random shower thoughts regarding the thing that might be making lenore special (and the cause of her death).
tw: death, mentions of suic!de and related topics.
I don't have enough evidence, so I won't be upset if this theory turns out to be wrong, but just wanted to speculate.
lately I've been wondering a lot about what makes lenore different from everyone else in the eyes of the raven. she seems to be the only one who can understand him, and he believes that she may have similar abilities to the deans. as if she doesn't even belong in this academy, dare I say.
I've seen some people in the comments speculate that lenore might still be alive somehow, and is in a borderline state of sorts. I personally don't think that's the case, because in a hundred chapters of the comic, we haven't gotten any hints about it (if I recall correctly, don't quote me on that). what we have been getting hints about is that lenore most likely died from a gunshot to the head. moreover, the clues are both visual and verbal.
and from the very beginning of time, I was always sure that she ended her life herself. this is one of those headcanons (or headshot canons… sorry) that you just believe in until proven wrong. I'm not exactly sure why. perhaps due to analogies with other stories. for example, I recently compared "nevermore" to "death parade": the main character there also found herself in a purgatory situation and was the only one who couldn't remember her death. near the end of the anime it turns out (spoiler here) that she took her own life.
plus, it doesn't seem like such an impossible thing overall. whatever happened at that ill-fated wedding led to annabel lee's death. we still don’t know exactly who murdered her, but in any case it's connected to lenore, so she surely felt enormous guilt. put such a traumatic event in a mix with her not so stable mental state.
during her time at "nevermore", lenore experienced a lot of emotions: fear, sadness, anger, joy, love, pain, relief etc. but none of her experiences brought her closer to the recalling of her death and manifesting. but you know what emotions she didn’t feel? all-eating guilt, wanting to give up, simply not desiring to live… it's a big assumption, but let's say it's possible.
comparing this theory with my other speculation here, lenore might be the only one who's death wasn't caused by the third party.
maybe the cause of her death is the differentiating factor? what if she was supposed to go to another dimension? but for some reason she ended up in the same place as annabel (either because of their connection or because some purgatory secretary decided that self-murder is still murder blah-blah). and now the academy itself and its realm are trying to get rid of lenore, because she doesn't belong here.
sure, these are all far-fetched assumptions based on another speculation, but anything can happen. my moots encourage me to share such thoughts so… I do.
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Ok, I think I have a pretty good idea of why a lot of Akechi's dialogue is... like that.
So, even before his confidant truly started, I noticed that he has a real knack for directing the flow of a conversation. This is very fitting for someone who is both a detective and skilled at interviews - when there is a topic and a goal, Akechi is in his element.
All this to say, he's actually kind of controlling when it comes to conversational flow. He probes for information, or turns the conversation around to a particular topic, usually the Phantom Thieves. He manages to take a few of Joker's dialogue options and spin them so they sound mildly incriminating in the context he's placed them in - the only way to truly get around this is to pick answers that feign indifference, and even then, that's more than a bit telling. He's clearly very good at this kind of thing.
But then, we get conversations where either Joker does something he didn't expect, or else he doesn't have a particular goal in mind - and the conversation stutters. In the first instance, Joker does something (a particularly egregious example is putting his glasses on him and fluffing his hair in rank 3) which both leaves him wrong-footed and no longer in perfect control of the situation. He just kind of... freezes, for awhile. It's hilarious. He has no idea how to respond.
He picks up control again in the phone call afterwards, having chosen to play into it, turning this "fooling the crowds" into a kind of game or secret between them. Nice save.
But in instances where there isn't an obvious topic and the goal is somewhat nebulous, for instance, that one Leblanc scene, it becomes pretty apparent that Akechi doesn't have the right "script" to go off of. Again, it's particularly notable in that scene, because I'm fairly sure he didn't have any specific reason to be at Leblanc, other than him looking for a quiet spot now that public opinion has turned on him. And because there isn't anything specific he's digging for, he kind of just ends up throwing things at the wall to see what will stick. Probing for any kind of recognizable reaction that he can jump on and work with, and that just doesn't really happen in this scene.
He references Sae, a woman in a respectable position, to Sojiro, but instead of that netting a welcome, it earns his ire, given Sae's recent actions against him. He then tries to greet Joker, his... rival? friend? enemy? person who at least seems to somewhat enjoy spending time with him? But Joker's responses are somewhat short, and Akechi practically wilts. He tries to commiserate by oversharing. He tries to involve Futaba and reaches out for the only topic of interest he can think of around "young people". He compliments the coffee. He compliments Joker. He tries to invoke that connection between them. None of it is really sticking, nor does it serve as a jumping off point for him to steer the conversation, or even really start one.
So, he basically just ends up having a one-sided chat with himself and then leaves. Hilarious. Also a little sad, if I'm being honest. It's really giving "guy with no friends who only knows how to speak to adults" energy. If there's no specific purpose to the exchange, or he is not in control of its direction, he seems to be kind of out of his depth. He succeeds only in being a little awkward and confusing, more than anything.
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If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
I read most of this book in two days. I really just spent two whole days diving into this book and I had such a good time. I don't know why I waited this long. I read a few so called dark academia books in the past few years, and this has definitely been on of my favourites. I definitely liked it more than The Secret History, the setting is indeed similar but at the end of the day the stories are two whole different things and this one was way closer to what I normally like. It was fast paced and captivating, I ended up loving the characters and their dynamics. I liked it so much that in my rating I ignored the fact that I thought the plot was a bit predictable, and just gave it five stars. I had a lovely reading experience, I hadn't fallen into a book like this in a good while and it was so good to do it again. I normally don't love the first person narration, but to be honest this book made me reconsider it. It's one of those books I will probably reread in the future.
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