#me : i should be insane by searching for important whos for my who post but that's it

[netscapenavigaytor]

me smiling serenely: i love house of leaves but i understand that its an incredibly difficult book to get into and is really, REALLY not for everyone, and johnny truant's... everything can make like half the book difficult to get through if you don't IMMEDIATELY click with his character

some complete stranger minding their business: house of leaves kinda sucks and johnny truant ruined the book. just skip his parts

me, crying screaming throwing up etc.: SHUT UP...... SHUT UP.............. LEAVE ME OLONE

[strwbrymlkshake]

I wanna post about my recovery + ramble in tags at the same time but I'm not motivated enough to come up with a mediocre yandere post rn , so just know that my life is going?? Somewhat good in terms of romance

[sh1nsoukoku]

Pls tell me all dazai autism traits in ur list

OMG I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED, yes yes yes…

I want to preface this by saying this is in no means supposed to be canon facts or a diagnosis, I just think he is a very autistic-coded character coming from my own experiences as an autistic adult!

Long post under the cut because I don’t know how to stfu!!!

We will start with my main reasoning:

As we know, Dazai and his ability are based off of the work No Longer Human. Dazai being similar to the main character Yozo. Yozo is a kind of “stand in” for the real life author Osamu Dazai as No Longer Human contains a lot of real events from the author’s life. BSD Dazai and Yozo’s main similarities are the disconnection from others and high masking. Here are two quotes from the book:

“All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about? How should I say it? - I don’t know.”

This is incredibly similar to the lived experiences of Autistic people. I used to feel like an alien, or just fundamentally different than others. We tend to also struggle with communicating and other social dynamics. Dazai feels isolated from others, let’s very few people close, and searches for meaning by observing other humans and life and death itself. He quotes this as his reason for joining the Mafia. He also processes emotion differently, at odds with people around him.

“I managed to maintain on the surface a smile which never deserted my lips; this was the accommodation I offered to others, a most precarious achievement performed by me only at the cost of excruciating efforts within.”

This is one of the best descriptions I have read of Autistic Masking. Dazai HIGHLY masks. Dazai is known for not showing his true thoughts/feelings/opinions often in BSD. He can code switch easily, serious in one moment and then covering it with his over the top silly/unusual/maniacal personality. In NLH this is described as “clowning.” I also think Dazai’s genius “always according to plan” thing is sometimes a mask, so he doesn’t show the fact that he’s working hard to pull strings and figure things out.

He does have some insane pattern recognition though which is also an autistic attribute!

And now for the more surface level reasons:

Repetitive Behavior/Media Consumption: Dazai reads the same book over and over again. The Ultimate Guide to Suicide is a book he’s had with him since his PM days and he tells Atsushi that he already knows everything it says because he’s read it hundreds of times. A very common autistic trait!

Restricted Diet: Dazai seems to have a limited diet consisting of alcohol and canned crab! It’s a same food/safe food he has often. His room was described to be full of discarded cans of crab and bottles. Limited diets are common in autistic people.

Stimming: Dazai stims! He is a very wiggly and stimmy person. There’s several scenes where he is seen humming and singing or making little silly noises.

Dazai and his headphones are so important to me.. he seems to wear them frequently around the office. It could be noise cancelling or auditory stimulation that he likes.

The man never sits normally on a chair which is something I think a lot of neurodivergent people can relate to.

And of course floor time! Shown by him rolling around when stressed, laying on the rooftop and a few instances in Wan! like the marshmallow scene.

Also you can’t tell me that this is not two burnt out autistics after overworking their brains…

[bau-drabbles]

a/n: inspired from all the prev posts!

your insta but you're dating aaron hotchner part 2 :")

part 1, 3, 4

liked by kate.callahan, the.davidrossi and 497 others

y/n_xo: look at my faves 🫶🥹.... and then there's aaron

view all 211 comments

its.emilyp: jumpscare warning next time 😨

d.morgan: nah he looks like he's concocting some evil plan

penny.garcia: he looks like he's going to steal christmas

reid.gram: he looks like he kidnapped my mom and held her hostage somewhere 😦

itsjj: just smile and wave, kids. smile and wave 🥲

d.morgan: crop him out next time fr 🙏

a.hotch: i'll crop you out of the team

d.morgan: say less 😍😮‍💨 least ion have an ugly smile

a.hotch: what smile? you just bare your teeth

y/n_xo: oh 😭

liked by penny.garcia, reid.gram and 489 others

y/n_xo: meme jack really quickly 🫣

view all 278 comments

reid.gram: jack is me when hotch is asking me to get to the point even though my point was the whole theory 🙂

penny.garcia: omg me when he tells me to search something more quickly even though i'm already working high speed 🙂

itsjj: me when he plants more files on my desk even though i'm drowning in the last ones 🙂

its.emilyp: he's me that one time hotch did "team building" and then proceeded to complain the whole time 🙂

d.morgan: me when i made one mistake and he held it against me for months but goes on about forgiving and how its important to move on 🙂

the.davidrossi: me looking at him ogling @/y/n_xo for months and then passionately disagreeing he was in love

y/n_xo: so i'm sensing some of you need therapy 🧍‍♀️

a.hotch: all of you are dead to me

liked by its.emilyp, itsjj and 524 others

y/n_xo: i really got replaced 💔

view all 200 comments

the.davidrossi: WHERE are you finding these???

itsjj: so... who's the wife in the relationship? 🤔

its.emilyp: it's rossi for sure

reid.gram: i would say hotch. the angle of the selfie says it all

d.morgan: nah it gotta be rossi, he types and cooks like a mom. sometimes he even be smelling like one

the.davidrossi: all of you are out of my will

d.morgan: i complimented your cooking and this is the attitude i get? choke

its.emilyp: you're probably immortal at this point, poisoning and sucking the life out of other people so you can drive us to insanity which would inevitably lead us to our doom. but i see right through you 😒

itsjj: sweetheart we need to stop watching horror movies at night time, okay?

a.hotch: it's not what it looks like!

y/n_xo: i don't know if i should cry or be disgusted >:(

a.hotch: baby, i haven't cheated. i promise you ❤

y/n_xo: omg could you imagine if you did with rossi? 💀

the.davidrossi: what is that supposed to mean? 🤨

reid.gram: she means you're old and embarrassing. and maybe even disgusting 🤷‍♂️

y/n_xo: i will physically mutilate you and feed you to wild dogs

itsjj: thanks for that, my kids are crying

liked by the.davidrossi, a.hotch and 478 others

y/n_xo: my bae 😍

view all 234 comments

reid.gram: we literally have a pending case right now y/n

y/n_xo: okay? he's still a bae 😍

reid.gram: awww really? hope you guys find out you're related 😍🤞

penny.garcia: well... at least we know those frown lines are removable 😌

reid.gram: in a time like this, his frown lines are what matters to you? imagine if he was dead

itsjj: omg imagine he was and you guys were discussing his frown lines. i'd resurrect and haunt everyone on this thread

reid.gram: don't worry, your cheeto breath would give you away instantly 🤢

penny.garcia: all i'm saying is i'd want to make sure our boss got a nice makeover one last time in the coffin. and you can't do that if you have bad indentations on your forehead 💗💗

itsjj: this alone should give you employee of the year 😍

a.hotch: i think we need to have a serious talk

d.morgan: seeing hotch not angry makes me feel deeply uncomfortable

its.emilyp: no cause same. someone poke him and see if he's alive

y/n_xo: you'd think i'd kill him? 😡

its.emilyp: if you did, there'd be no one between us would there? 😏

y/n_xo: 😳

a.hotch: i'm wide awake, thank you 😠

its.emilyp: its like he's still with us 😢 i can almost feel his presence 💔

[1moreff-creator]

Everything We Know About Mai Akasaki + So Many Theories

AKA, me going insane over a character with exactly nine seconds of main series screen time so far. I checked.

At this point, it's probably fair to say that Mai Akasaki is by far the most mysterious aspect of DRDT. A character we only learn about in short, cryptic bouts of information, yet one which seems intrinsically linked with the series' plot and characters. We know extremely little about her, and what we do know, it's usually speculative.

However, it's still really interesting to talk about this funky little woman, and try to figure out what exactly her deal is. Join me in insanity land, as I compile everything I could find about her, and speculate on her story! I can practically guarantee that you'll learn something new.

WARNING: Insanely long post. I reached the 30 image limit, to give you an idea of how crazy this is.

Wait, Who?

Her! <3

(A lot of what I'm about to say come from this post by despairing-disaster and this one by akemiai, huge shout out to them!)

For the uninitiated, Mai Akasaki is the secret seventeenth student of the DRDT cast, hidden somehwere in this school wait no that's Mukuro. Her name can be found in the hidden quote in MonoTV's character profile, which itself is found by doing "inspect element" on said page.

Her name is Mai Akasaki

(I am such a hacker)

Typing in https://danganronpadespairtime.tumblr.com/maiakasaki (or clicking there) takes you to a pretty empty page, with this text:

All you have to do is ask for my hand, and I'll give it to you. Ask for my life, and I'll give it to you as well. Don't apologize for asking, I'll give you my forgiveness too.

As you'll see later, this quote is probably something Mai would say.

And this hidden quote:

"Are you still searching for a secret? For some explanation that will satisfy you? There's no answer I can give you that will make you happy. Maybe I should have lied instead. I'm sorry."

Note the quotes, which as far as I can tell, aren't in any of the other hidden phrases. That said, spoilers, I don’t have any idea what this means.

You may aso have noticed some highlighted letters in that first quote. Typing those in, https://danganronpadespairtime.tumblr.com/aoaviepkro, takes you to the most important page for our purposes:

(Also, you can just look it up on google nowadays)

Mai Akasaki's character profile. And yes, it's the girl Teruko remembers after being stabbed by Xander, in episode 6 of chapter 1. After that memory, Teruko thinks:

It's strange I would remember her now, of all times. What was her name again? It's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't remember. Xander always reminded me of that girl. Perhaps that's why I'm thinking about her now. They looked similar, with that same red hair and smile. And... they both wanted to help, didn't they?

Teruko and her clearly have something going on, but we'll get to it later (take a shot every time I say something like that). For now, we have to dive into the profile.

Profile of Someone Dearly Loved

Basic Info

She's listed as the "Ultimate ???", likes phone charms and dislikes silence. She's 5'8'' tall, weighing 124 lbs and with a chest sie of 30 in. I doubt anyone cares about the latter. Her birthday is February first, which you may want to keep in mind for later.

The Subtitle Quote

As every character does, Mai has a quote right under her name. In her case, "There's a way for you to be happy". Keep in mind these quotes are usually things the characters would say, and as you'll see in a moment, that fits.

However, what's interesting is that this quote was not the one originally there when Mai's page was first found. It changed. It used to be, apparently, "Anything, anything at all..."

What I don't know is when it changed, or why. The earliest reference I can find to the change is this post by stfu-sage, the 20th of March, 2023. This is just three days after the release of Ch 2 Ep 8, but that feels like quite a strange time for it to change, especially since we don’t know how many days passed without anyone checking the profile. I feel it makes more sense if it had changed either with the release of Ch 2 or with the BDA on chapter 7. Regardless, the exact time doesn’t matter much.

What do these lines mean, though? Well, starting with “Anything, anything at all”, I believe it’s related to line from the Mai Akasaki URL. You know, “All you have to do is ask for my hand, and I’ll give it to you…”, that one. When you read them together, it makes sense:

All you have to do is ask for my hand, and I'll give it to you. Ask for my life, and I’ll give it to you as well. […] [You can ask for] Anything, anything at all.

Considering the code for Mai’s profile is in the “ask for my hand” line, I think it makes sense.

Then, the changed quote, “There’s a way for you to be happy”. Considering the general time for the change, is it possible this is something Mai said to Arei, during their time at Hope's Peak? It's the best I have for now, but I feel we may need more context to know what this is about.

In any case, I can't gather much more from the subtitle quote. Although I do feel like pointing out, Mai’s quote is somewhat unique in that none of the words are highlighted. All the other characters have one or a few words highlighted (eg: Arei - secret, Teruko - no matter what), except MonoTV and Mai. Don’t think it means anything, but it’s there.

Hidden Quotes

And here we have it. The most important part of Mai theorizing. Whenever you refresh the page, a new body of text appears, which is related to a specific character via the code of the website. You can see in the screenshot I took, it says “A girl with many friends”. But here’s a full list of all the possibilities:

Teruko: Some years ago, she was searching for someone named ‘Teruko Tawaki.’ Charles: A girl who loves her family. Rose: She remembers everything that is important to others. Arturo: A girl who sees the beauty in everyone. Levi: A girl with a floral tattoo on her arm. Whit: A girl with many friends. Eden: She kept calling the number, even though no one picked it up. J: She kept it a secret, and told no one. Hu: A girl who wanted to keep everyone safe. Nico: Everyone confided in her. Ace: A girl who had a bright future. Arei: She doesn’t like it when her friends fight. Min: An average girl with nothing special at all about her. Xander: She couldn’t stand to do nothing. Veronika: A girl who didn’t foresee the consequences. David: She forgives everyone. MonoTV: It’s all your fault.

You may notice the order is somewhat peculiar, and it's for a good reason. It's the order the "bios" (name of the variable in the source code... I think that's how that works) are laid out in the source code of Mai's page.

... I know you can barely see and not all of them are on frame, but just trust me. If you want to check for yourself, you can go to the profile's source code (Ctrl U), and either scroll to almost the bottom, or just search (Ctrl F) for a word like "average" or "confided" which only shows up in the "bios". There's probably easier ways to go about it, but this is how I got there. I'm telling you this because it took me like an hour to find out where the hell the order came from. I am not good at computers.

However, for now, let's just ignore the order (and the tenses of the sentences, I swear I'll get there) and focus on the main points for now.

+Mai is extremely well-liked by the other members of the cast. In particular, some of the quotes compliment her based on faults the character attached to them has.

>Arturo is extremely judgemental based on ugliness, but Mai "sees the beauty in everyone".

>Charles forgot his dead brother, but Mai "loves her family".

>Rose is absentminded and often forgets things if she doesn't see them, but Mai "remembers everything that is important to others".

>The hidden quote on Ace's page has him saying "I don't know what to do with myself anymore", suggesting a lack of control over his future, but Mai "had a bright future".

>Arei constantly causes altercations between the cast, but Mai "doesn't like it when her friends fight".

However, plenty of quotes are simply good qualities, such as Hu's "A girl who wanted to keep everyone safe". The point is, everyone seemingly adored this girl.

+Mai is good at keeping secrets, as implied by J's and Nico's quotes ("She kept it a secret, and told no one" and "Everyone confided in her", respectively). Those same quotes actually seem to imply Mai likely knew those two's secrets, and possibly a lot of the others.

+Among other things, Mai is compassionate, forgiving, friendly, and generally a positive presence.

+Mai and Teruko have a particularly strange relationship. We'll come back to this.

+Mai seemingly did... something, and it brought consequences. This is implied by the quotes of Xander ("she couldn't stand to do nothing") and Veronika ("A girl who didn't foresee the consequences"). But, what was it? Well, to get a better idea, we need to take a look at... the Bonus Episodes.

A Not-So-Unnamed-Classmate

Technically-a-Theory: Mai is the Unnamed Classmate

I say "technically" because I'm pretty sure no one actually disagrees with this. Yes, technically it's never been confirmed, but it seems likely Mai is the Unnamed Classmate who shows up in both of the Bonus Episodes we have so far. The PoV character in both of those episodes has the same voice, which sounds like a girl's, and their personality seems to fit with the very little we know of Mai.

Additionally, as you’ll see, the text boxes in the Bonus Episodes are surrounded by flowers which look very similar to the ones in Mai’s tattoo, further connecting them.

It's not much, but since we don't know anyone else who could be Unnamed Classmate, they and Mai are likely the same person.

With this clarified, let's talk about Unnamed Classmate.

Bonus Episode #1

This episode is mostly focused on Min and the history of Hope's Peak, but we can still start to grasp a bit of Mai's personality. She seems generally upbeat and somewhat bubbly, and we can see glimpses of her kind and caring qualities when she comforts Min near the end of the episode.

There's also a few lines which actually tell us a few more concrete things about her, though. I won't post them in chronological order, btw.

Min: Hey! Put your textbook away! Don’t cheat!

Seemingly an insignificant joke, but it does help establish Mai as slightly mischievous/cheeky, which will be expanded upon later. Other indications of this cheekiness include Mai comlimenting Min and trying to distract her by talking about the sky and her backstory, presumably to procrastinate. I may be reading too much into it, but I really don't think Mai is as easily distracted as she makes herself out to be.

Mai: Auughh, the test is too soon, there’s no way I’ll have enough time! I’m totally going to fail!

Mai: I'm sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you to help me study--

Mai: I see. That's how you got your talent. I'm ashamed that I'm only now learning something so important. I'm sorry.

(Yes, I had to bunch a few of these images together because I ran into the Tumblr 30 image limit)

A few lines which seem innocuous at first, but when paired together, they hint at something. Essentially, I believe this implies Mai doubts her abilities and actions, and may even have a self-deprecating streak. She's at the very least much harsher on herself than she is on others. It sounds like a stretch, but I swear it's not as farfetched as it seems.

Mai: You're somebody who buys fish-shaped pastries and saves the chocolate-filled ones for me, because you know that those are my favorite.

Mai likes chocolate-filled pastries. Hey, when I said “everything we know about Mai”, I meant everything (that I could find).

Min: I suppose for someone like you who doesn't care too much about Hope's Peak and who, no offense, would never be eligible for the [Ultimate Contest for Eminent Students] with such average grades...

Min: You might not do very well in school, but you're quite sharp.

Put simply, Mai has average grades, but is still considered smart by Min. Her intelligence is visible throughout the episodes, mainly in the form of emotional intelligence and a hint of deception (that's where the mischieviousness comes in).

However, perhaps it’s the first phrase which is most interesting. Mai “doesn’t care too much about Hope’s Peak”. Which is only reiterated by the following lines.

Min: Maybe someone like you who never cared about Hope’s Peak Academy wouldn’t understand. But it’s everyone else’s dream to be an Ultimate.

Mai: Ultimates aren’t everything. As if I’m only friends with you because of your talent. There’s more to you than that.

Mai seems to have a much more laissez-faire approach to the concept of Hope’s Peak and Ultimates than what Min considers normal. By itself, this isn’t too strange, as we know there’s other people not too attached to their status as Ultimates. However, this actually may have something to do with the incident implied in Xander’s and Veronika’s quotes. I’ll get to it later (overused phrase of the day), but for now, keep this in mind.

Nevertheless, there is one more theory affected by this nonchalance towards Hope’s Peak. Except, it’s a theory I believe is actually harmed by this attitude.

Good Theory I Don’t Believe: Mai is a Reserve Course Student

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool theory! I just don’t think it works all the way.

Essentially, this theory is what it says in the tin. Mai is the Ultimate ??? because she’s actually a Reserve Course student, a la Hajime Hinata. There are many good posts on this theory, like this one by delightfullydiscordant, and I recommend you read them since they’re well put together! Some of the main points of this theory include:

>Min’s quote for Mai is “An average girl with nothing special at all about her.”, which could imply she doesn’t have a talent. However, there are other interpretations for this line, so it’s far from conclusive.

>Mai seems to be wearing a Japanese Hope’s Peak uniform (check out this post by laly-481), but the jacket around Mai’s waist is darker than the one worn by Ultimates in DR 3. Instead, it seems closer to a Reserve Course jacket. The issue I have with this is that… well, we know very little about what the Japanese Hope’s Peak in the DRDT universe looks like, so this feels a bit vague.

>

Mai: You’re not nobody. Even if I pretend that you’re not an Ultimate and that we’re not both students in Hope’s Peak Academy, you’re still somebody to me.

I’ll ask you to ignore the lesbians for a moment and focus on the beginning of the quote. If you look at it closely, it seems to imply both Mai and Min are Hope’s Peak alumni, but they’re not both Ultimates. Thereby, Mai must be a Reserve Course student.

However, I actually have a different interpretation of that quote, one which, you guessed it, I’ll get to later. But for now, if we’re going to get involved in semantics, we also have to look at this line:

Mai: The US Hope's Peak Academy takes in college-age students, and there's two of them, and we have this really weird curriculum, and there's a bunch of other things, and...

Min: Remember that we’re East Class 27, so that means that Hope’s Peak is how many years old?

Min: Look at what our classmates are doing now. They're Ultimates too. They're all doing things relevant to their career, if not actually out working.

Min saying “we're class 27" could be interpreted as her simply referring to herself and the other Ultimates, but even then, referring to "our classmates" while talking to Mai implies they're in the same class. Also, Mai saying "we have" a weird curriculum feels odd unless both she and Min have the same curriculum, meaning both of them likely attend the same classes, thus again, both are Ultimates.

But that’s only a minor problem. In truth, there are other reasons I believe Mai has a talent, and I even have a guess of what that talent may be. But the main one is what we just established: Mai never really cared about Hope’s Peak.

I admittedly may be missing some context, since I’ve never watched DR 3, but from what I know, Reserve Course students are usually characterized as people who desperately want to be Ultimates and are obsessed with Hope’s Peak, which doesn’t fit Mai at all. You could argue maybe she went to Hope's Peak to search for Teruko as Teruko's quote implies, but the problem with that is that Teruko remembers Mai, at least a little bit (see: dream sequence), which means they should have reunited before Hope's Peak, since the last thing Teruko remembers before the "amnesia zone" is going to Hope's Peak's entrance ceremony.

Not to mention, we… can’t even be sure the Reserve Course exists. For as much info as we got from the Bonus Episode #1, that course was never even mentioned. And seeing this is a post-Tragedy world, the Reserve Course may not even exist. Especially when Min also says that actually being an Ultimate is considered more important than going to Hope’s Peak in the US.

So, final verdict on this theory? While it’s quite interesting and I definitely think it’s more plausible than many of the other things I’ll bring up, I don’t find it to be the most likely, again because Mai’s disinterest in Hope’s Peak pushes her away from the standard Reserve Course student, and because I prefer a different theory about her talent.

And with that, we’re done with the first Bonus Episode for now! Let’s see what the second one brings.

Bonus Episode #2

This one, surprisingly, has fewer lines which gives us info about Mai. However, what it does give us is arguably some of the most important intel we have so far.

Mai: No, it’s fine. Don’t think you’re making me come with you. I'm here because I want to be here.

Mai: [Xander reimbursing her for the trip]'s silly. I can pay for it myself. Besides, you're letting me stay at your place for a week, so if anything, you're doing me a favor.

The first just reiterates that Mai is compassionate and wants to help whenever she can. As for the second, it seems to imply Mai doesn't struggle too much with money, which is info I guess. However, she also says Xander is doing her a favor by letting her stay over. I think that just means the expenses of living wherever she's living for a week exceed the expenses of the trips? I don't see any other reason that would be considered a favor in that aspect. I considered maybe Mai could have a bad home life, but in the secret quotes:

Charles: A girl who loves her family

So, I don't think that's the case. I think it really is just a money thing, and we don't have to overthink it too much.

Mai: 'Oh, speaking of Hope's Peak. I need to ask Xander if he found that document I asked him to look for.'

Mai: 'I didn't want to unload the work on him, but he's much better at digging up stuff than I am.'

Mai: 'But it's definitely not something I should bring up in a public place. I'll remember to ask him later'.

And here we are. The single biggest Mai-related reveal in the Bonus Episodes. Her and Xander were involved in some sort of secretive operation related to Hope's Peak. In particular, seemingly during their trip to visit the graves of Xander's family, Mai asked Xander to retrieve a document related to the Academy, a document they shouldn't discuss in public. In fact, right after this, Mai changes the subject to Xander's eyes so as to not talk about it, again showing she can be somewhat deceptive when she needs to.

This might be related to Teruko's claim that "[Xander and Mai] both wanted to help", but it seems impossible for her to remember anything which happened during HPA (Hope's Peak Academy, got tired of writing it out) time, so I still don't know what she actually meant by that.

Nevertheless, it's pretty obvious that whatever this is, it would be bad news for HPA. I mean, if Xander's involved, there's no way it's good for an institution. But it also ties back to Mai's critical view of HPA and the Ultimate title.

However, messing with something as powerful as HPA could be pretty dangerous. Thus, I believe this little operation is likely what's being referred to in Xander's and Veronika's quotes.

Xander: She couldn’t stand to do nothing. Veronika: A girl who didn’t foresee the consequences.

(By the way, Xander's quote in particular is why I don't quite believe the theory that the document mentioned here is only to get Teruko into HPA somehow. It's a cool theory, but Xander's quote feels a bit too dramatic for that to be the end goal of Mai's plans)

I mean, for one, it's Xander saying Mai did something, and messing with HPA could have quite drastic consequences, from what we know. Thus, from now on, I will henceforth call this vague action against HPA "the HPA Operation", because saying "that thing Mai did which Xander's and Veronika's quotes allude to" is gonna get tiring.

What exactly the HP Operation was, I obviously don't know, we're on chapter 2 of the series and this is quite clearly a mystery which may last until chapter 6 (assuming a standard DR formula).

However, I can tell you one thing. It may not fully be Mai's idea.

Mai: If you set out to do something, then never give up on that, no matter what obstacles may stand in your way. Even if it's risky or against the rules, as long as it's for a good cause...

Mai: I'll trust that you know to do the right thing.

Xander: Yeah, of course (NOT PICTURED)

Xander: That's why I've come to Hope's Peak, isn't it?

The lines about the HPA document appear right after this, although Mai does seem confused at first by Xander's claim that "that's why [he's come] to Hope's Peak". So although Mai is the one who asked Xander to find the document, it's possible the basic idea to go against HPA came from Xander. After all, remember. Mai never cared much about HPA, so it seems unlikely she paid enough attention to it to notice its flaws as quickly as Xander would. Ultimate Rebel, and all that.

However, even if Xander was the one who planted the idea of revolution in Mai's head, she's clearly invested in it. She tells Xander to never give up on anything he sets out to do, even if it's risky or against the rules.

So, there it is. So far, what we know about the HPA Operation is:

>Mai and Xander were heavily involved.

>It may have originally been Xander's idea, but Mai seems to have taken the role of tactician at some point.

>HPA likely wasn't too happy with it.

>It likely had horrible consequences for Mai.

And that's all we had for a while, as Chapter 2 Part 1 didn't add anything to the conversation. Well, except maybe a thought Teruko has when Arei starts crying after her breakdown in the playground:

That pitiful crying... It reminds me of... Of...

That could be about Mai, but I really don't know what it could mean, so I'm sorta ignoring it for now.

So, yeah. Nothing new.

Until it came out.

Going (Literature Girl) Insane

Yeah, the David MV. Mai is listed in the cast list as a secondary character, though her name is crossed out. This likely refers to the portrait of her seen in the background.

The portrait of Mai is labeled "portrait of someone dearly loved", while Teruko's is labeled "portrait of someone dearly unloved", the words flipped. This is one of many things which seem to imply Teruko and Mai are meant to be opposites of each other.

There is also that one image of a girl whose identity is unclear.

It doesn't look like Mai, but maybe that's my prosopagnosiac ass assuming different hair = different person. Generally, people assume this is "Diana Chiem", if she even exists, though I somewhat lean on it possibly being the mysterious name out of frame in the cast list. You know, the name which vaguely looks like "Ms Naegi". However, I'm showing you the image to get a second opinion on something.

You see the hand Mystery Girl is holding? Doesn't it look like it's wearing a glove? Because of the white line in the wrist. Maybe I'm going insane, that could just be a bend of the wrist, but... I kinda don't see it? It makes a bit more sense to me as a glove. And since it doesn't seem to be cut off at the fingers like Xander's, it would have to be Mai's. Other characters also wear this type of glove, but they’re not on the cast list.

The counterpoint is that it looks like you can see the nail of the PoV person's thumb, but I'm not sure that's the case? That part of the sprite is really strange and seems to be different in all three of the Mystery Girl images, so I can't tell. Anywyas, if any of you have ideas, tell me. Again, it's most likely I'm overthinking and that's just a bend of the wrist.

Anyways, enough dillydally, let's get to the big stuff.

The Roman numeral

As you may or may not know, during the MV we’re shown a crossword puzzle which is solved with the characters’ names, and this assigns each character with a different Roman numeral. This numeral later shows up attached to some kind of phrase, which in turn relates that character back to the phrase. I made a post talking about all of them, but I'll go more in detail about Mai's in this post than I did in that post.

Solution by raspbeyes

In the crosswords, Mai intersects Arei and Levi. I don't think this means much by itself, since the way the names intersect doesn't seem to be too important in general. Like, yes, if you squint you can see things like Whit only intersecting Charles, but there's also things like Min only intersecting Arei, Eden only intersecting Rose, Veronika intersecting everyone and their morther... My point is, the exact position in the crosswords doesn't tend to matter much.

What's more important are the numerals. Mai's is XI (11), a number which, from my research, is related to leadership and bringing out the best in others, as well as nobility or higher conciousness and spirituality and knowledge and new beginnings- Okay, the point is, I found mostly inconclusive stuff, but a lot of this sort of relates back to Mai, so we take it.

And the phrase itself:

XI. God is dead

What could this mean? Well, in philosophy, the phrase "God is dead" refers to the breakdown of ethical and sociocultural structures as christianity and religion in general became less universal. So, loss in faith in an institution leads to changes in the status quo. One way to interpret this in the context of this numeral is that Hope's Peak is the "God", and Mai's actions involved a loss on faith on HPA, and everything which comes with it. This could even be related to the phrase which directly follows this numeral in the song, "become brainwashed: go do it!". If HPA's propaganda which makes everyone love Ultimates can be considered brainwashing, anyways.

...

But that's not what any of us first thought when we read that, is it?

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Is Mai Dead?

Yeah, we gotta talk about the elephant in the room.

You'll have noticed, lots of the hidden quotes on Mai's profile speak about her in the past tense. This already had people thinking she was dead since it was first found, but the MV really drove the point home. Considering how the characters think about Mai, it's not impossible to imagine Mai is the "God" here, and "God is dead" has a far more literal meaning.

But, let's hold our horses here, no need to kill her so quickly. There is a chance she's alive.

Coping With the Quotes

Like I said, some of these quotes speak about her as if she's dead, but some of them actually talk about Mai in the present tense. Here, I sorted them out.

Referring to a past event:

Teruko: Some years ago, she was searching for someone named ‘Teruko Tawaki.’ Eden: She kept calling the number, even though no one picked it up. J: She kept it a secret, and told no one. Xander: She couldn’t stand to do nothing. Veronika: A girl who didn’t foresee the consequences.

These are phrases which can't be used to determine Mai's status, since they talk about a specific thing which she did. Even if she's alive, these would still be in the past tense. Teruko's is explicitly talking about years ago; J and Eden are talking about things Mai probably did during her time at HP; and Xander's and Veronika's talk about the HPA Operation. These are inconclusive.

Miscellaneously inconclusive

Whit: A girl with many friends. MonoTV: It’s all your fault.

MonoTV's line doesn't refer to Mai at all, so it's not useful here. And I put Whit here because... frankly, I wouldn't trust him to tell us even if Mai really is dead. "[His] mother is dead, [he] omit[s] this truth", and all that. Though his quote does seem to imply she's alive, for what it's worth.

Present Tense

Charles: A girl who loves her family. Rose: She remembers everything that is important to others. Arturo: A girl who sees the beauty in everyone. Levi: A girl with a floral tattoo on her arm. Arei: She doesn’t like it when her friends fight. Min: An average girl with nothing special at all about her. David: She forgives everyone.

Admittedly, some of these don't actually have verbs, so putting them in "present tense" is a bit of a misnomer. Still, all of these seem to imply Mai's alive. Notably, David's line is right after Xander's and Veronika's in the code, so he might be saying this after the HPA Operation fell through? Take that as you will.

Past Tense

Hu: A girl who wanted to keep everyone safe. Nico: Everyone confided in her. Ace: A girl who had a bright future.

I was surprised by how few of these lines actually speak of Mai strictly as if she's died. They are all together, too, and separated from Xander's and Veronika's by Arei's and Min's in the code. But what's even more important is that these are still inconclusive.

When Hu says Mai "wanted to keep everyone safe", she could be talking specifically about the HPA Operation, and the phrase would be in the past tense even if Mai survived that.

When Nico says "everyone confided in her", that could mean everyone at one point or another told her their secrets, and again, it would be in the past tense even if Mai is alive.

And although Ace says Mai "had a bright future", we don't know why she no longer has one. It's possible the consequences Veronika speaks of only ruined Mai's future, but didn't get her killed.

With all this in mind, it actually seems like the quotes lean on the side of Mai being alive! That's still inconclusive, and MonoTV's quote is a bit too ominous for me to say they definitively confirm her status.

Especially because... well, the quotes aren't the only part of this discussion.

The MV Killed the Hope's Peak Star

Let's start with the biggest issue, the flowers of an unknown species.

As pointed out by delightfullydiscordant in this post, those flowers appear to be the same ones on Mai’s tattoo and Unnamed Classmate’s text boxes. And as the comments point out, they seem to be camellias.

The issue is that the MV confirms they’re white. And white camellias, in Japan, are popular funeral flowers and are associated with death. Yeah.

Now, let’s not bury the girl yet. White camellias also represent adoration and respect in a more platonic way than, say, red camellias, for example. They can also represent purity, beauty, and even hope. Yeah, we’re dropping the H word.

I also tried looking for literary references with white camellias, in the spirit of the MV. However, the only thing I found was that they show up in “To Kill A Mockingbird”, a book which if I recall correctly is never mentioned in the MV. And it’s a good thing, too, since they apparently represent racism in that book. I don’t think that’s related to Mai, frankly.

So, good news! It’s still not conclusive! Well, but there’s more. In particular, take a look at footnote 20.

This shows up directly after Mai's numeral and the brainwashed phrase I mentioned earlier. It’s a definition of the model of the five stages of grief, with the footnote itself simply claiming it is considered by many to be outdated. Also, there’s an emoticon of someone sticking out their tongue. Don’t know what else that would be, and I don’t know what to make of it.

But the fact it’s a model of how people deal with grief, usually related to death, and that it shows up directly after Mai’s numeral, seems to imply Mai’s dead.

And then there’s the problem of her numeral! Mai has one of the only ones numerals which is colored, in this case gray. The others are mostly just white, with the only other exceptions being Xander's (translucid, "(the world of abnormal sentiment dances)") and Min's (pink, stylised as the X of a death portrait, "democratic-ly" and the rules of class trials). It doesn't bode too well for Mai to have something in common with 2/3 of all confirmed dead people, I have to say.

However, it being gray specifically could be a direct reference to her death as well. Color theory (don’t question it for now) connects gray with the depressed persona of David, though, so this isn’t very conclusive.

And finally, edging into more “confirmation bias-y” territory, you remember how I said the position in the crosswords doesn’t really matter? Well, yeah, but. Mai’s name, as it goes over the A in Arei, also happens to cross the Roman numeral IV (4), a number related to death as per footnote four. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s why Arei has it. You know, the third dead person. Nevertheless, again, crosswords positioning is usually not important, so take that with a massive grain of salt.

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So, what’s the conclusion? I think it’s still up for debate, but I lean more on the idea of Mai being dead. The flowers and the model of stages of grief are pretty damning, and I don’t think most of the quotes being in present tense can really be trusted.

Anyways, let me continue a bit with the idea of her being dead.

Sub-Theory: Shot Through the Heart, Xander’s to Blame

You remember how the MV claims there’s six bullets around? But it also tells you it’s impossible to find them all? I made a post about it, where I found the five bullets which I think are the only ones which i can be found.

My conclusion in that post, which I sort of stand by, is that if there’s six bullets, but only five are visible, the last one is likely loaded in the gun. It’s labeled “(not) a prop gun”, so it’s apparently real, but still connected to Xander.

The issue? That gun is sorta pointed directly at Mai’s portrait.

This kinda fits with the pieces I’ve been putting together. Mai (possibly) died because of the HPA Operation, but Xander may have been the one who originally planted that idea in her head. Or at least enabled her plans by finding documents. In that sense, one could argue it’s Xander’s fault Mai died. So, it kinda fits! I’m going with that.

The question now would be who blames Xander for Mai’s death. After all, I sorta doubt he’s the one who actually killed her. My original instinct was David, since that’s the guy the MV is about, but that doesn’t quite fit. David idolizes Xander a fair bit, so it feels odd to think he’d blame him for this.

Instead, if this theory is true, I think it makes more sense for Xander to blame himself for Mai’s death. Survivor’s guilt is a huge part of his character (see: the Bonus Episode and the quote on his page), so if he survived the fallout of the HPA Operation when Mai didn’t, he’d be quite heartbroken by it. And thus, he may end up blaming himself for dragging her into the whole mess.

So, that's about it for what we know about Mai's status. But would you believe it if I told you we're not done with the MV yet?

Color Theory

Color theory in the context of the MV refers to this post and reblog by accirax, where she went over every colored lyric in the MV and assigned each color a character based on the characters' color scheme and the lines themselves. I recommend checking out her whole post, it's really good and I won't talk about everything she brought up.

For our purposes, the important color is Mai's. And I agree with accirax that Mai is likely black (the color, not the skin tone). Although the color doesn't show up much in her color scheme, she's a generally cryptic character with a generally cryptic color. But the lines work with Mai better than practically anyone else:

>"You" x3: As pointed out by accirax, everyone is obssessed with Mai, so it sorta fits.

>"The track to the ideal country ->" The arrow points to a passage from "Utopia", btw. This makes sense with the HPA Operation. It's a vaguely revolutionary operation which seeks to improve the world, so you could consider that "the track to the ideal country."

However, we have to talk about the elephant in the room. Her color scheme would still set her up to be red. Maybe yellow if you count her eyes, but red is an important color for her. It wouldn't be unheard of for an important character to have two colors, since David has two. But red is a special color for color theory... because it's completely nonsensical.

Red is by far the most overrepresented color in the MV, having practically double the amount of lines any other colors do. And considering the color, you'd imagine it would either go to Mai, Xander or Veronika. However, no character fits all the lines that well, as explained by accirax in her posts. I explained in this reblog what I believe about this in detail, but essentially, I believe red is intentionally ambiguos, and any given red line can belong to any of the three characters I mentioned.

I'll quickly go over the way I would assign the red lines, but I'll only explain the Mai lines, since I already went into detail on the other ones in that reblog I linked to before. Keep in mind some may apply to multiple characters.

Unassignable: Aa, ah, isn't it?!

Veronika: whatever; go mad x3; broken; go insane?; won't change; original; you've killed so many; medicine; self-denial confessions; self-delusion.

Xander: are all just idiots (final verdict); Bye x2; Goodbye; escape!; together; are all just idiots!; ignorant; great applause!!!; won't change; original; and disappear!; 1; medicine; revolutionary; idiot; self-delusion

Mai: Bye x2; Goodbye; broken; God; and disappear!; medicine; revolutionary, self-denial confessions

I will mention, you can also give her all the "idiot" lines Xander has, as well as "won't change; self-delusion" and all that, since David (the guy presumably "singing") may be somewhat skeptical about Mai and her revolutionary ideas.

>Bye x2, Goodbye, broken, and disappear!: She's probably dead, so. I also inexplicably think "broken" works with her death, but not Xander's. I have no idea why.

>God: The biggest reason why Mai has to be included, the others just aren't as God-ish as Mai (hey, it's like that song!). Not much to say; it's connected to Mai via numeral XI, and I already explained why she could be "God" here.

>Medicine; revolutionary: She's a revolutionary thanks to the HPA Operation, and you could argue that means she's the "medicine" of society.

>Self-denial confessions: Mai works better with this line's original context (revolutionaries being coerced into going back on their ideals) than Veronika, but it still leaves behind the question of what exactly she's denying. Maybe denying the ideals of Ultimates, when she herself is (probably) an Ultimate? Something like that. I guess that could also work with Xander in hindsight.

So, there we go! Full interpretation of Color Theory as it relates to Mai. Wow, that was a lot for very little new info!

We're almost done with the MV, but first, we have to talk about the man himself.

David's Relation to Mai, and his Potential Involvement in the HPA Operation

But first, a side note.

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Does David remember Mai?

There's a theory floating around that David might remember parts of his time at HPA, including Mai's existence. Check out this post by anderscim and reblog by xmicrophonyx if you want a full explanation, but I'll cover the main points here. It's a really good theory, and it's not any less plausible than some of the other theories I'll mention later in the post, but I don't quite believe it.

See, the main evidence for this theory is that the Literature Girl MV includes Mai's face in the portrait and an image of Xander with two eyes, as well as things like the morse code and possibly tally 5 which seem to reference David and Xander's relationship during HPA time. And that's my first issue with the theory, I just don't think the MV can be used for this.

Of course, it comes down to interpretation, but the way I see the MV is as an abstract form of storytelling, not a completely 1:1 view of David’s mind. Essentially, while a lot of it is spoken from the perspective of David, it’s not actually a reflection of his real mental state, but rather a representation for us the audience. It’s hard to describe :v

The main thing that I want to bring up in support of my interpretation is the youtube comments scene, I hope you know what I’m talking about. There’s no way David would be aware of these comments, such as the one referencing the J and Arei swap theory. In particular, the comment talking about (presumably, the names aren’t explicitly written) Teruko as a protagonist is impossible for David to conceive, since there’s no way he would know we see her as the protag; and the ones that namedrop Byakuya, Nagito and Kokichi are practically impossible as well, as Veronika has claimed not to remember any other killing games before the one in DRDT. Kokichi in particular would be problematic depending on your interpretation of V3.

What does this mean? This means that the MV isn’t beyond showing us the audience things outside of David’s own mind, for the sake of storytelling. It’s not hard to imagine, then, that the scene with Xander having two eyes is meant to show us that they had a good relationship in HPA, even if David doesn’t remember it. Same with calling Mai “someone dearly loved.”

There’s also a few things about other characters which don’t quite match what David would know about them in the killing game. For example, Rose’s numeral: II. Ego cogito ergo (turbatus) sum. (I think therefore I am disturbed). This only really makes sense in the context of Rose’s conversation with Teruko and Nico, where she admits to having trouble separating reality from her memory and her dreams. But David wasn’t there for that. Another example is Teruko’s: XIII. or not to be? Which seems to reference her suicidal tendencies, implied in that one thing she said to Arei. Again, that’s not something David would be aware of during the killing game. 

Either David remembers way more about HPA than implied in the theory, or those are also examples of the MV going beyond David’s mind to continue telling us things about the story.

In xmicrophonyx’s reblog, she also brings up the pre-chapter dialogue as possibly being David’s. I… don’t see it, frankly. The pre-chapter 1 dialogue seems to fit Teruko more, imo.

“Half-remembering is worse than forgetting. Her name, his face…”

We know Teruko doesn’t remember Mai’s name based on the CH 1 EP 6 dream sequence from before, and the “he” could be her brother. Prosopagnosia, and all that. 

And while the chapter 2 dialogue could fit David and his feelings towards Xander  better, there’s nothing which explicitly implies he remembers anything about HPA before the killing game.

I still miss you. I miss you so much that I wish you had never been part of my life. The worst part is, even though you left me like this, there’s nothing I can blame you for.

Also I think that’s Eden but that’s besides the point.

And finally, now that you understand why I don’t think the evidence for isn’t very good, we have to address the evidence against. Mainly, the fact that David doesn’t seem to recognize Xander during his introduction. At all. He even explicitly says, “... I don’t believe we’ve met before”, and calls Xander “sir”. There was no indication at that point that they’d be missing memories, so David has no reason to pretend he doesn’t know who Xander is. In fact, I imagine that if he did remember Xander as having two eyes, and he sees him with an eyepatch, he would react to it in some way, right?

In conclusion, although I like the theory, I don’t think it’s very likely that David’s kept any memories from HPA time.

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Anyways, back to my speculation. There is relatively little reference to Mai in the MV, so it's not like we can get much here, but there is still one thing I want to talk about. And that's the morse code at the end of the MV. As translated by dav-suburbiia:

“YOU STILL BELIEVED IN ME DESPITE EVERYTHING I’VE DONE.” “BUT THAT’S JUST FANTASY, ISN’T IT?” “I SIMPLY CHOSE TO BELIEVE THAT YOU DID.” “AFTER ALL, I’M INCAPABLE OF BEING SOMEONE WITHOUT YOU.”

Now, most people assume this is about Xander, which is perfectly understandable seeing the context of the MV. However, I think there's an argument to be made that this is actually about Mai.

The main thing here is the apparent contradiction which rises if we assume this is about Xander. The "you" in this code knows what David "has done", but they also seemingly aren't around anymore. If we assume the first is referring to David's "manipulation" thing, then this would have to be about HPA Xanvid, since we've never heard of David confessing his issues to killing game Xander. However, if the "you" really isn't around anymore, this would have to be for killing game Xanvid, since Xander only died in the killing game. Am I making sense?

This isn't conclusive, mind you. You could say the code never explicitly says the "you" is actually gone, just that David can't be someone without them. Or, alternatively, that David did reveal "everything [he's] done" during the killing gmae. But it's still an odd way to phrase all this.

So, is there any evidence this is actually about Mai instead? Well, if you squint. The code is directly followed by footnote 22: "The rest is silence". Silence is the dislike stated in Mai's profile. Word association coming in clutch.

But perhaps more interesting is the phrase "You still believed in me despite everything I've done", combined with:

David: She forgives everyone.

The "you" in the code forgave David, and Mai evidently forgave him as well. It's not conclusive either, but it could be a connection.

Under the interpretation that this is about Mai, it would be related to HPA time. Mai still believed in David, or at least, at one point David believed Mai believed in him, and apparently gave him a purpose in life.

The worrying part about this code is actually the middle. "But that's just fantasy, isn't it? I simply chose to believe that you did". Apparently, it's possible Mai never actually trusted or forgave David, another reason I believe it's possible this isn't actually talking about Xander. As established, Mai can be deceptive when she wants, so it could work. We're missing a lot of information, so what exactly this all would mean is up in the air.

But in any case, it's possible that if David was given purpose by Mai or Xander, he would be involved in the HPA Operation, though how exactly is obviously impossible to know. I know this is really weak, but...

Okay, can we talk about Tally 5 yet? I kinda have to talk about Tally 5. Don't worry, I won't actually post the image.

!!!TALLY 5 SPOILERS (NO IMAGE)!!! SCROLL IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT THE CONTENTS OF TALLY 5!!!

If you've been living under a rock under the past month or so, Tally 5 refers to an image you get to by solving a code related to the "correct/incorrect" code in the David MV and inputting it into a webpage accessed via the QR Code in the MV's books. I won't talk about the puzzle itself here, so if you want to solve it, maybe go do that or just scroll past this part of the post.

Anyways, as I imagine you know by now, Tally 5 shows David holding Xander's jacket with the following quotes under it:

I became a villain in pursuit of your dream.

I threw away my humanity for an ideal that I couldn't understand.

But I don't regret it. To "regret" is to imply that I could have done anything else.

I never told you, but the truth is, I wasn't capable of ever becoming human in the first place.

So in the end, you're always-

Listen, I'm not gonna pretend I have some sort of infallible exaplanation of what this means. I have several theories about it, and to give you an idea of how insane it is, one of my theories involves quote 3, the one about regret, being said by MonoTV. Don't ask. I might have to do a completely different post about all this, but I'm sorta waiting until I can read some other peoples' thoughts about it.

But for the purposes of this post, this, to me, heavily implies David was involved in the HPA Operation. He's probably talking about Xander here, and Xander's dream would be the HPA Operation, since as I said, it may have been his idea in the first place. That's the ideal David can't understand: an ideal to change a world David sees as immutable.

Now, the lone jacket would imply this isn't the case. It would seem David is saying this in the killing game, after Xander's death, as holding his jacket seems to imply he's gone. However, I don't know what the dream would be in that case. Killing Teruko? It's possible, but I find that unlikely.

So, yeah. Combined with the morse code, here's a full interpretation of what this could mean in relation to Mai:

Mai or Xander somehow learnt of David's true feelings and the way he sees his own actions. She/he forgave him, or at least pretended to forgive him, and this gave David hope. Mai/Xander then introduced David to the HPA Operation, and asked him to do something which would turn him into a villain, asking him to throw away his humanity for an ideal he couldn't understand. What exactly that would be is obviously impossible to know. David accepts, and even when the plan fell through, he doesn't regret doing what he did, because he feels he couldn't have done anything else.

Am I confident in this interpretation? Not really, but it's a plausible interpretation which is related to Mai and the HPA Operation, so I wanted to bring it up. There's a lot there which is probably wrong, but it's what I have for now.

!!!TALLY 5 SPOILERS OVER!!! YOU CAN START READING AGAIN IF YOU WERE AVOIDING THEM!!!

And with that, we’re officially done with the MV! I mean, I may reference it later, but now the bulk of it is gone. Surely this means we can get to some lighter theorizing and-

Teruko Tawaki

Yeah, we gotta talk about the other elephant in the room. Mai and Teruko are clearly connected in an important way.

The first thing to note with them is that they’re generally set up as opposites. Of course, the most straightforward thing is the “dearly loved/dearly unloved” portraits in the MV, but it goes much deeper. Also in the MV, Teruko’s numeral appears right after Mai’s, if that counts for anything.

Another thing is their color scheme. Teruko is mainly associated with green, while Mai is mainly associated with red. And these colors are complimentary; they’re opposite in the color wheel. Not to mention, taking Teruko’s redesign into account, one could associate her with black and Mai, thanks to her uniform and the white camellias, to white. In particular, it’s notable white camellias actually have a white flower, but a black stem. They’re even the same height, at 5’8”! It’s so they can kiss each other in the lips more easily

Additionally, their attitudes from what we’re seeing are also opposite. Mai “forgives everyone”, which means she’s really trusting, while Teruko is (for now) very distrustful. That one’s a bit looser, but eh. May I even go so far, as to say that right now, Teruko represents despair while Mai represents hope? Alright, now I’m reaching, but it fits. Teruko is someone resigned to her horrible fate (luck), while Mai constantly fought for a better world. In fact, Xander, someone Teruko associates with Mai, calls our protag out on her hopeless view of fate… right before stabbing her.

Hell, practically all good things said about Mai? Not true of Teruko (at the moment).

Charles: A girl who loves her family.

Teruko’s an orphan, and doesn’t remember her brother.

Rose: She remembers everything that is important to others.

Well, you could consider people’s faces something important to them, but Teruko has prosopagnosia.

Arturo: A girl who sees the beauty in everyone.

If you watched chapter 2, you know this isn’t true of Teruko.

Honestly, I could keep going like this, but I feel you get the point. There’s no reason for me to dwell on this further when you can just read the quotes and figure out how Teruko isn’t described by most of them.

Well, one possible exception is Levi.

Levi: A girl with a floral tattoo on her arm.

Yeah, time to talk about this theory.

Theory I Absolutely Believe: Teruko and Mai are Tattoo ‘Bud’dies

(Get it? Because flowers and buds- Yeah, no)

So shoutout to cider-est for first pointing this out in this post, but it’s true. Teruko’s left arm is always fully covered, either by bandages or by her jacket sleeve. Which is especially odd, considering her right jacket sleeve is always rolled up.

And it’s especially odd, because her left arm is covered even in the jacket-off reference picture.

And yes, there is a suspicious question mark next to Teruko’s left arm. It ain’t even subtle.

But if there’s still any doubt left in your mind, let skulemojee dispel it in this post, where they point out this image from Ch 2 Ep 2:

Yep, you’re seeing that right. Those black lines on Teruko’s left arm look a suspicious lot like the stems of Mai’s tattoo. It's not perfect, since we can't see any flowers and that may just be scars, but we never get a good enough look at the back of Mai's left arm to know if the flowers are tattooed on the forearm, or if only the stems reach that far.

(Also, Teruko in this scene says she doesn’t remember that scar in her back. Part of me thinks it’s related to Mai and the time of the missing memories, but the more rational side of me tells me I need to chill and stop seeing Mai everywhere)

It's also worth noting this would explain the choice of camellias for the tattoo. Remember, although they represent death in Japan, they mainly represent platonic adoration and respect. A very pretty thing to get matching tattoos with your bestie. But since they're not colored they could be interpreted as red and thus romantic for the shippers

So, yeah. I believe they share a tattoo. Which gives a whole lot of context to the quote.

Teruko: Some years ago, she was looking for someone named 'Teruko Tawaki'

In case it wasn’t clear before with the way Mai smiled at Teruko in that dream sequence, or the way Teruko associated Xander with Mai before she got stabbed by him, the fact they possibly share a tattoo implies they knew each other for a while and had a good relationship with each other. Another indication is that Teruko's favorite color, in the latest Q&A, is stated to be red by association. Sorry Xanruko shippers, that's clearly about Mai, since Teruko associates Xander with Mai in the first place.

What exactly the timeline of this mess is, is... complicated if the tattoo thing is true. Because that would require Teruko and Mai to have gotten the tattoo when at least Teruko was 18, both in Japan and the US. In some states of the US, she would be able to get it at a younger age if she got parental consent, but... what parents? She's an orphan.

In fact, when does that dream sequence take place? Is it Hope's Peak time? Can't be, because Teruko wouldn't remember it. Actually, why doesn't Teruko remember Mai's name is Mai had been searching for her for a while?

Yeah, I can't pin down anything specific about their relationship. Obviously I can't, this is a big mystery and we're only in Chapter 2. The best I can give you is that their relationship was clearly very positive, even before HPA.

...

Which is what makes this line so weird.

Mai: Hang on, "real Ultimate talent?" You're the Ultimate Student! I mean, it's not like you're a "Lucky Student" who was picked by lottery.

This line is really odd, isn't it? It seems uncharacteristically mean for Mai, to dismiss someone else's talent so readily. And Teruko's in particular, when again, they clearly liked each other well enough before HPA. This almost reads more like something Mai would say about herself rather than someone else...

Huh.

Theory: Mai, the Second Ultimate Lucky Student

As established before, Mai has a slight self-depricative streak, where she says things about herself she would never say about one of her friends. So, the fact she's so quick to dismiss the Ultimate Lucky Student as a concept could imply she is the Ultimate Lucky Student. (ULS)

Of course, the first question is how this would work with Teruko. A HPA class only has one ULS, and Teruko's there. I've seen others suggest perhaps Mai was the ULS at Japan's HPA, which is apparently still a high school, so it's possible for her to go there and then go to US HPA, which is more like college.

However, I actually think there's an easier explanation. Mai and Teruko both went to US' HPA at the same time. They just went to different ones.

Mai: The US Hope's Peak Academy takes in college-age students, and there's two of them, and we have this really weird curriculum, and there's a bunch of other things, and...

Yeah! Did you forget there's two HPAs in the US?! Because I sure did! I swear, I rewatched that Bonus Episode like 5 times before I caught that. How does this thing keep spawning in information?

I believe this is why Min specifically calls their class East Class 27. Seeing as this is in the US, I imagine there's likely an East Coast HPA and a West Coast HPA. But what would be the point of splitting the school like this? There's no reason the dev couldn't just keep them as just one HPA... unless there's a reason.

Because with two classes of the same age, there has to be two ULS of the same age.

Now, of course, it's possible West Class 27 is completely irrelevant to the story, but if you assume Mai is East Class 27's ULS and Teruko went to west coast HPA, a lot of things start to make sense. Have you ever wondered how Mai could have been in the same class as everyone else, when HPA usually only have 16 students? Well, it's because one (or more, possibly) just went to another class.

This also explains why we have to get this particular detail from a Bonus Episode. Although all the characters have talked about going to HPA, no one ever mentions which HPA they were invited to. It seems like a weirdly specific detail to omit, unless there’s a reason for it. Because if most of them were part of East Coast HPA, and one of them wasn’t, it would immediately stand out as strange to the cast.

And Mai does have some connections to luck. I mean, of course she does, her story is closelly intertwined with Teruko. For example, remember her birthday? February 1st? I told it'd be relevant, right? Well, as pointed out by fuji-iri in this post, on that day, there's 333 days left of the year. 3 is a number associated with bad luck, but there's also associations to "parting ways" and the three stages of life (birth-marriage apparently-death), again explained in the post I linked. That works with Mai and Teruko splitting up... whenever that happened, as well as Mai possbly dying, but the luck thing in particular is notable.

Now, the main reason I believed this before was just that "it's not like you're a 'Lucky Student' line", but as I researched this, I may have found something else? Except, it may just be me being horrible at code and getting really confused. If anyone can confirm or deny this, it'd be great.

Here's what happened. I noticed that when you look up Mai's name in Google, the text under the link to her page had Teruko's hidden quote: "It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust no one at all." So I went into the code again.

First, I right-clicked on the title (Mai's name) and clicked "inspect". I expanded the "<head>" section (God I'm bad at this), and found this under <meta name>.

meta name="descripttion" content="Mai Akasaki Ultimate ??? "There's a way for you to be happy." It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust no one at all. The protagonist. Despite having the Ultimate title of "Lucky..."

Now, at first, I assumed this was just a coding quirk where for some reason, I was seeing the text of the next character or something.

But, I checked some the other characters, and none of the ones I checked have the same style of text. Look, I'll transcribe some.

Teruko:

meta name="descripttion" content="Teruko Tawaki Ultimate Lucky Student “I will survive this, no matter what!” The protagonist. Despite having the Ultimate title of “Lucky Student,” it seems like the only luck Teruko has is bad luck..."

Xander:

meta name="descripttion" content="Xander Matthews Ultimate Rebel “Screw the rules!” Loud in both voice and personality, Alexander “Xander” Matthews earned the title of Ultimate Rebel through his consistent tendency to go against the..."

MonoTV:

meta name="descripttion" content="MonoTV “Ultimate TV Show Host” “I’m the most beloved character in the cast!” A strange robot with a television for a head. MonoTV claims to be the “Ultimate TV Show Host” who is in charge of an..."

I also checked Veronika, Whit and Nico, but didn't check any more since the pattern's easy to see.

As you can see, usually this section of the code just has the name, the subtitle quote, and part of the body text. None of them have the secret quote, unlike Mai's, which has the quote which is supposed to be Teruko's. But Teruko's name or subtitle quote is never brought up in Mai's "meta name" thing.

Again, maybe I'm missing something, but it really looks like that is meant to be some kind of description of Mai.

It sort of fits. Teruko's quote about trust can fit Mai, hell, is completed by Mai. Teruko usually shows the failing of trusting no one, but Mai may be meant to show the failing of trusting everybody. Mai is also important enough that calling her "the protagonist" is fitting enough.

And, if that really is about Mai, then the final portion is confirmation. "Despite having the Ultimate title of "Lucky..." If this is about Mai, then Mai is unequivocally an ULS.

Again, I don't consider this conclusive because I am an idiot and could very easily be wrong. The wording is exactly the same's as Teruko's, so again, it may be a coding oddity. But with all the other stuff I mentioned, I can at least say this is the theory for Mai's talent I believe the most: She's East Class 27's ULS, while Teruko went to West Coast HPA as their ULS.

Anyways, anything else about Teruko? Oh, yeah, a final sub-theory on her.

Sub-Theory: Shot Through the Heart, Teruko's to Blame

Take a look at the 2nd Anniversary picture.

[The three frames of the 2 year anniversary "video"]

Okay, I know you can't see shit here, but I'm running out of the 30 image limit. Check out lacunasweven's post where she discovered this (to my knowledge), and stfu-sage's reblog where he solved the code.

When solved, that code translates to “It’s all your fault”, which you may remember as MonoTV’s line about Mai.

So, Teruko reaches out for Mai, then “it’s all your fault” appears for a frame or two, and then suddenly Mai’s gone. It’s not exactly hard to imagine that this means Teruko is at fault for Mai’s death, or at least whatever consequences the HPA Operation had. How exactly is impossible to know, because again, it’s a mystery we’re not meant to solve yet. I have a gut feeling it’s probably related to Teruko’s luck, but that’s all it is, a gut feeling.

This doesn’t conflict the “Xander’s at fault” idea, if you’re curious. It’s possible for multiple people to consider themselves at fault for Mai’s death. Xander for bringing her into the HPA Operation, Teruko for her luck or whatever else happened.

Although… yeah, we gotta talk about that right? The scene before the prologue.

I can’t say anything definitive, because again, not something we’re meant to figure out at the moment. But I can tell you what I think.

First, the PoV character is probably Xander. There’s a bloody fork there, and while I’m not the one who came up with the idea, (see: anderscim's post about this) that’s likely the weapon which was used to take out his eye. His wounds do look suspiciously fork-like, though I struggle to explain it without images, and I’m already stretching thin to make the image limit. I’ll have to ask you to look it up yourself.

Anyways, that may be Xander, and this may be the incident where Xander lost his eye. The reason I’m bringing it up is that, since Xander is involved, there’s a chance this is somehow related to the HPA Operation. Here’s a full transcript of what’s said:

... Fuck!! Fuck, fuck, fuck, this really hurts... Ouch... I really wasn't expecting her to attack me like that. I made a massive mistake to trust them. I can't rely on anyone. All by myself... I have to end the killing game. And even if I can't do that... I have to kill Teruko Tawaki. No matter what.

So, a woman attacked Xander unexpectedly, managed to overpower him and stab his eyes out with a fork, then presumably ran away. And this all seemingly happened in some form of killing game. And Xander already wanted to kill Teruko.

I doubt Teruko was the one who attacked Xander. Because Xander calls her out by name at the end, and also because, how would Teruko be able to overpower Xander? Unless you “divine luck” your way into an explanation, I just don’t see it. In any case, it’s probably a different woman. Without knowing anything about the previous killing game, we can’t know much about this situation.

However, the fact that Xander already wanted to kill Teruko here is notable because it seems to imply this killing game happened after Mai's death. After all, Mai and Teruko had a good relationship, right? So Xander wouldn't have a grudge against her until after the HPA Operation fell through. The final conclusion here is that Teruko somehow caused Mai's death, which somehow led to the pre-series killing game. I think? Obviously, it's impossible to say anything conclusive here, and I don't even know what exactly the connection would be between Mai's death and the previous killing game.

And with that, we finish discussion of Teruko.

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Quick Side Note: The Mai-stermind Theory

I’m not funny.

So, in case it isn’t clear yet by the fact I keep assuming she's dead, I don’t think Mai is the mastermind of the killing game. I’m aware it’s a possibility, seeing as she’s very mysterious and all that, but frankly, I just have never seen anyone seriously bring up this possibility, since there’s essentially no evidence. It’s also important to note, even if she is a mastermind, she can’t be the only mastermind, since we know one of the participants of the killing game is a mastermind as well.

To be fair, I did notice some connections to MonoTV while researching. Like I mentioned at one point, they’re the only characters without any highlighted words in their subtitle quotes. And the secret quote in MonoTV’s page is “Her name is Mai Akasaki”, but frankly that feels a bit too… unsubtle. Also... no, actually that’s kinda it.

I’ve also seen some people attribute the “teacher” speech to Mai, but I really don’t think that’s her. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s the text in the code of the About page for DRDT on Tumblr. Here’s a post about it by delightfullydiscordant. I won't go into their theory on it, since it's unrelated to Mai. As you'll see, there’s nothing intrinsically relating the speech to our girl, and nothing in the text suggest she’s the one speaking, so I don’t think it’s related.

With what we know of Mai, I don’t think it makes sense to call her the mastermind. I’m only bringing it up now to be thorough, and because I didn’t know where else to put it :v

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Other Characters, Miscellaneous Connections

Essentially just me talking about all the characters I haven’t covered yet, to see if any of them could have a connection to Mai or the HPA Operation than what may seem at first.

Already talked about: Xander, Teruko, David

No Evidence of Connection Beyond ‘Classmates’: Rose, Arturo, Levi, Hu, Nico, Ace, Arei, Min

What this means is that while it’s technically possible these characters are related to Mai and the HPA Operation, right now we don’t have any indication of it. Sorry. That doesn’t mean I don’t have things to say about them.

Arturo is usually so mean that, honestly, the fact he says anything positive about Mai at all makes me wonder if he may actually be related. Reminds me a bit of David’s quote, I guess. But maybe I’m just biased because I want this guy to be plot-relevant.

I guess Levi mentioning the tattoo in his line could be important, but unless he has the tattoo too (which is possible I guess, but I don’t quite see it), I don’t know what it could mean.

I could actually see Hu’s and Ace’s lines implying a connection to the HPA Operation, honestly. Seeing as they’re some of the only people who actually talk about her in the past tense, I think it’s possible they were involved. Hu would want to help Mai if she felt she “wanted to keep everyone safe”, for what it’s worth. I sorta hope Hu is plot-relevant too.

Even if Mai is talking to Arei in her current subtitle quote, I don’t see much evidence Arei would be involved in the HPA Operation.

You may be wondering about my old theory about the Sleepy MV and how it could tie back to Mai, and while I still think it's a possibility, I frankly don't believe it anymore. It requires a very specific reading of the song which I don't think is entirely accurate, and there isn't actually much connecting the MV to Mai. I still think Min's line being so overly insistent on Mai being "an average girl with nothing special at all about her" could imply their relationship may have broken down because of the HPA Operation, which makes sense. If Xander engineered the plan, obviously Min will dislike it on principle. But that's probably me trying to make Min more plot relevant than she actually is.

Only Connected via “Original Killing Game” Theory: Charles, J, possibly Ace and Arei

What the hell am I talking about? In the Color Theory reblog I mentioned earlier, I described a wild theory that quite a few of the characters we know were actually involved in that pre-prologue killing game, and we can learn who those characters are thanks to the word "original". Sound insane? It is. I won't go over the reasoning here, I'll ask you check the reblog I linked.

This is the "Original Killing Game" Theory, and it's one of the most far-fetched theories I've ever enginereed. But since it's sorta connected, I thought I'd mention it. The characters involved are Charles, Veronika or Ace, David, Teruko, J/Arei, Xander, MonoTV, Whit. I’ve already talked about some of these, and don’t think MonoTV is worth talking about, frankly.

So, why am I only bringing up Charles and J for now, as well as potentially Ace and Arei since they could actually be part of the theory depending on how you interpret the colors? Well, these are the only ones in the “original killing game” theory who I don’t think have any evidence of being connected with Mai any further. Since that theory is already insane to start with, and it’s possible Mai was already dead when that killing game started, I don’t think it tells us anything.

Although sometimes I wonder if J’s quote is talking about something other than Mariabella, but at the moment, I have no clue what that would be. So that’s still the likeliest possibility.

Eden: Eden

Eden, huh? In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been sorta dancing around Eden’s line a bit, because… like, what in the actual fuck does it mean.

Eden: She kept calling the number, even though no one picked it up.

It’s such an odd line. It’s nothing like the other ones, which you’d think would make it significant, but it’s just… cryptic. I’m sorry, but while I think this probably means something, I don’t have a good answer of what it could be.

… Well, there is the one thing.

——————————————————————————————————

Crack Theory: Mai the Girl Kisser

This theory states that Mai is the girl mentioned in Eden’s secret, the one the Clockmaker kissed.

See? Theorizing’s easy! Just grab a random character we don’t know anything about, and slap Mai on top of it like a bandaid!

I’m aware the dev has sorta poked fun at people like me who see an unknown face and instantly jump on Mai, but at least this one has a bit more reasoning. Mainly, that I just don’t know what else Eden’s quote could be referring to.

Consider this concept: Eden and Mai kiss at some indeterminate point before HP, and Eden freaks out. She gets extremely worried about how Mai’s going to react, and she runs away. Mai tries to contact her afterwards, but Eden was avoiding her. Still, “[Mai] kept calling the number, even though no one picked it up”.

Is this essentially just fanfiction at this point? Practically, yeah, but I have nothing else.

On the insane off-chance this is true, it would come with certain implications. It would mean Eden and Mai had met before going to HPA, which is… uh, something. If it helps, that would mean their relationship would have a “new beginning” at HPA, and Eden’s character has some themes of new beginnings. Her birthday is on December 31st, so New Years, and her favorite color is daffodil yellow, when daffodils represent new beginnings. It’s small, but it’s there.

(And if you know who I am, you know I believe Eden killed Arei to reunite with the girl of her secret (long story). Mai helps here because of course she would have enough rizz to make a good girl go bad, have you seen how everyone talks about her? She would get all the bitches!)

Anyways, again, this is extremely silly, but it’s sort of the only thing I can think of for Eden’s line, so for now, have it. If anyone’s got better ideas, I’m more than open to hear them.

——————————————————————————————————

A Connection is More Plausible: Veronika, Whit

In no particular order, these are the characters, apart from Xander and Teruko and David, which I think have an actual chance of being involved with Mai and the HPA based on what we know so far. Let’s go a bit more in depth.

Veronika’s Peculiar Problem of Popping Up Fucking Everywhere

It is insane how many times I’ve brought up Veronika in this post without being able to pinpoint why exactly she keeps appearing. She shares the color red with Xander and Mai in my version of Color Theory, though admittedly that may just be her hair. She’s in the “original killing game” under that theory. Hell, she’ll show up again when I talk about Whit.

But by far, the most concerning thing about her is her line in the Mai page.

Veronika: A girl who didn’t foresee the consequences.

I’ve mentioned this line before, of course, because it’s clearly related to the HPA Operation’s fallout. In fact, it’s the only line apart from Xander’s and MonoTV’s which explicitly reference it. This could easily imply she was involved somehow, either as someone helping Mai and Xander, or actually going against them in some way. Whatever is more entertaining for her, I imagine.

There are two issues with this. One, I cannot discount the possibility that Veronika got that creepy and ominous line because she’s the creepy and ominous character, and it doesn’t actually mean anything for Veronika herself. It’s a very real possibility.

Two, even if she is involved, there’s nothing we have which could help narrow down what she did. Again, she’s too unpredictable.

In other words, while I’m putting Veronika here with the vague idea that she could be connected to it all, I don’t have any concrete theories.

Though maybe I should address the one Veronika-Mai theory which exists, for the sake of completion.

——————————————————————————————————

Crack Theory: Veronika Is Mai

To be clear, I don’t believe this. It’s pretty clear to me that Veronika is her own character with her own backstory. But I still want to point out some connections to show you how insane I’m going writing this.

+They’re both the same height (5’8”) and have long red hair. This is enough for my prosopagnosic ass to confuse them if they change hairstyle. Their weights and birthdays are different, but weight can change and birthdays can be lied about. Their chest sizes are different, though, so I’m pretty sure that rules out this theory already.

+Speaking of birthdays, August 7th, Veronika’s birthday, happens to be 7 months away from Teruko’s birthday on January 7th. 7? Lucky number. Lucky Student. Word association -> Mai.

+Veronika covers both her arms, so no tattoo would be visible.

+Veronika asks Teruko if she would recognize her were she to wear contacts, a wig and different clothes. This could imply she is, and would therefore be Mai.

+Her pose in the character profiles is vaguely similar to Mai’s, but flipped. This is interesting because no other character’s pose is even close.

+She wears a small earring given to her by someone named “Alyssa Belyaeva”. This by itself means nothing, but the earring is a small green triangle she considers a good luck charm. Luck?! And triangles have three sides. 3?! That number we said was unlucky and related to Mai before? And green. Green?! Teruko! Auasfruryg- <- short-circuiting from thinking too much.

+Veronika has plain brown eyes. Come on, have you seen this cast’s eyes? Those are absolutely contacts.

+Her hidden quote about people being broken could refer to the hopeful Mai being broken into Veronika as a result of the HPA Operation’s consequences.

Yeah, most of this is pretty silly, but again, I don’t think this theory is very likely, so I’m just poking fun at how suspicious Veronika can be at times.

——————————————————————————————————

Whit and Tetraphobia

At first, it doesn't really seem like Whit is too involved in this. I mean, his quote is pretty inoffensive:

Whit: A girl with many friends.

And sure, he is the Original Killing Game Theory, but even if that's somehow true, it's no guarantee he's involved in the HPA Operation or anything. Nothing really seems to connect him to Mai...

Except the one thing.

XV. Remaining ignorant, isn't that "happiness"¹⁵?

XV is Whit's Roman numeral, and again it isn't too strange on its own. Other than being the only numeral to ever show up alongside another numeral, in this case Veronika's because of course it's Veronika's.

The issue is the background text. It's hard to see, but there's faint pink text saying "subtract 4, due to tetraphobia⁴". Footnote 4 simply defines tetraphobia, which is the practice of avoiding the number 4, as it's considered a number related to death, and is seen as unlucky. Of course, the fours themselves are colored green for Teruko, presumably.

But the important part is, what does this mean? The most straightforward idea is to subtract four from the numerals on screen, or perhaps the footnote?

For the footnote: Subtracting 15 - 4 = 11, quick math, and that's the footnote which talks about being an only child and that (presumably) Diana Chiem never existed. I... don't think that makes too much sense for this scene, frankly.

For Veronika's numeral, subtracting XIV (14) - 4 = 10. That's Min's numeral, which shows up in the part of the MV most directly tied to class trials. This could simply imply she enjoys the trials and the bloodshed, and it also looks somewhat mastermind-y, but that's not really new for Veronika. You could also do this one more literally, taking out 4 from 14 and ending up with 1, connecting her to Xander, and at this point I'm not surprised.

But, of course. The tetraphobia line only shows up when Whit's numeral does, and it's colored in the pink associated to him via Color Theory, though of course, being background text, the tetraphobia line isn't actually included in that theory. That would seem to imply it's about him, right?

Well, in the same vein as before, if you subtract XV (15) - 4 = 11 (XI). And... that's Mai's numeral, attached to the line "God is dead". So, uh-

Sub-Theory: Shot Through the Heart, Whit's to Blame

The idea that maybe Whit was somehow involved in Mai's death. By the end of the series, I'm gonna end up blaming half the cast for this, apparently.

So, the tetraphobia thing is the most straightforward piece of evidence towards this possibility, but there's a bit more. For one, in the recent Q&A, it was stated that Whit's least favorite color is gray because it's boring, and that's the color of Mai's numeral. Remember how I pointed out it's actually one of the only numerals to be colored? Yeah.

Furthermore, Whit's numeral appears right before Mai's, but that may just be the way the song works out, since LGI wasn't made for DRDT. However, remember that "become brainwashed: go do it!" line I said was directly after Mai's numeral? Yeah, the word brainwashed is color coded pink, connecting it to Whit via Color Theory. And, if that wasn't enough, in the section for footnote five, the one with the Japanese characters? The word blood shows up, in pink, as the song speaks about revolutionaries. Yes, DR blood is pink usually, but there is red blood in the MV (near the snake), and the characters canonically see it as dark red (since that's the stated reason why dark red is Xander's and Charles' least favorite color). My point is, the dev could have made the blood red there, and/or just written the symbol for blood in red, but since it's pink, Color Theory ends up connecting it to Whit.

All of this could point to Whit as another culprit of Mai's death, but don't jump to conclusions. For one, since we have no clue about the circumstances, perhaps he only accidentally caused the death. We've seen that Teruko is also likely to blame in some way, probably in a similar fashion. And because it may have been accidental, this also doesn't mean Whit has to be the mastermind. It makes him look oddly suspicious, sure, but nothing too damning.

And of course, there's a huge chance I'm reading too much into things. There are other explanations for brainwashed and blood, and it's still totally possible that the tetraphobia thing refers to Veronika or even the footnote.

A Summary of Her Story, So Far

To end things off, I'll go over everything I've concluded with what we know so far, though of course I know we're missing a lot, and that a ton of this is also probably wrong. Here's how this is going to work.

Regular text means this is something we pretty much know for sure.

Italics means it's a theory I'm quite convinced of.

[Brackets mean I'm relatively unsure about something]

*Asterisks mean the theory is insanely unlikely, and it can probably just be assumed false*

{Braces are for flavor text, you can ignore this for theorizing purposes}

Closing Argument

>Mai was born February 1st, 20--, to a nice family she loved. We know little about her childhood, but [it's possible she was friends with or somehow got interested in a girl named Teruko Tawaki. However, fate kept them apart for years]. But Mai was not easily deterred, she would search for and find Teruko, no matter what.

>*As she searched for Teruko Tawaki, she met a girl named Eden Tobisa. They kissed, but Eden freaked out and ran away. Mai tried contacting her, she kept calling the number, even though no one picked it up.*

>At some point before Hope's Peak, her and Teruko reunited. *Even when Teruko couldn't recognize her and even struggled to remember her name*, Mai still remembered everything that was important for Teruko, as she always did.

>Mai and Teruko, loving each other so much, decided to get matching floral tattos on their arms. White camellias, a symbol of adoration and respect.

>{But fate really didn't like to see them together.} Soon, Teruko received a letter, teling her she was chosen as the Ultimate Lucky Student of Hope's Peak's [West Class 27]. This was uncharacteristically good luck for Teruko, who before had to hop around schools, always stealing uniforms, just to get an education.

>{The problem?} At the same time, Mai received a letter that she was invited to join Hope's Peak's East Class 27 as their Ultimate Lucky Student, on the other side of the country. Mai never really cared much about Ultimates or Hope's Peak, {but Teruko insisted it was too good of an opportunity for either of them to pass up. They decided to keep in contact,} as Mai headed to East Coast Hope's Peak.

>Alexander Matthews is scouted as the Ultimate Rebel. David Chiem is scouted as the Ultimate Inspirational Speaker.

>At Hope's Peak, despite being an average girl with nothing special at all about her, she quickly became a girl with many friends. She saw the beauty in everyone, and everyone agreed she had a bright future. Everyone confided in her, J even telling her about her mother, something which Mai kept secret, and told no one.

(Okay, maybe fitting in all the quotes isn't as easy as I hoped it'd be)

>*She even reunited with Eden, and they decided their relationship would have a new beginning*.

>However, she also met a very interesting boy: Xander Matthews. He had gone to Hope's Peak with one goal in mind: revolution. He confided in her, as they all did, his issues with Hope's Peak and the system it was built upon. Mai was revolted by the truth, and asked what she could do to help. She couldn't stand to do nothing. She wanted to keep everyone safe.

>With that, the HPA Operation started.

>They started small; stealing a few documents here and there. [But their plans grew bolder over time.]

>[Along the way, they discovered something shocking]. David, who always spoke of change and hope, was hiding his true feelings. He didn't see himself as human, not being able to relate to his peers as the others did. He saw himself as a manipulative bastard for lying to all the people he gave speeches to. He hated himself, and expected Mai and Xander to hate him, too.

>[But they didn't. Xander still saw the best in him, and Mai? Well, Mai forgives everyone. And to make him see the good in himself, they asked him to help in the HPA Operation]

>He didn't understand it, not really. The world wouldn't change, no matter what Mai and Xander told him. But even though he didn't understand, he still wanted to help them.

>As the popular Ultimate Inspirational Speaker, David had more connections and influence than a simple Rebel or Lucky Student. That meant he could offer things to the Operation the other two couldn't, even if it was through... less than moral means. But to David, that was no object. He would become a villain in pursuit of their dream, throw away his humanity for this ideal. It's not like he could have ever been human, anyways.

>*Not everyone was as receptive, though. Min in particular, after finding out about the plan somehow, got quite angry with Xander and Mai. It wasn't unusual for the Student and the Rebel to disagree, but Mai still didn't like it when her friends fought*

>Mai knew it was risky, she really did. But nothing could prepare her for what was about to happen. She didn't foresee the consequences.

>[When Teruko was visiting], the HPA Operation faced a huge issue. A plan gone wrong, a variable miscalculated. And, with Teruko to blame, [and possibly Whit] *and Veronika, who got dragged into this mess at some point*, Mai died.

>{Chaos ensued. Mai's death broke the class, reverberating through the students like the rumbling of a fallen god's corpse. "It's all your fault!" Xander screamed at Teruko,} hiding that he felt responsible for her death as well. After all, he was the one who had dragged her along. And now, he was once again left alive to mourn a death he himself narrowly avoided. Talk about survivor's guilt.

>[One thing led to another, and a killing game was set up]. Xander and Teruko got stuck in it, with Xander losing his eye as he tried everything he could to end the game, or at least kill Teruko. *Charles, Veronika/Ace, David, J/Arei and Whit might have also present in this killing game, ran by MonoTV.*

>More stuff happened, and finally, the students all lost their memories and wound up in the killing game we follow throuhout the series.

>A shattered dream, a tragic fate, a broken hope. Though mystery continues to shroud her existence and her role in the story, for now, this is my final conclusion on the story of: Mai Akasaki, the Ultimate ???

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

Holy hell this was pain to write. I don't want to make another post this complicated for a while. Jesus. This broke my soul.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my insane ramblings, if you really were strong enough to put up with my madness for this long. I still want to hear any thoughts you may have, since this character is really interesting and cool and fun to theorize about.

But for now, I leave. Thanks for reading! If you made it this far, then just know, Mai would be proud of you! And you should know, because you should practically be a scholar on her by now. Take care!

[closetsof-backlogged-dreams]

a Mai-Azula-Ty Lee analysis bc i have Many feelings

so this is definitely super random for my blog, but i just rewatched the boiling rock (bc ofc i did lmao) and i've been obsessed w this quote since like age ten, but it just hit different this time around and i feel the need to share:

"You miscalculated. I love Zuko more than I fear you."

so. here's the thing. this quote is objectively insane for a million reasons, but i want to talk about some of the parallels we can pull from it bc imo it makes it so. much. WORSE.

"No, you miscalculated! You should have feared me more!"

here comes the main theme of this post: fear, juxtaposed with love.

i do genuinely believe that Azula loved Mai and Ty Lee. not in the way typical friends love one another, because Azula is not a typical person who learned to love in a typical way, but love nonetheless.

(we can trace this back to her relationship with her father VS her relationship with her mother. Azula had a very distinctive way of looking at her childhood: she was her father's daughter, and Zuko was her mother's son. while we never saw Azula's reaction to his banishment, whether it was positive or negative, this surely cemented this idea for her. once their mother was gone, her father had no use for him. but of course he still had use for her—he loved her.

and if her father loved her, in a father-daughter relationship fueled by fear and intimidation, and her mother didn't, in a mother-daughter relationship that wasn't, what do you think she learned of love? but we'll bring this idea back later.)

she loved them, and she trusted them, and they betrayed her.

but before i really dig into the quote, i want to go over this love-fear juxtaposition, because it is a common theme throughout her character arc as she spirals further and further.

this scene is set after the betrayal, and the fact that they brought in a hallucination of her mother is very, very important.

once again, these opposing feelings of fear and love are brought back again. before, i said that Ursa and Azula's relationship wasn't fueled by fear. but is that true? Azula says very clearly here that her mother fears her and thinks that she's a monster. And this hallucination of her mother, a figment of all her worst fears and regrets and internal conflicts, brings up Mai and Ty Lee.

And then:

Even you fear me. No. I love you, Azula. I do.

"even you fear me" "no. i love you"? this is so, so crucial to what we know about Azula and her perception of love. she views love and fear to be very closely linked, even intertwined, not something to be separated in such a way.

even you fear me — but do you love me? i don't know if you do. but you fearing me does not stop you from loving me. they are not separate entities. i do not know how to be loved if i am not feared.

no. i love you — you are my daughter. i do not fear you. i love you. they can be separate. i love you without fearing you. no, i do not fear you. i love you.

and this is Azula's breaking point. tears stream down her face and she shatters the mirror. this separation of fear and love—it's too much. she doesn't know how to handle it. she knows fear without love, but she does not know love without fear.

her relationship with Zuko is another prime example. i fully believe that Azula loved her brother, or at least cared for him in some capacity. you see it in scenes such as these:

she had no reasonable ulterior motive here. she genuinely was trying to help him and look after him—but he's also afraid of her. he's afraid of what she might do or what she wants from him, even if in this particular scene that fear is unnecessary.

even when she recruited Ty Lee, she used fear to get Ty Lee to join her:

Ty Lee is legitimately happy to see Azula, but you can see the fear on her face when she turns down Azula's offer to search for the Avatar. and then, you can see that fear again when Azula tells her she'll be attending her show. and of course, Azula sets the net on fire, and Ty Lee ends up accepting Azula's offer.

i do believe Ty Lee and Azula had genuine love for one another, but Azula just never knew how to have that love without the fear.

and finally, we come back to the quote.

I love Zuko more than I fear you. / You should've feared me more.

or: I love Zuko more than I love you. / You should've loved me more.

the use of the word "miscalculated" fits perfectly here. everyone adores Azula. she's the prodigy, the crown princess, the Fire Nation's darling. no one is supposed to love Zuko. Zuko is the failure, the banished prince, their nation's greatest shame.

you miscalculated. you were supposed to love me. you were my friend. you were my ally. i trusted you. i made you fear me. you were supposed to love me. no one loves Zuko. everyone loves me.

you miscalculated. love doesn't work like that. love doesn't come with fear. fear chases love away. you made me fear you. you made me hate you. i chose Zuko, because you don't know how to love.

and it all always comes back to Zuko, doesn't it?

but i'm yours. Zuko was mother's, and mother is long gone, and see, Zuko was a traitor. Zuko was nothing. you treated Zuko terribly because Zuko wasn't yours. but i am. i am your daughter. i am your prodigy. i am your princess. i am your heir. how dare you treat me like him. like nothing. how dare you.

i also believe that this was the true final blow that sent her spiraling into her downfall. she's extremely vulnerable here: her two most trusted friends and allies have just betrayed her, and here it is, another betrayal. where she is usually cool and collected, she is snappy and hot-headed, here.

his betrayal is quickly and immediately rectified when he informs her she will become the new Firelord. see, she's not like Zuko. Zuko is banished with no crown and no legacy. she is different. she is her father's child. Zuko is her mother's. she gets the throne. he gets nothing.

but Mai still chose Zuko. and she was absolutely furious, of course, but even this she could still handle. it's what happens after that she can't.

The thing I don't understand is why. Why would you do it?

why would you choose him? why would you choose Zuko? only one person ever chose Zuko: Mother. but she doesn't matter. she's gone. but why. why. (why do they keep choosing Zuko?)

and then, probably my favorite shot in the entire series:

Ty Lee looks at Mai, then Azula. it's barely a second long, but it speaks volumes. she's making a decision. Mai, or Azula? Mai, or Azula?

throughout our time with Ozai's Angels, it's obvious that Ty Lee is Azula's right hand woman. she goes with her everywhere. even in this scene, Ty Lee is right next to Azula the whole time.

and Mai chose Zuko. Mai chose Zuko. she says that "I love Zuko more than I love you" and she should've loved her more, and so now Azula is going to kill her. she's about to summon her lightning, and—

so Ty Lee chose Mai. and Mai chose Zuko. and her mother chose Zuko. and Azula chose her father and her nation and her ambition, and she thought her father chose her, and he did, he did.

thing about Azula: she loves. she loves Zuko, and she loves Ty Lee, and she loves Mai. but she doesn't prioritize her love the way Zuko does. her love comes last. her father comes before her love. before her father, her nation. but before all of that, her ambition.

for her ambition to ever come to fruition, she needs fear, doesn't she?

and Zuko fears her.

so she wins. right?

wrong.

she loses.

she gave up everything, absolutely everything, and she. still. loses. to fucking Zuko.

he won their mother's love. he won Mai. he, indirectly, won Ty Lee. and now he won the crown, her crown.

Azula, born lucky, born a prodigy, never wins.

[phading]

Hi, it's me!

Okay, so there’s probably a lot you don’t know about me. So just in case you’re in the least bit interested:

I try very, very hard never to read incomplete fics. Purely selfish, and the result of reading far too many heart-grabbing stories that never got finished. If you need kudos or encouragement or anything else to continue, I’m here and over the moon excited to read anything you’d like to throw at me. Just let me know what you want in return - comments, critique, suggestions, hugs, encouragement, emojis, whatever ...

I posted one fic a chapter at a time, and I doubt I’ll ever do it again.

Characterization is everything.

If you’ve noticed an absence of Brains, Grandma, Lady P, Havoc, etc… in my fics it’s because I don’t give a twit. Perhaps one day I will evolve beyond this simplistic state.

I suck at prompts, challenges and deadlines. My muse is never in the right headspace at the right time.

I have a ridiculous need to keep it believable when really, the stuff that goes on in the show – no matter how much I adore it – is often somewhat miraculous.

It’s the future, people, I’m allowed to invent things.

In real life, I write kids’ books.

To the best of my knowledge, I’m the oldest member of the Thunderfam. Challenge me if you think you can claim the title.

The first thing of importance I ever wrote was a full length Star Trek Next Gen novel which I submitted to a few select New York publishers (oh, the innocence of youth) . Surprise, surprise, many of them actually read it and sent back comments written on famous restaurant napkins.

So, in light of all of the above, I’m once again doing my own thing. Inspired by the recent “10 opening lines from 10 recent fics” post I’m changing it up to “10 opening lines from 10 WIPs”.  I mean, seriously, I’m a newbie here and have far more WIPs than I do finished fics. So here’s what’s – pray to the anti-depression, anti-chronic pain gods  – coming up …

A WHOLE LOT OF SUPERFICIAL The uniform discarded in a heap on the floor outside the showers was expected – the purple neoprene wasn’t. (Virgil, Scott, shaping up to be humour)

THE LAST ZOO ON EARTH “Say again, John. I thought you said we have a situation at a zoo.” (All brothers, major rescue, major whump, pissed off Gordon)

THERE ARE NO CANNIBALS ANYMORE “Sir! I need you to calm down!” (Hurt Virgil, this one could go graphic in a hurry)

IT DOESN’T HURT Virgil glanced up from the piano keys, searching for inspiration but instead witnessing his fish brother's spectacular dive off the board – a dive that would leave his re-built back in shambles. (Fishtank, chronic pain)

TIGHT ROPE “I’m sorry, John, but if she’s dumb enough to try and pull off this ridiculous stunt, I see no reason why we should save her from her own stupidity.” (rescue gone sideways)

STARSTUCK Alan Tracy had been looking forward to this moment for a very long time. (Hurt Virgil, guilty Alan, Thunderbird 3 whump)

STELLAR “Hey, John, what’s this?” “It’s personal, that’s what it is!” (Guilty John, comatose Gordon, poetry, John has a secret)

CASPIAN John Tracy blinked open his eyes, breath catching when he discovered the most beautiful thing in his universe mere centimetres from his face. (John, OC-John’s lover, angst, Marks and Wings, John is not only a telepathic Ave but he’s bi!)

PSYCHOTIC MEDIUMS The probe entered Earth’s solar system broadcasting a symphony of alien sound that instantaneously drove the half-a-million or so humans who were listening insane. (Virgil centric, angst, sci-fi)

THE JOHN-CODE “Hey, Eos, you wanna help me test this new game?” (Alan, John, Eos, virtual games gone wrong.)

[linka-from-captain-planet]

Florrickology, Part 5: Counsellor Desiré "Fuck It, We Ball" Florrick

Back in Part 1, I alluded to this fascinating aspect of my beloved's personality. I have had much to say about her overarching actions re: her role in the story, but it's time to focus on the details of what she actually does and how she actually handles the challenges she faces of the course of the three acts.

What is so interesting about Florrick is that she's presented as character who would be fully Lawful Good: careful, methodical, a planner... but IS she?

Again, it's important to emphasize that Florrick is a background figure. She's a quest-giver and a story-mover first, and a character last.

As I mentioned in previous installments of Florrickology, what she actually says and does isn't as important as the impression they leave the player with; you aren't supposed to read too much into her literal lines/actions, but rather take them at pretty much face-value and move on with the game, because they mostly boil down to a) moving the plot for more important characters/events and b) video game mechanics.

But as a background character propagandist and Florrick's first and #1 simp, this creates a playground of fun stuff to play with that is actually rooted in canon, because even if you aren't supposed to read into these things, you can and I did.

In Part 1, I said:

I'll have more to say about Desiré "Fuck It, We Ball" Florrick and her personality in another florrickology post, but the long and short of it is that this woman is not afraid of shit and sashays into every situation fully confident in her ability to charm or steamroll it to her liking. "She is used to getting her way", indeed.

Let's dig in deeper, encounter-by-encounter.

"She is used to getting her way" is straight from the dialogue file for the first Florrick encounter conversation, which along with "She should come off as no-nonsense but good" is the only description of her in the files. These definitely set the tone, because what's the first thing Florrick does in the game?

Command the player to assist with search and rescue. She's not really asking, even if she does phrase it in a civilized manner. As far as she's concerned, she's calling the player up (on borrowed authority, as she's only an advisor, not a duke herself) for a mandatory civic duty... even if they're not even Baldurian, or even from this plane of existence. If you think about it, unless Wyll is with you, it makes 0 sense to agree to anything she asks (especially if you don't yet know anything about the overall plot), and all this is an insane thing to ask of a random stranger who just happened to stop by.

I love this because not only is it insane, it's assertive. It's asking for forgiveness, not permission. It's the door-in-the-face technique. It's being so self-assured and confident that she is correct and others will comply because she is correct that it doesn't even occur to her that anyone would refuse. From her perspective, it's probably a small ask considering what she would be willing to do, and proceeds to actually do, for the sake of the greater good and the survival of Baldur's Gate.

My first play through I had literally no clue what the fuck she was talking about, was only tangentially aware that "Baldur's Gate" was an actual place and not the place I currently was, and had not yet synthesized any information about the overall plot, but of course I was immediately like "never arguing with a woman with big brown eyes... whatever you say gorgeous" and would have immediately run to """moonrise towers""" if I had any idea where it was. So needless to say it worked on me.

This blisteringly self-assured and balls-to-the-wall approach to handling every situation follows her throughout the game.

Depending on how you progress through the Act 1 map, she may be the first character who tells you details about Moonrise Towers, the center of this hot new cult on the block, swallowed in shadows so perilous that they can only be attributed to nefarious powers at work... so obviously, she's just like "anyway, I'll see you there."

And then she literally runs off with her ragtag group of surviving Fists, thong and all. No further planning. No correspondence with contacts in the city. It IS the next step in handling this matter in her estimation, which is true and correct, so that's what they'll do.

Fuck it, we ball.

When you meet her again in the Last Light Inn, her Fists have completed a reconnaissance mission to Moonrise (maybe she went with, considering her famously good scouting skills) and determined it to be unassailable, which indicates she considered storming the tower as an option, despite presumably already having rendezvoused with the Harpers who informed her that the tower was guarded by cultists, zombies, and an immortal undead general. (You also find her mid-argument with a Fist, putting him in his place as he questions her authority and she is NOT having it.)

On speaking with her, she promptly voluntells the player's party to investigate the tower further, while she returns to the city to appeal to the council for reinforcements, specifically newfangled Steel Watch units. Then for some reason, she drops this fairly baffling line:

Baby... what the fuck do you mean?

Does she mean she half-expects to die trying to transverse the shadow-cursed lands, which she's already done with no issues (presumably sheltered by the radiant glow of her gorgeousness)... or does she know or suspect there's something up with the council, which she's never indicated before? I think I missed something in this convo due to being distracted by beautiful she looks in this lighting, but if I didn't, then I guess she's possibly referring to getting past the Absolute's army parked in the way to the city, but regardless...

Fuck it, we ball. It's what she decided to do, so it will be done.

The next time you meet her, she's like a completely different woman. Defeated, head hung, demoralized, just waiting in her cell for execution. She can't escape for Video Game Reasons, but realistically... she definitely could, as a level 11 wizard. She just chooses not to, because as she says herself, she already lost. She failed, and the city will fall, and there's nothing worth living for.

It's shocking to see her in this state because it's so discordant with her previous behavior: head high, spine iron, barking orders.

So, good thing she bounces back immediately! This is again a Video Game Mechanic, but I do find it very in character that her response to even the "I'll beat your ass" rescue option is basically "You're totally right, giving up wasn't very cash money of me."

I've had much to say about the last real Florrick encounter, and how much it sucks ass, but it really is the biggest Fuck It, We Ball moment in the game, because you have to consider:

Florrick knows the player and/or Wyll have killed the avatar of a god. And she confronts them anyway, ready to fight and definitely ready to die. She's already fugitive marked for death; she's already determined that with Ulder fallen, the city is doomed.

Might as well die like she lived, right? Might as well take a mother fucker down with her, right?

All of this subtle chaos and insanity is super fun (also hot) to me because it's like... what is this woman's actual deal? Combined with what I pointed out in Florrickology Part 3, where Wyll implies it's somewhat routine practice for her to up and kill would-be assassins and also scout the wilderness for danger, "moving the plot" and "video game mechanics" add up to one hell of a woman. How does she come off as such an uptight, level-headed person but sometimes act like 5 raccoons stuffed into a distractingly sexy dress?

Truly an icon of a character for us modern-day corporate girlies who just get a little squirrelies sometimes.

Women can truly do it all!

[thefloatingstone]

Sorry, this is about a post from 2020, but in answering an ask about homophobia in Utena you mentioned, “another is a man who is gearing himself up for a hetero marraige because he feels its the proper thing someone in his position should do, until he meets a teenaged boy and it’s like “…..oh fuck…””… are you talking about Mikage? Are you saying the search for eternity he’s researching is a metaphor for hetero marriage, à la Akio’s “the castle is where a prince and princess will live together forever?” (not disagreeing just wanting to make sure I understand correctly, id never thought of it that way before)

or did I miss something in the series lol

Oh oof this was a while ago and I haven't watched the series in a while. But kind of?

More like, Mikage is very emotionally detached from social norms when we first meet him and is completely engrossed with his work. He is constantly referred to as "a human computer".

When he meets Tokiko there is enough symbology to make you realise as he's speaking to her he is very logically and coldly thinking to himself "ah yes. A female. I am supposed to marry one of these and start a family. She seems like a good candidate".

"She is feminine and is doing feminine things. This is seen as attractive by men so this must make her an attractive partner."

"Yes. This is good for what is expected of me. Starting a family with her would be a good move."

While at the same time there is ONE singular moment with the flashing hand that is difficult to catch. In all the previous scenes the flashing hand makes a beeping noise. But in one singular moment during this scene while he and Tokiko are speaking, the camera pans over the other researchers walking to and from the hall and you can HEAR the hand but it's not onscreen until the VERY last second and even then the camera cuts away before you can really figure out what it's pointing at.

The hand is pointing at two men holding hands as they walk.

As Mikage is speaking to Tokiko and gauging if she might be worth pursuing as a partner as a Good Hetero Boy should. But this image shows just as Mikage is saying "They have gathered a good group of boys here who can continue my research".

There is no solid way to interpret this as "Ah THIS is what Mikage means!" but I think it's placement and the way the camera cuts away from it pretty quickly is pretty telling. Especially since the flashing hand in this scene has been showing us Mikage's internal thoughts as he's spending time with Tokiko.

It's possible to see this as his thoughts briefly wandering to the male students in the program, and that doing so automatically, if only for a brief moment, becomes a dreaded GAY THOUGHT. which is why the camera cuts way from it so quickly and back to the room he and Tokiko are sitting in.

AND THEN. FUCKING. (sorry I am rewatching this scene and losing my mind at details I didn't notice before)

FUCKING. AFTER THIS GAY THOUGHT. He is speaking to Tokiko about how the boys are spreading rumours that they are trying to revolutionise the world. But it's clear he has no interest in this and says "It's like they're trying to build a perpetual motion machine" to mock them as ridiculous. BUT THAT'S NOT THE IMPORTANT PART!!!!

THE IMPORTANT PART!!! is AFTER this gay thought, and him dismissing the boys as stupid, the camera does a LOOOOOOONG pan over Tokiko's body as Mikage says

GOD DAMMIT MIKAGE!!!!!

"If I run away fast enough the gay thoughts can't get me!"

I AM GOING INSANE KSDHKSHDKHFDS

Anyway then Tokiko runs when she hears mamiya in the rose garden, Mikage follows her, and the SECOND he lays eyes on mamiya, Tokiko, very WEIRDLY, just leaves the room and walks away without Mikage or Mamiya even acknowledging her.

REAL SUBTLE.

The next scene has Tokiko explaining to Mikage how his research of attaining eternity is what could save Mamiya's life. Even as she's explaining to Mikage and her motivations, he remains emotionally detached from her, as he is only seen in this shot reflected in the mirror. Standing next to her, but not.

But when Tokiko sheds a tear and apologises for this, Mikage says, still reflected in the mirror, "I feel like this is the first time I've seen a person cry."

Basically 'This is the first time I actually feel emotionally responding to someone else's sadness"

Baby's first empathy... because it's about Mamiya.

And then as he moves to leave and return to his research, this time with purpose, Tokiko asks him if he has anyone who is precious to him. That part's not important. The important part is the next sentence she says as Mikage leaves.... having said for the first time he's connected to someone's sadness over the young boy....

And then he throws himself into his research

So that is how Mikage embraced the gay thoughts in his weird academic way. "Well it's not TECHNICALLY gay if I'm just trying to save the life of the woman I have selected to be my partner!" And so the story starts to unravel for him.

TO get back to your question tho, Mikage is actually NOT chasing Eternity when he meets Tokiko. And his hetero relationship with here does not actually symbolise eternity to him at all.

He repeatedly says before he meets Tokiko that he is a "living computer" and describes himself as "a dry man passing dry days". He also says the research isn't going well, but he doesn't actually care.

However, when he is at Tokiko's home he is STILL expressing disinterest in the research when she brings it up. He not only makes fun of the other researchers as I previous said, saying "it's like they're trying to invent a perpetual motion machine". He specifically refers to the research and his fellow researches in a detached way. THEY are trying to create a perpetual motion machine. THEY are trying to attain eternity. He is completely disinterested and detached from the research himself.

In fact he tells Tokiko

He even says "I have done more than what the contract called for." (which incidentally he says directly before it cuts to the boys holding hands)

IT'S ALMOST LIKE HE ISN'T TALKING ABOUT RESEARCH AT ALL HMMMMMMM 🤔🤔🤔

"I was an emotionally detached man. Living on auto-pilot. I find the thing everyone else is doing to be stupid. But I am taking part despite being completely disinterested. The BOYS are extraordinary tho. But anyway, it's stupid to want more. People should be satisfied with the chosen direction they already have. But purely for business reasons."

*Mamiya enters* hey

"Oh shit now see THIS is a different story!!! I have something to live for!!! Doing this thing because of this BOY is now the most important thing in the entire world!!! I am a man possessed!!!!"

*whispers* nothing in this scene is about research.

[the-sweet-hibiscus]

On Racism in the Darklina Community

disclaimer: this is less receipt based and just my own personal feelings over the last few days.

With the situation with Christina there was a lot push back and divide between whether or not Merel deserved the vitriol and larger if Darklinas at all deserve the automatic hate and discrediting as fans in this space.

Accusations

There were a lot of responses, and with this I noticed a common theme of accusing Darklinas, in a general sense, of being racist harassers. And I want to discuss it earnestly and genuinely because racism is a very serious thing. So I'm going to show a few tweets and we can go from there (redacted user names because I don't think who is making these accusation is as important as what they're saying).

These come from the same person. I've explained this before and I stand by it — I don't think any one person should be penalized for the actions of someone else. Full stop. The person who was attacked was - only in the family for a few months, hadn't really interacted with Christina before, etc. But that was hashed out in my previous post. My real issue came when people asked for proof of these accusations. "I don't have it, I didn't see a reason to screenshot it." Now this person has since claimed to not be in the Shadow and Bone fandom at all. So lets give the grace and say they thought "not my circus, not my monkey". Right? It's fair. I don't go into other fandoms and screenshot the worst of the worst and put them on blast. But I also don't, months and years later, return and say "oh you're all awful" I just find it weird. But again. We have no proof here. Not a name to look into. Not a phrase that someone might have said. They said this:

But I just. How are we supposed to know what to search right? If I, over the past three years, have never seen the racism people are talking about. How am I supposed to know what to look for? Who am I looking for? They claim just look it up? Look what up? Racism and Darklina as key terms? All I'm asking for is a name. Literally anything to prove that "oh these people are bad, let me disassociate with them." Instead, I and anyone who asks for a modicum of evidence or even just 1 name its "i don't know" or "well I didn't think it was important". For years! Like if you don't think it's important to spread awareness about when it happens, or even provide like the standard "this is you?" or just ANYTHING. Then they call us idiot for asking for it. People are just begging for information. I AM BEGGING for someone to say or show something that can ya know. Justify the claims they're making. That's not insane I don't think. All the time, accusations are put out on the internet. And every time. "Do you have any proof? If not I won't believe you." EVERY TIME. In pop culture off the top of my head — Colleen Balinger v Adam McIntyre. The Ace Family combating sexual assault accusations. Percy Hynes White. Chris D'elia. The list goes on and on. And each time it was like "where are the receipts. Or the receipts are given. Counter-evidence is given. The court of public opinion takes place.

Yet when it's a group of people asking for proof of these actions so they don't interact anymore. It's "you're just like them." This seemed like such a popular response. So popular for people to think "lol proof? fuck you."

No Proof is Our Fault, I guess

So obviously this person wasn't the only one voicing their opinion. And this person said:

Firstly, I hate that anyone would be harassed because they point out racist actions. I'm sorry, that the one person you showed, did something awful. Truly. I'm sorry that the people in question lashed out at you. However. Like I said: if the majority of us didn't see it, right, how are we supposed to call this out? If we didn't see? We never heard it? So now we're all evil, and are going to attack you? Because we said nothing because we saw nothing? But it's people like this, who at the same time will go out of their way to quote tweet, and screenshot when they see minor behavior on the timeline.

To the point that bee briefly deleted her account. So it's like, obviously the capacity to call out problematic behavior is there. The willingness to screenshot, quote tweet, and spread around any tweet from a darklina is there.

But when it comes to racism: "I don't trust you enough to share evidence." "I didn't think it was important."

When it comes to harassment: crickets.

It's not important until darklinas have a problem with being discredited. It's not important enough to screenshot or report until other parts of the fandom want to have a gotcha moment without providing any instances of racism actually happening.

This is long winded already.

Final Thoughts

Idk man. I just feel frustrated because all I've seen for DAYS is "please tell us who these terrible people are, so we can block and stop interacting with them." and then it turns to "Fuck you, you know what you did." NO. I don't! None of the people asking for proof know what you're talking about! That's why we're ASKING.

In literally all of my other fandoms, there are similar dramas and accusations. But it never drags on for years because proof is provided! Those people are excommunicated from the larger space! But it just feels like anti-darklina fans are so gun-ho on demonizing EVERYONE because the actions of the few.

If you see racism and harassment, REPORT IT. Screen shot, share why. Say "hey this is problematic." Everyone talks about cancel culture, but when it comes to serious accusations they think solving the issue is hiding it? Refusing to share what was said so people can make sure no one interacts with them or at least make it know that person sucks ass?

At this point it feels like y'all WANT darklinas to be these bad people who say and do awful things. Meanwhile, this year alone, Darklinas have excommunicated several people for defending Ben Barnes and the racist actions he's committed this year. (This is not a BB call out post, but as BB and Darklinas had a lot of overlap, it was something that came up and overwhelmingly Darklinas shamed Ben Barnes and the defenders).

I just wish this fandom was able to collectively acknowledge when someone is being terrible, regardless of their fucking shipping preference. Racism has no place in fan spaces. It never should. (It has no place in real life, either.) And fan spaces should work TOGETHER to expel racists when it's seen. It's called a fandom community for a reason.

[sweetestpopcorn]

i’m sorry but i have become a harwin and laena hater because of their stans. they’re so annoying, making everyone think their headcanon are canon when it’s not, annoying everyone with it. i just can’t. ‘harwin was better than daemon’ when and where???? ‘daemon only loved laena’ when and where??? ‘laena was never a second choice’ hum but daemon married her because viserys said no to rhaenyra and him which, by definition, does make her a second choice…

the dick riding for harwin and laena is insane i just cant anymore. some of laena stans wish rhaenyra had died instead of laena, i swear. and for harwin? what did he do? what do we know about him? the two of them have not even one page PLEASE. again love who you want but this is starting to annoy me so much how they’re ditching daemyra and rhaenyra/daemon as individual characters for laena/harwin who are not even that important

Hi there and sorry for this delay ☺️

I have to say that because I have not searched the tags and have avoided reading anything since Redacted came out for I would argue obvious reasons, so I have only ever seen the Laena stans. Being here since 2018 I can tell you that Harwin stans were not a thing prior to redacted. No one cared about him, no one gave a f_ck. You actually had a LOT of Criston stans - I wonder why since so many outspoken bfn and "intellectuals" are anti targ 🙄 - some Daemon stans but Harwin was not even an afterthought.

Laena stans, however, those I know and WOW. Just today I saw a post about how people prefer characters they can insert into rather than characters with too many flaws and personality that they can't really insert to and the example for Rhaenyra was Alicent.

I laughed because clearly this is about redacted. Any asoiaf fans know that Laena was always the unsalted bread to Rhaenyra's personality that people loved to self insert into to the point where if you first read the fandom takes and then the book, you would think "B:tch I want my money back! 'Cause none of that is in here!"

For what is worth, however, in my fic "The Year of the Red Spring" I do not romanticise what was going on between Harwin and Rhaenyra, and he's not painted on the best light and I had a total of 0 Harwin stans complain. You know who did come to spew BS and have a temper tantrum however? A so-called "Daemyra fan" who seems to think she's reading "Pride and Prejudice" whose idea of Daemon is Matt but with a hard d:ck and thinks its fine to go around fanfictions to insult the authors - because I know I was not the only one she has done this to. And if she ever reads this, you should to get off the internet and learn how to re-direct your anger.

So in a sense, because the Harwin stans are actually Harlose stans and because I don't care about redacted and its characters I... I don't care 🤷🏽‍♀️ I have yet to encounter real BS about canon Harwin Strong so I can't have strong feelings there. Repeating myself for most of my fandom experience he was ignored and treated like a disposable vibr_tor or less while Laena was made out to be the main character 🤷🏽‍♀️

[squarebracket-trickster]

Make Me Write Tag Game

@forthesanityofstorytellers with this post, and @words-after-midnight with this one...

Well. Well. Well. Your timing is impeccable, both of you. I am taking a break from WIPVII until August 1st and I have three other WIPs I want to work on in the meantime. I guess I'm making a poll to decide which one to work on first!

Rules: Make a 24hr poll listing the titles of every WIP you want to work on. (It’s fine if you only have one, still make a poll for the vote count). Whichever WIP title gets the most votes, write 1 sentence for every vote received.

(if you are unsure if you are doing it right you can refer to this post I made about tag game guidelines in general. Of course, they are just guidelines. You can do your own thing if you want and no one can stop you.)

Ever so delicately tagging: @olivescales3, @tea-and-mercury, @avocado-frog, @avidink, @aziz-reads, @quintonli, and @marzipan-corner, and, you know what? This is a pretty cool idea. I'm gonna leave an open tag for anyone who wants to do it too.

Descriptions of each WIP are under the cut.

WIPXIV (WIP 14) is brand-spanking new. I thought up the idea while researching medieval clothing for WIPVII. I don't really have a plot yet but something... something... puesdo-sciencey time-travel shenanigans but the equipment is telescopes, mirrors, hand-cranked projectors etc. etc. and our main cast are a ragtag group from the 1450s who have to travel to various points in the past and future (including our present-day. sort of. there are dragons in this version of our world) to save it from a yet-to-be-determined impending doom. The most important part of this WIP (according to me) is that I make a point of showing how futuristic Elizabethan ruff-collars and how old-fashioned those 1100s style girdles would feel to these characters. I am tired of pseudo-medieval worlds that act like ruff-collars and butterfly veils and floor-length pigtail braids co-existed at the same time.

WIPXII (WIP 12) was a project I started for NaNo last year. I wrote 25k words and then realized I had no idea where I was going with it so I left it to simmer for a while. It is a magic school story, and it is undeniably a response to a favourite childhood author of mine who turned out to be a bigot. This is a project for me to steal the things I loved from the story I grew up with, but write something that I can actually enjoy without getting an icky feeling. My main character is a fat, Jewish, bisexual trans-girl named Shiri and the themes of this story are anti-capitalist and highly critical of the school system. The story is about the magical subcultures and student-run intellectual and activist clubs who are fighting against censorship, gatekeeping of magical knowledge, and the authoritarian government that has a terrible track record of human rights abuses.

WIPIV (WIP 4 or How to Take Over the World). One of my few WIPs with an official name, HtTOtW is the story of an invisibly disabled 20-something who is sick of being underestimated and feeling like she is immature, undisciplined, and a failure for not being as far along in post-secondary and her career-path as her peers. To shut up the voices in her head (and those of society) once and for all, she plans to do the most impressive thing she can think of: take over the world. I've put this project off for a while because it will require an insane amount of research and RIP my search history. The Canadian Secret Service is gonna have a file on me after this. But I do have some ideas for a character study and the mc is such a self-insert ohmygosh. This is my catharsis project.

[tentacledwizard]

Tumblr User tentacledwizard Reviews: National Treasure

[absolutely INEXCUSABLE longpost ahead. Im sorry for being a Nick Cage fan. Not really, though. Also, SPOILERS for the first National Treasure movie.

    Hey, everyone, it’s your favorite reviewer t-wiz. Back at it again, posting like 5 days after seeing the actual movie. I know everyone must have been dying of anticipation. Well, so was I. We’re all in the same boat. And that boat is called the Charlotte, which is where the secret lies. That’s right: the movie was National Treasure. So I may get a little overexcited in this review.

Let me set the scene. @cgtg hosted another moviy nite on Friday. This time, the movie was Ghost Town starring Ricky Gervais. …Nobody really enjoyed it. I was only there for the last 20 minutes, and it sure wasn’t as fun as Employee of the Month. So I suggested National Treasure, starring the inimitable Nicolas Cage. The fact that I have a “nick cage” tag on my blog should probably tell you some things. I find his current status fascinating, as his thespian commitment is oft-regarded with snickering. He was fairly restrained in this movie, but still did a good job. I have a bit of a history with this movie. I first put it on as payback for having to see 50 First Dates, and was pleasantly surprised (by, among other things, Riley Poole). So I’m happy I got to see it again for like the third time in one month.

PLOT:

National Treasure is the kid-friendly saga of Benjamin “Ben” Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage), whose family has been consistently wrapped up in a quest for a stash of treasure. This treasure is a big deal. Pharaohs longed for it. This whole group called the Knights Templar were big Treasure Stash stans. A secret society called the Freemasons are also closely involved. Turns out many of the founding fathers were also Freemasons (I’m pretty sure this is actually true). So of course Kid Ben learns this from his grandpa in a spooky attic, but his dad (Jon Voight) is all “heck nah son, treasure is NOT where it’s at.” And he has a point! The search for the “National Treasure” has clue after clue after clue, and it requires Cage to make some truly insane leaps in logic (especially in the sequel. Yes I have seen both films). But it is consistently entertaining. Don’t worry, I won’t go through the entire plot because that would just be a synopsis. 

Okay. So we’ve set up a MacGuffin (the treasure) and Grandpa Gates has given us a clue (“the secret lies with Charlotte”). Time to fast-forward to the frozen North, where Nick Cage’s adult face appears in all its shining glory. So does his hairline. I’m a bit concerned- shouldn’t his face be covered up better? It must be freezing. Oh well. A Bri’ish chap named Ian (Sean Bean = oddly pleasing name) and a former cubicle worker named Riley (Justin Bartha) are also members of the expedition. They unearth a ship called the Charlotte, and inside is a clue that leads to the Declaration of Independence. Ian offers to “borrow” the Declaration. Ben, being a historian, is all “heck nah Ian, stealing important documents is NOT where it’s at.” Ian is all “A fair point, however, consider the following: Gun.” We get some tasty blue and orange color contrasts, the stunning revelation that the Brit was NOT to be trusted, and a badass explosion. 

After this, shit gets real. Well, it was real from the start. It simply snowballs in realness throughout the movie. Benjamin and the non-evil expedition member, Riley, take this issue to the FBI, among others. The FBI will also get involved later on in the movie. Ben meets Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), who is the love interest by way of being blonde and also knowing stuff about American history. Truly a match made in the National Archives. She tries not to laugh at their outrageous story. He patronizes her coin collection. They part ways, sure to meet again.

After failing to convince anyone the Declaration is in danger, Nick, I mean Ben, decides to steal it before Ian’s team can. Turns out stealing important documents is where it’s at.

Resident smartguy Riley tries and fails to talk Ben out of it.

Hey, it’s an important clue, and it has some serious historical value, and Ian has to pay for his perfidy. It’s nice to see/hear Ben and Riley when they’re not obscured by a haze of ice, because Riley is amazing. More at ten. Thus begins DECLARATIONTHEFT 2004, aka Awesome Heist Sequence. I love this scene. We get to see the early-2000’s CGI in all its glory. We get to see Riley and Ben do their thing. (Ben’s thing is history and secret clues. Riley’s is techy stuff.) Also the scene transitions? If I knew a thing about camerawork, I probably wouldn’t even mention this. But hey.

Then the actual theft happens, and it’s pretty neat. Nick must go from National Archives employee to nerdy guy at a gala to, well, Declaration thief. Meanwhile, the British have weapons and they’re not afraid to use them. Kudos to Riley for being the guy in the chair. Double kudos to Abigail for having to put up with the thieves. Triple kudos to the giftshop lady for taking Visa.

Wow, this got long! This is what I get for summarizing the first part of the movie instead of ACTUALLY REVIEWING. Okay, here goes.

REVIEW:

National Treasure, as I’ve said, is important to me. Sure, it seems pretty formulaic, but it’s fun. I got this inexplicable glee out of seeing Nick Cage work out each impossible clue. He is operating on a level we cannot understand. Every little plot-relevant thing about American history I could remember was like a major win for me.

This is an action movie, not a rom-com, so it’s certainly less character-driven than, say, Employee of the Month. The characters tend to be more developed stock characters, so it’s pretty hit-or-miss. For instance, Abigail and Ian are the mandatory Blond Love Interest and British Bad Guy. There’s not much to say about either. However, the Disapproving Parent, FBI Man, and Guy in the Chair were unexpectedly great. Especially that last one. 

There are plenty of great scenes: heists, dungeon crawling, tomb raiding, Nick Cage talking. The soundtrack is also good: they’ll have the usual action-adventure track and then give us a sudden drum lick like it’s no big deal. Okay, I admit that this is a very silly movie. And I am probably very silly for writing so much about it. But so what, it’s entertaining. Certainly not as homoerotic as Employee of the Month, but after all this is kid-friendly. As long as you don’t really tear into whether the “treasure” stuff is plausible, this is great to watch! 

Not only that, but Nicolas Cage was great to watch. His performance was oddly hypnotic, just as in every other movie he’s ever been in. My father was roasting his appearance for the entire movie, but I won’t get into that whole can of whales. On to the characters part.

CHARACTERS:

Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage). Ben Gates is a dedicated treasure hunter and historian. He supplies a considerable amount of the movie’s intense autism vibes (perhaps I am projecting, considering how much I vibe with this). However, I don’t like how condescending he acts towards Abigail. If I hadn’t seen the sequel, I’d probably still be annoyed by this. Like she’s unwillingly in your getaway van, show her a little courtesy and stop telling her to shut up. I wish he didn’t have so much casual misogyny. :| As I’ve said, Nick Cage was oddly mesmerizing as he did things like splonk off bridges and steal sacred American documents. I cannot think of him as “kinda cute actually” the way I did of Dane Cook, but that’s definitely for the best. Everyone thinks I have a celebrity crush on Cage. They don’t UNDERSTAND. 

Uh. Sorry, got off track. So Ben’s character kind of captures the crux of Cageness, in a way. Nobody understands how important this quest is to him, and he has to go by “Paul Brown” to avoid being a laughingstock. Do I see parallels with how Nick Cage changed his name from Coppola to Cage? I mean, they are there, but I’m probably looking into it too much. Side note, I enjoyed Ben’s one brief display of raw hopelessness. It’s the sort of thing you chuckle at when it’s taken out of context, but so are many of Cage’s big movie moments.

Not much else to say about his role in this movie? Nick Cage certainly does “adventure hero” well. His most “Cagey” moment in both movies is absolutely when he faked a drunk argument with Abigail and then screamed “HAGGIS” at a Buckingham Palace guard. But here I am getting ahead of myself. The entire moviy nite group was surely gazing at Nicolas Cage’s hairline and aquiline nose for the entirety of the film. We basked in the sound of his soft ‘s’s and ‘t’s. We tried to parse his historical theories. Truly, his mind contains galaxies. Ben/Nick Cage operates on a whole other level than what we would believe.

(aaa look at him ok im done now)

And with that said, let’s move on to the other man of the hour. That’s right, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha). Man, I love this guy. What can I say, I’m a sucker for sarcastic guys in chairs. Bonus points for nerd glasses. Riley gets all of the points. He is a gem. I’m pretty sure there was a whole article on Medium about his character, so maybe check that out if you are genuinely interested in this thing I’m typing here? 

So yeah, Riley is very much the guy in the chair. He provides comic relief, but is also a genius in his own right. Unlike Ben, he never seems to act self-righteous about this. Riley has this great mix of sarcasm and sincerity, and he’s a good foil to Ben/Abigail’s historical ramblings. Autism king tbh. I enjoyed his occasional infodumps.

Riley is also 10/10 in the sequel. We see more of his self-sacrificial side and low self-worth. He’s intelligent and funny, but in the end he just doesn’t see himself as that important. Except he is! He makes things happen! Without him, Ben would never have gotten the Declaration. 

And that’s what makes Riley compelling to me. Yes, he is a silly nerd from a silly 2000’s action movie. But you just kind of want to let him know that he deserves better from Ben and everyone who dismisses him. Probably by shaking his shoulders and yelling in his face, since I’m not sure how else one would get it across.

All in all, Riley is our king. And that’s not all there is to say on the matter, but I think I covered most of it. Riley should consume some jams and jellies. He’s earned it.

Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger): The holy trio of autism is complete? She fills in the “blonde love interest” void, but she does have interests and a personality of her own. Abigail is an archivist at the National Archives, so she’s probably the most qualified to handle the Declaration of Independence.

 I, on the other hand, am not qualified to talk about Abigail. I don’t remember much about her, other than the fact I just stated. She’s pretty smart and helps on Ben’s insane treasure quest. She… collects campaign buttons as a hobby? She has an alleged German accent? Yeah, so she’s not a bad character but I don’t have much to say about her. At least not in this movie. A shame. I am glad that she recognizes Ben’s sense of entitlement for what it is, and their relationship over the two movies is reasonably entertaining. Her sibling relationship with Riley is 10/10 as well. So that’s Abigail. We love to see ladies who understand what’s going on!

Ian Howe (Sean Bean): Ah yes, Mandatory British Bad Guy. Now, Ian is a treacherous piece of shit. He has many allies, and is just as obsessed with the treasure as Ben. But where Ben, Riley, and Abigail solve clues based on historical facts, Ian just keeps tags on them and then uses brute force to get what he wants. This is shown particularly well in the Declarationtheft scene- Ben and Riley have this whole heist planned out, whereas Ian’s guys are like “GUN.” As I’ve said, Ian is treacherous. He gets antsy at even the most temporary alliance. He seems to know Ben pretty well, as they played poker in the past. I imagine the movie would have been more yaoiful if they’d had more scenes together.

Patrick Gates (Jon Voight): The dad. Like Riley, he is a foil to Ben’s treasure hunting stuff. Like pretty much everyone, he is also very competent and knows what’s going on. I liked his father-son relationship with Ben, and the way both of them make dubious bluffs in times of crisis. I have some stuff to say about his relationship with his ex-wife in the sequel, but this is a review of the first movie. So anyways, Patrick sees the search for what it probably is: a goose chase. He keeps it real!

Agent Peter Sadusky (Harvey Keitel): Now this is another wise guy. Sadusky is an FBI agent who’s seen it all. He wants to get the Declaration back, and he knows someone has to go to jail for stealing it. And who stole the Declaration??

(Epic scenes ensue.) 

Dead Guy: A casualty. Yeah, he DIES. It is so sad. We hardly knew him. Oh wait, we didn’t know him at all. Ever. Welp.

Money-Driven Child: I have no idea where Riley found or hired this kid but he is hilarious. I don’t even know who plays him. Whoever his actor is, I hope he is doing well and avoiding nefarious Brits.

Cashier: She takes Visa. It makes a pretty funny scene. 

 And that’s a wrap on National Treasure. This film is a national treasure. Great camera work and scene transitions, great action scenes, and an all-around awesome (and very 2000’s) film. I eagerly anticipate the next moviy nite, as it may feature the actor for Jorge (EOTM.) If you made it this far, thank you for reading and I’ll see you approximately Friday. Long live Nicolas Cage.

[p-redux]

Hi P, I recently followed you and just really appreciate your blog, knowledge and respect to actors. I especially appreciate your mission of just finding the truth. I have a strong opinion about your latest post.

I'm a complete nobody, but had my 15 minutes of fame in 2012 when The Hobbit was coming out; somehow tweeting funny LOTR/Hobbit memes led to retweets, replies and eventually ongoing, super amiable, memorable, respectful and endearing conversations with Graham McTavish, Jed Brophy, Richard Armitage AND Royd Tolkien. Royd actually slid into DMs; I remember googling "pwoar" since it was his opening message and I didn't know Brit English slang. Tldr; I mention this ALL to say: If I EVER was blessed with such an opportunity to even have a split second to converse with a dream actor, acting and talking and behaving like this woman is the utter OPPOSITE of what you want to do. You need to be respectful as fuck, in my opinion if you've somehow gained precious access to open convo, you need to RESPECT IT. Don't abuse it! Don't bombard with messages, don't keep sending things constantly, just don't be that bothersome "fanatic." I feel the second if these actors see how insane and cringe you act (if you act in aforementioned manner), your privileges are just revoked, you're just another "crazy fan" so to speak.

I don't know. I was so thrilled to be talking to these profoundly amazing actors, I walked on eggshells, avoided appearing annoying or obsessed, avoided anything that thwart or hinder the "relationships." I would have never thought to bother them like that online, regardless of any obsession. It truly doesn't make sense to me to act this crazy if/when you're the nUmBeR oNe fan. I am still connected with Royd and I don't fucking message him or bother him ever, ever! Just quietly and consistently support on social media. I just feel if this woman is THAT in love, enraptured, obsessed with Sam and all she wants is to be noticed, his attention, or to show how dedicated a fan she is, etc., she would not ever, ever behave in this manner on her socials. Fuck no. Doing the opposite. Thanks P!

Thanks for sending this and for your kind words!

I know people get excited to interact with their favorite celeb, and sometimes that excitement can go overboard, but it's important to find that fine line. And it looks like you found it.

Sadly, the couple of fans I mentioned recently didn't find that balance and have gone way overboard.

I even found out Emily White, the fan who claimed to have met up with Sam for drinks in Key West, is married has two kids, and has at least 4 fake accounts. At least. I'm sure there are more, but I stopped looking. Some of her fake accounts are even her pretending to be men, all fawning over her, how great she is, and how she should be with Sam. I was able to look at old Tweets and do reverse pic searches, SO many fake pics. I can prove they are fake or bought accounts. Emily has a nice, normal life in Michigan, with family and friends who love her, not sure what's missing that causes her to pretend to be something she's not. And try to get the attention of Sam Heughan, an actor who probably didn't even interact with her when she was an extra on Bloodshot. I hope she finds peace and happiness.

Anyhoo, I appreciate you sharing your experience and kudos to you for not crossing the line into crazy fangirl land.

[2291991]

intro post. you might want to look at this before looking at my other stuff

Hi everyone. I'm an Italian hs student,and my main reason for creating this blog is that I fucking despise myself at most times and I want to change that by creating better habits. If you don't want to read the next paragraph the TLDR is that I've finally grown so sick of myself as a person and I want to try to change. I'll try to post daily updates of my progress from now on. Don't follow if you don't want to see some self loathing at times. Also, this is a sideblog, so if you want to be mutuals just know that I follow/like/comment from @catullus8 . The next two paragraphs are really just a rant so you don't have to read them.

Some basic backstory: Until 2022,I've always been a good student. I did well in my first two years of highschool,though my mental health started declining pretty badly during the second one. This year,the third one,was slightly better in general terms,but my academic life turned to shit. And I know that for some people school isn't that important,and in a sense it wasn't that important for me either until I started failing classes. I went from being considered a good,passionate student,to barely passing classes that I used to excel in and even failing one. Which isn't a tragedy itself, I don't risk to lose a year or anything. What makes me sad is that I used to really like the class. And I also realized that things just got wayyyy harder,not just for me but for everyone. A year ago I was able to get good grades by pulling all nighters the day before, while now it's a miracle if this system even grants me a passing grade (it usually doesn't). I realized that this is not a skill at all. The skill I should be searching for is being able to sit down for a few hours and fucking study. I'm realizing that I've almost never done that and that's the reason of my failure.

My attention span is completely fucked up. My screen time usually ranges from 6 to 9 hours and it makes me want to bury myself into a hole. I am a slave of useless content that I don't even care for. Even the fact that I felt the need to create a sideblog to talk about these things is a proof of how addicted I am to the internet. I want to change because I'm genuinely tired of this lifestyle. There was a time when I could get away with endless procrastination and even somehow romanticized my insane all nighters (sometimes I had friends who participated and it was really fun), I romanticized knowing that I could make up for weeks of studying in a night. It made me feel powerful,and maybe somewhat superior to those kids who got the highest grades but studied their asses off for hours everyday. Now I realize that those kids are way better than me. Because no amount of midnight motivation to push through an exam is enough in the end (I'm writing this post at 00:38 am lmao). I don't even enjoy the things I procrastinate with. Not even the things I had fun doing. Today I picked up a good ass videogame after not playing it for weeks because I was on vacation and I felt disgusted with myself after a 1 hour session. I used to actually enjoy playing that. As toxic as it may sound,I don't think I will be fully able to enjoy some things again until I fix myself. So,you'll find me writing (hopefully) daily updates about my life. I really hope i find the strength in myself to make it better.

[retphienix]

@natahposting replied to your post “My F2P ass finally made 1k plat at once. I've made...”:

Drop a guide my ass is out here with 2 plat to my name

​I don't have some big secret, but I will gladly be transparent on how I make my plat in the hopes that other players can as well.

But uh.

I ain't gonna remotely pretend it's the most fun part of playing warframe, I just so happen to have the correct mindset to allow it to happen without me growing to resent warframe.

So obligatory "You're results may vary" bit here.

ALSO. I PLAY ON PS4 RIGHT NOW AND THE MARKETS HAVE NOT BEEN MERGED. SO PRICING IS DIFFERENT HERE- BUT I BELIEVE SOME IDEAS SHARED HERE HAVE UNIVERSAL APPEAL- Especially when markets do merge.

The most important part for me is utilizing Warframe Market which is a 3rd party website-

not linking because sometimes tumblr is perfectly okay with links and sometimes it isn't and I think this info is potentially useful enough that I'd like it actually popping up in the tag I post it in, it comes up in a search more than easily enough.

- for posting things you'd like to trade which I find infinitely more usable than say spamming trade chat or standing around the bazaar. I genuinely don't get how any player could utilize that as their primary means of trading, that's insane to me.

Market lets you post what you have, how many, what rank (if a mod) and the price and have it be easily presented to others. You can also toggle if you're online, online in-game, or offline which, again, helps direct players to when to contact you for the trade (messaging offline players is useless lmao).

If you opt to utilize market here are the mini-tips for that (skip to end of bullet points if not):

Mark yourself as "online in game" when you're online so that people know to whisper you for trades

Make sure to mark yourself as invisible when you're getting off or you'll get a ton of spam and people confused as to why they couldn't whisper you

On the top left is a toggle for which version of warframe you are playing on- MAKE SURE IT'S ACCURATE! This dictates both where you're trades are posted and what trades you will see. You can toggle this at any time, but worth noting that if you bookmark the site it will bookmark the version you were on when you bookmarked.

The button to post new trades is on the bottom right of the entire webpage, "Place order", easy to assume there is a simpler button to click but there isn't lol.

The common courtesies are not law, but the common courtesies are to message someone on the website if they are listed as "Online", whisper someone in-game if they are "Online In-Game", and generally don't bother spamming people who are offline. The site flourishes off of quick "Hey you have thing? Here's plat. We're done-thank you" trades rather than "Hey, can you be on next tuesday at 6pm for a trade?" meetups.

Price as you see fit- but the best way to get trades is to see what the average is of "online" players- or the median (Or just most common) price of offline players. If 4 people are online charging 20p and 1 person is charging 30 and 1 person is charging 19, it's 20p, if 1 person is online charging whatever but 30 people are offline charging 20p it's probably 20p regardless of what the one person is charging. But play it by ear and label as you see fit until you get a sale.

So there's the "tool", it does the bulk of the work in my opinion, now what do I sell?

Used to just sell prime parts, not so much lately though.

So this should be easy to explain.

Whenever I have the spare time I run some relics to collect prime parts. I used to just toss each and every one on the market and that did very much work for me, buuuut it's a bit tedious doing like max trades a day and making very little plat because parts generally aren't worth much unless it's a gold reward from a vaulted item.

So now-a-days I run relics when I'm bored and collect in the hopes of getting a full set for something, sets sell for a bit more so it just kinda solves that problem. Instead of selling an orthos prime and it taking 4 trades, I can do it in 1 for usually a bit more plat for the convenience, although some items go for less as a set, give it a check from time to time but I generally just say "fuck it" and trade full sets even if say the neuroptics are currently overpriced and I could make plat that way instead.

Prime stuff has arguably taken a dive for me though. There are a lot of people willing to crack relics with the boys all afternoon so the prices are generally a lot more fair on my platform, which is good!... but means less lucrative farming. Still worthwhile though, especially if you sit down to farm your backlog of relics from currently vaulted things.

But with that I've moved over to farming mods.

There are a ton of good targets to farm when it comes to mods, so honestly just think of some of the best mods and consider if the task of farming is up your alley.

Some stand outs for me are the various 60/60 mods you can get from spy missions, specifically Rime Rounds (Tier 2 at 5% or Lua at 7%) or the mess of them you can get from the Kuva spy mission (Frostbite, Frigid Blast, Thermite Rounds, Scorch).

The spy farms are generally a breeze with many of them being easily farmed at max efficiency as early as getting Limbo or even Rhino to ignore knockdowns from some spy obstacles.

I do hate Lua's simon says puzzle though. It genuinely makes me second guess myself into recording the solution each time -.-

Corrupted mods, though obviously that pool is just silly with 90% of corrupted mods being worthless outside of gimmicks and then 10% being worthwhile and constantly selling.

On the plus side getting corrupted mods is easy as hell, it can even be fun if you bring some friends and all go on a great "Slow walking fast sliding" adventure together in the hopes of netting that coveted Blind Rage lol

(SOME) Syndicate mods, these are easy as hell to acquire but you really have to do your research to see what's even worth posting, and I just find it too bothersome to deal with.

Cross checking what mods are ACTUALLY unique to one of the 2 sides on the syndicate page is annoying as is, so honestly I just toss a Despoil augment or a pilfering augment (dome or tentacles) on the market from time to time and those generally sell because even people in the correct syndicate want them early for obvious reasons.

Growing Power, pretty self explanatory, it's like "The" good drop from the silver grove, so if you've got an oxylus or a patient mind you can go collect some day and night plants and go put the Knave Specter through some hydroid tentacles for a bit.

Arbitration Mods, funnily enough putting galvs behind content that requires a lot of play time to get to and making them tradable does make these sell pretty consistently. Not universally for a lot or anything, but once you're at the point where you can go do some arbitrations for fun you might as well consider the bit of plat you have access to :P

Kahl "Archon" Mods, same deal. It takes a bit to get to Kahl, so newer players will often trade for the mods early since some are genuinely quite nice. Nothing game breaking, but nice.

I feel like a good portion of why mods are feeling much more secure a trading front for me is because EVERY player needs good mods, from new to old, while most prime stuff exists as mastery rank fodder which can always be put on the backburner. (Most, not all). The market for prime stuff is very much alive, but the market for mods feels massive in comparison.

So genuinely, my sell history is basically this:

Full warframe sets ranging from 50-130p

A metric ton of 60/60 mods for 10-30p a pop

"Some" rarer mods like Growing power for like 50p a pop

Obviously, different platforms different prices, maybe I'd only be sitting on like 100p by now on PC, haven't the slightest. But after a metric ton of spy missions I can say I broke 1k for the first time which is neat.

The short version

Warframe Market (3rd party website)

Crack relics when you're bored and toss what you don't need on the market

Farm 60/60 mods and toss them on the market

Sell mods from late->end game content

????????? (<-Luck)

Profit? Maybe?

Buy the Sway emote.

Anyone with more experience trading, feel free to add or argue differences on different platforms. I've got like 2 years-ish trading experience on playstation and that's it.