#maybe even a possible setup for his death

[quibbs126]

So I’ve been making this

So basically last night, I was listening to some music, specifically Not Gonna Die by Skillet, more specifically a version on YouTube with the intro (because I’m not the biggest fan of Good to be Alive where the intro actually is). Anyways, when it’s night, my imagination tends to be more active and I tend to have more energy. While listening to the song, I eventually got this mental image in my mind of this scene with Dark Choco, and the more it crystallized the more I wanted to draw it. I was going to go to sleep and maybe do it in the morning, but I realized that I probably would forget the vibe and not have as much energy, so instead I decided to power through and draw the idea

It was a bit difficult since I had limited references for the pose I wanted, and I suppose I can admit the sword looks a bit off anatomically, but it looks good enough I think, and lets me keep the eyes revealed

I did eventually have to stop drawing, because my iPad had been worked all the way down to 4% (and it was at 30% when I started, the poor thing), not to mention it was around 11:30 already which is pretty late for me, and my earbuds had been running nonstop for over 2 hours (yes I was listening to the same song, it’s how I keep the vibe). I was at least able to get the pose, base colors and lineart done, and I’m still pretty proud of where I left things last night

Today was mostly just doing the background and lighting, which admittedly I may have fumbled. I’m not very good at backgrounds and I didn’t know how to draw lightning. I tried my best, but honestly I don’t think I got the image in my head. Didn’t help that my brain was playing the wrong Skillet song this morning

Oh yeah and by the way, the background is supposed to be from this. That’s what I used as reference

The lightning both feels like too much and too little. Like, it’s crowding the picture, and I can’t have more because it’d be way too crowded with it, but also at the same time, it doesn’t feel like enough, like there isn’t as much power as I wanted

Actually wait, maybe I can add some small particle effects to like, enhance the lightning feel. That was in the original sketch but I omitted it in the final. If you see one with that, you know I did that

Edit: I did indeed do that

To be fair though, I don’t think I have the art skill to properly convey the image in my head. Basically the scene is that Dark Choco is using absolutely every amount of his power for this final swing down, so much that it’s too powerful and the Strawberry Jam Sword completely shatters. But also it’s too powerful that Dark Choco’s body simply can’t handle it, and he basically ends up exploding. The scene depicted would be the wind up to that final swing that destroys the both of them

This isn’t necessarily the first time I’ve come up with this scenario, and the setup would basically be that he turned on the Cookies of Darkness slightly earlier, because he didn’t want to destroy his homeland again, and he tried to get rid of them while in the kingdom but not yet at the Citadel, but he ended up failing, so with nothing to lose, he chases after them and decides to put everything into destroying them, even if it likely ends in his death. After this he probably killed Pomegranate and crippled Licorice in some way (I don’t think he’d attack Poison Mushroom), so his final act did have some effect, but he’s still dead by the end of it. And he and his father never got the chance to properly reconcile because Dark Choco thought that could never be a possibility anymore and he had resigned himself to his fate

But yeah, I just don’t know how to convey that sheer overwhelming power and emotion that this scenario suggests. I tried my best though

I also want to submit this to the Dark Cacao Forever contest, but I’m not sure if it’s good enough for it. What do you think?

[ddarker-dreams]

Forgive me if this sort of thing has been explored before but picture this scenario: Chrollo coming home to darling having a panic attack. Why? What's going on?? She won't tell him, because it's a panic attack triggered by a phobia of something very mundane. She doesn't want him to know she has a phobia and she definitely doesn't want him to know what kind of phobia. To give an example let's say she has an irrational fear of mice. RIDICULOUS. He mustn't know. Lie lie lie distract disengage.

THIS ........ this setup does something for me........... i've recently fixated on this concept where you wake up from an awful nightmare, something like chrollo coldly ordering your death and for it to be as painful as possible.

you wake up, tears on your cheeks and sweat causing your nightwear to adhere to your skin. you're met with an unusual sight — chrollo's side of the bed is empty. cold, too. he must have been gone for a while now. any other night, this detail wouldn't arouse suspicion. if anything, it'd cause relief, that you've finally caught a break from his ever-watchful eye.

then your mind reminds you that chrollo isn't your only foe. it replays those images, those sounds, snapping and squelching as your grisly end nears.

you do what you can to calm yourself. splashing cold water on your face, drinking water, wiping the sweat from your brow; the way you go about everything is mechanical. he could do it, your thoughts taunt. this isn't the monster of your bed — waking up doesn't make the threat disappear. it only brings you closer.

with shaking hands, you open the door separating the bedroom from a moderately sized living space. you shove your pride aside and call out his name. softly, at first, and then at your normal speaking volume. nothing. would he really leave you on your own for this long without setting up precautions?

or maybe... is he preparing to finally do away with you?

the world goes on without your senses bothering to process anything. your body reacts like it would if an apex predator was gaining on you; all-consuming adrenaline, unsteady breathing, trembling limbs. this unrelenting whirlpool pushes you down to abyssal depths.

you're running out of air and it's too deep to surface.

then you hear a voice you recognize.

chrollo's kneeling down beside you, eyebrows furrowing, a prominent frown on his face. he rarely reveals this much emotion, small as it is. you can practically hear the gears in his head turning, attempting to piece together the situation and its severity. his hand is steady on your shoulder and the timbre of his voice soothes you. it's so consistent, so reliable, he always seems to know what to do and what to say.

you don't care to dwell on these bizarre thoughts. not now, not when you feel like you're drowning. an anchor is an anchor, even if it's a man you've sworn to loathe. it's okay to seek comfort, isn't it? no one could judge you. you can't judge yourself, either. you've been through so much — now and in the past — what's wrong with accepting the sweet fruit he's tempted you with?

you latch yourself to him. it isn't graceful or romantic, it's clinging to the lifeline that pushed you overboard to begin with. he lets out a soft sound at the ferocity of your grip. anyone else would've been knocked over by the sheer exertion of force, but chrollo didn't even budge. he must decide to discern the specifics later as he doesn't prod at you with questions. no, he reciprocates the embrace with an ardor that would've sickened you any other time.

you're babbling incoherently and yet he picks up enough to hazard a guess at what brought this about. he reassures you that he'd never harm you, that the thought alone makes him feel emotions he thought himself incapable of. he hugs you close, rubs his hands over your back, presses lingering kisses to your temple, and shushes you.

exhaustion catches up near the final tears you've shed. chrollo keeps himself still so as not to disturb you when you fall unconscious. he picks you up gently, brings you back to your side of the bed and puts you down. fondness envelops his heart at your now peaceful visage. he smooths out a stray hair cascading down your face.

all he intended to do was make a quick phone call, but coming back to you, with your glassy eyes and trembling lips, essentially attaching yourself to him like he's your sole source of comfort ... he might need to pinch himself to ensure he isn't dreaming.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

sorry to post about OUAT outside of the safety of the patreon corral but I just. truly cannot stop thinking about the bugfuck insanity of the writers deciding to drop in the seventh episode of their show ever that Regina has kept the same man as a sex slave in two separate realities.

like the nature of Storybrooke is that, having altered memories and lives constructed by Regina, I think almost everyone is off the hook for any sex under the effects of the OG curse—ie, Snow White might regret hooking up with Victor Frankenstein but the two of them were as on an equal footing as possible in the situation and both consented based on their understanding of reality at the time—with the obvious exception of Regina! who is extremely aware that everyone else in town is the most under the influence that maybe anyone has ever been in the history of the world!

which would be yucky enough if it was like, a bad situationship that developed organically in Storybrooke, but no man she was just recreating her setup in the Enchanted Forest where she kept Graham as a sex slave for god knows how many years. hello! hello!!! is anyone listening I'm going insane.

season one kind of revels in getting to roll out little reveals of Regina's litany of crimes via flashbacks to keep emphasizing, over and over, that she is insane and petty and willing to stoop to pretty much anything. in the first episode you know she's responsible for the curse that drives the entire plot, standard big bad stuff, but by the tenth episode you know she also kidnapped multiple children and sent them to their deaths in the candy house from Hansel and Gretel. which is obviously bad, no shit, but it's like. she's Snow White's wicked stepmother, she's the villain in a loosely goosey live action adaptation of classic Disney movies. endangering children for cruel and petty reasons is part of the territory.

but she also like. you know. she explicitly has a scared, trapped man dragged away to her bed chamber after she forcibly kisses him and magically rips his heart out of his chest specifically so that he can never defy her again. and then in case there was even a little bit of doubt left about what's going on there she continues to make his real world counterpart have sex with her, and even under a spell that's completely erased his memories of his old identity and life, he admits that his relationship with Regina doesn't make him feel anything. no one ever comes right out and says Regina is using her power as the mayor to pressure him into it, but that would frankly be mild by her standards.

I can't even quite articulate why I'm so hung up on this except that it's like, so jarring to have Regina do so many over the top cartoon crimes with her magical murder and mayhem and then also slip in oh, btw, she's also a rapist! she raped that man!" especially when you factor in that, based on my memory of the show and general understanding of what mind of show this is, no one is ever going to acknowledge that. when Regina starts her good guy redemption arc and other characters try to hold her accountable for things it's always going to be "you killed Graham" and never "you killed Graham after raping him repeatedly for many years in two different realities." no one is ever going to talk about that.

except for me, because I'm stuck watching six and a half more seasons and I will not be able to forget.

[iamnmbr3]

Alternative reading: what if the locket was a decoy?

So I was thinking about the locket Horcrux and I suddenly thought of a really interesting alternative, against-the grain-reading. I think an argument could be made that it was never a Horcrux and that Tom intended Kreacher to escape and the whole thing was a trap to catch a spy and undermine the Order that went slightly sideways. I'm not saying this is what I necessarily actually headcanon, but I think it's a really cool concept. Let me explain.

It's really interesting to me that according to Kreacher's account, the locket wasn't placed in the cave till shortly before Voldemort was destroyed the first time. In Kreacher's story, Voldemort didn't use him to test the defenses. He has the locket with him and places it in the basin after Kreacher drinks the potion. So...where was it before?

Either he moved it from another location (which has some concerning implications of its own since that would mean there could theoretically be some other undiscovered Horcrux in the old location) or he didn't acquire it till much later than suggested in canon OR it was a setup.

Tom may have suspected that Regulus was a spy. Regulus had a brother in the Order after all. And he also may have already started having doubts about Tom and The Death Eaters (and Tom is a powerful Legilimens and may have detected this). Furthermore, depending on exactly when Lily & James went into hiding relative to Regulus's death, Snape may have already been spying for the Order so Tom may have been made further suspicious by the fact that information about some of his plans seemed to be leaking. He may have devised the locket as a test and a trap.

Maybe it wasn't a Horcrux at all, but rather an object designed to corrupt people and sow discord in a group and Tom's plan was that Regulus would recover it and bring it back to the Order where it would cause conflict and friction. This could explain why it behaves differently from the diary Horcrux and also why it doesn't have the level of protections on it that the Gaunt ring did.

In the beginning of book 7 Hermione says that it is emotional closeness that puts you at risk from a Horcrux, not physical proximity, but we then see that wearing the locket has an effect on the Golden Trio members and that taking it off alleviates the effect. Furthermore, the locket does not seem to be as sentient or communicative as the diary.

Additionally, the locket is protected in a way that makes it challenging but possible to retrieve and even the potion that protects it, while unpleasant, is not poisoned (given that Kreacher survived drinking it with no ill effect). It's a perfect setup for a witness to make a "lucky" escape and for a determined outsider to then be able to retrieve the object based on the witness's information.

In contrast, the Gaunt ring was clearly something Tom did not want anyone touching or interacting with in any way. In addition to other protections, it had a curse on it that was meant to instantly kill anyone who touched it - a curse so powerful that even Dumbledore was not able to detect it before he put the ring on. The combined efforts of Dumbledore and Snape, two of the most accomplished and talented wizards ever, were not enough to counter this curse and the most they were able to do was just slow down its effects a little. (Also the fact that Dumbledore put the ring on so hastily suggests that there was a secondary curse that urged anyone who penetrated the other defenses to be tempted to put on the ring, which again used magic so sophisticated that he was not able to detect and disarm it). The ring's protections were so powerful and so deadly that they resulted in Dumbledore's death and would have probably killed any lesser wizard immediately.

Compared to that, the locket's defenses seem suspiciously easy to penetrate. And there is notably no fatal effects from handling the locket. In this context it is also possible that the fact that Kreacher could apparate out of the cave was not an oversight. Instead it could have been a plan to make the locket look like a Horcrux and make it seem as though Kreacher only escaped by chance. Tom may have presumed that Kreacher would tell Regulus and if Regulus was disloyal he would go after it because surely an object like that would be of great interest to the Order. Even the location he chose is a place that would peak the Order's interest since he might know that Dumbledore heard the story of that cave from Mrs. Cole.

If Regulus brought it to the Order to study it could then start sowing discord among them (just as it did with the Golden Trio) and interrupting their unity and operations. Furthermore, Regulus would be exposed as a spy.

Of course it goes a bit wrong because Regulus dies by suicide. However, Tom may have still assumed he was a spy, or at the very least disloyal and not bothered to retrieve the locket since Regulus's faithlessness plus Tom's general resentment against powerful pureblood families who once disdained him may have turned him against the Black family and he may have felt leaving it with them was a good punishment. (And then of course he lost his body shortly thereafter).

It could also explain why even after he realizes Harry is hunting Horcruxes he makes no attempt to retrieve the locket even though he doesn't know whether it's destroyed. (Of course, he may have simply assumed that Harry was using Fiendfyre to destroy any Horcruxes he found but this is a viable alternative). This could also mean that he still had other Horcruxes out there that were not identified.

(I am also entertained by the fact that the locket behaving kind of like the One Ring even works in-universe since given when LOTR was written Tom could've read it and been inspired lol.)

Anyway, I think it's a really fun alternate concept to think about.

[skygemspeaks]

I finally got to sit down and finish episode one, and i've got some thoughts!!

I think that introducing garp as a big player right from the get go is a really great idea. His presence at the execution made sense, and his dynamic with roger did well to help establish both of their characterisations

Roger's actor did a phenomenal job with the eerie laugh and his complete irreverance in the face of his own death. I love how he delivered the wealth fame power speech!

It was a bit surprising to me that they showed roger actually getting killed, but honestly i'm in total approval of this direction they're taking with the live action. I really like the more brutal approach, especially because oda's refusal to kill anyone outside of flashbacks pre-marineford is one of the biggest complaints i tend to hear from people. Seeing zoro dragging around the top half mr 7's corpse was so jarring, but it was a good choice

Ilia's perfrmance as alvida was absolutely amazing. I like that they changed her catchphrase from the most beautiful woman on the seas to the most powerful

Overall, i really like the different transitions between plot points, and how this episode set things up in future arcs. All the different things that go on in shells town feel so much more better interconnected than they did in the manga. I'll go into this more in another post, but like one example of what i'm talking about is how the reason zoro allowed himself to be tied to the post was because morgan threatened that if he didn't agree to it, he wouldn't be able to collect any more bounties from any marine bases. It also gives zoro mire of a reason to join luffy - he knows that at this point there's no eay he can continue being a bounty hunter now that morgan has it out for him. So how else is he going to meet other strong swordsmen? By joining a pirate crew of course.

The shanks flashback was awesome! His dynamic with luffy was really endearing, and again i do like that they didn't have higuma attack shanks. That's one thing that never really made sense to me in the manga - i get thst yoy don't have to solve everything with violence, but there's no reason for shanks not to have fought back against someone who was attacking him, even if he did know they couldn't possibly hurt him

Also on shanks' flashback - the scene where he found out luffy had eaten the devil fruit was AMAZING. What a fantastic idea to have little luffy framed in sunlight! And the utter heartbreak on shanks' face as he realizes that there's no way luffy will ever be able to have a normal life now...

Of course, we gotta mention the snippet of Binks' Sake we heard in the scene where shanks is stitching up luffy's cut. I recognized it instantly and it made me really emotional. Love all these little easter eggs they have for long time fans of the series. In addition to this there was alsp the cavendish, foxy, and bellamy wanted posters which we knew about from the trailer

Speaking of wanted posters - what a COOL way to introduce the other pirates!

Morgan going on his monologue about capturing kuro is SO funny know what's gonna happen on a few episodes. Oda played it a lot more subtle in the manga but i like that they came right out and said it here.

And while we're talking about foreshadowing, it was a fantastic idea to include the mr 7 fight in this season! I really hope we get a season 2, just sp we can get the payoff for this great setup.

I'm a little sad that we didn't get to see the luffy and koby hug that was shown in the behind the scenes video (i think that was the one?). I really hope that wasn't cut because i loved that little scene. Maybe it'll happen later in the season?

Buggy's introduction at the end of the episode was SO good. I loved his whole vibe, with him lounging so confidently in his chair, his creepy laugh, everything. I'm excited to see the next episode! They better not have cut chouchou out 😭

[bitethedustfools]

New sagau idea? Part 2

Decide to make part 2 because i have bunch of ideas that probably might inspire you and i do feel these kind of stuffs need to be explored more. Fyi, I don't play genshin but i do know some from watching people gaming. Apologizing once more of these kind of idea/au exist as well.

Decide to make part 2 because i have so many ideas.

1) A violent and heartless player

You play Genshin Impact to pass time and are also a very violent and aggressive player where you'll always yell and throw items to vent or throw insults under your breath, and then back to gaming. In short, It's like a Call of Duty toxic player went into Genshin Impact.

Falling to death or drowning angered you to the point of banging your head and cursing. Not to mention, walking in the game angered you too because the characters were too slow!

You suck at first; impulsive action is not the best choice when you're angry, but you are in some way adaptable. You decide that your anger will be the source of your motivation to go through everything, so everything works out in the end.

Insulting is your mother tongue, so that means the characters and even the NPC are not spared as well. Most of your vicious, colorful insults and hurtful comments went toward people whom you hated and annoyed the most.

You remember the time when you laughed at Timmie's dumb dead birds and wished you had an option to push him off the bridge. His dad probably sensed he was a little b*tch back when he was a baby and went out to get some milk and never come back.

You sometimes intentionally let them die in a fight or or do something all in the name of experiment. You would even build a prison for them in the serenitea pot and just do the f*cked-up stuff that's possible in this game.

So one day, you broke your gaming setup due to your outburst, and somehow you woke up in Teyvat.

You didn't believe it was reality, and you still treated them as characters. Besides, they looked stupid with those stupid clothes on. They would stood out like a sore dumba$$ if they walked around in your world like that.

Anyway, killing Hilichurl or other small enemies is no problem for you. Committing a crime doesn't bother you. You probably don't bat an eye on killing people as well. Besides, all of this is just a game to you.

They're not real to you.

Their death is their fault for picking a fight with you. Should have just looked away instead of approaching you. Not your fault their feelings hurt.

Archons wanted to smite you, and somehow you managed to escape them and deal a few harmless blows. Not that it matters; you will be the one to seek them out and fight them when their backs are on you, and the cycle will repeat.

How you're still alive using a measly weapon because you don't know how to use claymore, polearms, and etc. is beyond you. But hey, anything is a weapon as long as it deals damage and even if it don't, you are still satisfied from letting all your anger out.

Nevertheless, all of the nations are in turmoil, and the culprit is none other than you.

The characters will definitely hate you, or maybe they feel ashamed and insecure about themselves because they want to fix themselves. Some acolytes and the people who believe in justice and peace had 'kill on sight' pinned on your back. They don't even believe that you are a god. God don't act like this.

The Wanderer 4th betrayal definitely happened, and Dottore clones definitely got hunted for sport because they annoyed you Does the Fatui wants to recruit you? You don't know, depends. Do they believe you are the god they worshipped? Also, don't know. Not like you care though.

No one can wreck havoc and commit more sins than you. You, a single person, broke Teyvat's peace and order effortlessly than the fatui with just impulsive anger and chaotic energy.

And if one day you realize that you actually have blood on your hands, you'll probably shrug it off and say it doesn't matter.

If you go back to your own world, no one knows what you have done. Who's going to tell the police? The dead people you stabbed out of annoyance? Those fiction characters that had animosity toward you?

No, will there even be someone alive in Teyvat if you were to return?

2) Streamer and gamer player.

In which you are transported into Teyvat along with some game skills, menus, and anything relevant to a game. That includes the chat box.

You learned that you were still streaming when you got sent to Teyvat, and everyone in the chat can see you. Cool, so it's not a dream; it's real, and instead of playing, you are the player! Where's Aether/Lumine? Why are you here? "AIYO!?? We got to see DAT CAKE!"

You are not aware that you looked like an idiot talking to yourself unless pointed out by the chat. It seems that the chat sees you as part of the game, which means that they can see the characters and NPC thoughts and words while you see them as a normal person.

Cool. Now you have to have the chat got your back, or else you're doomed. Dead. Unable to be revived. You're not sure if you can do that, but you're not willing to try.

Another problem that arises is that the chat tends to troll you or bombard you with loud sounds. It makes it harder to trust them or focus on what the characters are saying when they did this.

Sometimes you beg the chat, like they are some sort of sadistic god looking down at you from above the clouds with their chins high and a sneer.

All because you want some goddamn money because apparently, if they donate money, it instantly becomes moras and you're broke as fuck like cmon, help a fricking clown out.

Strangely, despite everything looked real, you have the physics of a game. The things you find in the game work if you try hard enough. For example, glitching under the Mondstadt's land. With these kinds of things, you don't need to walk when you can just glitch and get sent flying across the nation. Just making use of this bug makes your life easier.

Oh, how did you get stuck on this cliff while you were trying to use another entrance to Sumeru? That's right, it's an experiment to see if it works.

"Don't laugh, chat; I'm doing this out of curiosity and for you. Youre the one whos suggesting this."

The characters in Teyvat thought you were a rather peculiar person, talking to yourself at random times, and you seemed to know too much even though you didn't do any research, merely fighting hilichurls and robbing back the bandits–

–Oh Great Archons! You can fly!? No? It's a glitch? Well, they don't understand enough to understand you, but hey, that's so you. Keep up being weird, player.

Maybe the things you do are… unique and can be considered divine in their eyes. After all, who could walk on air like you do? Or bringing people back to life and knowing so much? No one could do that, so you must be a god!

As a matter of fact, you remind them of a certain figure. That's right! The creator! The creator acted like you too. Always talking to this thing called "chat"

"Um, no, I'm a gamer and chat is chat."

You fail to take into consideration that while everything looks like a game in your eyes, the people are definitely real, and this is what they thought of you.

3) Killer player

You don't play Genshin Impact, but you are quite resourceful, cunning, and deviously smart. You know this game is quite famous, and coincidentally, the prey you aimed to take life is playing it too.

In order to get closer to your prey, you must be fluent in their language. You listened to all that your prey blabbered and what they showed with an interested smile. You even question them once in a while to get them going all for the sake of learning the prey's personality and schedule and how you want to unalive them.

When you did kill your prey and accidentally broke their computer/laptop in the process, you got transported to Teyvat. In a way, you had stolen your prey's fate instead.

(The characters had mistaken you for their creator before but dismissed it because you lacked a certain presence. However, you do feel familiar with them because you sometimes watch over the game when your prey has played before.)

Now, you heard interesting things about this game, and you grew more interested when the characters interacted with you. How amusing! The characters had no idea you were a very sinister and cunning person behind a weak and polite persona.

In terms of healthcare, they are leaning toward supernatural stuff, and the medicine using materials found in this world is also effective. However, they seem to be lacking in a certain area that needs surgery.

Most deaths were common due to hilichurls and bandits, or those whom they called the Fatui, so they wouldn't be examined too closely. You doubt that they even have something that closely resembles fingerprint identification, judging by the lack of technology..m

…Which means hiding and killing is much easier than in your previous world.

Teyvat is such a nice place to have entertainment. It didn't take too long for you to settle here and get comfortable.

Monstadt is a city known for freedom and peace; however, once you arrive here, every night, no doubt a single person will go missing or be found dead. You are normally a silent killer, but you couldn't resist letting them know. Their expression thrilled you.

All those knight roaming around at night, and they couldn't even save a single person. What a pity.

In Liyue, the funeral parlor became rich all thanks to these crimes you were committing. Does a certain acolyte know what you're doing? Maybe not, afterall, there are more ways to kill a person than just a sword and poison.

Accidents could happen, you know? falling off a cliff, in the wrong place at the wrong time, being mauled by animals where people conveniently are not near, or dealing with the wrong person.

Inazuma is much more easier; their deaths could be pinned on one person who is also the source of the nation's tense atmosphere. Hatred, anger and fear rose with each crime you committed, but there is no evidence that you did it. After all, what could a weak and polite person who looked like they couldn't wield a sword do?

Plenty actually. Not that they know.

Sumeru is quite nice. Full of gifted scholars and intelligent individuals. You thought it will be a challenge seeing as you have similar minds and yet, most disappointed you.

All these smart people, and they couldn't string the murder together. Maybe you don't kill the right one which mean the don't care. Oh? Then should you kill the one with that grey hair? He seems to be someone of importance.

You made Akademiya your target. You must admit that you learned quite a lot of precious knowledge in this place. While youre here, might as well pretend to be one and use this time to gather infos.

They did not know and realized how you got into the Akademiya or how you had disguised yourself as one of the scholars. They don't know how you got through security or how one by one are slowly not attending the class or the expedition.

They said that acting confidently like you belong there and becoming part of the background like a plain NPC is always the key to infiltration.

And oh, even if they get suspicious and point that out to you, you know what to do. Lying, speaking half the truth, and gaslighting are also languages you are quite good at.

And Fontaine, oh, Fontaine. A nation that is known for justice when, in fact, it's not always about justice but entertainment. It is a nation that indirectly challenge you as well. Entertainment? Why, you know what kind of entertainment you shall give! It will be something that everyone remembers for the rest of their life.

You are like Jack the Ripper, never caught and never punished. Did the Archons ever suspect you? Who knows. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't.

All you know is that you have an alibi to back you up and a likeable and underestimated personality.

[sepublic]

I hope King got to reclaim the bones of his siblings. After reclaiming his mother’s body from further exploitation and misrepresentation for power and genocide by Belos, it’d have been nice to see him do the same with the Titan Trappers’ gross misuse of his siblings’ bodies. The fact that King fell for the intended purpose of this misuse and almost died because of it…

Between the nightmare sequence and the Collector learning what death is, and the Titan Trappers being incapacitated by them? It’d have been really great to see King and the Collector clear the deal; That the ‘Grand Huntsman’ does not approve of Bill’s lies, and anyhow they will reclaim these remains by force if necessary.

Given the setup for Tarak and the other Trappers to realize Bill is a liar, plus their Grand Huntsman revealing they were misused in a similar way by Belos, whose reign they at least understood was faulty? I could see a shift in them renouncing these ways, esp since they never actually killed a Titan, we had Tarak’s guilt over having to sacrifice King, etc. It’s easy to advocate for the genocide of a dehumanized ‘evil’ race until you actually encounter one of them and realize, Oh! That’s a real person!

Tbh given the parallels between Bill and Belos? I can see Tarak, possibly the entire Titan Trapper community, being akin to Caleb; We already have Tarak’s previous bonding with King, which led to some hesitation! Dana confirmed Caleb and Evelyn initially met one another under the guise of Evelyn being human, so I wonder if Caleb had a similar moment to Tarak in EotW, where he was gung-ho about killing witches, realized this friend of his was a witch, hesitated… But unlike Tarak, didn’t go through with it and even defied the group.

Maybe Tarak eventually does this during the timeskip, at least for the practical reason of realizing Bill is a liar. Of course, Tarak still tried and King is a child to him, unlike peers Caleb and Evelyn; So I don’t expect King to forgive and accept Tarak as family the way Evelyn did Caleb. Who knows…

Regardless; The mother was laid to proper rest and no longer had her grave desecrated. Given King got closure and even revenge over that, it’d be wonderful to see him get the same for his siblings, since brotherhood with Luz is just as important as his parental figure in Eda, the two other main characters of the show! King already got back at Bill by destroying his teleportation gate, and with the Collector ‘collecting’ him and King not doing much to stop it? He could always go further…

Just, man; I have to mourn the siblings. We know the Titan at least, people revere her. But who were the siblings? Only King and his family will mourn them. What were they like? Were they like King with Eda, in their relationship with their biological mother? Were they artists, goofballs? Bill at least confirms similarities in being big tyrants with appetites who go WEH! How young were they when the Archivists and Trappers killed them, before their mother, in grief, had to escape? Did they cry out for their father, were they murdered in front of him?

It just really gets me man. One genocide may have been averted, but another has not been fully avenged or prevented with the Archivists still out there, and there was simply no room to address that with everything else. And King learned all of this, just when he actually began to consider the idea that he has other siblings he doesn’t know about, and begins to miss (and then mourn) them too…!

[flickering-nightfall]

So, your Infinity Train crossover got me to watch the show, and... woah. Woah. I would love to know if you had any more ideas, blurbs, thoughts, anything about that crossover, because now I can't get enough of imagining the viciously murderous cat and accidentally-fratricidal robot on the train.

I'm glad you liked Infinity Train too! (and thank you!) More on the crossover... I gotta admit I haven't thought of much other than the initial "haha what if" idea. Maybe I can speculate though:

Spoilers ahead!

There were many hilarious and thoughtful takes on how Pebbles could possibly end up on the train, in the notes of the initial post. I joked that it'd just tear a hole through his structure, but there are more (and less) sane options than that.

Since we only see human passengers on the train, a lot of people would probably mistake Pebbles and Arti as denizens. Simon and Grace would probably not take to them having numbers well. I feel like they'd most likely think it was a trick, but it could shake up their perspective too.

Man humans look kind of similar to ancients maybe. That doesn't mean much to Arti - and I think humans look dissimilar enough from scavs to be spared by her wrath. But to Pebbles...

Also, iterators haven't communicated with another civilization-era sapient species in a quite a while probably. Some interesting stuff can come out of that.

How many migraines do you think Pebbles gets from trying to figure out what the hell is up with denizens? Or the train itself? I feel like he'd have an aneurysm if he had to interact with Alan Dracula. If he goes home and tries to tell the others what happened without any proof, they'd think he'd had a rot-induced fever dream.

Numbers are dependent on how close a passenger is to solving their problem. Arti, having already killed the scav chieftain, according to Rain World has hit the point of no return. So her body is completely wrapped up in numbers. But like Amelia, with enough time and determination it might be possible. The main problem is... Arti has to want to fix her problem first. The setup for her to do that is there. She's with Pebbles, so she has less of a reason to go off on a rampage unless she's being threatened. The lack of scavs wouldn't stop her from resorting to violence at this point, but the pure strangeness and unfamiliarity of her surroundings should at least baffle her into a different mental state.

I think in order to get an exit, Arti needs to make peace with herself. She must acknowledge what she has become, and to truly believe that she needs to change. It has little to do with the death of her children at that point. She needs to escape the self-perpetuating circle of violence.

Pebbles' number is much smaller (but still huge) because he's entrenched in rage and isolation and frustration on a massive timescale, but we see him eventually come to a resolution in Rivulet's campaign. How would the train define his problem though? It could be his anger at Moon and Suns, blaming them for his current state (even if Suns is partially at fault). It could be his tendency to close himself off, his refusal to talk to others or accept help. It could be his denial, believing he can handle and fix everything by himself. It could be his overall arrogance or ego. There's a lot of options there. Ultimately I think whatever brings him to think similarly to how he does in Rivulet's campaign would do the trick.

The sad thing is that Pebbles would probably be better off staying on the train too. I'm not sure if he'd be affected by the rot there, but he'd at least he could (literally) get out of his own head. And he has no choice but to touch grass interact with new people and situations. But to deny his exit would be to deny responsibility for what he's done. If he's really gotten better, that means he knows he can't run away anymore.

If Pebbles went to the train without Arti there's a chance he'd get killed or ghom'd two days into the trip. We are assuming his puppet is capable of walking for this AU, but also I do not think he knows how to walk. Good luck pink guy!

On the flipside. Pebbles could... probably take over the train even more than Amelia ever did, especially as a (bio)mechanical being himself. The only thing that could limit him are taboos maybe. Any iterator could do this, really. Lots of potential paths with that one.

Something something, One-One and iterators both solving people's big problems with varying amounts of success, and both engineering weird organisms...

...does a RW character that gets ghom'd return to the great cycle? Their soul gets devoured, or their life essence, it's not clear. I guess which one could determine what happens. But also they are in another universe where there is probably no cycle. Are ghoms a triple affirmative? Is crossdimensional travel? The latter wouldn't fit the "portable and generally applicable" part but still. This is a whole rabbit hole and a half, isn't it!

The train is dangerous and all, but that just makes Rain World characters a hilarious fit for it. Like this is just their daily life. Honestly I think their home world is more dangerous than the train, just in less wacky ways.

Lastly: I haven't even touched upon what introducing other characters could do for this narrative, or how they would react. So many possibilities!

If anyone wants to do more with this, please feel free!

[1moreff-creator]

Trying to figure out the DRDT chapter 2 murder method, with evidence! (Theory)

CW: Murder, mentions of suicide, hanging, general brutality.

So, I’ve noticed a lot of people have given their predictions for the second case murderer, the motives and all that. This is obviously what most people care about, and I love reading predictions for it!

However, I am not most people. I also am really curious about the exact murder method.

You see, DRDT has consumed my brain mercilessly, and thus I have decided I can’t wait for the hiatus to end, and want to see if I can figure out the murder mystery with the clues we have. As a warning, this doesn’t actually help much with the culprit, but I will give my thoughts on that at the end.

I think a decent job! It’s not perfect, and I’m fully expecting to get a lot if not most of this wrong. I will be happy regardless of whether I’m right or wrong, so what matters is that I had fun thinking about it! Right? :D

This took me hours.

Spoilers up until Chapter 2 ep 11, and… further? Maybe? It’s just a prediction, but with evidence, so, you decide if you wanna read it.

Where we left off

The cliffhanger currently consuming me, as you may recall, happened just after David started his Tumblr sexyman arc, with Charles cutting in with just a fantastic line (“You’re out of your element!”). He says that, while trying to prove David’s innocence, he realized something bigger, before proclaiming he and Teruko fucked up.

As many have pointed out, Charles cuts in when David mentions the time of death, meaning he’s likely realized something about that.

What Charles has probably noticed is that the note Arei received never mentioned if she was supposed to go to the playground at 7:30 PM, as the characters had assumed because of the fish and the nighttime rule for the Relaxation Room, or AM. The fish could have easily been kept in the water jugs found outside in a trash can, so it’s pretty feasible that the murder actually happened at 7:30 AM. Unfortunately, Nico, the only one keeping track of the fish, likely fed them before David went there, and thus before 7:30 PM, so we can’t tell for sure when they were taken.

(This is because Nico mentions they fed the fish after dinner, and they likely ate before David. Whit mentions having a ‘late dinner’ when he and the gang meet with Suspenders Man in the kitchen and send him to the fish, David even mentioning he wasn’t expecting anyone else to be there. Assuming Nico ate dinner with most of the class, they would have eaten before David went to the Relaxation Room, which we know was around 7:30 PM)

However, if Charles is only bringing the possibility up now, it’s likely the right answer. Also, as you’re gonna see, the murder method I believe was used requires quite a bit of setup that would have been easier to do at nighttime, without potential witnesses showing up out of nowhere.

Now, this is where I’ve seen most people stop. Content with knowing what the cliffhanger itself is about, they don’t think further into the murder method. But I will, because my life is extremely empty.

Let’s get to the evidence!

“Truth Bullets” (let’s pretend)

-First, the layout of the scene.

(Ultimate Artist coming through-)

The exact position of things doesn’t matter, but it helps to visualize. The seesaw, to the dismay of Korekiyo stans, is unimportant and can be disregarded. Here are the takeaways:

•The ground near the entrance is scuffed. This heavily implies something went down in the playground, and we probably aren’t dealing with a crime scene switch.

•The fish, you should be acquainted with.

•The spinny thing will be important.

•Not pictured is a sand pit without sand. This isn’t important, but I do find it funny.

•Then, the swing set. I’d like to point out that the rope attached on one end to Arei has nothing on the other end, and rather remains there via a knot at the top of the swing set. This is important because of:

-Broken Neck: Arei’s neck is broken, alongside:

-Veronika’s Account: Although a hanging can cause someone’s neck to break, it wouldn’t happen to Arei if she were to be hung from that height. She would either need to weigh more, or fall from higher. Because the rope Arei’s corpse hangs from is tied with a knot, it can’t extend further than what we see, meaning she was likely hung from somewhere else (if that’s even her cause of death).

-Bound Wrists: Arei’s wrists were bound with duct tape at some point.

-Duct Tape on Spinny Thing: There is duct tape covering every handlebar the spinny thing has.

-Longer Rope: There was a longer piece of rope bundled up below the spinny thing. Teruko claims it’s a couple yards long. I don’t use that unit of measurement, but it sounds like it’s large.

-Flickering Lights: According to MonoTV, one of the lights in the playground was flickering. The way he acts when inquired implies this had something to do with the murder.

Going away from the playground now, we have the trash can.

-The note: You know this one.

-Eating utensils, food, painting tools. Unimportant.

-Water Jugs: Likely where the fish were kept overnight. Notably, the handles are snapped in the middle.

-Needle and thread?: I’ve seen some people mention there’s a needle with a bit of black thread that none of the characters address when dealing with the trash. Personally, I think this isn’t going to be important, but I do have a place for it if it ends up coming up. That is:

-Ball of clothes: Charles takes this from the dress-up room. It’s apparently held together with starch (not an adhesive, just sticky, but sure), though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually created with the needle and thread. Again, I don’t think it’s important, but you can choose to believe it was used here if you want. It’ll make sense later.

-The gym. I’ll be honest, this is the one thing I don’t know how to fit in. During the investigation, Teruko makes memory to how the gym looked before and after the Nico incident. I’m not great at Spot the Difference, but for the life of me the only thing I could see change was the missing fan and the missing ‘grippy thing’ on the pull-up bar. I don’t know how that would fit with the mystery, so I’ll be glad if anyone can figure something out.

-The motives: Not important for the method, obviously important for other reasons.

So, with the evidence laid out, what can we figure out?

Theory Time

When I said I spent hours thinking about this, I mostly meant running through several theories at once, trying to see which one made the most sense. I went to some weird places: from a crime of passion disguised as a suicide, to drowning her in the Relaxation Room, to somehow getting from the Movie Screening Room to the Playground (MonoTV had mentioned punching through the wall would get you there), to Arei herself being the one originally trying to murder…

But in the end, it was simpler. There are three important facts which help narrow down the options.

-Arei’s neck was broken. This eliminates simpler killing methods such as strangulation. Something happened which broke her neck, yet:

-Her wrists were bound. A broken neck is instant death, but Arei’s bound wrists imply the killer feared she would struggle. This eliminates a crime of passion. This thing was premeditated.

-The murder happened in the playground. The scuffed floor, broken light, duct tape on spinny thing and the other rope all make it clear. There’s no crime scene switching here. This eliminates stuff like the drowning in the Relaxation Room I mentioned.

All of this makes me believe that Arei was hung from somewhere in the playground, likely after the killer bound her wrists to stop her from struggling. The scuffed ground serves as evidence of an initial struggle. It doesn’t quite look like that, but frankly I just don’t know what could have caused the exact shape in the ground, so a struggle it is.

However, how? If Arei’s neck broke from her hanging, as per Veronika’s Account, she would need to be hung from somewhere else first, in a way that she either weighed more or fell from higher. Now, at first, you might assume that she had to be simply hung from higher, since it’s impossible to make Arei weigh more than she does. But what if I told you, there is a way to achieve that?

Enter: the water jugs.

I don’t know about you, but the way those handles are broken looks to me like they were snapped too cleanly for human hands. It almost looks… like someone tied a knot around them, then exerted a bunch of force on the rope.

(WARNING: Geometric depiction of a hanging a bit below)

We know for a fact there are at least two pieces of rope: one longer, one shorter. It would be possible to tie the two ends of the shorter one around the handles of the water jugs, then tie the middle around Arei. Water’s pretty heavy, so the extra pull of the water jugs would exert an additional force to her body once she stopped falling, one which could serve as one of the reasons her neck broke.

…Now’s probably a good time to mention, I have no idea why the killer did half the shit they did. I cannot explain to you why they would do this with water jugs. I’m just telling you how my brain’s interpreting this evidence.

However, this doesn’t exactly solve the height problem. You still can’t hang Arei from the swing set directly, as the jugs would hit the ground. It’s still necessary to hang her from higher up, although thankfully it’s easy to see where that would happen.

Yeah, the railings of the playground. The problem, naturally, is how to get there. Or rather, how to get the rope there.

Well, here’s a question. How would you do something like that if it was lower down, but still unreachable? One answer is to try to throw the rope over the railing, so that one end stays near you, and the other, on the other side of the railing. Of course, that’s impossible with a rope of this length and a railing of this height, but the concept can still be used in conjunction with something else. Thinking about the other pieces of evidence we have, there is one that stands out as particularly strange, doesn’t it?

Exactly. The ball of clothes. Because throwing a ball, especially one as light as this one would be, is much easier than throwing a rope, you can set up the hanging spot by tying one end of the rope to the ball, and throwing that over the railing.

You might think it’s still too far up, but think of it like this. How far can you throw a basketball straight up? Probably enough to clear two floors, at least given enough attempts. The ball of clothes would have more drag, yes, but it would be lighter. Keep in mind the killer had all night to get this right, and they could have even climbed on the swing set if they needed a bit more height. It’d be awkward, but possible.

There is one more piece of evidence that makes me think this is the case. That is, the flickering lights.

The lights weren’t broken, but they did get fucked up. This is by far the clue which gave me the most trouble when thinking about this, since it just seemed so impossible to achieve. However, this ‘ball of clothes’ theory gives us a solid answer. On the way up, the ball of clothes may have hit the lights:

This wouldn’t break the light, but it could displace it, causing it to flicker… or something like that. I’m sorta banking on J giving a proper explanation with her pre-established expertise, since I’m no electrical engineer. However, I see no other way this could have happened, so it’s the answer I’m giving for now.

So now we have the long rope on both ends, all that’s left is actually pulling Arei up. Except, that’s still quite complicated, isn’t it? Already pulling her up would take quite a bit of strength, but the main problem is the ‘going down’ part.

For Arei’s neck to break, she needs to enter free fall, then abruptly stop halfway. That would mean you need to stop the rope from moving on the way down, but how? Just using your hands is impossible, because you’d get burnt.

Enter: spinny thing.

The duct tape tipped me off that this thing was important, and once the use of rope is factored in, my first instinct was to use it for a sort of pulley system.

Weave the rope through a few of the handlebars, then tie a knot around one of them. That way, if you make the thing spin, it will drag the rope with it, sort of like a roll of film in reverse.

Then, once Arei reaches an appropriate height, you spin the thing the other way, letting her fall at full speed for a bit. When you want to stop her, you would just need to stop the carousel from spinning, which may take a bit of strength, but it’s perfectly doable.

Now, this explains how the murder could have been done, but where does the duct tape come into play?

…

Yeah, good question. My best answer is that the rope somehow burnt a friction mark into the spinny thing, which the killer feared would give away their trick. After all, even if the duct tape is more noticeable, it’s harder to make a connection between that and the murder than a friction burn, which while harder to notice, would point more directly to the pulley idea.

Yeah, it’s not a great answer, and it’s frankly the part which still puzzles me the most, but it’s an answer, so I’m going with it for now. Open to change, though.

Notably, this is also the part of the crime where I feel the gym may come into play. Again, I have no idea what the relevance is, but if it has something to do with this crime and not just the Ace - Nico incident, perhaps the grippy strap of the pull up bar was somehow used to better grip the spinny thing’s handlebars for the pulley trick? Again, this is one piece of evidence where I could use the help.

And so, we’re done! Practically all of the important evidence was used, and I can’t find any contradictions in the reasoning!

Closing Argument

The killer first put water from the Relaxation Room, fish and all, in some water jugs before nighttime.

At nighttime, they stuck together Teruko’s and Hu’s old clothes with either starch or the black string. Going to the playground, they tied a long rope they got from storage around the ball of clothes. They repeatedly threw it up, until they managed to get the rope over one of the railings in the playground. However, on the way up, the ball of clothes hit a light and displaced it, causing it to flicker. MonoTV would later remove this light.

After that, they tied one of the ends of the rope to one of the carousel’s handlebars, possibly looping it around some of the other handlebars to make sure it would work as a pulley. The killer left the water jugs in the room, first tying a shorter piece of rope around their handles, and took the ball of clothes back to the dressing room.

After that, the killer wrote a note. They had overheard the Eden-Arturo-Arei situation, and used that to lure Arei out to the playground at 7:30 AM. She potentially arrived just before the killer, based on the scuffed ground being a bit far from the door, but the killer got there just a moment after, before Arei could understand the situation.

The killer overpowered Arei, scuffing the ground near the seesaw in the process. They eventually bound her wrists together, and wrapped the middle of the rope attached to the water jugs to Arei’s lower body. Possibly around her waist, as to prevent rope burn injuries from giving the trick away.

After that, they tied the unused end of the longer rope around Arei’s neck, and moved to the spinny thing. Using the grippy strap they got from the gym (maybe), they grabbed one of the handlebars and spun the spinny thing so that the rope was pulled in and around its handlebars. This also had the effect of pulling Arei up towards the ceiling.

Once Arei was high enough, the killer quickly spun the carousel the opposite way, then abruptly stopped it just a few moments later. This caused Arei to free fall shortly, before suddenly stopping. The force of that stopping broke both Arei’s neck and the handles of the water jugs. Arei died here, if she hadn’t already asphyxiated beforehand.

All that was left for the killer to do was cleanup. Retrieve the longer rope and hide it under the spinny thing; set up Arei’s body to look vaguely like a suicide; empty the water jugs on the ground; throw them away, alongside the duct tape and the note. The killer’s trick had also left marks on the carousel, which they decided to cover up with duct tape. Finally, the killer reconvened with everyone at around 8 AM for the motive announcement.

And with that, all questions are answered. Well, except for:

What the fuck

Like, why would the killer do this? It’s so unnecessary cruel, when they could have just hung her. I was honestly worried, as I thought about the method, that the killer would end up being Veronika, just because it’s so fucked I genuinely can’t see anyone else doing this. But Veronika doesn’t have a motive to do this: she’s talked about wanting to enjoy the trials for as long as possible, and it’s been set up if she murders, it would be of boredom. Doing that before a motive announcement which would make things interesting doesn’t fit her at all. Or maybe I’m coping.

The answer to the question of why the killer chose this method is only part of a larger question, though. So, knowing the method, how does that change the final question?

Who did it?

EDIT: DISCLAIMER: The following part of this blog is outdated. Go here to read a revised version of the method, with a different culprit. It's a reblog of thebadjoe's reblog of this post, as they pointed out a lot of flaws in my original theory (adult content warning for Arei's corpse). I'm leaving the rest of my original post up, but just know I now believe the killer to be Eden, with an accomplice.

Let me start by saying that I can’t definitively say anything about anyone, even knowing the murder method. However, this *does* paint some of the theories in a different light.

Smaller theories

I’ve seen a few people suggest everyone from Charles to J or even Arturo. A lot of these theories are decent, but some rely too much on certain assumptions which may or may not be disproven if this method is accurate.

Charles is ruled out. The murder required moving the corpse around postmortem, and while there wasn’t any blood around, Charles’ necrophobia would make it impossible for him.

A theory I saw was that J may have used her remote to open secret trapdoors and move around rooms, taking advantage of the placement of the playground in relation to the Movie Screening Room. However, while that theory is interesting, the murder is perfectly possible without these trapdoors, so the main argument kinda goes out the window. Although I guess it’s possible her remote could be used to make the carousel go spin, but that’s kinda ridiculous if you ask me.

Arturo was ruled out from the beginning because the handwriting in the note is too pretty to be a doctor’s. That’s a joke, and Arturo would actually be quite capable of the crime. In fact, he’s sort of become my second most likely culprit, even if he was accused early in the trial.

Hu / David manipulation, in shambles

A popular theory states that the killer was manipulated by David to do the deed. The most common victim of this manipulation theory seems to be Hu Jing. However, in my opinion, the sheer brutality of the method pretty much rules this out. David may be a good enough manipulator to get somehow to kill Arei, but I really doubt he’d be able to convince them to do… all this.

Especially since he has no reason to order the specific method, which would imply it was born from the killer’s own mind. So, even if David actually told them to kill Arei, they decided to use this insanely elaborate method all on their own. And, listen, I don’t care how you feel about Hu, she wouldn’t do this.

Is it still possible? Sure, I guess. Does it look a lot weaker under this method? Absolutely.

The surprisingly strong Whit/Eden allegations

I didn’t make this theory considering these two the killer, I really didn’t. I still don’t think they are. And yet, they are the only ones who could benefit from this method. How? The BDA.

You see that loophole, right? I noticed the moment I saw the rule. The way it’s written seems to imply the BDA only plays when three ‘spotless’ see the body, ruling them out as the murderer. Except, that’s not how it’s worded. It doesn’t say ‘three non-murderers’, it says ‘three people who didn’t witness the murder’.

So, pray tell, what happens if the culprit has their back to the victim when they die? Simple; they didn’t witness the murder, so their eyes count for the BDA.

How does this help? Well, imagine if Teruko had been the one to kill Arei. By making a contraption where she can be sure Arei dies instantly upon something happening (in this case, abruptly stopping the spin of the carousel), she can make sure her back is turned the moment Arei dies. Of course, the moment she turns around, the count for the BDA goes up to one, but it doesn’t trigger, since you need three.

Then, when Teruko ‘discovers’ the body alongside Eden and Whit, the BDA plays; one person (Teruko) had already ‘discovered the body’, so Eden and Whit seeing it would increase the BDA count by two. That makes three, BDA plays.

And yet, during the trial, if the murder method hasn’t been found out, Teruko could claim she isn’t the murderer because of the trickily worded BDA rule.

Now, we obviously know Teruko didn’t do it, but Eden and especially Whit are common theories. This could be used as evidence, except…

There’s a pretty obvious problem there. It’s not them, but Teruko who asks to team up in a group of three for the BDA, and it’s also her who suggests going to the second floor. Then, the playground is the last place they check, and Whit even questions Teruko when she suggests going there (the infamous ‘hanging out there’ line).

I wouldn’t rule out Teruko’s bad luck making her pick the absolute worst possible partner possible, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that neither Eden nor Whit were proactive in the search method, which goes against this potential ‘BDA alibi’ plan.

As for the rest of the theories, I don’t quite believe them. Yes, Whit definitely has more issues than he lets on, but he has no motive to do this (remember; he asked an entire group of people to reveal his secret if they had it, so the only reason his secret lasted until the trial was Rose throwing it away). Eden even less so.

And in the end, it really is the motives which points us to what I believe to be the killer.

Yeah, it’s Levi

As does what I believe is most of the fandom by this point, I think Levi is probably the killer.

Many have already theorized about the remaining motives, so I’ll spare you the ordeal and tell you: Just with the information all the characters have access to, it’s possible to narrow down Levi’s secret to ‘murdered someone’, ‘poisoned competition’ and ‘dead family’ (I know the last one’s Xander’s, but the characters don’t really have access to the Bonus Episode).

However, Eden can eliminate the ‘dead family’ one, as Levi has talked about his family with her, and they’re not dead (He also mentioned having brothers in the present tense during the trial, but just in case).

Min’s Bonus Episode makes it likely her secret is the ‘poison competition’ one, though how the characters are gonna figure that one out is beyond me. The point is, Levi’s secret is the ‘murdered someone’ one, the one Arei had. And, listen, in-game logic aside, you don’t just give that secret to the victim of the case and then have it mean nothing for the murder.

Other suspicious behavior has been noted, such as him wanting to start voting time quickly when David did his thing, him quickly checking the motives when they became public (keep in mind, as some characters mentioned, it’s possible the killer thought just killing someone before the motive reveal would be enough to prevent it), etc. Also possible foreshadowing such as Ace claiming Levi could ‘snap [his] neck with his bare hands’ and Levi promising to protect Eden in the trial, which is exactly what Arei did before dying.

However, something I feel people overlook is that not only did Arei get Levi’s secret, but it was also Levi who got Arei’s secret. A secret which, keep in mind, wasn’t public knowledge until the trial, when Levi finally revealed it. Sure, David and Teruko knew, maybe Eden at best, but other than that, only Levi knew of that secret.

And this is where the murder method may come in. I’m still unsure. Because the only reason I can find for this amount of elaborate planning and brutality, beyond the BDA thing which I mentioned likely isn’t important, is the killer having a deep grudge against Arei.

Levi is a guy who cares about his family. Sure, he was disowned, but he claims it was good, because he and his family were ‘bad influences on each other’. He seems like he genuinely wants the best for his brothers, it just so happened that the best thing was going their separate ways.

So, how do you think he feels when he learns that Arei, someone who had already insulted and belittled him, calling him a pushover and stuff, did horrible things to her sisters? If he doesn’t have the full picture, it’s not impossible to see how that may make him angry at her, especially with his already established anger issues.

Not to mention, keep in mind the setup for the crime was done one night after the Nico - Ace incident, one which ends with Levi grumbling ‘why do I even bother?’ as he locks himself in his room. This could imply a complete loss of faith in the group in general, which could lead to him deciding to kill.

Of course, that theory has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. Levi’s outbursts of anger don’t really last long enough for it to explain such a long and elaborate murder scheme. Not to mention, if he really did react negatively to the motive, he’d have done it the moment he received it, not several days later. He has murdered without remorse before, if his secret is to be believed, but until we get the specifics, we can’t know for sure how okay he’d be doing something like this.

However, the important question Levi as the culprit answers isn’t the ‘why?’, but the ‘how?’.

I’ve sorta glossed over it until now, but it would take quite a bit of strength to stop the spinny thing in the trick. I don’t think Levi’s the only one capable of it, but he’s certainly the most capable, if that makes sense. Not to mention, actually overpowering Arei in the first place wouldn’t exactly be easy. Plus, the ball of clothes being involved implicates him in a meta-sense, as it could technically count as his talent being involved in the murder.

The problem, of course, is that I have no definitive evidence. His custom weapon, brass knuckles, wasn’t involved at all, and there’s no way to place him at any of the important scenes. No one has an alibi for nighttime, no one has an alibi for 7:30 AM, and pretty much no one has an alibi for the Eden - Arturo - Arei incident (afternoon of the day of Nico’s attempted murder, when for now we only know Hu, David, Nico and Teruko where talking in the Relaxation Room. Though of course, the exact time is impossible to know).

I suspect he’s going to be suspected for the motive and the strength thing, and either someone will come up with something incriminating, or he’ll make a slip-up a la Mondo. I have no idea.

So… what did we learn?

Kinda nothing. As you can see, the murder method doesn’t really point to a killer in any definitive way, so we’re just back where we started, basically. But hey! It was fun! I guess.

Now, back to crying over the hiatus. See you!

[katherinakaina]

Did you notice that Olgimskys are trying to kill the Bachelor from day one?

Maybe you did. I'm not that smart, it took me a while. I did think that morgue situation on day 4 is weird, but I dismissed it. But then I was thinking about day 1 quest beast like fugitive and it hit me.

So, day 1.

Small Vlad asks a scientist to kill a guy. That doesn't make any sense. What I think is going on is Vlad wants you to go and try to talk to the butcher. Vlad acts as suspicious as possible so the detective Batchelor is like, aha! if I want to know what really happened with Isidor and the Termitary, I need to interrogate this fugitive, I'm so smart. This is why you don't even have an option to tell Aspity 'step aside, I will kill this butcher', you have a choice between letting him go or insisting on talking to him. And when you meet him you can talk to him, which doesn't go well. Which is exactly Vlad's plan - to kill the Bachelor.

Day 2.

Small Vlad wants the Bachelor to leave. He's the only character, who's not involved in Eva's quest, who talks to Daniil about leaving the Town and suggest you talk to his father about it. Big Vlad also wants Bachelor to disappear of course. You can be killed in the end of this quest too, but that's not intentional, I think. The Olgimskys would be content with Bachelor just running away. Too bad.

Day 3.

Small Vlad directs the Bachelor to the house with three (was it three?) butchers to be beaten to death. And it's not even Simon's body. Who's body is it? Are those guys Artemy's friends helping him with something? Maybe. But I think the entire situation was fabricated by Vlad. The butchers were hired for the job. And even if not, if they just happened to be there, that means Vlad used this setup to get rid of the Bachelor yet again.

Day 4.

Okay, how many people does it take to kill this guy? He has a fucking gun, it's not fair. 7? Let's try 7.

And they succeed. I don't think there's a person who beat the Barley's lair with the first attempt.

Now you can go to Barley through Saburov's quest. But it's Grief who sends you there. And on the same day in Changeling's route we discover that Grief works for Big Vlad. But even if this would fail, Vlad made sure to send Daniil to his death anyway. The Barley's lair is the supposed morgue, which you must inspect on your main quest. Vlad sends you there to die. And he 100% knows about the bandits, again, he works with Grief.

You could go further but I think it's enough to make the case.

The question is, why? Why so early?

Well, one possible answer is that it's just good business practice to kill the doctor before the epidemic. Think all the hatred from conservatives towards Fauci for instance.

But the more likely option is that Capella told them to. In the same way that Alexander is constantly trying to get rid of the Haruspex because of Katerina's prophecy. Katerina herself is not on board, but the men in power are using her warnings to crack down on somebody they just don't like. Capella maybe made some unfortunate remarks about how this big city snake is going to destroy our traditional way of life and that was enough for the Vlads.

[dangerpronebuddie]

Hiiiii Maggie 💕💕💕💕

Prepare for a bunch of emojis! They are all so good!!

📋📋📋📋📋

🚁🚁🚁🚁🚁

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

😡😡😡😡😡

🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵🫵

-❤️🪐

Hiiiii Saturn! 🩷🩷🩷 Glad you're enjoying them 🥰

Clipboard Buck:

“Yeah, I know,” Buck says. “At least in theory anyway. Finding this out at thirty is… a little jarring. I mean- Buck 1.0 didn’t even get to experience this. I feel a little sad for past me.” “Do you think Buck 1.0 could’ve processed this like present Buck?” Bobby asks. “Yeah,” Chim says. “Maybe you’d resent it if you found out then.” “Maybe it happened when it needed to happen,” Eddie says with a pointed look at Hen. “Are you saying the universe had something to do with it?” Buck teases. An exploding ambulance flashes through his memory, but he resolutely ignores it for now. “I’m saying that no matter when it happened, you should love yourself. Past, present, and future Buck.” Buck smiles at him, soft sweet and disarming, and Eddie’s insides turn to goo. He can’t deny that.

Time loop fic:

“You guys have a lot in common,” Buck remarks. Maybe that’s why he likes Tommy so much. “You both like watching half-naked men pummel each other.” “Tommy’s pretty cool,” Eddie says happily. “Been a while since I met someone who can go toe-to-toe with me in Muay Thai.” “You- you guys went to… Muay Thai together?” First the fight in fucking Vegas, now this? Buck might just pass out. “Yeah, he’s got a setup in his garage,” Eddie says. “We sparred a bit.” Buck can’t get the image of that out of his mind. The both of them shirtless and glistening with sweat, showing off their skills and their muscles and- Buck forces himself to move, pushing all thoughts about that to the back of his mind. For fuck’s sake, he’s known he’s bi for maybe two days, this should not be affecting him this much! "Well listen, I- I think it's great..." Just like in his dream, he trips over his words.

The arson fic:

"The Longest Yard?" Chim asks, "seriously?" "What?" Buck frowns. "Burt Reynolds? Eddie Albert?" Chim prompts. Buck simply blinks at him like he's grown a second head. Chim sighs and waves him off. "What makes you think homemade fire bombs are behind these?” “And who would want to do something like that? It’s not exactly fool-proof,” Hen frowns. “No method ever is,” Buck comments. “And we haven’t narrowed down who yet. But didn’t you guys smell paint thinner when we were clearing the scenes?” They shake their heads. “But we only cleared the scene with the judge’s husband and we kept our masks on,” Chim says.

Communication fight:

“I didn't have to,” Eddie declared, turning to face him. “I saw your reaction to seeing her again and knew everything I needed to. I saw how you acted about her when we first met. Like your only purpose was to be of use to her.” “That's not-” “You were willing to die saving the man she left you for,” Eddie cut in. Buck paused, any defense dying on his tongue. “You fought Bobby, and you fought me, trying to justify your possible death. Like you didn't matter, Buck.” “So you would’ve lost your backup plan,” Buck huffed with a wave of his hand. “Backup plan?” Eddie spat the words out like they burned his tongue. He took a step closer, fighting the urge to grab Buck by the shoulders and shake him until he realized what Eddie truly meant by putting him in his will. “Is that what you think you are to me?” “How else am I supposed to look at that, Eddie?” Buck cried.

And a few from the doppelganger fic:

Buck keeps talking, but Eddie has officially checked out of the conversation. It's bizarre enough that Buck and Ethan were comparing Eduardo and Eddie's… assets. But the fact Buck believes Eddie's is better is doing things to Eddie’s brain. Things definitely not suitable for the workplace. “Eddie,” Buck says, and judging by his tone, not for the first time. Eddie blinks at him. “Where’d you go? Are you sure you’re okay? You didn’t hit your head?” “I’m fine, bud,” Eddie assures him. “I was just thinking about something.” “You thinking what I'm thinking?” Buck asks with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Eddie raises an eyebrow, smiling at the way Buck perks up. If he had a tail, it'd be wagging forcefully enough to achieve liftoff. “What're you thinking?” “We have to set them up,” Buck declares.

Make Me Write!

[themindcrowave]

recurring jing yuan thoughts #2... a spiderverse AU

so i've been thinking about spiderverse jing yuan lately..... trying to decide whether he's a spider or a gwen/MJ

- if he was a spider he'd be able to travel dimensions,,, he'd definitely have a backstory similar to miguel o'hara's about trying to find a reality where everyone he loved was back together again, but unlike miguel, once that reality inevitably goes wrong he either:

- decides to really focus on his emotional healing and grief processing or

- becomes a compartmentalization master like he is in the game

because either way he knows he can't properly help others and be a leading figure if he can't move past his own grief first. he would rather gnaw through his own arm than push his old emotional scars onto the young spiders he's met and formed family with along his journey. he might have lost his first found family but he'll be damned if he loses his chance at another.

- and then just like in-game, jing yuan will meet the people of his past again... i'm thinking dan heng is a spider from a parallel universe where dan feng's weakened consciousness ended up after he was completely wiped from jing yuan's dimension, so basically dan heng was always his own person of course but then he started having visions of a lifetime parallel to his own lived by someone who looked exactly like him (insert my gwen stacy theory bc WOW does it fit him)

- blade would be kinda like the usual spiderman villain setup where his undying situation is all because of a terrible science accident and his main motivation is to find the ones involved in what happened to him (the og high cloud quintet friend group) and exact vengeance so that maybe he can finally disappear in peace (basically the same as in-game)

- baiheng's death was probably jing yuan's first devastating "canon event". i think he wasn't around to save her when she died (and he couldn't have been, he didn't even know where she was or what happened to her until he heard the news) and that guilt will forever eat away at him... i'm thinking she died in an aircraft accident but i haven't decided what kind yet

- dan feng was a genius scientist. he experimented with a lot of things that he probably shouldn't have and always pushed the boundaries of scientific possibility,, especially after baiheng died. he started secluding himself in his lab and only yingxing ever had any success at visiting him there for any substantial period of time... which is exactly how yingxing got caught up in dan feng's plan to bring baiheng back (think kingpin bringing his family back with the alchemax super-collider) and subsequently cue the horrible accident which turned him into the immortal blade

- oh and then of course jing yuan, being spiderman, has to track down and apprehend dan feng for what he did and decide his sentence (life imprisonment) but dan feng's family clan had him assassinated in prison for reasons jing yuan was never able to completely uncover (and a nagging little part of him will always feel like dan feng's fate was his fault)

- i think jingliu was jing yuan's superhero mentor... not sure if she was a spider too, or just another masked hero in the area who took him under her wing when he was new to his powers. just like in-game, she was the one who introduced him to the rest of the group, and just like in-game she will go completely berserk and become a vigilante with no clear morals or objectives after baiheng dies. like with dan feng, jing yuan has to track her down and try to get her back. unlike with dan feng, jingliu decides that given her shattered mental state the safest option for society as a whole would be for jing yuan to defeat her then and there, once and for all, simultaneously saving the day and proving his graduation from her mentorship. and, well. he did.

- there's yanqing (young spider, official mentee, and unofficial son of jing yuan) thoughts rattling around in here too, but words are difficult so unfortunately you'll have to put your full imagination to work here and just try to feel the "i'm-putting-this-character-in-a-jar-and-shaking-it-like-a-mixed-drink" vibes for yourself! cheers

[fancyfade]

honestly one thing i don't like about zero year is that it seems like they take beats from other stories, but can't let them be un-dramatic, or even just... not the most cinematic, explosive thing ever. Like everything from Batman-in-past has to be amped up to match Batman-in-present. And as a result there's no room for character growth, because everyone has to start at essentially what is their 'final form'.

like I don't really care for most joker backstories, but the zero year joker falls into a vat of chemicals thing is reminiscent of the TKJ origin (intentionally) which itself was calling back/building off to 'tec 168. In both of those, the situation that spawns the chemicals thing is pretty 'small scale'. TKJ has proto-joker helping two people past security in a lab he used to work at, 'tec 168 has proto-joker committing robbery just for money's sake.

while it's obviously up to the reader whether these stories are good, none of them feel epic in scale. It's not trying to be epic. TKJ is analysis of the joker, batman, and gordon, and the question as to whether one bad day can fracture anyone (with the answer 'no')

compare the relatively simple setup for TKJ joker tripping to the complete battlefield and chaos in zero year. Red Hood already has the city in terror, he has like half the police or he's already done his thesis (link) and is already connected to Bruce via the death of Bruce's parents which inspired him. He essentially already is 'joker', jsut with a different name, so there's no real purpose of the origin. And then in terms of the 'needs to be epic' scale - we have a huge dramatic showdown in the ACE chemical factory with bullets flying, philip (bruce's uncle) shoots at joker, gets shot and dies, bruce tranqs jim, grapple with the joker over the chemicals... etc.

similarly, a lot of the reason batman: year one sticks in people's heads is because we see Bruce genuinely failing at things that later are effortless for him. We see Bruce figuring out how to be Batman.

Zero year has some of that - in that he doesn't have his costume yet. But he's pretty much already still batman. he's already got his disguise, he's pretty much perfect at fighting (in a backup story we see him fighting people in a death-match for 28 hours straight as new combatants are added as bruce defeats yet refuses to kill his opponents). Like... I don't think Scott Snyder could do "bruce gets beat up trying to stop thieves on a fire escape while making sure no one ties". it's so... non-epic in scale. And everything Snyder does has to be big and dramatic and involve city-wide threats in his batman run. but it results in a 'year zero' bruce who does not really feel like he's any different from a fully realized batman in any way possible, because he already has to start as the bestest of the best.

which IDK. maybe was fun to read about when it was coming out. but as a work of literature it's just... boring. All style no substance.

[kaladinsspear]

Some rambling about the Singers and Fused:

I just started Rhythm of War in my stormlight reread and I’m at the part where Kaladin fights Leshwi for the first time in the narrative. Attention is drawn to the fact that the Fused will pair off with the Windrunners and fight to the death in honorable single combat. I’m really interested to see where Brandon is going with this for the rest of the series.

To me, this feels like a setup for something.

First, one of the character development arcs that Brandon seems to like is the idea that fighting is not glorious, even if you decide that your cause is worth fighting for (Vin, Vivenna, and Hrathen go through iterations of this arc, and Wax seems to have had this realization sometime in the roughs and Nomad explicitly verbalizes it).

Second, as many people have pointed out, Kaladin might see honor in the actions of the Fused, but the humans are the aggressors in every way. I’m thinking specifically of this post by @to-shards-you-say because yeah. Why are the Fused so obsessed with their idea of honor? What makes their view of honor ‘right’? Jasna has circled around this topic and so has Taravangian. If the Fused were truly goal driven, they could have crushed human resistance in the beginning by ganging up on the radiants. They seem to be more concerned with their methods than their goal, and it comes across as undervaluing the lives of the Singers.

Maybe I have too much faith in Brandon, but that seems like a bit of a stretch for someone who loves the message that fighting isn’t glorious. What is this obsession with honor that the Fused have if not an insistence that fighting be glorious? It’s like Brandon is playing with the tropes around propaganda and the glory of war. He goes through such lengths to personize all parties that I find it hard to believe that he would really showcase such simplistic black and white understanding on the ethics of violence.

However, it is VERY in character for Kaladin - and other Vorin influenced characters especially- to have this idea that killing is ‘fair’ as long as you follow all the right rules. That’s straight up military propaganda, especially from a USAmerican perspective. ‘War is a game that can be won and there is moral superiority in playing fair’ ‘We know we are the good guys because we play war by The Rules that we wrote’ and I would really like to know if that is a worldview on Brandon’s part or the Rosharins. I hope it’s an intentional setup for a shift in the Rosharins worldview and a little more nuance on the ethics of violence. That does seem like the kind of thing Brandon would enjoy.

(Just to be explicit, I don’t believe that ethics go out the window in violence. I would say the ethics of violence don’t hinge on being ‘fair’ as much as they hinge on causing the minimum amount of harm possible. How you decide what justifies causing harm is another conversation entirely.)

I also want to know if the splintering of Honor has anything to do with it. If I’m remembering correctly, Honor was consumed by his shard as Odium killed him and he became increasingly rigid and started viewing things in black and white. If Odium was the one who killed Honor, and Honor was the original god of the Singers, what would the Fused be like under the influence of Odium? Or with the corrupted influence of Honor. Could it be that Odium influenced their madness in that direction?

[malmiele]

genderbent theon already compels me in its usual setup (i.e. she is still the hostage) but tbh in a world where theon was born a girl (teora? theia?), asha would be the one sent away as a hostage because she'd be the heir.

she'd be 13-14 when she arrived at winterfell, still young, but old enough to have her psyche mostly shaped by the iron islands. alannys raised her to be bold. how would she handle her new position in a foreign society? she'd be a good deal older than sansa and arya, but i would like to see how they interact. maybe besides jon, arya could see asha as someone she related to. as the heir to the iron islands the crown would definitely look into getting her married off, arguably more so than theia. but the starklings are too young, and benjen took himself out of the equation. would robert consider another great house? edmure? willas or garlan? would she then have been sent to riverrun or highgarden instead? (maybe not the reach, though, since baelor blacktyde was already sent to oldtown.) i am beginning to like the idea of asha being sent to be part of catelyn's entourage in winterfell in preparation for her eventual marriage to edmure.

meanwhile balon would raise theia as his heir. most likely she'll be similar to asha in the original timeline, although she wouldn't have had her own crew for as long. maybe she'll still have a fondness for fashion, which she probably won't be as mocked for, written off as a young woman's acceptable frivolity. i also think if asha is getting married earlier balon might also want theia married if he's serious about theia inheriting over asha (which he probably would be, the thought of greenlander grandchildren ruling his throne would drive him crazy). one way to ensure theia's inheritance would, as unsavoury as it sounds, be marrying her to one of her uncles, probably victarion. otherwise allying with another major house would also be good, maybe one of the goodbrother triplets? they're about robb's age. wouldn't it be cute if they were also redheads.

asha tully-greyjoy travels to meet her father to offer an alliance against the lannisters, insisting to her husband that she can go alone. theia sits in the place of honor beside their father, with a tall auburn boy that reminds asha of the boy who sent her here. while theia is sent to capture deepwood motte like asha in the original timeline, our asha is not trained at arms and probably stays on pyke.

winterfell is never sacked. robb never marries jeyne westerling. the red wedding still happens, but at robb's wedding to a frey daughter rather than edmure's. the freys do not have their paper-thin excuse this time, and they will be even more reviled by westeros, if that is even possible. edmure will be held prisoner, which could be good news or bad news for asha depending on how much she likes him.

asha is probably one of the first to know of balon's death at pyke. she quickly moves to claim the seastone chair while theia and victarion are away, but euron suddenly returns, and aeron calls for a kingsmoot. which euron probably still wins. and the greyjoy sisters will have to work together to save the situation...

[historicallyaccuratecheese]

I’m now halfway through The Magnus Archives’ 1st season, so I thought it would be cool to just post my thoughts on each episode so far :). (Spoilers, I like all of them, and this podcast is going to be all I care about for a while.) Also NO SPOILERS PLEASE!!!

Link to Masterpost (contains all of these thought posts)

- Episode 1, Anglerfish 🚬

Statement of Nathan Watts, regarding an encounter on Old Fishmarket Close, Edinburgh.

Really strong start, not the scariest episode so far but definitely unnerving, and it gives a good first impression and layer of intrigue. While the story is simple in comparison to the later ones, it was still enjoyable, and I was just appreciating the atmosphere and framing device of the episode as well.

- Episode 2, Do Not Open ⚰️

Statement of Joshua Gillespie, regarding his time in the possession of an apparently empty wooden casket.

This is still one of my favorites. The whole time I was on edge, and this was the first episode that really kept me up at night. I went from wanting to know what was inside the coffin desperately, to wanting to stay away from it as much as possible. Joshua’s insuring dread and creative solution to his problems was fantastic, and it ends with some intriguing plot threads being set up.

- Episode 3, Across The Street 📓

Statement of Amy Patel, regarding the alleged disappearance of her acquaintance Graham Folger.

I think I share a common sentiment when I say that Amy stalking Graham was almost as creepy as the actual horror lmao. Overall I don’t have that much to say about this one, but it was very enjoyable, and I feel really bad for Graham in retrospect :(.

- Episode 4, Pageturner 📕

Statement of Dominic Swain, regarding a book briefly in his possession in the winter of 2012.

I…feel like I should hold off on talking about this one for now. While it was definitely well written and creepy, it just seems to be so full of setup for future plot lines that I almost don’t feel like I can form a concise opinion on it until I really get what’s going on. Honestly, my only complaint with this episode is that maybe it’s setting up TOO much in one go, but I still had a good time with it overall.

- Episode 5, Thrown Away 🗑️

Statement of Kieran Woodward, regarding items recovered from the refuse of 93 Lancaster Road, Walthamstowe.

This one actually did a pretty good job at getting me to think about waste disposal workers lmao, I never really thought about them like that before. This one was just really creepy, but also kind of fun in a weird twisted way. It did a great job keeping me on edge as well.

- Episode 6, Squirm 🪱

Statement of Timothy Hodge, regarding his sexual encounter with Harriet Lee and her subsequent death.

I am simultaneously horrified, and unfortunately aroused by what happened here.

- Episode 7, The Piper 🔫

Statement of Staff Sgt. Clarence Berry, regarding his time serving with Wilfred Owen in the Great War.

Having an episode set nearly 100 years ago is a really fun idea, and it’s executed perfectly here. It was interesting how it also featured a real person, and I liked how the paranormal activity felt more metaphorical here, it really did feel like it was showcasing the horror of war.

- Episode 8, Burned Out 🌳

Statement of Ivo Lensik, regarding his experiences during the construction of a house on Hill Top Road, Oxford.

I found this one to be very nerve-wracking, since not only was the whole scenario with the tree just, like…three creepy things happening at once, but the fact that the statement was given by someone with schizophrenia did a good job making me question it’s validity, even though I’m certain it’s true after listening to a later statement. I also hope that I get to see how the history of the house is unveiled in the future.

- Episode 9, A Father’s Love 💡

Statement of Julia Montauk, regarding the actions and motivations of her father, the serial killer Robert Montauk.

This one made me feel really sad :(. I really felt Julia’s despair in this one (Jonathan Sims does such great voice acting for every statement btw, both the character and the actual person), and I was even more saddened by the implications of why Robert did what he did. If my assumptions are correct, then…SCREW THE MOTHER! It was also the first one that got me thinking about where exactly all of the paranormal stuff comes from, and later episodes only add to my theory that it’s all due to demons/cults/higher powers.

- Episode 10, Vampire Killer 🧛🏻

Statement of Trevor Herbert, regarding his life as a self-proclaimed vampire hunter.

Much like Episode 8, this one did a really good job at making me question the validity of the statement, although I became more sure of its truth a bit earlier. I also just love how nonchalant Trevor comes off as, compared to all of the other traumatized horror victims. (Also, I’m guessing that the name Trevor and the episode title are meant to be a Castlevania reference?) While vampires aren’t the most creative thing for an episode, at least in comparison to everything else, the beast-like execution here more than made up for it in my opinion.

- Episode 11, Dreamer 💭

Statement of Antonio Blake, regarding his recent dreams about Gertrude Robinson, previous Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.

Yeah…Gertrude Robinson did not die a normal death. My guess is that she was caught by ✨the horrors✨, but I’ll wait and see. This was another very tense episode, with the prophetic dream world being really, REALLY creepy. I do hope we get to see more of “Antonio” in the future, as I think he could be quite important. (I also hope he gets punched for DUMPING GRAHAM IN HIS TIME OF NEED-)

- Episode 12, First Aid 🏥

Statement of Lesere Saraki, regarding a recent night-shift at St. Thomas Hospital, London.

OMG GERARD KEAY HI HI HI HI HOW ARE YOU!!! Yeah I audibly gasped when he showed up again, it was such a cool moment. Anyways, hospitals already creep me the fuck out so this was pretty effective. Definitely some great setup here, and it helped to make a bit more sense of Pageturner, now that I have a better idea of what Gerard’s whole deal is. It also added some good fuel to the whole cult idea, and my god this poor nurse. Having to deal with all of this in a single night sounds like hell.

- Episode 13, Alone 🌫️

Statement of Naomi Herne, regarding the events following the funeral of her fiancé, Evan Lukas. Statement taken direct from subject.

Having a new voice in this episode was really cool, and Katie Davison did an excellent job as Naomi! It was also cool to see how Jon interacts with other people, he was…nicer than expected. This episode honestly felt like it was calling me out, as I am also someone who’s confident in my independence, but if I was in Naomi’s place I would also probably be scared shitless. I really hope she’ll get a happy ending :(. Also, The Lukas family is quite intriguing, especially since we now know they have a connection to The Institute…

- Episode 14, Piecemeal 👆

Statement of Lee Rentoul, regarding the murder of his associate Paul Noriega.

Firstly, this is probably my favorite of Jon’s vocal deliveries. His performance of Lee Rentoul just feels perfect. (Once again, this applies to both the writer and the character, I’m genuinely convinced the latter is an ex-theatre kid.) Outside of that, THIS ONE CREEPED ME OUT. The body horror was very effective, with the only thing holding it back being the fact that Lee isn’t the most likable protagonist in the podcast, but if this happened to someone else I’d be even more upset. Still though, it was a very creative concept, and the whole vibe and execution of the episode made it great.

- Episode 15, Lost Johns’ Cave 🕯️

Statement of Laura Popham, regarding her experience exploring the Three Counties System of caves with her sister Alena Sanderson.

What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fu-

- Episode 16, Arachnophobia 🕷️

Statement of Carlos Vittery, regarding his arachnophobia and its manifestations.

The way they tackled the concept in the title was really well done. Arachnophobia is seen as an irrational fear by a lot of people, so having it portrayed as an effect of childhood trauma was a good call. And as someone who is not arachnophobic, this episode got me close to feeling that way. What ever force was making Carlos relive his trauma is a sick fuck. Also the cat was a real one, glad he survived the whole situation. (Also THE WORMS, HOLY SHIT IT’S THE SEX WORMS!!!)

- Episode 17, The Boneturner’s Tale 🦴

Statement of Sebastian Adekoya, regarding a new acquisition at Chiswick Library.

This episode really compelled me to get out the rubber bands connecting images lmao. I really liked all of the connections to past statements here, like the presence of another book from the library of Jurgen Leitner, to the mention of Micheal Crew. The body horror here was once again very creepy, (outside of the flat rat, that was morbidly funny), but my favorite part of the episode was the introduction of Elias, which was a humorous, but also very intriguing scene. Also, the themes of books containing power was great as well. Great stuff all around.

- Episode 18, The Man Upstairs 🥩

Statement of Christof Rudenko, regarding his interactions with a first floor resident of Welbeck House, Wandsworth.

…ew. Ok in all seriousness, this is probably my least favorite episode so far. Still very far from bad, but after all of the extremely interesting themes and plot threads, having an episode where the idea was just “What if a guy had a house covered in meat? Wouldn’t that be fucked up?”, felt just a little bit underwhelming. Which like, the fact that my least favorite episode’s biggest problem is that I find it slightly pales in comparison to previous ones is just a testament to how much I’ve been enjoying the podcast. Still though, there were definitely a few things I really liked. The reveal of the room was creepy (especially considering the meat that seemed…alive…), and as someone who has had to deal with upstairs neighbors making noise for hours during construction, this episode definitely scared me.

- Episode 19, Confession, and Episode 20, Desecrated Host ✝️

Statement of Father Edwin Burroughs, regarding his claimed demonic possession.

This, alongside Lost Johns’ Cave, was one (or I guess, two…) of those episodes that seriously fucked me up. While I am not religious, I have always had fears of how religion can negatively affect me and the people around me, despite the good that it seems to do for so many people. So seeing Edwin be charged for every “sin” he committed by a higher power that wishes to steal its faith, and then not get judged by it, but by the people around him for his one true sin, was absolutely haunting, and I hope he turns out ok in the end. Outside of the horror, the episodes were fantastic. Listening to the events of Episode 8 from Edwin’s perspective, and seeing how Ivo’s actions saved him, was really cool, and solidifies in my mind that Ivo’s experience was real. The connections to demonic magic and Latin script thickened, and it was overall just a great mid-season finale. In conclusion, I hope that Martin feels better soon, and if he isn’t actually sick and is being plagued by ✨the horrors✨, well then I hope he survives :).

Thank you for reading my silly little thoughts if you’ve made it this far, it really means a lot to me :). I’ll probably update this every time I finish half of a season, so hopefully my thoughts on episodes 21-40 will be here in the Reblogs soon. :)