#save me dead internet theory

[flatteryleadstoruins]

I logged onto Twitter, and within a minute had the single worst interaction I've ever experienced in the history of my lifelong social media usage. Save me, Tumblr...

[strawberryspence]

I will never not be OBSESSED with the Famous trope + Found Family trope with the Party 😭 The headlines would be so chaotic? Like:

Famous Rockstar Eddie Munson is seen eating lunch with two time Pulitzer winner Nancy Wheeler, Highest Paid Photographer Jonathan Byers and Successful Entrepreneur Argyle Alvez. How does he know these people???

Three time Grammy Winner Eddie Munson seen in a McDonald's with World Renowned Astronaut Dustin Henderson and New York Times Best Seller Will Byers-Wheeler and Mike Byers-Wheeler. What the actual fuck???

Eddie Munson, seen in a Chicago Bulls game looking confused as hell, mere seconds after finding out his second album just went Multi-platinum, with his husband, Steve Munson. Also seen in pictures, Eddie Munson hugging point guard Lucas Sinclair and his wife, Max Sinclair. How???

MSG Sold Out Performer Eddie Munson seen in Chicago Medical Center with World Renowned Surgeon Dr. Erica Sinclair. Our insiders say that the rockstar is FINE and was only having lunch with the doctor. What in the multiverse is happening???

Eddie Munson and his husband seen in line at the book signing of rising Linguistics Author Robin Buckley. They ended up laughing so hard when they reached the author, they almost got kicked out. Turns out they all knew each other???

Rock Star Eddie Munson bringing packed lunch in pajamas to a small Chicago preschool where husband, Steve Munson and known friend, Jane Hopper works. Why??? How??? What???

Third most followed person on Instagram Eddie Munson, just broke the internet by posting a group picture with Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley, Jonathan Byers, Argyle Alvez, Dustin Henderson, Lucas, Max and Erica Sinclair, Mike and Will Byers-Wheeler, his husband Steve Munson and family friend Jane Hopper. HOW DO THEY ALL KNOW EACH OTHER?! WHAT A WEIRD GROUP?!

The more people speculate, the more they say shit. Like people ask them how they know each other and they all just throw out the weirdest answers.

Nancy gets asked in a press conference how she knows Rock Star Eddie Munson? Nancy answers with, "I was driving myself to California when I was 19 and I picked him up as a hitch hiker along the way. We’ve been friends since then."

Robin gets asked in a lecture how she knows the Sinclair Clan? Robin answers with, "I go way back with Dr. Erica. She once saved me from Russian Doctors trying to cut my toe nails."

Eddie goes on an interview in National TV and the host asks how he's friends with Argyle and Jon? Eddie answers with, "I got kidnapped by a killer clown when I was 17. They saved me by crushing the clown's still beating heart with their own bare hands."

Steve gets bombarded with questions online of how he knows Nancy, Robin, Jon, Argyle and even Eddie (his husband)? Steve answers with, "We were stuck in detention every Saturday when we were in senior year. We all became friends when Eddie Munson started singing Don't You (Forget About Me)."

Will and Mike gets asked in an interview about their friendship with Basketball Star, Lucas Sinclair? Will says, “Lucas once gave my dog CPR, ultimately, saving it’s life and we’ve been friends since then.” and Mike just goes, “Who???”

Erica once got asked how she knew Genius Astronaut, Dustin Henderson. Erica rolls her eyes, “That boy owes me his life. Ask him, not me.”

Dustin gets asked how he knows Eddie Munson. Dustin goes with, “Eddie once saved me from a feral army of bats and almost died. I’ve never let go of him since then.” The fans think this one might actually be true, they’ve seen the scars on Eddie, they’ve got theories and Dustin just gave them a puzzle piece.

Argyle got asked in a Business Magazine how he knows this weird, interconnected group. Argyle says, “Oh dude! Those are my life long friends! It started with a pizza van, a dead man, and a road trip to Utah. There was also a bald girl involved. In the end, the real treasure really is the friends we make along the way.”

Jonathan gets asked how he knows Eddie Munson. Jon gives the softest, sweetest smile and says, “We were in a satanic cult together.”

Jane Hopper gets asked once in public (how she knows all these famous people), someone filmed it and it went viral on Twitter. El says, verbatim, “Oh. It all started when I was kidnapped by an evil scientist who tested stuff on me like I was a lab rat. Long story short, they saved my life and they are my family.” By then people already don’t believe any of them because they all give out the most ridiculous answers. Hopper still grounds her for that even though she doesn’t live with him anymore. (Owens, who hasn't called them in 15 years, reached out with a warning).

→ Current Additions: Lucas Lie Detector & Max's Future (Scroll down the link)

[mitigatedchaos]

Kontextmaschine is Dead

(~1,000 words, 5m)

Noted blogger @kontextmaschine is presumed dead, following the discovery that the sole resident at his most likely residence was found deceased during a wellness check initiated by concerned Redditors.

Prior to his last post on Aug 22, which indicated a serious health problem, he reported taking over twice the dose of creatine he had been taking at the beginning of his lengthy post-COVID health saga, in which he also reported becoming bisexual, having "zero" anxiety, gaining 3D vision after years of not having it, becoming incredibly convincing, and having to learn to walk and use his muscles properly again. At the time, he felt he was becoming trimmer and physically stronger, and reported engaging in a long project of yard work, although photos from the inside of his house generally looked somewhat messy.

A Tumblr user who met him briefly in person after the beginning of the health saga but before these most recent events reported that he was friendly, charismatic, hospitable, and clean, but "physically, a mess," with motor control issues on one side of his body.

Topics of discussion were similar to the content of kontextmaschine's blog, such as differences in east and west coast government in America, said to be "totally on brand," but it was said that the prolific poster seemed "less self-grandiose" in person.

Redditors theorize that the decline of kontextmaschine's health following his first self-report of COVID-19 infection may have been due to undiagnosed brain cancer, which could be more consistent with observed changes in behavior than the after-effects of a viral infection, given that most reports of "long covid" are about effects like fatigue, and not total loss of anxiety or alteration of sexual orientation.

Despite multiple suggestions, from both anonymous and pseudonymous users, kontextmaschine refused to seek professional medical care for his condition.

Regarding the mourning of public figures, in 2018, a period of increased Progressive sensitivity during the Trump Administration, kontextmaschine wrote,

through the years realized that through whatever blind groping the ‘90s-ass “edgelords” were desperately trying to save us from this, through proper gatekeeping and filtering at first I’d thought it was gratuitous and supported it being relaxed, maybe not shaming everyone who publicly mourned a suicide, mea culpa, mea culpa, I have debts to pay

In 2019, he added:

That was how we kept the internet culture from growing mawkish and cry-bullyish: basically, if you were so weak as to get weepy over corpsemeat you got cancelled, the shame would follow you forever and you’d never be allowed to forget it.

Given his writing, it is likely that kontextmaschine would not have supported excessive public mourning over his death, though in 2017, following the theft of his motorcycle, when the popular blogger @argumate jokingly criticized him by writing, "no references to pinball, no insight into historical Americana, this isn’t the kontext I signed up for," kontextmaschine wrote,

“when bad shit happens people mock me accurately” is the community I’ve been looking for my whole life so

Like argumate, perhaps the most famous of the rationalist-adjacent bloggers on Tumblr, screenshots of kontextmaschine's Tumblr posts would end up on outside websites.

Kontextmaschine was generally considered an interesting, if controversial writer. One Tumblr user characterized him as a member of the "obnoxious Tumblr right," though another user asked, "wait, how is kontextmaschine is right wing?" After another user claimed that the nuclear bombing of Oregon would be a net improvement in the world due to kontextmaschine's residence in Portland, tumblr user @random-thought-depository wrote a 2,400 word theory post arguing that kontextmaschine's philosophy was a means to coordinate to join a future political coalition favoring the formation of a more brutal and oppressive hierarchy in pursuit of his own advantage.

Though kontextmaschine's ideology advocates that humanity should adopt "r-selection," meaning more offspring with less investment in each (or youth, sex, and death), this blog dissented against the coalition theory, arguing that motorcycles, kung fu, women, Hollywood, and not having to report to HR are all traditionally cool, and the causality of the kontextmaschine ideology could easily run the other way.

Though he had a period of identifying as female in his youth, appropriately LGBTQ for a Tumblr user, his 2011 statement of principles, including "the lesser yields to the greater" and "suffering is the mark of a wrong person," and general body of work, could be described as a strain of right-wing thought, though not of the traditionalist Christian or rational technocratic varieties.

Prior to the post-covid health saga, kontextmaschine's health posting was primarily about his bipolar disorder, with both manic and depressive phases.

Kontextmaschine maintained generally friendly relations with other bloggers in his sphere of discourse, sometimes debating but rarely aggressive, except in response to anonymous hatemail. In response to one particular piece of hatemail, kontextmaschine stated that as a writer, of course his primary form of influence would be his posts.

In a post chain reblogged by dozens of Tumblr users, multiple Tumblr users wrote that they enjoyed his writing and are disappointed by his death, describing him as a unique thinker that will not be easily replaced. Several felt that there was not much they could have done, as after returning from his covid infection, he was not taking medical advice.

One Tumblr user wrote, "rip. Inspirational manic poster," while long-time and prolific poster argumate described him as, "one of the bloggers of all time."

Internet users speculate that Kontextmaschine is survived by his outdoor cat, Badger, about whom he posted frequently. He may also be survived by other members of his family, with whom he apparently did not live, and rarely spoke about.

It is recommended that enthusiasts of kontextmaschine's blog make backups of his writing for archival purposes.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've ever broken

From the moment I started using computers, I wanted to help other people use them. I was everyone’s tech support for years, which prepared me for the decade or so when I was a CIO-for-hire. In the early days of the internet, I spent endless hours helping my BBS friends find their way onto the net.

Helping other people use technology requires humility: you have to want to help them realize their goals, which may be totally unlike your own. You have to listen carefully and take care not to make assumptions about how they “should” use tech. You may be a tech expert, but they are experts on themselves.

This is a balancing act, because it’s possible to be too deferential to someone else’s needs. As much as other people know about how they want technology to work, if you’re their guide, you have to help them understand how technology will fail.

For example, using the same memorable, short password for all your services works well, but it fails horribly. When one of those passwords leak, identity thieves can take over all of your friend’s accounts. They may think, “Oh, no one would bother with my account, I’ve got nothing of value,” so you have to help them understand how opportunistic attacks work.

Yes, they might never be individually targeted, but they might be targeted collectively, say, to have their social media accounts hijacked to spread malware to their contacts.

Paying attention to how things work without thinking about how they fail is a recipe for disaster. It’s the reasoning that has people plow their savings into speculative assets that are going up and up, without any theory of when that bubble might pop and leave them ruined.

It’s hard to learn about failure without experiencing it, so those of us who have lived through failures have a duty to help the people we care about understand those calamities without living through them themselves.

That’s why, for two decades, I’ve always bought my hardware with an eye to how it fails every bit as much as how it works. Back when I was a Mac user — and supporting hundreds of other Mac users — I bought two Powerbooks at a time.

I knew from hard experience that Applecare service depots were completely unpredictable and that once you mailed off your computer for service, it might disappear into the organization’s bowels for weeks or even (in one memorable case), months.

I knew that I would eventually break my laptop, and so I kept a second one in sync with it through regular system-to-system transfers. When my primary system died, I’d wipe it (if I could!) and return it to Apple and switch to the backup and hope the main system came back to me before I broke the backup system.

This wasn’t just expensive — it was very technologically challenging. The proliferation of DRM and other “anti-piracy” measures on the Mac increasingly caused key processes to fail if you simply copied a dead system’s drive into a good one.

Then, in 2006, I switched operating systems to Ubuntu, a user-centric, easy-to-use flavor of GNU/Linux. Ubuntu was originally developed with the idea that its users would include Sub-Saharan African classrooms, where network access was spotty and where technical experts might be far from users.

To fulfill this design requirement, the Ubuntu team focused themselves on working well, but also failing gracefully, with the idea that users might have to troubleshoot their own technological problems.

One advantage of Ubuntu: it would run on lots of different hardware, including IBM’s Thinkpads. The Thinkpads were legendarily rugged, but even more importantly, Thinkpad owners could opt into a far more reliable service regime that Applecare.

For about $150/year, IBM offered a next-day, on-site, worldwide hardware replacement warranty. That meant that if your laptop broke, IBM would dispatch a technician with parts to wherever you were, anywhere in the world, and fix your computer, within a day or so.

This was a remnant of the IBM Global Services business, created to supply tech support to people who bought million-dollar mainframes, and laptop users could ride on its coattails. It worked beautifully — I’ll never forget the day an IBM technician showed up at my Mumbai hotel while I was there researching a novel and fixed my laptop on the hotel-room desk.

This service was made possible in part by the Thinkpad’s hardware design. Unlike the Powerbook, Thinkpads were easy to take apart. Early on in my Thinkpad years, I realized I could save a lot of money by buying my own hard-drives and RAM separately and installing them myself, which took one screwdriver and about five minutes.

The keyboards were also beautifully simple to replace, which was great because I’m a thumpy typist and I would inevitably wear out at least one keyboard. The first Thinkpad keyboard swap I did took less than a minute, and I performed it one-handed, while holding my infant daughter in my other hand, and didn’t even need to read the documentation!

But then IBM sold the business to Lenovo and it started to go downhill. Keyboard replacements got harder, the hardware itself became far less reliable, and they started to move proprietary blobs onto their motherboards that made installing Ubuntu into a major technical challenge.

Then, in 2021, I heard about a new kind of computer: the Framework, which was designed to be maintained by its users, even if they weren’t very technical.

https://frame.work/

The Framework was small and light — about the same size as a Macbook — and very powerful, but you could field-strip it in 15 minutes with a single screwdriver, which shipped with the laptop.

I pre-ordered a Framework as soon as I heard about it, and got mine as part of the first batch of systems. I ordered mine as a kit — disassembled, requiring that I install the drive, RAM and wifi card, as well as the amazing, snap-fit modular expansion ports. It was a breeze to set up, even if I did struggle a little with the wifi card antenna connectors (they subsequently posted a video that made this step a lot easier):

https://twitter.com/frameworkputer/status/1433320060429373440

The Framework works beautifully, but it fails even better. Not long after I got my Framework, I had a hip replacement; as if in sympathy, my Framework’s hinges also needed replacing (a hazard of buying the first batch of a new system is that you get to help the manufacturer spot problems in their parts).

My Framework “failed” — it needed a new hinge — but it failed so well. Framework shipped me a new part, and I swapped my computer’s hinges, one day after my hip replacement. I couldn’t sit up more than 40 degrees, I was high af on painkillers, and I managed the swap in under 15 minutes. That’s graceful failure.

https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Hinge+Replacement+Guide/104

After a few weeks’ use, I was convinced. I published my review, calling the Framework “the most exciting laptop I’ve ever used.”

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/21/monica-byrne/#think-different

That was more than a year ago. In the intervening time, I’ve got to discover just how much punishment my Framework can take (I’ve been back out on the road with various book publicity events and speaking engagements) and also where its limits are. I’ve replaced the screen and the keyboard, and I’ve even upgraded the processor:

https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Mainboard+Replacement+Guide/79

I’m loving this computer so. damn. much. But as of this morning, I love it even more. On Thursday, I was in Edinburgh for the UK launch of “Chokepoint Capitalism,” my latest book, which I co-authored with Rebecca Giblin.

As I was getting out of a cab for a launch-day podcast appearance, I dropped my Framework from a height of five feet, right onto the pavement. I had been working on the laptop right until the moment the cab arrived because touring is nuts. I’ve got about 150% more commitments than I normally do, and I basically start working every day at 5AM and keep going until I drop at midnight, every single day.

As rugged as my Framework is, that drop did for it. It got an ugly dent in the input cover assembly and — far, far worse — I cracked my screen. The whole left third of my screen was black, and the rest of it was crazed with artefacts and lines.

This is a catastrophe. I don’t have any time for downtime. Just today, I’ve got two columns due, a conference appearance and a radio interview, which all require my laptop. I got in touch with Framework and explained my dire straits and they helpfully expedited shipping of a new $179 screen.

Yesterday, my laptop screen stopped working altogether. I was in Oxford all day, and finished my last book event at about 9PM. I got back to my hotel in London at 11:30, and my display was waiting for me at the front desk. I staggered bleary-eyed to my room, sat down at the desk, and, in about fifteen minutes flat, I swapped out the old screen and put in the new one.

https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Display+Replacement+Guide/86

That is a fucking astoundingly graceful failure mode.

Entropy is an unavoidable fact of life. “Just don’t drop your laptop” is great advice, but it’s easier said than done, especially when you’re racing from one commitment to the next without a spare moment in between.

Framework has designed a small, powerful, lightweight machine — it works well. But they’ve also designs a computer that, when you drop it, you can fix yourself. That attention to graceful failure saved my ass.

If you hear me today on CBC Sunday Magazine, or tune into my Aaron Swartz Day talk, or read my columns at Medium and Locus, that’s all down to this graceful failure mode. Framework’s computers aren’t just the most exciting laptops I’ve ever used — they’re the most exciting laptops I’ve ever broken.

[Image ID: A disassembled Framework laptop; a man's hand reaches into the shot with a replacement screen.]

[unpretty]

do you mind sharing what web browser add ons you use? you seem to know your stuff and i feel like there's helpful stuff i've missed

my firefox extensions are pretty boring and sometimes cringe

AliExpress Superstar - okay so this one is the cringiest one. i like to buy a lot of dumb shit and it gives me a camelcamelcamel-type graph of what the price has been doing because sellers on ali love to have 'sales' that actually cost more than the item does normally. not really useful unless you also love bad decisions.

BitWarden - i switched to bitwarden as my primary password manager from lastpass and i regret nothing. i've been using the free version no problem but i keep meaning to upgrade so i can use my yubikey again.

ClearURLs - this gets rid of all the stuff after the ? in a url, in theory. lately it's been missing some cruft in twitter urls, and also has been interfering with pocket somehow? very confusing. i give this one a mixed review.

Facebook Container - keeps facebook in an isolated shame zone so they don't know what i'm up to.

Firefox Multi-Account Containers - firefox has containers built in but you need the extension if you want to set certain urls to always open in certain containers (i do this for amazon, aliexpress, google, and twitter because i don't trust them). iirc they recently added security features that maybe make the containers obsolete anyway? idk man

Greasemonkey - for installing userscripts like the ones on greasyfork. i don't have as many of these as i used to, but whatever.

Ignore X-Frame Options - this one's Niche lmao. websites disable loading in an x-frame because they don't want their site being embedded on another website or whatever but that means comic-rocket doesn't work on their site. and i like using comic-rocket to keep track of where i'm at so i can go back later if i accidentally forget to read anything for six months. which has happened. anyway that's the only reason i have this extension. hiveworks please stop blocking comic-rocket, i already disabled adblocking for comic-rocket, i'm not going to disable ads for every comic on your fucking network, calm down.

Library Extension - EVERYONE SHOULD INSTALL LIBRARY EXTENSION. god. it has saved me so much money. stopped me from so many impulse purchases. and it lets me look up whether something is on scribd instead of just the library which is handy for me specifically, since i have scribd and my library can be limited.

Inoreader Extension - i use inoreader so i have the extension. pretty self-explanatory. tells me how behind i am on reading the entire internet, also makes it easy to subscribe to feeds when i find a new one.

RSSPreview - firefox used to let you preview rss feeds by default but they broke it because they lack my dedication to keeping rss alive

Snap Links - okay. this one is maybe a weird one. it lets me click and drag with the right button to make a box and then open every link in the box in a new tab. sometimes there is a long list and i want to read all the things. or else load up a bunch of forum pages to read while i'm offline.

Something Awful Last Read Redux - i don't have to explain myself to you but also you will take keyboard nav out of my cold dead hands

SponsorBlock for YouTube - self-promo is fine but i don't need to hear about expressvpn

stutter - it does that thing where it lets you read things one word at a time to read really fast. i already read pretty fast but sometimes this forces me enough to focus on something when i'm having attention issues.

Stylus - this is the good one after stylish turned into spyware or whatever. i need to be able to tweak css to live.

Tapas RSS Button - tapas still has rss feeds but it hid them so i installed a thing to bring the buttons back. i could probably be using a userscript for this but whatever.

Translate Web Pages - it's pretty much google translate, i feel like there must be a better one because this one kind of sucks to configure but i'm lazy

uBlacklist - just recently installed this to never see pinterest or fandom.com in my search results. i will probably add more shitty websites as time goes on.

uBlock Origin - still my ad and script blocker of choice. makes it relatively easy both to block elements as well as to opt out and explain that i clicked that ad on purpose, which is a thing i do sometimes and i need my ad blocker to respect my poor choices without forcing me to permanently enable whatever website i wanted to see.

Web Scrobbler - yes i still use last.fm in 2022 and will continue to do so. i am trying to get scrobbling from rockbox to work as we speak. it's 2022 but i'm reverting back to 2008. catch me on myspace soon probably.

XKit Rewritten - imagine using tumblr without xkit. i would die.

[adachimoe]

Interpreting Adachi's actions during Persona 4

One of the things I've noticed on the internet is that when it comes to Adachi, people are very quick to say, "He did it because he was bored", "he was manipulating people", "he was playing a little game"...

This is based on what he says when the gang confronts him inside of the TV. The Investigation Team asks why he sent Namatame on a quest to "save" people, and he says he did it cause he could and that it was fun. He goes on to describe the cycle of "Namatame puts someone in a TV" -> "the protagonist and his friends save the person" as an entertaining little game. But to be honest, I'm not sure why people take this all at face value. Even just what he says in the present day conflicts with the flashbacks the game shows you from April.

This also gets turned into, "Adachi murdered people because he was bored!" But even then, him murdering Mayumi was an accident, not an act of boredom. Even in the flashback where he pushes her into the TV, he's surprised that a whole body can go into the TV. In his very first scene in the game, he rushes by to throw up after seeing her dead body. I don't think he was expecting that outcome.

In my opinion, Adachi's goal was actually to get Namatame (and specifically Namatame) to kill someone on accident, and then get Namatame accused of Adachi's murders as well. This way, Adachi himself would be free.

While the game doesn't outright tell you what Adachi was doing, I think it does provide you with a lot of hints about what Adachi has been up to. And by pinning them all on a board like the Always Sunny meme, perhaps it can explain the disconnect. As the game never really directly states or confirms anything I'm about to say, this is in theory and meta and incoherent rambling territory, but I hope by the end of the post you get where I'm coming from.

What Adachi says about his "game" and his "manipulation" of all players involved

When you confront Adachi in the TV, he describes the cat and mouse game as this:

Adachi: Of all the people who could've received Namatame's call, it ended up being me. Talk about luck! All I did was give him a little push... And he completely bought into his vision of this world. The more people you guys saved, the more he'd kidnap... Both sides had the best of intentions, so the game of cat and mouse would never end... Haha, it was awesome. Kanji: You gotta be shittin' me! Yukiko: Why...? What reasons could you have for doing that!? Adachi: Reasons...? None, really. I could do it, that's all. And it was fun... I guess that's my reason?

I think it's strange that people take this at face value considering Adachi says all of this inside of the TV world where he is also later seen with yellow shadow eyes. As we know from the game, the shadows don't tell the truth, they tell heavily distorted versions of the truth. Persona Q also explains this as someone being overtaken by their shadow.

I feel like you can tell there's a disconnect in the TV on December 7th between how he talks about himself, versus what we see in the flashbacks. In the TV, he talks like Mayumi "betrayed" him, but we know she was just already with another guy. In fact, her affair putting her in the news is probably why she appeared on the Midnight Channel to begin with. It's like he's just feeding his own delusions.

He then talks himself up to the IT, saying that he had called Saki in for questioning to see if she had found something about the body or knew something. But in the flashback, he immediately backs her into a corner against a TV and then tries to force himself on her. He called her there under the false pretense of talking about the crime scene. He is already distorting the truth on his own.

When Adachi first told Namatame to "save" people, he knew from experience that whoever Namatame put into the TV was going to die. Adachi probably did think it was funny, but Adachi was also the real culprit all along and he had something to gain if Namatame accidentally killed someone and could take the blame for Adachi's own murders. I'm pretty sure he was expecting and anticipating Namatame to produce a dead body, not for a gang of high schoolers to show up and rescue the abducted person.

At this point, people go, "Oh he didn't know about the Investigation Team from the start, he just started manipulating both sides and kept the 'game' going". And yeah, it's true that he manipulated Namatame, it's also true that both the IT and Namatame thought they were rescuing people, and he did definitely try to manipulate the IT into killing Namatame.

But I don't see how this all means that Adachi figured out what was going on between Namatame and the IT and then "kept the game going"? This seems more like something Adachi figured out long after the fact. It comes out as a bunch of bullshit that sounds correct from a dude who is 5 seconds away from being overtaken by his shadow.

And we do know he didn't find out until later because of the letters, the dungeon deadlines, and the figure in the shopping district.

The letters and the mystery figure in the shopping district

On October 20th and November 5th, Adachi sends the protagonist those letters telling you to quit rescuing people. If the cat and mouse game that Adachi describes as his source of entertainment is, "Namatame pushes people in -> IT saves them", why does he send the letter telling you to stop? Additionally, the letter proves that he been looking for a dead body rather than an infinite loop of throw in -> rescue.

Some people seem to reason that, "he sent the letter because the game was getting boring and now he just wanted to see more people die". But I think the date he sent the first letter indicates that he didn't really grasp what was going on until after Naoto's dungeon, and this is demonstrated by the figure in the shopping district.

Starting with Yukiko's dungeon deadline, a mysterious figure appears in the shopping district on the foggy nights. Here are the relevant dates and everything for the victims, whether the mystery person appears in the shopping district, and what they say:

Yukiko, April 29th, mystery figure appears and says "..."

Kanji, June 4th, mystery figure appears and says "Again..."

Rise, July 9th, figure does not appear

Mitsuo, August 12th, figure does not appear

Naoto, October 5th, mystery figure appears and says "Dammit... Again?!"

Nanako, November 20th, figure does not appear

To summarize:

It shows up for Yukiko, Kanji and Naoto's deadlines

It does not show up for Rise, Mitsuo or Nanako's deadlines

It's obvious by its 3rd and final appearance that it has been showing up expecting a dead body to appear in the shopping district, and it's frustrated that there's no dead body

I'm gonna cut to the chase here: I don't see how this is anyone other than Adachi...? It's expecting a dead body (see: Adachi's letter), it knows that dead bodies appear on foggy nights, its outline even looks like his.

The dates where it doesn't appear (Rise/Mitsuo/Nanako) make sense for what Adachi knows at those points in the story too:

Rise: Adachi saw Namatame's delivery truck drive by during the Rise part and he also knows Rise went missing, but he tries to distract the team by focusing on the photographer they just caught. As an officer, he knows Rise later shows up and is fine so he doesn't show up in the shopping district expecting a corpse

Mitsuo: Adachi put Mitsuo in himself, as an officer he knows Mitsuo turned up and was arrested, thus he doesn't show up in the shopping district expecting a corpse

Nanako: Adachi knows Namatame put Nanako (and himself) in, Adachi knows they're out of the TV and is even at the hospital with you, thus he doesn't show up in the shopping district expecting a corpse

If Yukiko, Kanji and Naoto went missing, and as a police officer Adachi knows they're back home, then would he appear on their dungeon deadlines expecting their bodies if he *also* knows they're who Namatame put into the TV? Him appearing on Yukiko, Kanji and Naoto's deadlines just means he doesn't know that they're who Namatame put into the TV. This might sound insane because the player and the Investigation Team know, but that doesn't mean that Adachi knows too.

Look, honestly, I think Adachi was just jealous of Namatame's rizz

Accidentally murdering Mayumi presents a problem for Adachi. Despite Adachi's bitching about SOCIETY, his complaints about SOCIETY are that he's girlfriendless and stuck in Inaba. This isn't anti-establishment, this is someone who wants to belong to the establishment. He's already sunk down to Inaba. Being a murderer would certainly be worse for his social standing and put him on the outside of the establishment.

But what if no one found out that he's a murderer? And this is where the "frame Namatame" angle comes into play...

I think the real "game" that Adachi was playing all along was the "ruin Namatame's life even more" game. If Adachi was just trying to get away with murder, then he was practically in the clear when the police were desperate to pin the crime on Mitsuo. But he was the one going, "Hey but wait what if the killer is still out there?" and he conveniently shuts up about his suspicions and fear-mongering after Namatame gets apprehended.

I think he specifically wanted it to be Namatame who took the fall for his actions, as the game makes it seem like he has a hate boner for the guy:

We can infer from the bits and pieces we're given that after Adachi was lonely and heard about the Midnight Channel rumor. He tried watching it one night, saw Mayumi (we know from Namatame's flashback that Mayumi did appear on there), awoke his Persona similar to how the protagonist did when seeing Saki, thought Mayumi was his soulmate (which was the rumor about the Midnight Channel), and tried touching the screen. When he gets a chance to meet Mayumi (it seems unclear if he was actually on her security detail or pretended to be so he could talk to her), we see in the flashback that he got angry when he found out that the rumor about her and Namatame being together was true, and put her into the TV. Adachi totally thinks Namatame stole his soulmate (Mayumi) or something.

Adachi reaches out to Saki specifically because he knew she had been talking to Namatame earlier. He misinterprets their interactions to mean that Namatame and Saki were an item after Mayumi's death. When Adachi calls Saki into the station, he tries to force himself on her and she slaps him. He reacts by comparing himself to Namatame - he's not good enough for her? And in Saki goes. He called her in under the guise of asking her questions about the body, and then knowingly put her in the TV to die, and this all started because he thought she was dating Namatame.

Namatame called in to the TV station and says he saw Mayumi and Saki on the TV, and now he sees a 3rd girl. Adachi's misconception that the Midnight Channel is "soulmate magic TV" isn't going to get corrected because he already associated both women with Namatame. If anything, what Namatame said would just reinforce Adachi's misunderstanding. Adachi probably thought Namatame seeing a new girl on the TV means he already had another girl lined up after Saki died. Meanwhile, Adachi himself is still single. I imagine it would be very funny to him if he could manipulate Namatame into killing what Adachi thought was Namatame's next girlfriend.

I imagine that Adachi wasn't really happy to learn that his special power to touch the TV is one that he shared with Namatame.

Seriously, it's like Adachi was jealous of the dude's rizz. Adachi is pretty cringe imo. Love him for that tho.

Adachi's goal during the end of the game

Adachi has a new goal in December, but only after he enters the TV. When you visit Adachi in the TV world in December, he talks about how the shadows see him as a friendly, and wonders if it's because he has the same goal as them. As revealed, his (new) goal is merging reality and the TV world together.

Let's take a look at some of the alternate endings to the game first, because I think they provide some information about this:

If you get a Bad ending (throw Namatame into the TV, or fail to convince your friends), then the game fast forwards to March. The fog is thick, but everyone in town is still human.

If you fail Adachi's dungeon deadline, Naoto calls the protagonist, and you hear her scream as a shadow murders her in reality.

If you do the Accomplice ending, then the game fast forwards to March. The fog is thick, but everyone in town is still human. Adachi asks the protagonist to prove your loyalty by burning the letter that was sent to your house cause if he's the killer then that letter might implicate him.

I feel like it's worth pointing out that only in the case of #2 -- where he's entered the TV world but you fail to meet the deadline -- does the thing about the TV world and the real world merging actually happen.

After his boss fight, he mentions that he has nowhere left to go. And yeah, that makes sense - you've cornered him IRL then jumped into a TV to beat his twink ass. But if the scenarios where he enters the TV being the only situation where the world gets screwed, and there's the flashback where he thinks the TV is dangerous and doesn't wanna go in... It seems that him jumping into the TV and the bit about the worlds being merged must come from his desperation.

I would guess that once he enters the TV world, he makes contact with or gets possessed by or just something involving Amenosagiri, and that's what initiates the plot where the real world and the TV world merge by the end of the year where people get replaced by shadows. We know from the dungeon deadline failure case that this threat was actually serious too.

The "in TV" and "not in TV" distinction feels important. Look at the various bad endings for comparison, where he's just going on Adachi-ing as usual. In these endings, the IT didn't corner Adachi in the hospital and he hasn't entered the TV world. The fog in town is thick in these endings, but it's unclear what else is going on with the metaphysical mumbo jumbo: Is everyone actually going to be replaced by their shadow here too, or is it a visual hint from the developers that the player still has a truth left to uncover if they leave Inaba like this?

I would assume he is (still) trying to get away with murder (see the little "test" he gives the protagonist) in the bad endings. There's no mention of more murders in the Bad or Accomplice endings, but there is the news report about Namatame being the suspect for the murders and him either being dead or awaiting trial. It would seem that by capitalizing on a bunch of teenagers being emotionally distraught after Nanako dies or nearly dies, Adachi finally successfully gets away with murder. Good job, Adachi. It only took you 7 months to figure out the plot dude.

tl;dr

There has to be some truth to his "it's a game, it was fun, I was bored!" sentiments for his shadow to be telling some distortion of the truth to begin with. Like, Adachi probably was likely bored out of his mind in Inaba, and he probably thought it would be incredible if Namatame accidentally killed someone, and him murdering Saki is probably something he did for the hell of it.

But to just accept the explanation for all of his actions as "I did it cause I could" and assume that he really was orchestrating or manipulating the Investigation Team all along is to ignore everything else the game is giving you.

Yes Adachi was bored and he claims the game made him less bored... but he also showed up to the shopping district and is frustrated when there's no dead body. Yes he probably thought it would be incredible if Namatame killed someone... but he stood to benefit if Namatame killed someone and was caught and he had something against the dude. Yes he shoved Saki into a TV cause he could... but the reason why she was there to begin with is because of his imaginary dickwaving contest with Namatame. "It was fun! I did it cause I could!", etc, is just not telling the whole story.

Anyway yada yada vine boom great vegetables.

[ekingston]

I was gonna be cheeky and ask for 10 and 19 again BUT I shall resist that urge… for now.

I will be sneaky (critical failure) and ask for three (I lied) 28. 30. And 37.

And what the hell, everyone should be proud of their work/s so a 33. (Feel free to pick a couple if this is just asking for a lot - I feel like it is 😅)

I feel like I’m order takeout or reading lotto number here

haha thank you! and the bonus number is…

Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?

today i’m reminding myself to practice mindfulness! and not in the sense of breathing exercises or lengthy meditation sessions (although I’m sure those have their benefits too) but by making myself be in the present, paying attention to all of my senses, and remembering that my characters would do the same. you’ll need that material to fill in the little details that draw the reader into your work, that tricky thing that makes them feel like they can’t just see it, but like they’re actually there. life is a sensual experience, and i think our stories should reflect that!

Describe a fic that almost happened, but then didn’t.

this got long, so…

i once scribbled down a dream i had that was a sort of trippy time travel/repeating day type of thing, where Lena was part of a small crew of criminals that used Lena’s tech to travel back in time to aid them with their heists. they would simply rewind time over and over, taking note of the details, learning every possible outcome, eliminating obstacles along the way, practicing the motions often enough to nail the final, perfect execution.

the first scene was a very bloody one, and i came in right in the middle of it, not understanding how Lena and her people could be so callous about the people laying bleeding and dying at their feet, especially because Kara was one of them. Lena’s crew just kept saying they’d ‘fix that next time’, like some sort of cryptic mantra.

in the dream Lena ended up looking for Kara in every run through, charming her in a thousand different ways, always the same, Kara falling for her every time. there were a few rewinds that took her back so far that Kara was still a child, immediately smitten but completely lost on earth, abandoned and alone, and Lena lobbied hard to make sure her crew fixed that, too, even when it meant Lena would never meet her again.

i saw Lena’s crew running down a dark alley over and over again, at least one of their crew dead or dying, at least one other gravely hurt. Kara turned out to be the reason their plan failed every single time. Lena ended up having to turn against her team to save her before they could eliminate her from their timeline completely.

in the end Lena lay dying in child-Kara’s arms, telling her ‘we’ll fix it next time.’ this was when she’d finally discovered Kara wasn’t human. the line i woke up with was Lena telling Kara to promise her, ‘if you figure it out someday—fly up’. the theory being, i think, that if Kara somehow were to fly high enough, fast enough, she’d achieve the same effect Lena did with her tech, and Kara could go back to save Lena instead.

my dreams get pretty elaborate, but they rarely come with as tidy of a plot as this one did, so i bet it already exists somewhere.

Do you research before writing or while you write? Is it fun or boring for you?

i don’t feel i write the kind of stuff that requires a lot of research and that’s probably a good thing! because i will go down absolutely every rabbit hole the internet has to offer when i do and zero writing will get done. my longform WIP TFOT has been brewing since—let me check—December 11, 2022 (thanks @mooosicaldreamz) and i’ve written less than 20k words, including my outline. instead i have spent my time working on it ‘studying’ veterinary medicine, learning about sustainable agriculture, planning trips to Wyoming and wondering alongside Paula Cole where all the cowboys have gone.

Give your writing a compliment.

i can’t tell you how happy it makes me when people tell me i managed to write something that made them laugh out loud. several times even! sometimes waking up their loved ones or startling strangers! i love that so much.

[acourtofthought]

SJM LIVE

Please excuse the formatting and spelling, I was typing as fast as I could

CC Overview: 

 

Mix of Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Fantasy World but in a Modern World 

Kick ass snarky heroine who goes on her own journey of discover and healing and self love 

SJM doesn’t look at theory’s, not lurking around on the internet, tries to stay in her creative bubble. 

 

Every now and then a friend will text her with crazy theories 

 

On tour for Heir of Fire and listening to music and it gave her inspiration for CC 

 

The vision was of Bryce, a best friend named Danika who was dead and a hot angel dude almost dead 

Something she thought about for years afterwards, her project for fun 

 

Her publisher has an official Bible of all her books and character info that they frequently reference. Blessed with an editor who is a genius and remembers detail and lines 

 

You touched on Hunt a little bit, we don’t know a ton about Hunts backstory. A bunch of readers want to know if we’re going to find out about his parentage.  

 

Will learn more about Hunt in the next book. As for his wellbeing, I make no promises. I’m not saying anything about anything. I will say that when I was working on SAB and my editor and I were thinking about what the most horrible thing that could happen to Hunt, I originally had him getting his wings chopped off again. What's even worse than that? Getting the slave tattoo put on. He has a lot of room to grow and lot of shit to deal with. A lot of emotional repercussions  

 

Poor Hunt, he’s in for a journey coming up. 

 

Will learn more about the Autumn King. I knew who Bryce’s bio father was but in the process of editing these books, he’s become one of my favorite characters to write because he’s so horrible and he’s someone who is capable in some small way of doing the right thing but he just doesn’t. He’s a fucked up horrible person. And pitting him against Bryce and against Ruhn, it sounds strange to say it’s fun for me to do that but as a writer it’s fun to put characters who cause each other such trauma and see what happens. But I love when Bryce really sticks it to him in SAB. It’s so satisfying to see a woman get one up on a gross ass dude. 

 

There is a headcannon that when they make the drop they can choose how the light is used and Ruhn would use it to power vibrators since he loves women, can you confirm or deny?  

 

She hadn’t thought of it, she loves the idea.  

 Now she feels bad about where Ruhn is, she's thinking about sweet Ruhn. 

 

Going through FAS and was going through some shit and she turned in a draft and knew she hadn’t found the right story yet. Wasn’t good enough and as much as she talks about being a lazy person, she’s very intense when it comes to her writing and she won’t put it out if it’s not best possible work. Threw that one in the trash.  

 

They did one or two rounds of edits, it wasn’t coming together and she had other things going on and wasn’t in the right space and she threw out the whole thing. Started over again. Sat down, tuned out the world, over the course of four or five weeks she wrote a brand new draft and was in the zone and she finally found that story. She knew what she wanted to happen in the book all along but until that moment she hadn’t figured out how it would come together. A couple scenes stayed but most of it was brand new and she remembered crying when her agent called and told her that her editor said “this is an SJM book that came in”. 

 

She never wants to put a book out there that she doesn’t believe it, she has to love it.  

 

You can’t fix a blank page, you’ve got to write it and figure it out. 

 

The book I’m working on right now, I spent the whole day writing a whole scene and it was 20 pages and by the end she said it was dumb. She deleted it. She saved it but doesn’t think it’s good enough for bonus material. 

 

Question from Jodi Piccoult regarding the ending of CC2:

“I want to know if SJM knew she was writing towards it all along and if so, I can’t imagine she didn’t plan it from the get go” 

 

When Aelin closed the Wyrdgates, she got glimpses into different words. 

 

Was it intentional all those years ago?  

 

When it comes to the ending of CC2, she’s known for awhile, she knew the worlds overlapped before she was working on KoA because she daydreamed about the ending of KoA for awhile and she knew Aelin would crash through the worlds and she had already begun daydreaming about CC. When she got to writing KoA, she knew she wanted her to go through the ACOTAR worlds and just as a “cool” moment, she had her go through the CC world. When she was working on CC, she really got into the idea of the worlds being connected. Out of the blue she had the idea for the end of CC2.  

Burst into tears when she wrote end of CC2 because she’d been daydreaming about it. Things have just completely gone to shit in CC world but here’s my wonderful Rhys. Burst into tears as soon as she wrote that. Still one of her favorite parts ever that she’s ever written.  

 

Can we expect to get additional POV? ACOTAR POV? I’m not saying anything about anything. You will see some of the ACOTAR world, I’m not telling you..... It’ll pick up where it ended. Not exactly in that scene but. 

 

Is Danika really dead? Said nothing for a minute then she said “yeah” but she was weird about the response. Then said she is dead, as much as I wish she could be living, no, she is dead and the loss of that beautiful life in Bryce’s light...it would feel cheap to Bryce’s suffering to have her alive 

Is Connor really dead - “yes” again, weird face 

Does Emil really have no powers – not answering that 

We know that magic is weaker in the modern world, does the mating bond mean the same thing in CC as ACOTAR books – I'm going to pass 

 

Is Hunt really Bryce’s mate – “Am I going to destroy some kind of theory or excitement? Yes, he is her mate. I realize how ACOTAR and TOG were organic romances with multiple love interests but for this one I wanted to do a real doozy on everyone. She said she was going to have the love interest here at the start to be the one at the end “if they both make it to the end”. 

 

The secret of Feyre and Rhys and Tamlin was so hard to keep. People would come up and kindly, sweetly say “I love Tamlin so much” and her voice went up ten octaves trying to agree. That was the hardest secret for her. 

 

How much of Bryce’s power has she accessed – you will see in the next book 

Talked about working on a book recently  

 

I remember you saying once before, people did not have to read ACOTAR before reading CC. Do you stand by that? I mean, I guess you should read ACOTAR. I would hope if you haven’t read ACOTAR and you get to the end of SAB, I made sure they put an add in the back of the book to read ACOTAR. I do not stand by that statement 

 

Who is on the cover of CC3? Is it a dragon? I’m not saying anything, there’s Easter Eggs in the cover. We made sure there were lots of Easter eggs in this one. This is her favorite cover. The nails are amazing.  

 

You said that your favorite, you cried when you got to the end of book 2. Did you wait to get to that to write it? What has a whole in the series has bene your favorite? Yes, usually the endings of all my books are ones I’m super pumped to write so I dangle them like a carrot, I write in a chronological fashion and use as motivation. For SAB, this was the thing I was powering through to get to writing this scene. Same with SF, with Nesta and the Blood Rite and saving Feyre. Most fun, there are so many different categories. In HOEAB, I had so many different, when Hunt discovers her My Little Pony collection. SJM collects vintage My Little Pony’s, she’s been in bidding wars so Bryce got that obsession for her. Bryce doing the drop makes her cry, thinking about it with Danika. She believes in our darkest moments we’re not alone and the people we love who aren’t here with us are looking out for us.  

In SAB, she loves the opening when they’re at a frat party. And she loves those little moments when they’re living their lives and getting to be themselves. Loves when Ruhn is super stoned. Loves the first scene with the Hind when she’s playing poker in the bar. At the end of SAB the moment when the Hind, she loves that moment.  

Cried when the Hind revealed herself to Ruhn. Feeling Lidia’s sacrifice and her love for Ruhn. Bryce running down that hallway from Rigelus, she loved that whole scene. Most of the book is stuff she loves.  

 

One of the reasons the three of us clicked is we all sort of the same fangirl heart, we get obsessed with it and research it, that’s something I’ve always loved about you. How does it feel to have this fandom that have fallen in love with you? SJM thinks they are phenomenally talented writers. In terms of the fandom, it feels weird to say that word because it’s so beyond anything that I ever hoped. She was a nerd in high school when it wasn’t cool to be a nerd, it blows her mind that people connect with her characters and worlds, it means something to them. The worlds mean everything to her. And she also has a profound sense of gratitude that she gets to do what she loves for a living because of the people who read her books. Appreciative of the joy we all bring to these books, it’s a humbling, moving thing to know your books inspire someone. It never gets old for her, whenever she sees people reading her books around the city she goes up to them and probably scares them when she’s not wearing makeup. One girl on street walked by her and she saw the NC insignia, so she made Josh ask her if that’s what it was. So this strange man (Josh) stops her and asks her and she looked confused so SJM went up and she told the girl she wrote the books and she doesn’t think the girl believed her. Saw a guy on the subway reading MAF and her first thought was “is he reading sexy ass stuff on the subway”. He was reading it because his gf was a big fan of the series, that’s a good boyfriend. 

 

Now that CC3 is done, what are you working on now? I am working on the next ACOTAR novel. I’m drafting it and that’s all I will say. She’s become so focused and obsessed with this book. Working on for the next god knows how many months, a million years. 

[random-guy888]

Spoilers for chapter 115 of the BSD manga

Do I ever actually post on this blog? No. Am I going to start? YES because someone will have to endure my rants about my current obsession even if it’s a bunch of internet strangers.

First off the whole thing with Aya and Fyodor was devastating. Sure I’m happy she’s not dead and yes I’m glad nothing bad (hopefully fingers crossed) will happen to her. But after fighting so hard to save Bram only for it to be ripped away and basically thrown back in her face like that- crazy.

Second not something I noticed at first but later realized was that Ranpo? No where to be seen. I doubt such a major character would be killed or even seriously injured off screen (off page?) but am I worried? Yes. ALSO! This ENTIRE THING would have been avoided if the ADA just listened to him! Like yeah guys let’s ignore the literal genius who hasn’t been wrong once (to my knowledge at least)

Third I have no idea what kind of plot armor Dazai or Atsushi or literally anyone but Fyodor have that can save them. They are cooked! The entire world’s population (minus Aya) COOKED! He has the one order and BASICALLY FUCKING GOD UNDER HIS CONTROL- Fukuchi was already near impossible to defeat with the one time space sword and now this singularity form is killing Hunting Dogs like NOTHING!

Fourth this is me getting a bit off track and into a theory of mine but oh well- I think that Sigma will play a key role once he wakes up at least I see that as one of the few plausible ways to defeat Fyodor because as we saw his brain was overloaded with information which caused him to faint and what if some of that information leads him to figuring out a key flaw in the plan and if not him possibly Dazai and Chuuya

Fifth OMG POOR TERUKO— like she deserves so much better her death was DEVASTATING she wasn’t my favorite of the Hunting Dogs but I still found her character and her loyalty admirable and interesting and THATS BASICALLY WHY SHE DIED- like yeah I’m sure the singularity would have killed her anyway but the way she stopped her attack because she assumed she saw Fukuchi a man she holds in such high regard makes it 10x worse

Sixth and finally dear god the ending where Fyodors like “Oh the war? Made it up lol can’t believe you’d believe that” BRO IS THE MASTER OF DECEPTION- how HOW does he do it? It’s crazy!

Will I probably do this more often now? Yeah so be prepared for my monthly rants in between my dumbass reposts- (side not my spelling sucks I’m well aware but I’m too lazy to re-read this)

[incarnateirony]

By the way, as 2po echos loljackles and shows he is, in fact, just a hateful anti asshole trying to reason out a way their dreams of this show failing don't look like the hilarious jackasses they do

let me emphasize to people: WB are not majority owners of CW anymore. Nexstar, even under their floated theory about sales value on audience size (which is itself a comedic take, audience isn't monetizable, demo is), gets no benefit in multiple airings of a show that is failing.

Even if they bought TW for a million bajillion dollars, if it was doing bad, there's no benefit in them using the property multiple times to "make back costs." WB, in theory, would do so. Because it's their property. But it's not their channel. Nexstar would replace it immediately with any property able to make them better money. Live cancellations happen all the time, even, for this reason.

All that's happening is 2po is exposing that just like loljackles, hookerwitch, and all the batshit insane jared stans and antis, he's that. A batshit insane jared stan and anti, trying to google fu a way to save his ego and image and his illusory world that there was ever a chance of us getting cancelled, to avoid as long as he can the fear of his own getting cancelled under its dead fish Nexstar digitals.

I've been ignoring them as they aren't worth arguing with and we're going where we're going and what's being renewed is being renewed, but I didn't want the million influenceable chicken littles of this fandom to start randomly listening to their dreamed up hallucinatory bullshit and going "IS DIS TRUE???"

No, not only is it not true, it's the dumbest take I've heard in a while. The only way they even weren't embarrassed posting an idea this bad into the internet is their hateful biases driving their process completely blinded them to the gaping logic flaws in it.

[darkfire359]

Thoughts on e6-e7 of The Terror

Continuing my first watch of The Terror, I just have to say... holy shit, that carnival!

I could tell something was going to go horribly wrong with how generically spooky it was, and I'd heard some vague spoilers of Dr. Stanley being a bad guy with respect to it. But he just straight-up arsoned the whole place in the most horrifically premeditated way possible. Possibly the most terrifying thing I've seen so far in the show, because while the Tunbaaq isn't real, overcrowded events with poor escape routes definitely are.

Also shocking was the fact that the guy Hickey stabbed there was an accident! I saw a second of that scene in an AMV pre-watching and I assumed that it was Hickey murdering things up Hannibal style. But actually Hickey was frantically trying to save the lives of everyone there and actively warning people that he was cutting through the tent. I cannot believe how much context completely 180'ed the meaning of that shot.

TBH if I hadn't watched e7 immediately afterwards I'd have wondered if the whole "Hickey is the show's villain" thing was an elaborate trick the Internet had agreed upon to prank new watchers. Even with e7 (when Hickey kills Irving and Farr) it seems hard for him to surpass Stanley's villainy? Maybe I'll be surprised.

The fact that the writers chose to have Hickey be the one coincidentally outside the tent, trying to save people, is... interesting. It's not that Hickey did anything particularly impressive or selfless what with moving the crates out of the way and cutting the tent open. But it's definitely a choice to make him more sympathetic (it could have been anyone outside the tent, in theory). I feel like I actually believe Hickey when he said that he found the dog with a broken leg (if he were lying, would he have admitted to killing the dog at all?) Relatedly, I'm glad we haven't heard anything more about the ship's cat—the dead dog and monkey were sad enough that I'm glad to be able to pretend that (somehow) the cat is happy and safe.

Also someone called me a Jopzier truther after my response to e1, and I was like "IDK, I don't even know these guys," but yes I 100% do ship Jopzier now. Jopson was so sweet taking care of Crozier when he wasn't feeling well! Plus Jopson was like "🥺🥺🥺 You didn't let me shave you or help you put on your underwear? 🥺🥺🥺 Plz dom me, sir, I can't function otherwise." and Crozier literally responded by promoting him. I feel like that might not have been what Jopson was aiming for, but still, sweet! (I started searching for Jopson content and immediately found Jopson/Hickey art, which I apparently also ship now despite first liking Jopson for the Jopzier angle.)

Speaking of shipping, I'm increasingly appreciating Goodsir/Lady Silence. You go girl, be the big spoon to your scared little man! I'm sure you two aren't doomed by the narrative at all...

I'm also disappointed that for all the fan content I've seen about Fitzjames's gender feels, he apparently doesn't even WEAR the dress? He just holds it up in front of himself??? Tragic. It looked like there were people in dresses at the carnival too, so he totally could have gotten away with it though only metaphorically; he literally might not have been able to escape the fire otherwise.

[crystallizedkingdoms]

I had a crazy autism car crash moment and thought about what each of the yiik characters TMA affiliated entity would be so now I’m going to list out all my possibilities + my reasonings. I haven’t listened to tma in forever i need to relisten sometime so this is off of my Memory and the wiki so BE NICE.

Alex: ik The Extinction was kind of my immediate gut feeling because of the whole y2k destruction thing he has going on AND I STILL FEEL THAT FITS. BUT! going off of his actual character alone, the Web is honestly sooo him. with how he spins the whole narrative to fit whatever he feels suits him best. he fears so much about not having control of his life that he turns around and starts doing it to everyone instead. and it’s just never ending in that sense. this feels the most blatant honestly No Notes.

Vella: shes very Buried to me for reasons i am struggling to explain, but i think what draws me to it is how shes been known to shut herself out from situations she cant control and when the world is falling apart around her. like thats literally how we meet her in the first place she had a bad circumstance and she escapes it by trapping herself in another fucking dimension. which feels very Buried to me. also i like how she presses the sides of her head with her hands when shes stressed i like to think tight spaces comfort her just as much as they frighten her in a way.

Rory: IM STUCK BETWEEN THE LONELY AND THE VAST. on one hand the Lonely is so obvious that it hurts, Rory surrounds and pretty much defines himself in loneliness. and to that end you’d think it would be kind of hard to give him anything else. but then you think specifically about his little theories, how thoughtful he is towards the idea of how humanity and souls occupy space, and its like oh shit. so i believe there is Some element of Vast in him. also i love the idea of him and Vella as physical foils OKAY THERE I ADMIT IT.

Claudio: this man could not be more Hunt coded if he fucking tried. his search for his brother is practically endless because he won’t just accept the most likely answer that he’s dead, until the search literally consumes him. when it becomes clear a physical Hunt won’t fulfill his desire for the chase, he starts using the Internet/ONISM to start a digital Hunt that can go on forever and ever and ever. maybe there’s even a little part of Claudio that doesn’t even want to find Aaron, knowing it’ll bring an end to his Hunt.

Chondra: when i make this into a full fledged AU with some semblance of story, i imagine her being the only one who starts out not clearly affiliated with any particular fear because of just how incredibly disinterested she is in anything trying to drag her down. HOWEVER, i think that she would be marked by the End, what with how the death (in her eyes) of her brother haunts her everywhere she goes even if she tries to distance herself away from it, until eventually she gives in and lets it claim her as an avatar.

Michael: i had to save him for last because he’s the one that made me think of this at all and i have so many ideas. HES SO FULL OF POTENTIAL I FOUND THREE GOOD ANSWERS. Part of me wants to separate it into the different facets of Michael that we see throughout the game + the little snippet of I.V. the Michael whos the eternal best friend and blind to the broken narrative Alex creates is such Stranger, i can imagine him Literally being a life sized doll painted to look like the Michael of Alex’s dreams but it’s just. a little off.

meanwhile Red Michael is The Spiral, so achingly aware that everything about the world Stranger Michael lives in is a lie but being unable to communicate that to himself outside of the red room so he spirals into ONISM and consistently tries to find reality where everything is a nostalgia-based deception that further pulls him to the path of Distortion,

FINALLY. Proto-Michael, consumed by the Eye, being painfully aware of everything around him, when no one else seems capable of doing so, and desperately wanting to know the answer to it all. I think this is the entity that fits his entire, Singular the most, because Michael is such a solution-oriented, curious guy and his need to understand every strange, supernatural thing in this world really reflects on his entire character. ALSO the camera motif with him would go FIRE with the Eye. so when i make this an AU separate from the canon events of yiik that’s probably what im gonna go with. But still isn’t this super cool.

uhhhh this was super long and doesn’t even feature other prominent characters but. hey this is the main cast so at least i got that. I’ll keep working on this tho yippeeeee

[inktheduck]

Hello!!! I'm Ink! I'm going to tell you my lil project I'm indulging in.

I just really really want to make a conspiracy theory board as I listen to The Magnus Archives because I know it'll be fun!! I'm talking about taking notes while listening, doing my own little research, compiling findings into my trusty binder, then connecting the dots with push pins and string on a corkboard.

I'm not sure how frequent I will be updating because I have a life to live. My analysis will be spoilers. Obviously.

Why am I doing this????? As I listened to The Magnus Archives back in spring of 2021 I just knew it was all connected somehow. Even before I got spoiled a bit. My suspicions were canonically confirmed when I reached episode 32. Jane Prentiss giving a statement herself n' all. I've been spoiled already. But hopefully not enough to have a fun clean slated time. Friends and the internet enjoy the show very much, so I do know more than I should. But this isn't going to stop me from doing what I want. >:D

This is very much me self indulgently, self inserting myself into the story. This is all about immersion. I'm a whore for recognizing patterns and being prepared for emergencies. I want to see if I find a way I could have helped in the story. (Or not, but hey I have the safety of being a real life living person. Relatively.)

I know that something happens to John in the finale. Something about... eyemageddon??? I hope he isn't dead or worse.

Ultimately, I want to find if there are ways out of dangerous situations. Find preventative measures. I want to see for myself if there was a way to save John. It may be a fools errand but I don't care.

[mlobsters]

supernatural s15e9 the trap (w. robert berens)

was surprised to see a road so far recap, thinking that's early for midway, but right if it's 20 episodes then... and we're really just about almost to the end. i've been watching just about daily since beginning of march 2023, but i am actually approaching the finish. little freaked out, not gonna lie. but i didn't do the recap stuff regularly until like s4 so in theory i can just loop back to watching from the beginning and give myself an extension on my evening project :p because i am going to be adrift when i don't have this little nightly task.

couldn't focus on the recap because the music got me thinking it was like. knockoff ac/dc 😬 hard times in the land of plenty by omar & the howlers. internet doesn't seem to agree with me though. also i think part of the problem is that they mix the music too low, so everything sounds kind of generic when it's not boosted up enough to feature

CHUCK Same thing I've been doing for weeks— helping, helping you to the bunker, to Sam... to romance. It was easy, really, just a nudge here, a conveniently placed spell there.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. i've been fucking whinging over this goddamned ludicrous plotline and this is why. SIGH. maybe i'm the doofus for not seeing the potential forces behind it but ugh. it actively made me irritated with the show and eileen, who i otherwise really liked, and for what. you got your GOTCHA! was it worth it?? deep breaths

i do like rob benedict a lot in this character though, i think he does a really good job. not as flashy like, crowley/sheppard or lucifer/pellegrino but good! whole mess of old regulars in the credits, i see.

DEAN Tracking Sam's phone. Okay, here we go. Uh... Milford, Nebraska, at a casino. What the hell is Chuck doing at a casino? Whatever. We need to go. CAS To Purgatory. DEAN Chuck has Sam. I'm not leaving him. CAS Chuck's not gonna kill him. That's not the ending. DEAN Wh— Then he'll torture him. CAS Dean, will you stop? Just stop being so stupid. DEAN What? CAS If we attack Chuck now, we don't have anything that can hurt him. We get that Leviathan blossom, complete Michael's spell, build the Cage. That's our chance. That's the way we'll save Sam, and that's the way we'll save the world.

can't blame dean for going slightly off the rails when sam's in peril

CHUCK How are you still like this? SAM Like what? CHUCK This...defiant. SAM It's not my first time on the rack. CHUCK No, no, no, no. No, this is more. This is...hope. Ah. That's what's stopping me – you. You still think that Dean and Cas are gonna fly through those doors just in the nick of time. You still think that you're the hero of this story. You still think you can win.

a) ouch. b) i mean, based on prior experience he's got a lot of reasons to think so

CAS Sorry about Benny. DEAN I owed him my life. And he sacrificed himself to get Sam out of this place. CAS Well, this place will bring that out in you. Guilt. It was my fault the Leviathan got out. It was my fault we were here the first time. I carry that guilt every day. DEAN I know you're sorry, Cas. About Bel, about Mom. CAS I was talking about Jack. I already apologized to you. You just refused to hear it. DEAN Sorry I brought it up. Maybe if you didn't just up and leave us. CAS You didn't give me a choice. You couldn't forgive me. And you couldn't move on. You were too angry. I left, but you didn't stop me.

so is that really benny being dead? okay. and bel? completely drawing a blank, have to look it up. ....oh. belphegor??? ok?? for killing him prematurely or whatever, that caused the rowena sacrifice?? i don't fucking remember. also, i mean. cas needed some space. sometimes other people need that. maybe i'm being delusional but it didn't seem like a forever falling out?? but i guess it was to them

i don't even know what to say about these chuck flash foward things. i guess an excuse to have mini grief over someone new dying each time. surely sam is not actually believing this is what will happen, being that chuck is driving this whole ass bus?

snorted. like knockoff alien xenomorph eggs

the real flash forward is sam and dean suffering from crippling CTE from the constant traumatic brain injuries. castiel must be an expert brain-unscrambler

SAM You're just showing me this so I give up, so I lose hope. CHUCK I'm just the messenger, Sam. I'm sharing my omniscience with you. SAM No, the Dean I know... the Dean who raised me – he'd never give up, no matter how bad things got. CHUCK Well, he does. He will. This is the truth, Sam. This is what comes next.

*eyeroll* there's zero reason to believe chuck about anything ever at this point so it's like ok dude, whatever. also, like, fully reasonable that dean would want to give up if literally everyone was dead or has a death wish, i think i'd argue more with this whole monster-apocalypse premise that these visions are hinged on :p

oh i feel like a massive asshole but this emotional speech to cas is..... a lot. what is that face he's making in the part when he says he was wrong??? and the breakdown, going down to the one knee? woof. ok! this is DRAMATIC. see here's where i get pulled out of the story. i'm going along with the premise nowadays that cas is their/his best friend, even if i never really picked up what they were putting down about it before. i've talked about it at length. but he's been around a lot more, i'm willing to accept it without getting disgruntled. i don't feel it, but it's not chafing me when it comes up anymore. HOWEVER. what's taking me out of the moment is how they've had a lot of blowups with cas in the past, and they get smoothed over so easily. then this, and i feel like okay. so we're having this big Emotional Moment as a set piece for jackles, as a nod to their relationship for the fans because it's the last season, etc. it feels like there's outside forces determining that this is the conflict that's gonna have the big breakdown/resolution.

interesting that the production draft of the script, it's a shorter scene.

i mean, knowing when dean actually dies for good in the show... sigh. (though of course we don't even know because the show doesn't say for sure) jared's generous 5 years later (hc afaik) gets us past 2022 at least, i guess.

LOL oh my god the teeth, so awkward and bad. sorry for the screenshot, fellas. i can't even watch this whole fight scene, it's so terrible. good GRIEF.

excellent stinkface at creeper chuck

ok so did they explain that this involved taking the mark of cain before this? was i really not paying attention? christ. maybe we were supposed to infer it from the fact that they're making a cage? reading the mark of cain wiki entry to try to wrap my head around it. doesn't seem like a straight line to needing someone to have the mark???

God created the Mark to act as the lock and key to the Darkness' cage and if it was to destroyed, the Darkness would be released. God gave the Mark to his most trusted lieutenant, Lucifer, but the Mark corrupted Lucifer and made him jealous of humanity which led to his imprisonment in the Cage. Prior to being locked away, Lucifer passed the Mark to Cain as part of his deal to save Abel from Lucifer's influence.

but maybe i'm just missing something

SAM It'll be better. It'll be better. It'll be better. [Exhales sharply] If we win – When we win – When we beat you, I will make it better! CHUCK You can't, Sam. You, Sam Winchester, have been playing fast and loose with the laws of nature and magic for a very long time – you and your brother. Always breaking the rules. And that's what I love about you, Sam. It's so heroic. It's so...Promethean. But there's still so much about the fabric of the universe that you don't know... that you can't know. 'Cause you're only humans. But I'm God. Think about what I showed you. Look beyond the Mark, beyond you and Dean fanging out – heartbreaking, but not the headline news. SAM The monsters. CHUCK The monsters. Without me, it's a law of nature – dark forces prevail, monsters rule, and you, your brother, and everyone you love will die. Can you really live with that?

patting myself on the back again :p i'm giving sam all the grace because having the full blown most powerful god in existence trying to manipulate you with his whole chest, surely that's going to be near impossible to withstand no matter who you are. i just am finding the plotline insufferable

and they roll the magic bath bomb of doom to sam and he can't break it. other than completely idiotic plot contrivances, there's no reason he didn't just roll it dean. they were both available. this is so fucking stupid i cannot. i had my problems with a lot of seasons but i have never been so disappointed in the quality of what made it to the screen as i have this season.

SAM I wish you'd stay. EILEEN I wish I could. After what happened, I don't know what's real anymore.

so clearly the answer is TO KISS HER? she just said--god i fucking CANNOT. my reaction, literally. "OH, COME ON!"

if they're gonna be mad at sam about this dumb fucking thing... so help me......

SAM That was our, uh, chance... to stop Chuck. But what Chuck showed me, what would happen if we trapped him – I believed him. I still do. DEAN Well, that's good enough for me.

well, thank goodness for that at least. good fucking god.

BILLIE It's time.

[kharmii]

talking about "dehumanization" but basically dehumanizing anyone who disagrees with these lunatics.

another reason they flood western countries because of the ridicously high amount of free stuff they get in these countries.

I feel like before playing the good samaritan they should fix up shit in their own countries over sending help to other countries.

being constantly pushed to help others and guilt tripping people will eventually lead to people pushing back because if you keep blaming people they will stop listening.

And to me it often feels like everyone screaming about it on the internet as well as putting flags in their bio is just virtue signalling to show "look at how good I am" to other leftists

Responses to this post and this post. BTW......why did questioninqthings put their blog on password lock?

Posting these two asks together. Yesterday, I received them hours apart, and I believe they kind of relate to each other due to a certain radical leftwing bullying culture we've been subjected to in fandom since internet began. Leftists are desperate to be seen as good people. They act as if they are the Holy Crusaders of Light, whereas the opposition are for certain demons who deserve to be crushed. Remember when they were all like, "PUNCH NAZIS!!1!!1". Actual Nazis are rare and have no impact on anything compared to the relevant terrorist groups, but the useful idiot cause head statists aren't talking about actual Nazis......

Today is Good Friday, the day when Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross for the sins of the world, then three days later, rose from the dead. Absent the mercy of God sending His only son to die for our sins, every single human being that has ever existed and will exist is trash and deserves to burn in hell. One sin is as good as another, and without Jesus, there would be no theoretical Noah's Ark that would save a few. Nope. Every last mf-er on earth would rot.

-But in a worldly sense, some sins ARE considered worse than others. The shit-flinging anti harpies could see it like shipping identical twins on Tumblr is actually keeping me out of trouble! I could be doing worse things, like blowing my money at a casino boat, stabbing my grandmother to death for drug money, raping a child, shoving an innocent person onto the subway tracks because of their race, punching a random person in the face because of their ideology, etc....etc.... Instead, I'm just sitting here not hurting anybody by thinking twins are hot because they are identical. If someone is into twins because of the taboo of sibling incest, then that's fine too. They are also not hurting anybody in a irl way.

Leftists like to accuse white people of racism nonstop, but there's a big difference between saying something racist and doing something racist, such as slamming a person's head into the concrete because they are white. The radical left is guilty of putting out nonstop propaganda that encourages non-white people to commit violent actions against white people. Critical Race Theory has taught black people to believe white people are the cause of all their problems, so they're all riled up into gang beating and murdering whites, both in the school and on the street. There are hundreds of hours of documented attacks supporting this, even though our statist leftwing Pravda media covers it up and spews 24/7 propaganda still pushing the fallacious narrative that 'right wing groups are the greatest terror threat' even though there is little or no video evidence supporting this.

Same could be said about clowns pushing this 'white people are racist and don't humanize Palestinians' crap. Do you think this makes Arabs love us when they flood into Western world countries? Aren't nonwhite countries responsible for importing the fentanyl that is killing us by the tens and hundreds of thousands? (-But somehow it's not being considered terrorism) -Or do you think there might be hundreds of hours of video footage showing Arabs beating and murdering white people, in between receiving unlimited welfare and basically being subsidized to outbreed us, while native white people are being crushed under the burden of high taxes in socialist countries that don't give enough in return.

[codegeassfacts]

Lelouch is dead at the end of R2, and really, really dead // Canon

I know that with the AU revival and the Code theorist afficionados, a lot of people still try to pretend Lelouch's survival was up to interpretation, but that's not the truth of the original anime, and since this blog is dedicated to the canon anime, I thought it might be wise to write an article about that with canon quote; There are some great article which have been written on the internet, but in a lof of cases, some informations were missing, so I gathered everything, added what missed and added a Link at the end for a great Reddit post which will also debunk the Code theory.

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First off, you have to know that before the airing of the final episode, Taniguchi asked the viewers to rewatch the first episode of the anime.

While we didn't knew why, it was actually because of Lelouch's very iconic line : "Only those who are prepared to be killed should kill."

'Continue' vol 42, (October 2008)

Ichiro Okouchi, "Lelouch dead!? Was it a good one or a bad one!?"

- Still, isn't it possible that defeating the wise ruler Schneizel, the person who was supposed to have brought order to the world, might lead to some [viewers] interpreting it as a Bad End?

Okouchi: That's true. There are probably a lot of people who think of it as a Bad End, a tragedy, considering the protagonist's, Lelouch's end as well. However, Lelouch says in the first episode: "Only those prepared to be shot are allowed to pull the trigger themselves." If you were to think of that as his pride, then I think his getting shot (killed) in the end was a logical end. Of course, I understand that not all of the viewers will accept this ending. There were people who wanted a happier ending, after all.

- Was there a dispute among the staff members regarding the ending?

Okouchi: No. It was decided fairly naturally. During the "Code Geass" script meetings, there are many cases in which there were a number of disputes, but there were barely any when it came to the scripts for (the previous series's) episode 25 and the final episode. I think everyone felt the same when it came to the end of the character that is Lelouch.

- Why were you so bold as to choose this ending when the viewers might see it as a Bad End?

Okouchi: Bold... yes, we were so bold as to chose this ending. Perhaps the show that is "Code Geass" ending up this way was decided the moment Director Taniguchi and I teamed up. I suppose you can call it our sense of aesthetics, or perhaps a part of our psychological makeup.

- I see. So Lelouch's decision was also your, Mr. Okouchi's, and Director Taniguchi's decision.

Okouchi: Which is why I think of both our and Lelouch's decision as Happy Ends. I believe that there will be better things in the tomorrow awaiting Nunnally, Kallen and the rest who have been left behind. And surely Lelouch, who was able to make this into a reality, can only be happy [about this].***

****(Once again, as Okouchi will confirm over and over in interviews and tweet you can find in this post, that Lelouch's death was Vlanned both by him and Taniguchi)

- Some unresolved mysteries still remain.

Okouchi: From the very beginning, [I/we] never planned on explaining everything. In fact, if you ask me, I think we might have overdone the explanations. While it's undeniable that Lelouch's story has ended with a full stop, the other characters' stories are still on-going, and it's not like the world [of Code Geass] itself has come to an end either. [I/we] didn't want to end it by closing it up for good."[1]

Animage 10 (Oct 2008), 11 (Nov 2008)

- Animage: The ending's outcome turned out as such, but do you think Lelouch was happy?

Okouchi: I think that this (work) was not a bad end, but a good end. This already appeared in Lelouch and C.C.'s conversation in Stage 7 of S1, but people who are 'just' living their lives are uninteresting. Lelouch saved his beloved sister and made the kind world that he envisioned, a reality. His life was not in vain. That's why, Lelouch was smiling in the end."

Okouchi: (...) That end is to Lelouch and to Suzaku both the punishment and the salvation at the same time. It's also connected to the words Lelouch said at the beginning: "Utte ii no wa utareru kakugo no aru yatsu dake da." The person who gave the punishment was punished themselves and if you want to get the salvation, give the salvation first. Of course it's also the same with Lelouch's decision to accepts the geass (wish), because he geassed many people, as he himself has said in the show. [He refers to the last episode when Lelouch says what the people of the world wish for]

- Animage: So you accept the end of the show? 

Fukuyama: I think that before he reached that final scene, Lelouch had many possibilities to choose from. But he understood very well what he had done and had to pay the price for that. Suzaku chooses to live as Zero and was awarded the opportunity to pay for his sins by this choice. And Lelouch got his salvation by choosing not the happiness of living on but to sacrifice his own life to create the situation for the world to move forward. If you think about his character, I don't think he would still be himself, if he chose other end. 

************************

On the subject of Interviews I'll add some of Taniguchi's words about the matter, cause the guy never ever implied that Lelouch could be alive (even though he seems to have forgotten Internet never lose it's memory, given how to tried to justify Resurrection)

--Was the final episode something you thought of from the very beginning?

Taniguchi: Yes. The ending was decided upon beforehand. Although it was eventually cut, I actually had [Okouchi] write a script for episode 1, one which began with the scene of Suzaku attempting to kill Lelouch. I'm talking about episode 1 of the previous series, not R2.

"Of course, I understand that not all of the viewers will accept this ending. There were people who wanted a happier ending, after all."

While I think of this as a good ending, I want to let the viewers think for themselves****

*** The argument about viewers choosing for themselves was NEVER ABOUT LELOUCH'S FATE, it was always about if the ending was a good or a happy ending; I was surprises to see it used over and over again since the revival AU because after the and of the show, despite this line being firtly mistranslated, as soon as the right translation came out, it seemed to settle things for good. But wrong informations always spread like wildfyre in the end.

************************

On Nunnally's visions when touching Lelouch's hand that would be a proof he has a Code :

Mook Animedia (28 January 2009, p.89-90)

Q: "How did Nunnally manage to realize Lelouch true intention, when she touched his hand at the end?" Staff member K: "The way Nunnally can tell that someone is lying, just like she was able to tell that Lohmeyer was lying to her, is that she can feel the hand of the person she is talking to is sweating or lightly trembling. It's nothing like Geass or some special ability like that." Staff member Y: "Yes. So, she simply came to conclusion [Lelouch was lying] by herself, because of this ability." Staff member K: "She is Marianne's daughter and Lelouch's little sister. Two months have passed since that defeat of Schneizel and for this two months she's been wondering constantly about what had happened, like "why it happened?" and so on. So when she touched Lelouch's hand at the end she felt that he is calm, she put the two and two together and realized the truth. Of course, we know that in anime, it's hard to explain things like that, but yeah, please accept it like this kind of "romantic"(*) idea" we had." [3]

(*) the word "roman" is used here. It means something one finds beautiful in general

My own Words : Basically she didn't saw the image that were flashed, those were only for us to understand that she understood, she just understood about his lie; no vision whatsoever (anyway those were really different from Code bearer vision so I never understood how such a far fatched argument could be used)

****************************************

C.C.'s Character profile :

Animage 10 (Oct 2008)

Floating text: "C.C. - Her wish was to die as a human, but after spending time with Lelouch, C.C. also wished for tomorrow. She made up her mind to ensure the tomorrow of the world that Lelouch had left."

C.C.'s profile on GeassNet

"..Knowing that Lelouch does not hate her for giving him the Geass, she is now able to show her true feelings. With the realization of "Zero Requiem", her time with Lelouch, who was able to forgive and accept her, came to an end, but the memories created with him has, without doubt, saved her from eternal loneliness."[1]

My own Words : If C.C. isn't with Lelouch, no cart driver theory is possible, this really leave no room to interpretation, her time with Lelouch came to an end, it's not her time with the demon emVeror, simply with Lelouch.

******************************

Ichiro Okouchi Geass memories on Twitter :

"Before I started writing the story of a person called Lelouch, I confirmed with Taniguchi-director something. That thing was that the end of Lelouch will be death."

"At least he is aware of his sins and pays for them with his death."

"This man called Lelouch will pay for his sins by his death. The story follows him till he finally make this decision."

"Probably this Lelouch we see in the first episode of the series wouldn't choose death. He would try something to avoid it. He couldn't die, for Nunnally as well. But we see him changed in the last episode."  

Editor analysis: These tweets confirm that there was no disagreement between the creators when it came to the death of Lelouch (see Notes below). They also confirm that his death was decided on from the very start of the production process, even before the writing had started. And finally, these tweets are truly very explicit, the word "death" here can really not be interpreted as "death for a minute or so".

*********************

The Official Guide Book

The "Code Geass Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 The Complete Official Guide Book Art book"[8] repeatedly states that Lelouch is dead:

"Lelouch, who gathered not just his sister's but the sins of all of his kin, tells Suzaku that he wants him to kill him. And, atoning for his sin of killing his father by becoming Zero and devoting himself to world peace. That is Suzaku's wish. Pierced by Suzaku's sword, Lelouch dies with a satisfied smile on his face. The curtains are lowered upon the history of one boy who performed the perfect 'evil' to the end." [9][10]

"For those two who bear the heavy sin known as killing their fathers, they share the belief that they can forgive each other by imposing the greatest punishments on themselves. Death for Lelouch who wishes for a tomorrow with his sister, life for Suzaku who wishes to atone for his sins through death. Suzaku, who accepts the weight of Zero's mask, gives his gratitude to Lelouch. For the fact that he can atone for his sins. For the results of fulfilling his own wish." [11]

"In the end, Nunnally isn't even allowed to bear her brother's sins. Until right before her brother dies, she seems to want to hate him for that. Upon realizing the truth behind her brother's actions, Nunnally clings to her brother's corpse and wails. And then, she succeeds her brother's will and starts walking together with Suzaku, who has become Zero, down the road as a ruler who creates peace. Because that alone is the one and only thing she can do for her brother." [12]

From the time line chart: "Emperor Lelouch, during the parade before executing the rebels in Japan, is attacked by Zero and perishes."

Turn 25: "However, Suzaku, masquerading as Zero who is thought to have died in the war before, appears and stabs Lelouch to death with a sword in front of the crowd." [13]

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The New Epilogue (ZR Blu-ray)

The official blu-ray release contains the "Zero Requiem movie" which recaps R2. This ZR movie is the same as R2, but has a 50sec new epilogue. The old epilogue with C.C. on the hay cart scene is dropped and replaced by a new epilogue where C.C. narrates to the audience while beautiful art scrolls past in the background.

C.C.'s narration: "A young man dies. He had the power to change the world, to create a new order. The world feared him, hated him. But, I know he died with a smile on his face. Only those who have realized their dream will truly understand that feeling of utter contentment. So, this is not a tragedy. And whenever I feel sad or cry at night, I sing a song. A song of man's making. Zero Requiem!" [14]

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Miraculous Birthday picture drama

And let's not forget about the Miraculous Birthday where Lelouch appears and spend a final day with everyone in Ashford through C's world, before disappearing at the very end, which would be quite complicated if the man was still alive.

You can watch it here .

And Finally a very interesting analysis and debunk of the Code theory done by a redditor; if you need more food for thoughts after all of this. You can click right there

Rest in peace, Lelouch.