’s health would improve a lot.
When they first started dating it was obviously a secret to everyone, including Dark Sun’s allies.
They both suck ass at flirting but still manage to make each other flustered, 78% of the time Sun gets flustered though.
They are both very, very lovey-dovey towards each other a lot of the time.
Dark Sun’s love languages are all, but he prefers acts of service, and quality time, and words of affirmation.
Sun’s love languages are also all, but he prefers words of affirmation, and quality time.
Dark Sun’s tone softens when he’s around Sun or if Sun is mentioned at all. (I think this thing is canon from the new episodes)
When Dark Sun first realized he had a crush on Sun, he immediately made Nexus stop his plans to kidnap Sun. (Nexus did obviously not like that)
Solar would start to be suspicious about Sun on how he started to be more active and cheery. Especially with all that’s going on.
Ruin would be the first to find out because he walked in on Sun and Dark Sun cuddling. (He immediately shut the door and didn’t tell anyone because of course, there would be consequences to that.)
Dark Sun would take Sun to see different dimensions and stars and all the things that would make people gawk because he thinks it’s cute when Sun is absolutely flabbergasted. But also because Dark Sun wants to show everything he knows.
They both absolutely adore each other like two lovesick teenagers.
Dark Sun would take Sun riding on the Wither Storm Dragon at night.
Dark Sun would never, EVER pressure Sun into doing something evil or dangerous or anything.
Anyway that’s it. (This ship is makes me giggle/pos)
This ship sounds very interesting
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