#drdt creator’s other fangan

[googledetective]

the theories that have been presented on this cast + one of my own :)

I do want to mention that I strongly believe this is a prequel due to a conversation I had with a bunch of people on discord earlier. (Everyone was 16+, dw.)

I haven’t seen anything about the first two at all so far, so I’ll be skipping over them and onto the third guy (oh my fucking lord).

(Also this post from @nesisamess helped a lot)

Staring onto the third dude,

(both posts are made by @zitherwaifuus :)

It seems that here this guy has some sort of relationship to XF-Future Tech, which if you’ve seen Min’s side story, you’d know is the company that came into her life and groomed her to be the Ultimate Student. She received special tutoring for them and worked her ass off for that title her entire life because of that. Next, this guy shares the same tie pin she does, and it’s also very notable that she dresses up with the same button down and tie in her MV. Not only do I think she is linked to the company now, but she might be working there before she was in the game. Who knows, though.

Next, I have not seen anything on the fourth girl besides a bunch of people on discord theorizing what the dandelion in her hair could mean. Unfortunately dandelions have different meanings from different cultures all over the world, so until it’s specified about where she’s from, I don’t think there’s many assumptions we can make yet.

Number Five, the purple guy.

Everyone seems to think so far that this is Elliot Cuevas, Charles Cuevas’s deceased brother. Now let me tell you that although I can’t see it based off design, the way he looks (playful and kinda weird but happy) and the way he was described by the creator in the latest qna (a popular joyous dude), can definitely make me see this being real. The only thing that is super far fetched about this is that we know he died a long time ago, and so if this is a prequel, it would have to be at least 15 years before drdt even starts.

Here’s also some more evidence from @sunlit-haru supporting the ‘that’s Elliot’ theory.

Now we’re up to the protagonist, who mind you is definitely my favorite so far. I will eliminate the rest of you protag dickriders so I will be the only simp left.

ANYWAYS, in the about page for this, it’s stated that this is a fangan for someone who wants to be the perfect teacher. Now with the hidden quote on the drdt tumblr page about this teacher…

( @demodraws0606 ‘s post)

Uh oh. I think we’ve figured out who this mysterious teacher might be. As for who is talking to them, I’ve personally got a few ideas, but they are not backed with any evidence.

1. The mastermind from this first killing game

2. Mai Akasaki or David Chiem still

3. The mastermind of the drdt killing game

Whoever it is, I think that these games are surely related and that each current kg participant does have a relation with one of these cast members. And that previous killing game’s end is why this one is happening.

Then, based off the post up top and a few others, people seem to think this is Teruko’s brother. I’m going to give a wild theory (no evidence) that Mai Akasaki knows him, only bc of the red in his hair. Then I think Mai would’ve found Teruko, and she would’ve been trying to reconnect them. Just a theory, though. There’s no evidence based around that this guy might be Teruko’s brother though, sadly.

Last but not least, @1moreff-creator pieced together some of the text on his badge:

I’m just gonna say that I’m seriously impressed with your efforts cause I have no fucking clue that could even be readable lmao.

*UPDATE ON TEXT: holy mother of god, @xmicrophonyx is a fucking god, and deciphered it. Here you go, and we all have got to give a serious thank you to them.

Sadly I cannot link the image of what the phone number gets to, but it gets linked to a yellow pill. I don’t have any ideas on how it would relate to the game, but I think it does. It’s used for high blood pressure and heart failure. If he’s really related to Teruko, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had high blood pressure lmao.

Also, the area code for 555 is just North America.

Here’s what I found on Wikipedia:

“The telephone number prefix 555 is a central office code in the North American Numbering Plan, used as the leading part of a group of 10,000 telephone numbers, 555-XXXX, in each numbering plan area (NPA) (area code). It has traditionally been used only for the provision of directory assistance, when dialing NPA-555-1212.

The central office code is also used for fictitious telephone numbers in North American television shows, films, video games, and other media in order to prevent practical jokers and curious callers from bothering telephone subscribers and organizations by calling telephone numbers they see in works of fiction.”

I don’t understand the first part, but it seems that this is a fictional number. If someone could explain to me wtf that first part even memes, I might be able to give more info.

Anyways, it seems that this guy ended up being a teacher at HPA, before or after the killing game. But I think this was very worth mentioning.

Unfortunately I’ve seen nothing about the next two, but I want to say that the girl in all pink (#8) I think is Felicity Giles, if that’s even possible. I just feel that’s Arturo’s sister. I know, I’m a weirdo. Even if #7 looks more like Arturo, I just cannot see it.

Moving on, nine and ten! If you look at them closely they’ve got the same eye pattern, suggesting they’re siblings, or likely twins, since they’ve got the fire/ice scheme going on.

Lastly, eleven which oh my god, Arturo’s dream girl! But she’s been theorized to be Whit’s mom. Here’s the post that argues a pretty convincing reason of why.

Oh boy. That woman is pretty cool and is very elegant, and has the same shade of blond hair that Whit dyed his too. I don’t think she’s any coincidence.

But joining along on that last little paragraph of this person’s post, it’s starting to seem a lot of characters do have connections to this cast and are seemingly mentioned quite a few times.

UPDATE: oh my lord, @accirax literally went on a deep dive for us and gave us a pretty good explanation and educated guess on everyone’s talents. I’m not going to link it because they covered pretty much every logical point as to why they have their guesses. Here’s the post if you haven’t already seen it https://www.tumblr.com/accirax/728687594893885440/drdt-new-character-talent-analysis

Anyways this is just the sum-up of everyone’s theorizing + a bit of my add on to it, and huge kudos to everyone who’s been making theories so far. I’ll be updating & crediting if there’s anymore notable things that come out.

Thanks for reading!

[venus-is-thinking]

A Narrative Defense of Eden Culprit Theory

Hello everyone! 

As I’m sure many of you know, I, among others (notably @accirax, @1moreff-creator and @thebadjoe) believe Eden to be the culprit of the Chapter 2 murder case. I’ve seen a fair number of people say they aren’t convinced for one reason or another. While I fully understand people who don’t buy all the evidence/the insane contraptions we’ve come up with or people who are in denial, I was a little surprised at how many people I saw say that it would be bad writing for Eden to be the killer here. 

While others are fully entitled to their opinions on who the killer is, I want to address this claim. Personally, whenever I’m reading a fangan, I always believe that I shouldn’t consider any killer to be “bad writing” until I see how it’s actually written. After all, there can always be a key twist you’re not expecting to make it actually make sense. Plus, in Eden’s case, I actually fully believe that all the building blocks of a narratively successful killer are already put into place. So, in this post, I’m going to attempt to back up my claim that Eden being the second killer actually makes narrative sense, and it isn’t bad writing either.

Because fangan writing is subjective and what any given author believes is the right move varies, I’ll be doing my best to support my claims with similar content from the canon game trilogy (given that that’s a pretty standard baseline) and from what we’ve already seen of DRDT thus far. That should (hopefully) give us some fair perspective into the sorts of narrative decisions the creator would want to make.

I’ll be going through various points at which I think something could or could not be bad writing, so hopefully that’ll provide some much needed structure to this theory.

Topic 1: Motive

I want to say this early: I do not think Eden is secretly evil. I think that in the context of killing games, “good” people can end up being killers, and I think that’s where Eden’s headed. I understand why, if some people have only seen Eden killer theories in the context of her being evil, they don’t like it. I don't like it either. I think it completely misinterprets her character.

For now, though, I want to talk about what motive she does have. There’s the fact that Arturo is threatening her, obviously. If she feels there’s a genuine threat to her safety, it would be decently reasonable to decide that, if her priority is her life, she’d rather try to get away with a murder than let herself be taken out by Arturo. 

There’s another potential motive out there for Eden that might be enough to push her over the edge. That being, we know she cares a lot about her friends and relationships outside of the killing game too. 

A lot of people, I think, have seen the theory floating around that goes “Eden is trying to leave to get back to the girl she kissed.” I’ve also seen it mentioned that this could be problematic, given that it could be saying “being gay = becoming a killer,” but I think there are several reasons why that doesn’t hold up.

First of all, we have a lot of canonically LGBT cast members. Nico is nonbinary, Whit is bisexual, and in the most recent Q&A, other characters such as Ace, Veronika and Eden herself were also all confirmed to be LGBT+. Given that Eden isn’t the “token gay character,” I think it’s a lot safer to make her a killer without sending the message “if you’re gay you’re a killer.” 

Secondly, I think that there’s more to Eden’s motive than just whoever that girl is. I think the girl will likely be part of it and be relevant, given that it’s Eden’s motive secret. Because it’s the Chapter 2 motive, the motive secrets should play into things in general. But, it’s not like that girl is the only one from Eden’s past that she cares about, right? 

Eden cares about her family, as we see in the scene where she talks to Levi. We know that Eden cares about her friends, as we clearly see within the killing game. We know that Eden cares about this girl. I think it’s safe to say that, for gay reasons or not, Eden has a lot of people she’d fight to get back to.

Rather than using her motive secret as the only way of justifying the “Eden wants to return to her previous life” motive, why don’t we look at other secret Eden content?

I’m talking about the secret quotes. I assume most people have heard about them by now, but basically, if you go to the characters’ profile pages on the main tumblr account and inspect elements, each character has a secret quote that you can find. Eden’s secret quote is “You can’t go back, no matter how hard you try.”

We haven’t really seen much of Eden trying to go back yet. I guess you could say that when she makes breakfast with Levi, she talks a lot about trying to get the group back together and back to normal, and that isn’t unrelated. Still, I think it makes a lot of sense if Eden is someone who’s focused on the past. After all, Eden’s talent is clockmaking. To the extent her talent influenced her personality/character themes, it seems like time is an important thing with her. Trying to turn back the clock and return to her life before the killing game would make a lot of sense thematically. 

I suspect that Eden’s secret quote relates to the fact that she tries to go back to her previous life by escaping the killing game. “No matter how hard you try” definitely sounds like she goes to pretty extreme lengths, but she still fails in the end. That would be when she’s caught as the blackened and executed; she never gets to go back. It’s precedented for secret quotes to directly relate to how characters died; both Min’s “I wanted to save you” and Arei’s “Because that’s what friends do” tie into the way in which they arrived at their death. I could definitely see it being the same for Eden.

Interestingly, there’s another reason to consider that Eden might be extra-motivated to leave the killing game. That point is that Eden has been shown to be the main person fighting against the killing game. For example, she and Hu brainstormed ways to deal with the Chapter 2 motive. 

That doesn’t really tell us anything though, right? It’s just trying to manage the killing game from within. That’s not it, though. It’s actually a repeated thing that Eden is constantly looking for ways to obstruct the killing game.

Even the plan to bore out the killing game, the one Veronika tells us couldn’t work because she’d get too horribly bored, originally came from Eden. I fully believe that there’s a reason we’re being told every other scene that Eden is working towards ending the killing game is that Eden has extra incentive to want the killing game to end, and that’s to try to return to the life and loved ones she left behind.

I also think it’s worth mentioning that, in the canon games, every single second killer commits their crime due to previous attachments that go beyond the killing game. Mondo kills because of the promise he made to his now-dead brother Daiya, Peko kills because of her allegiance to Fuyuhiko, who wants Mahiru dead due to the death of his sister Natsumi, and Kirumi kills because she’s actually the Prime Minister and needs to get back to her duties. Hell, Ryoma is even Kirumi’s victim because he doesn’t have previous outside attachments, which makes him feel like a more understandable victim for her crime. If you throw in “Eden has a lot of meaningful relationships back home and, here in the killing game, she misses them so badly that she’d kill to go back,” I don’t think it feels out of place. 

This is pretty niche, but there’s also something I want to look at in relation to Xander and Min. Notably, the pinned comments by the official account in their bonus episodes. 

Xander’s is “Someone who wants to hold onto the past.” Min’s is “Someone who wants to move on from the past.” While this trend doesn’t have to keep up, I think it would be interesting if every killer/victim pair had one of each. Arei pretty clearly wants to move on from the past where her sisters and classmates ruthlessly bullied her. Eden wants to hold onto it, hoping to return, but she can’t go back, no matter how hard she tries. Just an interesting thing to point out.

But Eden’s motive isn’t the only thing stopping people from believing she’d be a reasonable killer, right? There are other things to consider, too.

Topic 2: Story Arc

To be clear here, “Story Arc” refers to how Eden fits into the larger narrative and story of DRDT. I’ll be talking about her individual story and growth later on in the section labeled “Character Arc.” 

For the most part, the larger narrative, at present, seems to be relating to Teruko and how she navigates her trust and relationships with everyone else. Eden is certainly a key factor in that, given that Teruko has basically acknowledged that outright. 

Teruko actively tries to avoid being friends with Eden, given the fact that she’s very nice and it’d be easy for Teruko to be friends with her. To Teruko, that means she’d be opening up the door to get hurt to easily when Eden inevitably dies and/or betrays her. Wouldn’t it only be proving Teruko right if Eden were to become a killer?

Yeah. It would. And that’s the point at the story we’re at. 

I don’t think it would make any sense for Teruko’s beliefs to be strongly challenged in Chapter 2. Like, at some point, I’m sure Teruko will figure out why it’s a problem to not trust anyone. After all, her secret quote is “It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust no one at all.” However, at this point in the story, things are going as she expects.

Think about it this way. Teruko believes that trusting people is opening yourself up for betrayal, and those who she gets close to will betray her and die. Let’s go through the people who have died so far, one by one, and see how they match up against that.

Xander: Was Teruko’s closest friend. Betrayed her by trying to kill her, then died. Check. Min: Was Teruko’s biggest supporter after she got stabbed. Betrayed her by actually being the killer, then died. Check. Arei: Previously shared Teruko’s worldview that being nice will just screw you over. Opened up and became friends. Had that friendship used against her to kill her. Check.

It definitely seems like, thus far, we’re validating Teruko’s worldview, basically as much as possible. No killer would validate her worldview more than Eden. That would make Arei an even closer parallel to Teruko (the person who she most tried to befriend was the one who tried to kill her in the end), and it would introduce another would-be friend as a killer.

Eden: Was Teruko’s biggest supporter after the first class trial. Betrayed her by being the second killer, then died. 

It looks an awful lot like Min’s, right?

In a more predictive sense, there’s also the popular theory that Charles will be one of the Chapter 3 victims. If that holds true, it’ll be another example in the same wavelength.

Charles: Was more like Teruko and didn’t trust people, avoiding them to stay safe. After rejoining the group and beginning to trust people, he died.

If that prediction is right, it’d mean that the trend continues past the point of the second victim to the point of a third victim, which would mean that the second killer would likely fit into the pattern.

But that’s a whole lot of my opinion, right? After all, maybe Levi or someone who isn’t particularly related to Teruko is the killer, so Teruko stays mostly the same, too. 

I do want to take a moment to acknowledge a bigger critique of this. It’s possible that some people might say that Eden killing here would be too repetitive in regards to Min and Xander. There are some key differences, though. 

Eden was Teruko’s friend after she started being mean and closed off to everyone. Min and Xander never really got the chance to react too much to Teruko’s antagonistic antics because they died before she was really pushing people away. That means it would carry more significance. Teruko has also spent more time with Eden, so their relationship is a little bit more developed. Eden is also someone that Teruko actively tried not to get close to before she killed, which wasn’t true of Xander or Min. 

Plus, I’d argue that it’s also supposed to feel a bit repetitive. This is what happens to Teruko, all the time. This is her life. It makes it feel more real and understandable how she reacts to Xander and Min if we as the audience begin to see and understand, oh, it really is like this every single time. 

Besides all of that, though, there are a few more thoughts that lead me to believe that someone closer to Teruko might be the killer this time around.

One of the biggest points in favor of this interpretation is the MonoCredits. 

MonoCredits are introduced in the scene where MonoTV asks Teruko to caulk the bathrooms. Then, she immediately uses one in the next scene where Charles is confronting her about her more antagonistic ways. At first glance, it seems like MonoCredits may have been introduced solely for that Charles interaction, and as a reason to plausibly get Teruko to help MonoTV out so that she could talk to it, too. However…

MonoTV gave Teruko two MonoCredits. That means she still has one. I wouldn’t blame you at all if you forgot this small detail– and that’s part of why I think the killer will be closer to Teruko. 

MonoCredits, and the fact that Teruko received two instead of one, are a pretty unimportant detail. I wouldn’t expect the creator to necessarily expect the audience to remember that Teruko still has one once we get to, like, the Chapter 4 daily life. I think that, because of that, Teruko will probably end up using this second one sometime soon, so that the audience will have that “oh yeah!” moment when it comes up, rather than an “oh… I kind of remember that…?” moment. 

There’s a very specific scenario in which I think Teruko might use it, too.

It’s pretty specific, but it’s already happened once, right? I think the most plausible situation for Teruko to use the second MonoCredit, if I’m right about it being this chapter, would be if she ends up in a similar situation before the execution again.

I can totally imagine Eden hugging Teruko and apologizing for betraying her trust, and Teruko, in the middle of freaking out, tells MonoTV she’s using a MonoCredit to get Eden away from her, which would then immediately launch into Eden being executed.

I think that could also be the right kind of push on Teruko’s character arc; her desire to get away from Eden led to Eden dying that much faster. It’d be something that could haunt Teruko a little bit and make her start thinking about how she pushes people away and what the potential failings of that are. 

The final reason I have is just, like… overall despair. Chapter 2 is usually a pretty emotionally devastating case for the cast. Taka loses Mondo and Chihiro meets a pretty tragic end; Peko dying launches Fuyuhiko into his grief → survivor arc while Hiyoko mourns Mahiru; Kirumi leaves the group feeling guilty about killing the Prime Minister, plus Ryoma’s death as a result of him loving no one and no one loving him is pretty sad. Chapter 2 is typically a chapter in the canon Danganronpa games where things get worse, not better. 

Then, Chapter 3 is used as a processing point where characters that aren’t in it for the long run are usually killed off, and Chapter 4 prompts the characters to start really moving towards the finale (Sakura’s death spurs people to want to fight and makes Byakuya realize why emotions are important, Gundham’s sacrifice sets the tone for Nagito’s insane Chapter 5 play and Gonta’s mercy kill in Chapter 4 directly leads into all the Kokichi “I’m the mastermind” stuff that happens in Chapter 5). 

I suspect DRDT will follow a roughly similar pattern. Because of that, it would make sense if the creator wants to pick a very emotionally devastating second killer, frequently due to the relationships that character has with the cast. Eden is the perfect pick for this position.

Eden has also gotten A LOT of focus this chapter. Getting focus doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to die right then. After all, Charles, for instance, got a lot of focus in Chapter 1, but he’s still alive. It’s difficult to tell when a character is getting content that impacts their character moving forward and when a character is getting focus because their story is about to end. 

In DRDT’s case specifically, though, the creator seems to heavily emphasize a character shortly before they die. Excluding Teruko, Xander was the most visible character in the Chapter 1 daily life. They focused on Min heavily during the Chapter 1 investigation to make sure that she got enough content in before her death. Between her fight with MonoTV, her heartfelt conversation with David, and the conversations she had post-death confronting David about his secret and defending Eden from Arturo, Arei got a lot of focus just before dying, too. 

Eden is one of the most heavily featured characters, and to me, it feels more like one being set up for immediate payoff rather than long-term. 

For example, David’s personality has shifted in a way that’s very interesting. People will want to see how his relationships with other characters are impacted and get to know the “real him” more before any potential death. Because of that, it makes sense that David’s heel turn is being set up for later, rather than being focus on him before he dies in Chapter 2. 

Eden, on the other hand, has shown us pretty much everything she can with this perspective. If she’s already spent two chapters being nice, happy and supportive, where does she go from there that’s narratively interesting and different? The only answer I can really come up with is “becoming less nice, happy, and/or supportive.” If that’s where her character is heading anyways, then doesn’t it make sense that being a killer could be a succinct way to do it? We already have enough people running around who don’t trust people, and it would feel odd to add Eden to that contingent. 

There’s one more story reason that Eden being the killer would make sense here. Check out the Chapter 2 title screen.

It’s pretty faint, but if you look after the “Glitters,” you can see faint text. It’s easier to see if you crank up the exposure.

You can tell what it is if you squint hard enough. Here’s me tracing it: 

“A Good Person.” 

The original chapter title is “All That Glitters,” which is pretty clearly a play on the saying “All that glitters is not gold” (RIP to anyone who just heard “all that glitters is gold in All Star by Smashmouth and didn’t question it. I was with you there). That seemingly applies a lot to this chapter, with appearances of success not being what they seem. It relates to the fact that J’s celebrity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and David’s persona was too good to be true. 

The good person interpretation is interesting, too. If you input “A Good Person” into “All That Glitters,” you get “A good person is not gold.” Now, there’ve been a lot of characters who’ve claimed to be or mentioned wanting to be good people over the course of this chapter. However, I think the person most at the center of that is Eden, who’s been called a good or kind person by a lot of people– at the very least, I know Teruko, Arei and Levi do this.

Eden being the killer would be another way to show that people can’t be infallibly good. Again, I don’t think Eden’s gonna pull a 180 and suddenly become evil, I just think she’ll show a little more nuance. Her being suddenly evil does about the same thing for me as her being undeniably good; it reduces her character down to one trait rather than making her a full human. I don’t want her to be a pure cinnamon roll, I want her to be herself. 

Given this chapter title, I honestly think it’d be weirder if Eden didn’t do something notably Not Good this chapter. There could be other options, too, but Eden being the killer seems by far the most likely to me.

Topic 3: Relationships

I want to talk about Eden’s relationships to others in the cast. I’ve already mentioned Teruko a good bit, so I’m not really going to keep going over that. There are two others that I want to touch on.

One, Eden and Hu are known to be friends. They wash dishes together every night, and they generally seem to rely on each other for companionship and mutual help with steering the group in a more positive direction. Hu is someone who hasn’t gotten that much character arc focus, so I think she’ll probably be a bit more of a spotlighted character in the next daily life. Hu has already lost a friend and trusted co-leader in David, but I think it’d be even more interesting for her if she loses both of those people at once. With David in full-on evil theater kid mode and Eden dead as the killer, Hu will be forced to grapple with the fact that both of the people she trusted to help her guide the group not only aren’t helping her anymore, but did so in a way that betrayed her and her trust. 

That’s very speculative, though. The main relationship I’m here to analyze is with Arei, the victim of the case in question.

Arei and Eden have a very complicated relationship. At first, they were pretty neutral. Then, after the cake scene, Arei appeared to be jealous of Eden and her friends for, y’know, having friends. Later, when Eden tries to invite Arei, Arei goes off on Eden and Eden runs out of the room crying. Finally, when Arturo threatens Eden into silence over his secret, Arei shows up and promises to defend Eden and do whatever it takes to assure her that her friendship is real.

This is pretty much the entirety of Arei’s character arc. Because we know that Arei is the second victim, I want to examine that in the context of the canon games’ storylines in Chapter 2.

Chapter 2 frequently deals with the concept of bullying. Kirumi’s kinda doing her own thing here, but if you look at Mondo/Chihiro and especially Peko/Mahiru (and all the lore behind that one), it’s pretty standard. Chihiro is someone who I’m pretty sure has been bullied, and Mondo fits the bully role well enough. SDR2 is the big one, though, with Mahiru being bullied by Natsumi, Sato killing Natsumi because of that, then Peko killing Sato under Fuyuhiko’s command in revenge, and THEN Peko killing Mahiru in the killing game as even more revenge. So, let’s look at bullying in DRDT Chapter 2.

The big and obvious one is Ace and Nico. Ace bullied Nico, and eventually they snapped and tried to kill him in revenge. That means that the creator, at least in this case, opted for a situation where the bullied kills the bully, rather than the other way around.

Arei also bullies Eden notably in Chapter 2, and now she’s dead. I’m not saying that it has to be the same thing, but I think it would be interesting to parallel Ace and Arei and Nico and Eden. Ace, with his fear of death, would have to process just how close he came to being a victim, seeing the same thing play out with Arei, who actually did die. Nico, who’s trying to dodge any actual blame for their crime, would see Eden get executed for doing roughly the same thing. 

That’s something to address, though. What does this all mean for Eden? After all, Eden and Arei were friends now. It seems uncharacteristic of her to kill Arei for any reason. If I’m going to focus in on Eden’s character relationships, I really have to address that part.

Well, my answer is pretty simple. Eden simply didn’t believe her relationship with Arei actually changed. This might seem like an unfair claim at first, but if you look into it, it’s actually quite supported by the game.

Arei certainly thought Eden didn’t believe Arei’s sudden change of heart. She even goes as far as to call Eden out for it in the moment.

That’s not a very good argument though, is it? It disregards everything that happens afterwards, what with Arei explaining more and Eden hugging her and saying that her promise means “more than she knows.” It’s possible Arei convinced Eden during that second segment, so there’s not really any reason to believe that Eden didn’t believe her anymore.

Except…

Charles gets cut off by Whit here and immediately shuts up, which is played off as a joke. It is a joke, but I’ve noticed the DRDT creator is very good at putting in jokes that actually convey important information moving forwards. 

The fact that the creator put in not one, but two references to Eden possibly not believing Arei makes me think there’s more to it than making a joke or moving dialogue along. Whit even phrases it as “you wanna do that later?” which might be a hint that we actually are going to come back to that point of conversation later. 

For the record, I do think it’s also possible that Eden sort of half-believed Arei. She might’ve been committed to a murder plan by that point or something, so even if she thought Arei was being genuine, it’s possible she intentionally tried to convince herself Arei wasn’t genuine. That gets more into character interpretation, though.

Topic 4: Character Arc

This is the biggest one, in my opinion. If Eden is going to die here, what does her story say? Ignoring the big plot beats, Eden should get to have her own character arc, and if this is its conclusion, I want to look at where it went.

In the prologue, Eden is noted to stay positive, but she seems to be the most scared of the killing game itself. Here’s her slide from the official Prologue Recap video: 

In Chapter 1, we honestly didn’t see too much of Eden. What we did see was mostly her being nice and friendly. It was also established that Arei picked on her. Here’s her slide from the Chapter 1 Recap video:

Notably, the creator paired all the characters up for Chapter 1. We already know Arei is going to be important to Eden’s story, whether she’s the killer or not. They did pair up Xander and Min though, so it’s not like it’s impossible that they paired a victim with their killer.

Anyways, that means that, going into Chapter 2, the things the creator wanted us to remember about Eden are that she’s nice, cheerful, and one of the people who defended Teruko. Through Arei’s slide, we’re also encouraged to remember that Arei picked on Eden specifically for baking. (Arei also manipulated Levi in that scene pretty heavily, but Eden is the one they want us to remember.)

Where does Eden’s character arc go from there? Well, I’d say that she basically doubles down. 

Eden basically spends the chapter trying really hard to prevent conflict and stay friends/befriend everyone. She blackmails Teruko for the sole purpose of actually getting to hang out with her, she washes dishes with Hu, she makes breakfast with Levi, and she invites Arei to clockmaking to make sure she isn’t left out again. 

That means that Eden’s story in Chapter 2 is that she’s trying to be the one to get everyone through this hard time.

Because of that, killing seems rather counterproductive. After all, Eden’s been trying to end the killing game on her own terms, right? 

However, it’s possible that the message the creator wants to send us is that the cast isn’t currently capable of being entirely positive and friendly. While David pretended that the point of revealing all their secrets was so that they could get along, that was a lie. Eden being the killer would fit the messaging: with this cast, in this killing game, friendships aren’t a possibility right now. 

Would it be a change in Eden for her to kill now? Yes, of course. That’s how it goes with killers beyond Chapter 1; something changes that prompts them to kill. Like I examined earlier, I believe the motive of getting back to her previous life, in combination with the constant fighting, Arturo's threats against her and her apparent inability to actually make a meaningful change in those around her, would be enough to get her to break and kill in this Chapter 2 position.

I’ve talked about motive, overall narrative, Eden’s relationships and her character arc. That’s pretty much everything, but there’s one more big point I feel I need to touch on.

Topic 5: Eden’s Breakdown

This is what I assume makes people have the biggest problem with Eden culprit theory from a writing standpoint. After all, this is a very emotional moment and feels very important for Eden’s character arc. If she’s the killer, it would all be a lie, and it would invalidate everything we learned about Eden from this moment.

Except, I don’t think that’s fully true. It’s very possible to have a killer have an emotional breakdown moment mid-trial that makes them seem more innocent, but actually very much relates to the fact that they did kill. 

Even if she is a killer, I still believe Eden is a good person. Because of that, I think that she is genuinely haunted by Arei’s death, as well as Min’s. In fact, we know she’s haunted by Min’s death, before any of this Arei trial stuff happened. 

Given the fact that Eden runs out of the room crying after this, I think it’s fair to say that Arei’s words stuck with Eden. Because of that, pairing it with Eden’s breakdown in the trial, we can conclude that Eden feels guilty for both Min’s death and Arei’s death. Because Min’s death wasn’t Eden’s fault, it’s easy to disregard both as her blaming herself for things out of her control. 

It could be genuine this time, though. If Eden is the killer, at least some of that speech has to be fake (ex. When I saw that note, I knew someone must’ve overheard our conversation). However, what’s really interesting to me is what happens after the main part of Eden’s breakdown.

David goes on a little rant about how the victim would have to be incredibly stupid to actually fall for the note– or they’d have to be Arei, who wanted to be friends so desperately that she’d believe anything “Eden” told her. Afterwards, Eden says this: 

This is Eden agreeing with David’s rant. The non-killer interpretation of this is that Eden is just repeating the same thing, saying that Arei died because of her and her weakness. But, if you look at it from a different perspective, the phrasing is… a little odd?

In her speech earlier, what Eden said boiled down to “I couldn’t defend myself, and because Arei was nice to me and tried to defend me, she died.” Then, David says, “Because Arei wanted to be your friend, she died.” That’s basically the same information and logic, right? 

But Eden asks it as a question. Even though she said “it’s all my fault” earlier, this time she asks, “it really is my fault, isn’t it?” That means that there was something Eden didn’t know in David’s rant.

This could be several things, but I think the most likely thing is that, in my opinion, this is the point at which Eden realized that Arei was genuine about wanting to be her friend. Before this, she still wasn’t sure that Arei was being real, and that allowed her to proceed forward with her plan, keeping it together. However, once David, who got to see Arei in her breakdown, confirms that, yeah, Arei did that because she genuinely wanted to be Eden’s friend, Eden realizes that it was her fault. 

Arei wanted to be her friend, but now she’s dead, and it’s all Eden’s fault.

Interestingly, immediately after that last line, Teruko starts talking, bringing us back to mystery-solving mode. However, if you look at Eden while Teruko’s talking, she’s sobbing. 

Most of the time when a character is shown to the side, they’re left in whatever pose they were last in. For example, look at MonoTV making the :| face back there despite it having no relevance to the current point of the trial. In fact, MonoTV has that face for the entirety of Chapter 2, Episode 10. The last time MonoTV talked was in Episode 9, where…

Yeah, same face. It doesn’t change from there. My point is that, switching Eden’s sprite from the face-on, holding her wrist sprite to the sobbing and wiping her tears sprite is a conscious decision. They want to make sure we know that Eden is sobbing after that interaction with David. While that could be prolonged guilt from generally feeling at fault for Arei’s death, I think it makes more sense if it’s her coping with the fact that Arei did want to be her friend, and she killed her. 

Conclusion

Well, that’s my defense of Eden culprit theory from a writing perspective. Hopefully it was fun to read, whether you agree with it or not. Again, my point here isn’t to shame anyone who disagrees or anything, it’s to provide reasoning for why Eden could be the culprit and to defend the creator’s decision if that is the truth of this case. I’d love to hear about any and all other killer theories as well in order to have the greatest chance of catching the real criminal.

[a-student-out-of-time]

PSA TIME WITH MOD BUBBLES

//I’ve talked a lot about DRDT, and that’s because I’m honestly so blown away by how good it is and how talented the dev is as a creator. At no point have I ever meant to imply that my interpretation of DRDT or the outcome of the story is the only correct one, I’ve only been speculating on it based on the evidence in the text.

//And while I complain a lot about works from creators like LINUJ, that’s only because of writing decisions that either diminish the work’s quality, damage the story and/or characters, or harm whatever messages it’s going for. Even then, I still try to see the good in works I critique and how I think they can be improved, because that's what constructive criticism should be about. My criticisms have never been intended as personal attacks and I’ve been trying to go out of my way to ensure they remain professional and constructive.

//I really don't have a bad word to say about the creator or the fangan itself. I actually want to talk about something else here.

//To be honest, I sympathize with their feelings. The amount of times I've seen posts from people in the fandom taking the piss out of my Switch Theory, mocking it, calling it stupid and me stupid by extension, and spreading misinformation about it? It's a lot. To say nothing about my work on this blog.

//As a small creator myself, I’ve had to develop a thicker skin when it comes to taking criticism or getting hate asks. Early ones I got were pretty harsh, and it did send me into a malaise for many days or weeks at a time, and I had to learn not to try writing when I didn’t feel up to it. Now I have the confidence to challenge bad faith arguments, and I have help from co-creators and friends to improve things.

//I say this because a lot of those asks and a lot of that negativity did affect me and I had to learn to not let it bother me. I still get sad and frustrated, but it’s not a creator-killing attitude for me anymore. That's not always the case every creator, unfortunately.

//Obviously I’m not talking about every single person in the fandom, but I just want to make this clear for fans of any work: please, for the love of all that is good and kind and decent, think about what you say about creators.

//I’m not talking about calling out creators for unrepentant bad behavior, you can and should do that. I’m talking about harassment, entitlement, and even just thoughtlessness commentary that goes into things said about small creators who work on passion projects, who aren’t making money off of it and who are just trying to do their best.

//It can be easy to think your comments, your criticisms, or even your attempts to be funny will be perceived how you perceive them, but not everyone will take them the same way. Your thought processes are not universal, and something small and innocuous to you can really hit a sore spot for someone else. Some people are more sensitive than others, and that’s something you really to keep in mind.

//This is especially true if you’re saying things about a creator themselves. There’s a difference between something like “here’s where I think the creator’s work could be improved” and “the creator is so X.” You can hurt them with the latter more than the former, because that feels very targeted and personalized. Even if it's not true, some people are much more self-conscious than others.

//At the same time, the response to this sort of thing is not and should NEVER be “let’s gang up on the person who said that and force them out of the fandom.” That’s unacceptable, no matter the circumstance. I’ve blocked people who've tried to have that attitude about critics of my own story because I will never endorse that behavior.

//This isn’t meant to be a call-out post, just a PSA on why you should exercise some compassion and thought, and don’t make unnecessary commentary about creators who work hard on projects like these for no money, or for people who say things without intending to be hurtful. We creators do it because we have something we want to share, and as bad as bullying can get, comments like that are worse in their own way.

//Even if you don't intend it to be hurtful, thoughtlessness can hurt worse than open cruelty. Please keep that in mind when talking about other people, especially people you either don’t know or only know from their work or one bad action. At the same time, someone making one bad comment is not an excuse for you to declare war on them.

//Above all, just be kind to people and show how much you appreciate their work. Even small comments have gotten me through periods of bad depression, and when people need time to work on their health before they feel ready to get back to working on their projects, respect that. We aren't content machines, we're just as human as the rest of you.

//Finally, to the DT dev, I don't know if you'll see this, but I've been where you are and also had to take time off for myself. I feel lucky that I have so many kind people in my life, and I sincerely hope you do too. Take all the time you need, and know you've got my wholehearted support when you do return.

[drdtappreciation]

Following the note on fangan inspiration, DRDT's ability to conceptualize, produce and then actually release a story without obsessing over the little details and revising and revising draft after draft until you become so burnt out you can't continue is something I find very personally inspiring.

Art is hard but the hardest part of it isn't producing it, it's making it exist. Choosing to be vulnerable enough to put something out there that you care about even though you know it's not perfect because you care about it so much is terrifying but absolutely worth it and I think DRDT is a wonderful display of that.

This isn't to down anyone who does struggle with actually putting things out there, I do too. I'm mainly talking to myself frankly, Without creators like DRDTdev I likely would lose myself on that infuriating cycle of perfectionism.

If you want to create something, please, please, Please, just make it. Put thought into it of course but you'll have more than one good idea on your life, the fact that you're able to care that much about something at all is proof your immaculate brilliance, put your art out there and keep doing that because that's beautiful and connection and so so worth it.

Thank you DRDTdev for being vulnerable enough to share with us a piece of your art and I hope it's been as deeply fulfilling for you as it has been for me and every other member of the audience. You're brilliant.

^

[ao3feed-danganronpa]

Silly Acevid thing

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/CPV3N1p

by Veronikasdog

I wrote acevid at 1am.

Words: 1150, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Dangan Ronpa Series

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Other

Characters: Ace Markey (Danganronpa: Despair Time), David Chiem (Danganronpa: Despair Time), Teruko Tawaki (Danganronpa: Despair Time)

Additional Tags: Fluff, danganronpa - Freeform, DRDT - Freeform, Fangan Ronpa: Danganronpa Despair Time, Fangan Ronpa, gays, david chiem is homosexual, ace markey is even more homosexual, live laugh gay

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/CPV3N1p

[googledetective]

This is the drdt creator’s other fangan.

I have a few questions about some of the cast:

What is their gender? Actually that doesn’t matter- can I be in love with them? Can we be canon? Can they be the love of my life? I love them so much. They are my everything.

When in the series will I be dominated by her?

Thank you :)

[googledetective]

Hello there! So as all you drdt fans may know, the creator of drdt dropped a characters playlist where each song correlates with another character. Well, of course, as a natural fangan fan, me and a few buddies on discord have been analyzing the shit out of these songs and I want to present our findings here.

There are a few tracks I won’t be covering (2,13,15&16) because I have no idea who they belong to, and a track (5) I’m not 100% sure on that’s the person they go to, but I’ll give a little context behind my guess. Feel free to debate any of this in the comments. I also got English translations for the songs that are not in English so I’ll be basing my theories off those English translations and if anyone wants them, dm me.

Without further ado, here we go!

(Yes there are going to be DRDT spoilers)

Track 1 (Jotaro’s theme) - Xander

I feel like this has literally been universally agreed on by the fandom, as it just generally describes his fiery personality and the fact he “broke down” when he attempted to kill Teruko. Right after, there are lyrics that say “what’s going on here” and I feel like this could refer to right after Xander stabbed her and he was wondering why he would do that in the first place. I’m not totally convinced on this one but I know most are so I think I’ll stick with the popular opinion :)

Track 3 (RUNAWAY) - Charles

This song definitely symbolizes Charles’s character development that he’s been going through. In the first verse it’s talking about his life beforehand and that he met someone who kind of freed him from his existence (who would be Whit). Then it kinda talks about seeing yourself and changing around bits and pieces of himself. What stood out to me is “redirecting my perfection somewhere else.” In the beginning he acted like he was perfect and above everyone, but as the series progresses he’s using his perfection complex to go and help the group. Last but not least, I think the chorus is kind of talking about his trauma and restrictions and that he needs to let them go, and Whit was like that divine intervention to help him face forward and push through his problems rather than just be stuck in fear. I know a lot of people will disagree and say his track is track 5, but since I don’t see any ships with him canonically confirmed (or any ships at all confirmed) I feel a lot of doubt toward putting anyone on track 5 just because we don’t know about who likes who or anything yet.

Track 4 (Cartoons) - Rose

I honestly think that everyone is onboard with the fact that this is Rose. I mean it talks a lot a about art, and the fact she expresses a lot of what she feels through art. Her art is connected to her visions and emotions, as seen through the seen with her and Teruko where she painted Teruko’s death since she couldn’t stop seeing it. Rose is also bad at communication, and the song talks a lot about communicating through art, and she does that as many others do. This one was probably one of the more self explanatory ones but I wanted to write about it anyway!

Track 6 (A Mistaken Belief of Love) - Eden

Again I feel this is a bit of a stretch, but I’ll try to explain my reasoning as best as I can. Throughout the series we’ve seen a pattern with Eden, as she goes and tries her we best to befriend someone and they end up disliking her. This song is about a sweet person who realizes someone doesn’t love them anymore, but keeps persisting for love from them. This is what Eden has been doing throughout the series, an example would be Teruko. Eden has bent over backwards to try and be nice to her and gain her trust, and despite Teruko telling her to leave and treating Eden like absolute dog shit, Eden stays even though her heart is broken and keeps trying. I love Eden :(

Track 7 (Spring Storm) - David

I just want to clarify before I start this one that I used an unofficial English translation of the song, since it was the only English translation I could find. The same applies to tracks 11 & 13.

This song is clearly about someone who is angry with the world and acts like an asshole because of that anger. That’s essentially what David is doing since ep11 of ch2, is he’s putting on an act and suddenly calling out people for hypocrisy and purposefully hurting their feelings. It’s implied this isn’t the true David Chiem either, and in the song it hints at this person just wants to be accepted and loved, but they can’t reach that because everything is always letting them down. That’s coincidentally my take on David’s backstory (for now) and it would make a lot of sense if this is his song-

Track 8 (YES MAN) - Teruko

It was very easy to find a translation of this song, and once you even see the first line of these lyrics it SCREAMS Teruko. The song is about doubting everyone around you, and mocking the world because of it which is literally ch2 Teruko in a nutshell. The “Undead!” chorus likely references the fact that Teruko can’t die and didn’t die after Xander’s murder attempt. The only part that’s making me doubt that this is Teruko’s song is that “Your heart is all I ever need”, which could allude to the fact she really liked Xander but I’m not super sure.

Track 9 - Min

This song is so Min. It’s literally about school and the pressure it puts on you, and Min is the ultimate student. Through the years it wears you down, and Min barely even smiled throughout the series unless she wasn’t focusing on studying. There was mentions about marks (grades) and habitual things, like Min’s huge focus on her grades and the fact she studies constantly. The lyrics are just so Min. It is literally Min. This is one of the one I’m most confident on. I love Min!

Track 10 (Drawing Pins) - Nico

I thought about this a bit, but I saw another theory on tumblr that agreed that this is Nico’s song and explained it more wonderfully than I did. This person is @huesofvioletandpurple and I recommend checking their theories out!

In a nutshell the person in this song feels like they don’t belong and they don’t know what they did to hurt someone’s feelings. This alludes to the fact Nico is a theyboss (nonbinary) person and was ridiculed for their identity, and the second part to when they pissed of Ace and Ace kept antagonizing them.

Track 11 - Hu

(TW: SUICIDAL IDEATION)

I got English lyrics for this! It took a while but pls dm me if you’d like them! To sum the song up, it’s about a person who is suicidal but is still trying to persist and be as good of a person as they can possibly be. With most of the secrets out, I’m on the side that the three attempts secret is Hu’s since I can’t see any of the other ones being hers. When the secrets come out, it will be likely that this song correlates to the person who has the three attempts secret. This is really just a very unsure theory, but with the way it describes the person just wants to help and be good in the song I can really only think that this is Hu’s song.

Track 12 (Tip Toes) - Arturo

The song is about thinking about leaving their bad past behind to accomplish their dreams. This song screams Arturo especially after his secret came out. He had to leave and he didn’t know his sister would do that. He’s probably fighting an internal war against himself with logic (that it isn’t his fault) and emotion (that it was his fault) and that is a huge point shown later in the song. I feel once we get more of his backstory or more Arturo screen time this will further prove that this is his song. This is the song and character pairing that I’m most confident in.

Track 14 (Spitfire) - Ace

Last but not least, we’ve got Ace Markey for Spitfire. This might be the most self explanatory one. The lyrics are basically “I spit fire” and “if I was in WW2 they’d call me spitfire” which probably alludes to Ace’s anger problems and the fact he can’t stop running his mouth and yelling at people when he’s angry. That’s it, that’s the theory.

Thank y’all for reading this and I’m sorry it ran long and I didn’t have great explanations, but if you are interested there are way better theories people have on here than what I wrote 😭

And if you haven’t and you’re interested please please please listen to the songs! If you need any English lyrics to any of the songs please dm me and I’ll send them over! Thanks everyone!

[ao3feed-danganronpa]

Nicoturo is REAL!!!

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/dNsBVp7

by MagicalTobias

Nico and Arturo hang out at the playground and then realize they're in loveeeeee :3

Words: 1969, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Danganronpa: Despair Time

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Other

Characters: Arturo Giles, Nico Hakobyan, J Moreno (Mentioned)

Relationships: Nico Hakobyan/Arturo Giles, Arturo Giles/Nico Hakobyan, Nicoturo - Relationship

Additional Tags: DRDT - Freeform, danganronpa - Freeform, Fangan Ronpa: Danganronpa Despair Time, genderfluid arturo, he/she/they arturo giles, they/them J moreno, How Do I Tag, My First AO3 Post, What am I doing, Hurt/Comfort, kind of, they kiss, mwah mwah, Danganronpa: Despair Time - Freeform, OOC, Out of Character, i think, Everyone Is Alive, Fluff, Romantic Fluff, i havent written in a while

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/dNsBVp7