#basically this explains everything

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[cheesenchalk]

i never know how to phrase it but something about the way beatles biographers and people in general view paul's reflexive placating persona and determination to smooth things over as manipulative or duplicitous and john's reflexive barbed persona and habit of lashing out as brave and subversive despite both being equally defensive mechanisms to shield themselves from the world that resulted in them saying things that weren't true says more about how we culturally view kindness or friendliness as inherently untrustworthy or flimsy and anger and carelessness as more believable as someone's true nature than it says about either of them in actuality

[egophiliac]

I have never been more concerned for a JP update from your art than I am seeing a Cheka knowing the context of Leona’s dream.

My bois ok right?????? My sweet nephews ok right??????

well

uhhhh

I'm sure the real one is fine :)

[ganondoodle]

wont have time to work on anything for a few days probably, so uh, since i love reading comments/tags of people sharing their experiences- as part of the preparation for the totk rant script i got another question to ask :3

if you dont like tears of the kingdom, was there a moment that "broke" you, as in, the moment you knew this game is worse than you thought/hoped, and if so what was it?

personally, while i was suspicious after seeing its last trailer, i told myself its just me again and i kept up my hopes for a long time into my playthrough- its hard to point to a specific point since it was a growing feeling of something being off, things didnt make sense and i ever so more wondered how they would pull this all together (they didnt)- i do think the moment i stopped being in denial about it was when i found the shrine of life, the beginning of botw, and found .. nothing, a dingy cave practically licked clean of any traces of the shiekah tech like it never existed, instead of the medical bed a pathetic puddle of water that healed you, no one caring at all, like it actually never happened- i felt like the game pointed and laughed at me for caring about botw, pretty sure i was struggeling to keep it together on stream bc it forced me to realize this game truly is everything i hoped it wouldnt be, even if that sounds a little weird, at that time zelda and especially botw was so much more important to me, a passion for the franchise this game really did end up killing.

[hedgewitchnecromancer]

Why the hell does English not have more color categories???

Like, these are all the same color according to English

Why??? None of these are even CLOSE to one another, nevermind the same!!!

Or

At no point should the top left one be in the same category as the bottom middle or bottom right. They aren’t even close

I could go on but I do unfortunately have actually important things to do so I’ll leave it here now, but seriously we really really need more basic color categories

[queenlucythevaliant]

Honesty hours: I've been working a summer job at a bookstore for almost two months now. Here are the books I will discreetly shake my head at customers for buying. My literary red flags, if you will.

Anything tarot

Particular romance and romantasy novels that I've been told are basically just soft erotica (ACOTAR being the most popular)

Harlequins, which apparently still exist

Colleen Hoover

The Colleen Hoover merch we sell for some godforsaken reason

Heaven is For Real, When God Winks at You, and other theologically sketchy but inexplicably popular books. I'm always internally thinking, "oh honey, no!"

Giant stack of self help books combined with books from the business section. This suggests a very particular type of person. This type of person scares me.

Especially that one book we have about how to become a "superior man" (??)

More than one book by James Patterson. One book is forgivable; multiple suggests you follow him as an author

More than one book by Danielle Steel (same reason)

Parents buying their kids books that are just "Adult Thing: For Kids!" Like we have a picture book that's called "A Day at Dunder Mifflin" or the one adapted from the Dumb and Dumber movies and I'm like. Don't you think your kid would prefer something that's actually for them??

That guy who bought the collected writings of Lenin, the poetic writings of Mao, and a giant, thousand-page biography of Che Guevara all in one go. You okay there buddy?

[shanastoryteller]

Meg is the first choice, of course, but she’s not suited to this type of long term mission and they all know it. The problem is, almost none of them are. The nature of the beast, she supposes.

That’s why it ends up being her, in the end. Well, it’s almost Ruby, but there’s one thing she has that Ruby doesn’t.

How she ended up here in the first place.

She thought Clyde loved her. She thought he’d take her away, from her father and her terrible life, and so when he died too young, before he could fulfill any of his promises, she’d sold her soul to bring him back.

But he hadn’t kept a single promise. She’d died in her father’s house.

“You remember being in love, don’t you?” he asks, cruel in his callousness, which is different than his other types of cruelty. It’s all he has, shining out in a thousand different ways. “You’ll be better at faking it.”

All she does is fake it.

“Yes,” she says.

This mission gets her topside. It’s worth it for that alone.

~

She slips into a pretty blonde named Rebecca first but by the end of the day, the girl’s screaming has given her a headache, and she slips right back out. She’ll probably just think she had a bad trip.

He’d offered to arrange something for her, but she wanted to pick herself, and she’s not interested in having someone crying and moaning in the back of her mind. But it’s not like there are a lot of options.

She could kill one, of course. But she’s never – she hasn’t been topside, before. Everything she’s killed before had already been dead. So she hovers for the next week, looking for some sort of opportunity, for something she can use that’s not going to scream at her.

The day before she’s going to have to either pick someone or risk being sent back, there’s a car accident.

The girl’s heart is still and her body’s warm, blood pooling down her head, but that’s nothing she can’t fix. She settles into the body, jumpstarting the heart and can feel the skin on her head knitting back together. It’s also blessedly, thankfully silent, with her the only one inside this body. The driver who hit her is dead and people are crowding in, a crying girl pulling her free. “Anne! Anne, are you okay, oh my god, I can’t believe that happened-”

She wrinkles her nose before smoothing out her expression.

The name will have to go. She’ll say she’s reinventing herself after tragedy, or something, but she’s not going to walk around responding to Anne. That’s not her name.

Anne’s a sophomore, which isn’t ideal, but she’s beautiful and doesn’t have that many friends and barely talks to her family, so she’s actually perfect.

She’s also blonde.

She’d been blonde before too.

~

All the demons who had run these sort of missions before give her advice, tell her things that will help her. Some of their assignments had lasted months, but no one’s tried to do it for as long as she’s supposed to.

He likes smart girls.

Be confident. Be flirty. He’s shyer than he looks.

He never had a mother. He likes it when girls take care of him.

He likes to take care of girls too. He wants to feel useful.

She’d had dreams, before, of all the ways she’d could escape her father. It wasn’t common for girls to get more than a basic education, but she’d been smart. She could read and do complicated sums and enjoyed the quiet evenings when she balanced her father’s books. She’d thought she might like an advanced education, thought it could get her out of her life, but hadn’t known how to manage it.

Clyde had seemed easier. More attainable. More realistic.

She’d sold her soul for nothing in the end. She hadn’t even got the full ten years of her bargain.

She doesn’t know how much of their advice she can take.

She can be smart, but considering the school they’re at, all the girls will be smart. She hadn’t been confident or flirty, which is maybe why she’d latched onto the first boy who smiled at her. She never had a mother herself and doesn’t know to act like one.

She’s never been taken care of and doesn’t know how to do that either.

There’s no way for her to do this. She’s going to be replaced and sent back below and he’ll be angry at her and she hates hates hates when he’s angry at her, what he does to her.

“Are you okay?”

She looks up, something cold on her tongue, but falters.

He’s standing there, warm hazel eyes and long dark hair, hunching to try and make himself smaller, and a smile on his face that does nothing to hide his concern.

“Do you ever feel like,” she starts, her dead stolen heart beating too quickly, “everything is falling apart around you and you have no idea what you’re doing and like maybe your whole life is one huge mistake?”

Well, fuck. She’s definitely being replaced now.

Except Azazel’s favorite throws back his head and laughs, smile stretching into a grin. “Every day of my life, more or less.”

“How do you deal with it?” she asks, scrubbing a hand over her face.

He shrugs. “Well, my brother would say women and liquor.” He seems to realize how that sounds a moment later and he pales, “Um, not that I’m – I’m not saying, I wasn’t trying to. He’s just sort of a cad, and – I wasn’t trying to, with you, uh.”

She feels herself softening in spite of herself. “So you’re not one to apply that method yourself?”

“No,” he says firmly, eyes wide. “God, I’m just – I’m sorry. I – I’m Sam.”

“Hi Sam,” she returns, with a smile she doesn’t have to fake. “I’m Jess.”

~

She’s not supposed to fall in love with him.

She’s to worm his way to his side. She’s to keep him from running back to his family, to keep him from rebuilding the bridges he’s burned. She’s to keep him distracted and focused on her until his powers activate and then she’s to guide him into using them, to be supportive and loving and to push him straight into Azazel’s arms.

Sam loves his family so much.

He talks of his brother all the time. His father less, the emotions there more tangled, but love no less fierce.

She nudges him away from it, talks to him about how it’s normal for families to grow apart, to say that they’ll understand when he graduates, that he’ll show them they type of man that he is.

By the time he graduates, his powers will start manifesting, and he’ll avoid his family without her prodding. He knows what they’ll think of him, then, and Jess tells herself that she’s helping him. That this is for Sam’s own good.

If he’s with her, then he’s safe. His father won’t kill him while he’s safe at school. He can’t kill Sam for powers that he’ll never know about.

It’s easy to dig into the anger for his father, to use his last words to Sam as a way to hold him at her side. His brother is more difficult. Jess doesn’t do much with that, in the end, tells herself that it would be too complicated, too suspicious, and as long Dean is sticking with their father it amounts to same thing anyway.

The truth is more complicated.

His father will kill Sam if he has to.

She doesn’t think that his brother will. She thinks that maybe he’d choose to protect Sam, over their father’s wishes, over everything he’d been taught, no matter the consequences.

She fears that she and Dean have a lot in common.

She invites Sam over for holidays, makes summer plans with him, holds as much of his attention as she can manage.

She studies and makes friends and laughs and spends so much time with him, but not all of it. It has to be believable after all, has to be constant, in a way that it didn’t have to be with all the other demons sent to take care of him.

Jess lives a life that had been denied to her and tries to do what she was sent to do and does the one thing she was definitely not supposed to do, which is fall in love with Sam Winchester.

~

His brother shows up in their apartment and she knows that she’s going to lose him.

Sam tries to act angry, but she knows him too well. He’s moving around his brother like a flower following the sun and she asks him not to go, tries to find the words to keep him here, but they all get caught in her throat. If she begged, if she threw a fit, if she demanded it of him, he would stay. He’d tell his brother he’s sorry but he’d stay with her and not help him and burn their relationship for good. He loves her enough to do that for her. She knows it.

She loves him enough not to make him.

He kisses her and she knows it’ll be the last time. He doesn’t.

“What did that take, five minutes?” Azazel is right there, breath on the back of her neck, and his anger fury rage pressing down on her even closer. “Over three years at his side and you lost him in five minutes. What a waste.”

“I kept him for over three years,” she says, tries to keep her voice steady, but knows she fails.

She had him for over three years.

“Not good enough,” he whispers, lips on the shell of her ear. “Guess I’ll have to send Meg in after all.”

Pain erupts hot across her stomach and her screams mix with his laughter.

~

Love always burns her in the end.

[nathanbellamy]

Erik: What did you have for breakfast?

Peter: Smarties cereal.

Erik, disgusted: I didn’t even know they made a cereal.

Peter: They don’t. It’s just smarties in a bowl with milk.

[candyje11yfish]

slight redesign. love her🩻🩸

[rockingtheorange]

TayNick soulmating

(Clip from @/jfuentes on ig)

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

okay but the fact that we hear all about kaveh's life post-fall out with alhaitham, the fact he graduated, worked at construction firms and continued taking on others' burdens, had a hard time finding solo work because of how arts are perceived in sumeru, that he went to his mother's wedding in fontaine, that he took a vacation from work because he was stifled by the environment and felt he had lost motivation and worth as an artist, was determined to complete the palace of alcazarzaray at the cost of everything he owned just to have a tangible object of his efforts and view of art only for its outcome to further emaciate him, until he meets alhaitham for the first time in years, is understood at once, has no need to don a front as he does for everyone else in his life, is listened to, is challenged once more and reinvigorated in his perception of his ideals, is offered a second chance, a home, and accepts it, although he cannot comprehend why alhaitham would offer such a thing and yet not ask anything of relevant substance in return, other than rent

all of this, and we hear virtually nothing of alhaitham's life post-fall out with kaveh, besides his graduation and his taking on the job of the scribe. his character stories omit this part of his life whereas kaveh's is full of detail and emotion, mostly suffering. the first instance we see of alhaitham in this time is from kaveh's perspective when the two meet again in the tavern, and in this alhaitham endeavours to understand kaveh once more, before offering his house - the research centre previously allocated to the both of them for the success of their joint thesis before they fell apart - to kaveh.

we don't know why alhaitham moved out of his grandmother's house and into the research centre, why he renovated it from a research centre into a livable home, only that he did so after kaveh informed alhaitham through a third party that he was not in need of a house, nor do we know his thought processes and emotions in the years spent apart - the years that are carefully documented in kaveh's character stories. the image we are presented with is that of stasis; alhaitham pursues no other close friendships, he works as the scribe, owns a nice house within sumeru, is financially secure, and functions within, and carries out, his own ideals - is content with this way of life. in this, from alhaitham's perspective, there are no details necessary to give from this time

but in inviting kaveh to live with him, his character stories tell us that what he gains by doing so is the mirror of himself, both in personality and scholarly thinking, and in this, he is able to gain an enhanced view of the world, which otherwise would be limited. with kaveh being present in alhaitham's life, alhaitham believes that his vision is perfected, whereas it could not be before, with kaveh's absence. it is in this that we hear what alhaitham has been missing in his life, and ultimately, it is kaveh, not just as a scholar, but as a person

what is omitted from alhaitham's character stories is provided in kaveh's character stories; where we hear about kaveh's struggles, we don't hear about alhaitham's. perhaps this is because alhaitham did not struggle as kaveh did in terms of realising and achieving his ideals, but instead his struggles were in silence, recognising that his vision, and himself, had been compromised because he had rejected the ideals that served to enhance his own vision, that he had inadvertently rejected, and thus had been rejected by, kaveh.

[enclarice]

"Pour my life into a paper cup"

Oh my, I forgot how short February was, this me did NOT have anything planned

Here's my dream fish, ide-ette

This one ,like the last ,is to the song otherside by red hot chili peppers

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

The fandom can't make up its mind on what's supposed to be a joke and what's supposed to be serious because the show can't either half the time. It's a tonally disjointed mess that wants to have absurd over-the-top humor as well as a plot and moments of drama, romance, and angst that demand you see the characters as people and feel for what they're going through. Except you can't do that without also treating the dumb bullshit in a somewhat grounded way. Like, you're still dealing with the same characters. You can't just go "Oh, that? Let's ignore that!" the moment it's no longer convenient to you. You've opened this can of worms and now you have to sleep in it. So, every character flip-flops between two different versions of themselves depending on what the writers need in any particular scene.

This is not to say surreal humor can't be used right alongside characters you're supposed to empathize with, Teen Titans (not Go) did that and it worked. It's just that the absurdity can only come from the setting (Mad Mod, Mother Mae-Eye, pretty much anything Control Freak is in) or from designated joke characters (Date With Destiny). Teen Titans never had the main characters acting in clearly absurd ways as the butt of a joke unless those characters were brainwashed somehow, because the writers knew that would ruin any of the more grounded moments they wanted to write. The writers of Miraculous missed the memo on that one.

I don't disagree. A perfect example is Derision where the show takes all of the bad jokes about Marinette's crush and decides to take them seriously as if you can possible take them seriously without making Marinette come across as unhinged and dangerous. You can't, which brings us to the topic at hand: how do you even begin to understand these characters when the show is constantly making character-breaking choices?

My approach - and the approach I recommend others take if they're going to keep watching the show - is to focus on the characters' cores and reject anything canon does to violate those cores. I don't argue for this stance because I love the characters so much that I only want the good things to count. I take this stance because, if you don't, then the characters fall apart. There is no way to make them work as fully realized characters while embracing every choice canon has made. Miraculous has massive characterization issues that go well beyond the humor.

For example, Adrien has multiple moments of terrible behavior that are played in a serious manner such as the moment in the episode Frozer where he tries to start a fight with Ladybug in the middle of an akuma attack because she wouldn't accept a rose from him earlier:

Setup

Ladybug: I can't accept this rose from you. I told you already. I'm in love with someone else. Cat Noir: I know, M'lady. But if he weren't here, would things be different between us? Ladybug: Well, you know, I can't even begin to imagine him not being here. I'm sorry, Cat Noir. I really gotta get going, and you better do the same. (Swings her yo-yo to head back home; Cat Noir is sad, looking downwards, with one petal of the rose falling.)

Payoff

Ladyice: Cat Noir. We need to set up a trap for whoever turned the city into a giant ice rink. (throws yo-yo) Icecat: (bitterly) My feline instincts prefer to track and observe before I attack. You go your way, I'll go mine. Ladyice: Please don't tell me you're mad at me about the rose. Icecat: There may be a certain chill now between us. Ladyice: I get it, but we should really focus on saving Paris right now. Icecat: We don't always have to do everything together, after all. It's not like we're a couple. (skates away)

There's no way to argue this off as a bad joke. While Adrien has every right to feel hurt, those feelings don't excuse him acting like a pouting child in the middle of an akuma fight. It doesn't excuse him acting like this at any point! Ladybug is not a villain for telling him no. She wasn't even mean about it!

I clearly fully agree that Adrien looks awful and selfish here, but I'd still argue that it's not something that should be used to define Adrien's character if your goal is to tell the "ideal" version of Miraculous. "Ideal" being the version that canon seems to be going for based on the overall picture we can sort of make out if we back way, way, way up and look at the extremely abstract picture canon is clumsily painting.

Unless canon is going to do something monumentally stupid, Adrien is Marinette's endgame romantic interest. It's also clear that there is no plan to cut him from the team. He's going to be Chat Noir for the rest of his life or at least well into his adulthood. This means that he is supposed to be a good hero who deserves his miraculous just like he's supposed to be a charming and cute romantic lead. These are the two things I keep in mind when trying to shift through canon to figure out what writing choices I should fully embrace and what writing choices I have to either ignore or treat as true flaws that get an actual character arc. In my book, either approach is fine because most of the characters are deeply flawed at this point and you can't give them all arcs without bloating the story to nonsense levels.

My goal with this approach is never to say, "oh, that moment shouldn't count in terms of how people feel about the character." It's more, "that moment goes so hard against who this character is very clearly supposed to be that I can't take it into account if I want to tell the kind of story that Miraculous is trying (and clearly failing) to tell."

As an example, let's list off Adrien's worst behaviors. The things that make him look terrible:

He sucks at communicating his needs and feelings, leading to multiple moments where he gets mad at Ladybug for things she's totally unaware of

He has quit or considered quitting without warning multiple times and only one of those was because of something he did "wrong" (NYC Special)

He puts his feelings before the safety of Paris on multiple occasions, even going so far to purposely miss akuma fights to see what happens

He is incredibly pushy about his crush, often ignoring Ladybug's feelings on the topic by continuing to bring it up even after she asked him to stop

There have been multiple instances where he almost cataclysmed multiple people in a fit of anger

His love for Ladynette isn't strong enough to let him break free of things like akumas and nightmare dust even when he's looking her in the eyes making him a pretty crappy romantic lead

People will argue that some of this behavior makes sense for his character because of the abuse that canon has technically introduced, but that the writers seem blissfully unaware of. I don't disagree with that argument, but that doesn't change the fact that none of this is acceptable behavior for a hero and Adrien is a hero who keeps doing these things. A sad backstory doesn't give you the right to behave poorly without consequences.

At the same time, if I fully embrace these elements of canon, what I get is an Adrien salt fic where he loses his miraculous for good while Marinette finds her real true love or even just a non-salty fic where Adrien leaves for his own meatal health and gets replaced by someone who can handle being a hero right now. Canon's not writing either of those, so the only way to engage with these flaws while enjoying canon or aiming for the same end goals as canon is to say, "I guess this doesn't count" or "I guess I need to tone this way down and work through it via a character arc" or even "I guess that was just a bad joke maybe?"

That is the essence of what I mean when I call myself a writing salt, character sugar blog. It comes from looking at canon and seeing that there's simply no way to embrace the worst moments and the best at the same time. We're not dealing with a coherent plot and/or complex characters. We're dealing with a nonsense plot that will warp the characters to bizarre shapes to make random ideas work even if those idea go wildly against canon's end goals.

As an example, Glaciator and Frozer should not exist in the same universe or, at the very least, something should explain why Chat Noir randomly changed his stance on Ladybug's crush from acceptance to pushiness. As is, the pieces don't fit together. The behavior is too contradictory. Remember, this is how Glaciator ends:

Perhaps Ladybug will love me someday. I mean, like, I love her. I have to believe. In the meantime, her friendship is the best gift of all.

Where did this version of Adrien go? Why did he regress in Frozer? There's no in-universe reason. It happened because the writers weren't ready to let the love square date or grow close, but they also wanted the love square to cause drama, so Adrien ends up looking terrible just like Marinette ends up looking terrible when it's her turn to cause love square drama. Her terribleness takes a different flavor so it can be hard to realize that this is a systemic issue, but that's what it is. It's deeply frustrating, but it also clearly stems from cheap writing and not quality characterization.

This is also why my stance is that canon as a whole only supports my Doyalistic core-character analysis style of approach. The writing is too poor quality to do Watsonian analysis where you embrace the full picture and try to put it all together. The closest I'll get to Watsonian analysis is pointing out how much the writing botches a Watsonian take by showing you all the way the writing contradicts itself, twisting into a nonsense pretzel of frustration where the payoffs never satisfy! (See the season four rant for an example or anything where I talked about Chloe's supposed damnation arc.)

There are even characters where canon is such a total mess that you can Doyalistically argue for two separate takes! Gabriel is a perfect example. He is all over the place and his ending was so poorly handled that you can make strong arguments for writing him as a cold-hearted villain or a sympathetic villain without the end result feeling like it spits in the face of canon because both takes maintain his one core element: villain.

That's the big thing I keep in mind when I look at the characters and the lore and the plots and try to come up with versions that the average fan would like. I don't think that there's one true version of any of these things, but I do feel comfortable saying that there are versions that will very clearly only appeal to people who are salty about a specific thing that canon did poorly. That's not who I want to appeal to in my adaptions, so while I'm not going to argue that those takes have no backing in canon, I will argue that those takes are not supported by canon as a whole. Embracing them requires you to take the worst parts of canon at face value while ignoring what canon is clearly trying to do with the overall story.

I get the appeal of that, but it's not fun for me because that approach feels like rolling around in the mud with the pigs. I don't want to sink to canon's level! I want to have fun! That's why I talk about how to make canon into its best self, not its worst self. If you want its worst self, just go watch the actual show. I will be shocked it if disappoints you.

[armandposting]

armand and lestat in the 18th century are literally just. two young men emerging from horrible situations. like I can't get over how they're both basically 20 years old. lestat literally and the last time armand wasn't in a cult he was a bit younger than 20. can I die

[demodraws0606]

Guys...I think Whit is the culprit.

Sorry guys this is gonna be a long one

You know I'm a big believe of Whit mastermind theory and depending on how the trial goes he could still be the mastermind despite being the culprit but uhm...

Mf has like an 80 pourcent chance of being the culprit

My theory of Levi being the culprit kinda has went down the drain though i'm not really that upset about it because it was admitidely the most generic route.

I still do not buy for a second Eden is the culprit mainly because it contradicts a lot of her behaviors and also is only really based on one piece of evidence that could be explained by something else.

I think the most credible option to me right now, is Whit, especially because with how certain things are laid out for us we can actually make out a concrete motive for why Whit would do this.

I'm gonna write down what I think and explain why I believe Whit is most likely the culprit (also i'll deal with a couple of holes and explain why the theory still works alongside them) and also i'll use a couple of speculations made by other people as well

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think it's known by everyone that the way Whit's secret was revealed is extremely strange, for like two reasons.

One, it means that it's impossible for anyone (including Whit himself, we'll get into that later) to have known what Whit's secret was, or to confirm it with certainty in the trial. We only have Whit's word for it.

Second, Whit takes a very strange amount of time until saying what secret he has, like right after Hu denied to say which secret she has. Which is extremely weird because if his life was so uneventful wouldn't he have managed to pick out a secret as blatant as this.

I thought this would be meant as a red herring to put suspicions on Whit however with Levi revealing his secret and this loose thread still not being addressed, I think it has to be important to the case at hand.

Now, despite people pointing this out every analysis that tries to handle this kinda goes into a brick wall because it immediatly assumes that Whit is lying about the dead mother secret being his. However there's too much pointing towards Whit having the dead mom secret.

No, I think we're going about this the wrong way. It's not about us not knowing what Whit's secret was, it's that Whit had no idea what secret actually was his

In fact that's mentionned before trial on how Whit just didn't know WHAT his secret even was, and no one could really tell him what it was because Rose threw it away

But that's weird right ? You would think Whit would know that his dead mother would be the likely secret, you could argue he just didn't want to share with everyone but that still doesn't explain the strange amount of time until he revealed he had Rose's secret.

And if he didn't want to share that his mom was dead, why did he let everyone the opportunity to say if they had his secret and to spill the beans...

Unless things are more complicated than just Whit having a dead mom, after all if it was just that wouldn't he have known immediatly that was his secret ? After all Teruko had the same issue as well as she didn't know what her secret could actually even be.

You could argue that I put my back against the wall here. If Whit not knowing his secret was his motive as to why he commited the murder then why did he let a bunch of people the opportunity to air out a potentially incriminating secret. Wouldn't that mean he wasn't worried about it ?

However, you have to keep in mind Whit had no idea how bad the secrets were, the only secrets that was revealed was J's which in retrospect of other secrets seemed like a much lighter one.

You could argue "Well Whit had David's secret which was pretty bad" however despite how bad that secret was it was also very vague and since Whit didn't know how much about David it doesn't really mean much on how deep the secrets were.

Considering Whit's personality as well, it was possible he was in denial or some deeper reason as to why he wasn't thinking about it. "Bitter things need to go down the drain" and all that.

In fact Whit was one of the first ones to say they shouldn't reveal their secret before J's secret was immediatly revealed.

I also don't think Whit being in denial has to be rooted in logic either (especially with how inconcistent he seems to be about the secrets), the murder was commited right before the deadline and although there was planning behind it, it was still a last minute decision (aka not done immediatly during the day of the motive reveal). You could argue pressure got to him or he overthought it as it became increasingly clear how much deeper the secrets went and how much the people who set this game up knew about them (something Whit investigated himself).

I think the way Whit acted about the secrets is too contradictory to really use any of what he says as actual evidence against the secrets not being his motive basically.

Now, let's go into the other point and how it works with the potential motive, the speculation that Arei was waterboarded.

Yeah, this seems to hint heavily that this is what happened and Arei's actual cause of death would be by drowning instead of strangulation like expected.

But why not strangulation ?? Why do a technique that is much harder to kill Arei, unless they were trying to get something out of drowning her. I mean we don't technically know if it was actual waterboarding but considering how planned this murder was and how we do actually have pieces of clothing that would serve for waterboarding, it seems to be likely.

(I'm not exactly sure how it stuck together with the starch afterwards but considering how the playground's ventilation works it's possible it dried up quickly) (There's also Arei's missing glove if you don't believe Teruko and Hu's clothing where used for it)

There's also no reason to drown her instead of strangling her with the rope unless there was another justification for it. But the episode actively goes out of it's way to say that there probably wasn't an attempt at tricking people into thinking the murder happened during 7:30 PM.

Anyways, why would the culprit waterboard Arei then ??? Clearly this means they were trying to get information out of her...

Which makes 0 sense unless it was Whit who would at least have a small justification for it, aka him not knowing what his secret is. I do admit it is a bit blurry on what type of information Whit would've truly wanted or why he did this before just killing her. However out of anyone (that already isn't pretty much confirmed innocent) it would only make sense for it to be him.

Now onto other stuff unrelated to the secret thing, like how unhelpful Whit has been this trial to a suspicious degree. AKA :

-Trying to distract away from the letter framing Eden and then just throwing her under the bus immediatly when he's questioned about it.

-Refusing to reveal David's secret

-Coincidentally having an excuse for not seeing Arei's body swaying

Now all of these could be argued to be in character reasons, after all didn't he do something like that chapter 1 with Charles (kind of). However this is a new level of trial interferance that really isn't justifiable at a certain point.

You could argue "well wouldn't talking about the note and David's secret be useful to make them seem guilty"' and while that'd be right to an extent. However everytime Whit witholds something like with Eden and David, he seems to cave eventually so the only thing he has achieved in this trial so far is to stall for time. Which could potentially be intentional if he's the culprit.

Now that I've kinda covered the major points, here are a list of suspicious things, mostly things that Whit knew before I get to my final point (how this would fit the narrative this chapter).

(I do wanna say most of this things isn't technically necessary info that the culprit needed to know but it definitely helps).

Whit was present during Teruko and Hu changing, meaning he would have known about their old clothes and could have found out where to get them.

Whit was present during the fight in the cafeteria, which is when Arei demanded to have her rope thrown away leading to Mono-TV putting it in storage

(Eden was busy helping J and Arturo so only Teruko, Charles and Whit could've known this information by listening in)

Whit also is the reason David is in the relaxation room leading to his conversation with Arei although idk how much of that would even possibly be planned or how that would help him, still important to note though.

There is probably more I could say however I want to get to my last point, I do think Whit being the culprit fits this case more than anyone else.

I know the question of the tape is still unanswered, if Eden did take it wouldn't that mean she is the culprit ? Well I don't think so but overall I just don't think this one singular piece of evidence is enough to say Eden's the culprit especially if we look at the bigger picture.

I'm probably just repeating the same things people probably have heard already but Eden committing such a gruesome murder for pratically no motive at all (outside getting out but it would make the secret motive useless) just doesn't really make sense.

However it is true that from what the title of this chapter suggests "all that glitters (is not gold)", it would mean a character isn't as innocent/good as they seem.

But wouldn't that title make more sense with Whit ?

Eden and Whit both are seemingly the positive vibes character of the cast, both being seemingly "normal". However Whit's positivity is a lot more toxic than Eden's, cracking jokes at innapropriate time and seeming to not let himself show even negative emotions (contrary to Eden who has let herself be upset multiple times).

Narratively speaking, Whit being the culprit, would put Charles in a similar situation to Teruko perhaps deepening their bond further without having Teruko going through a regression arc (she was way closer to Eden than she was with Whit).

It would allow Eden's message to not be lost/contradicted while also going with the apparent theme of the chapter that things aren't as they seem.

And also "all that glitters is not gold" would be a very smart saying for Whit, the one who died his hair blond (would be a very fun double meaning)

[darthstitch]

What Vincent Benitez sees when he's with Thomas Lawrence.

Also Vincent B:

Kawawa naman si mahal, he's working too hard.

Starts meal planning.

Thomas Jacopo Lomeli Lawrence, you WILL start taking care of yourself more because I plan on celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary together, do you understand me?

Thomas Lawrence: Yes, dearest. *and sensibly enjoys whatever it is Vincent cooked because it's delicious and he's a wise husband*