#this is actually a list of my going theories

[1moreff-creator]

Select Two, Choose One: How will the Culprit get Found?

Since the latest DRDT chapter seems to have narrowed down the suspect list to just two people, many have speculated on how exactly the cast is going to pin down the correct suspect, and whether or not the audience has the tools to do so. I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring too! And while I’m still really 50/50 split, there is one piece of evidence that could change the murder method… in a way that points us to the culprit. Very inconclusive evidence, but it’s there. Let’s get into it.

Spoilers up to CH2 EP14. CW: Hanging, murder, blood, Eden and Ace!Culprit discussion

As a starting point, I’ll assume that the deduction that the culprit must be one of Eden or Ace is accurate, to simplify things if nothing else.

I will start with what I’ll call “meta only” arguments. In other words, things that characters can’t reliably use to narrow down the suspect, but that we the audience can take into consideration for theory-crafting.

-Mindset post-Nico murder attempt: Immediately after Nico runs out of the gym, the killer needs to be in the correct mindset to grab the tape, and they also need to be able to more or less figure out what Nico did to replicate it with Arei. Although, importantly, the killer doesn’t need to come up with the full plan on the spot, and they don’t need to fully understand what Nico was doing. At the end of the day, the only real similarities are the general idea of a pulley and a hanging.

Here’s more or less the train of thought Eden might have had if she’s the killer.

Eden: Hmm… The fan is broken and there was wire on it, Ace’s neck looks cut… Maybe Nico used some kind of pulley to hang him and it broke? Maybe I could do that… This tape looks useful for that.

Meanwhile, since Ace woke up in the middle of the murder attempt, he has to do a little less deducing.

Ace: Did I just get knocked- HOLY SHIT NICO IS HANGING ME WITH SOME SORT OF FUCKING SPINNING DEVICE AAAA-! Ooh, tape! :D

The actual planning of a murder would come later in the morning for Ace, once he sits down and has A Thought about it. Grabbing the tape in that context seems insane, but there may be precedent for Ace being prone to stealing the weirdest shit (we’ll get to it), so…

I think both of these are plausible. I wouldn’t say either can be disqualified like this, so we keep looking.

-Ripping/reconstructing the note: The note to Arei was ripped up and thrown into the trash, then Eden, Rose and Whit put it together.

Ace has no real reason to destroy the note, he could have just left it as it was. Maybe throw it in the trash since “it’s what Eden would have done”, but destroying it runs the risk of people not being able to put it together to point at Eden/Arturo. Although, you could argue Ace was trying to frame Nico specifically, so the note wasn’t useful and he threw it away because it made sense in his mind.

Here’s where we get introduced to a pretty big problem of having Ace as a suspect; that thing Teruko said, that sometimes assuming people will always act logically is a bad idea. Ace is the prime example; a lot of shit in this case makes a lot more sense if you assume Ace did it because he’s not smart enough to notice the problems with it. Such as using the method to frame Nico when only a few people in the class know what the method is; he maybe wouldn’t have noticed that that could point towards him as well. Ace is erratic, it’s very difficult to pin down why he does half the shit he does.

Eden, at least, makes sense. By destroying the note, then rebuilding it herself, she throws off suspicion with the exact argument she used in the trial; if she’s the killer, why do that? Just leaving the note as it is runs the risk of someone finding it and presenting it, which removes that argument, meaning tearing it is imperative.

And she would want the class to find it, not just because it makes her look more innocent if she talks about a building friendship with Arei, but because the note is where we get the “7:30” time, which combined with the fish making people think the murder was at nighttime, appears to give Eden an alibi.

In conclusion, the note being ripped makes more sense with Eden as the culprit… but it doesn’t disqualify Ace because he’s an idiot. And speaking of that…

-Fish Paradox: As outlined in my Ep13 murder theory revision, the problem with the fish is that everyone who benefits from the fish being at the crime scene only benefits if they have an alibi for nighttime, but that coincides with the time the fish disappeared, as Nico fed them and counted all of them after having dinner, so they couldn’t have taken it. Meanwhile, people like Ace who could have taken the fish, wouldn’t have a reason to as they don’t benefit from the nighttime alibi.

Except, it’s fucking Ace. It’s genuinely possible he thought people would see fish and instantly jump on Nico for some reason. See the problems that arise when you can no longer assume the killer is acting rationally?

Anyways, inconclusive (we’ll talk Eden later).

-No blood on tape: This heavily depends on exactly how Ace could grabbed the tape. His hands sorta get covered in blood instantly, so it’s hard to imagine he’d be able to do that without staining the entire roll of tape with blood. He couldn’t have easily washed it, either, since he passes out shortly after, and the blood would have likely dried by the time he woke up. This is definitely a point towards Eden, but can the cast use this? I don’t think so, because it relies on what we saw during the episode, which is not easy to prove in a trial setting.

-Dialogue and trial behavior: This one’s difficult, and as you might expect, inconclusive.

I would argue Eden has a higher amount of outright suspicious lines (“Teruko, wait—“ haunts me), but she also has a higher amount of seemingly anti-suspicious lines that make her look very innocent (see: the entire speech at the end of Ep 14).

She also has a moment where she steers the trial in the right direction by denying that Arei could have committed assisted suicide, but it’s worth remembering that if the class thinks that’s what happened and they learn of Eden’s relationship with her, they might assume Arei and Eden worked together to get Eden out. In other words, by denying the notion of assisted suicide, Eden!Culprit avoids the class reaching the right conclusion through the wrong method. Of course, if she’s innocent, it’s just genuine.

Comparatively, Ace operates at a much more stable level of suspiciousness I can only call “Ace level.” He’s constantly throwing suspicion on Nico, who the killer seemingly tried to frame with the method; he kept David and Arei’s conversation hidden; and was one of the first to jump on the “David’s the culprit” bandwagon. In a vacuum, this is super suspicious; hell, Levi was the fandom’s prime suspect for less.

But… it’s Ace. His behavior isn’t too different from the first trial. So while it’s possible he’s doing all this because he’s the culprit, it’s also possible he’s just being Ace.

Impossible to tell, I fear.

-Eden’s Night 2 paranoia: You might recall Eden being very worried someone was following her in night 2, which could suggest she was doing something suspicious (eg setting up the ball of clothes, more on this later) and was scared she’d get found out.

The problem is that there’s a perfectly fine explanation for Spotless!Eden. This is the night after her confrontation with Arturo, and Teruko did enter the same room as her; she could have just been paranoid because of the former, and felt someone was following her because of the latter. Moot point.

(I don’t think anyone else was following Eden because Teruko would have presumably seen them. Then again, I have overestimated our protag’s perceptiveness in the past)

-Eden’s strength: Eden is the weakest of the cast, so it’s very possible that half the Arei murder method is just impossible for her. But… we can’t know for absolutely sure what “weakest of the cast” means, and it’s not evidence that can be used in a trial. Ignorable.

-Motive, character writing and themes: I’m lumping these in together because I’ll give the same answer to all of them: the dev can just add an explanation in the inevitable post-trial trauma dump. We don’t know absolutely everything there is to know about these characters, or the way the narrative is going, so it’s impossible to confidently argue based on this. Physical evidence will always take precedence over these things in my books.

And that kinda settles it for that. There’s minor arguments like “Eden won’t die before we explore the Fork CG” (well, Xander did, so) or “if the Scrum Debate is Ace vs Eden then Ace is probably safe” (we don’t know what the Scrum Debate will be), but I’ll skip them to get to the more pressing matters.

That being trial-worthy evidence. What can the most dysfunctional cast of any fangan ever (/affectionate) use to fully commit to a culprit?

-Fish Alibi: If Ace has the problem of “no reason to bring fish,” Eden has the problem that her alibi literally starts directly after dinner. If Nico ate dinner with her and Hu, she couldn’t have taken the fish.

Except, of course, Nico could have had dinner earlier, and this point is completely moot. We can’t know yet.

-BDA: This is very obviously not what the cast will use to come to the conclusion given the discussions we’ve had, but I’ll bring it up anyways. This was explained in the episode though, so…

-Playground floor: sorastar6’s idea; since the floor of the playground is made of the same stuff as the relax room, it’d become sticky after getting wet from the water in the jugs, and thus, the culprit could have some stuck to their shoe. Unfortunately for some of you, we can’t easily look at the cast’s feet all the time, so this would only work for the characters, not us. However, Hu does mention heels as an example of something that can scuff the floor, and Ace wears heels, so small point to him.

-Missing glove: I still have no idea where this thing went. My only guess would be that the killer removed it to more easily put tape on Arei’s wrists, but by the time they’d strung her up, they decided putting the glove back on would take too much time (? I have no concept of how hard it’s be to properly put a glove on a dead person’s hand), and they wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. If true, that would mean they still have the glove on them, as it wasn’t in the trash. Again, if I’m right about this, the cast can use this, we can’t.

-Random garbage:

Something here. Rose would remember everything about it, so it’s usable. Maybe Ace’s gloves were damaged and he had to use the needle and thread to fix them? Maybe one of those napkins is the cloth with turpentine Nico used and only Ace would have identified and used it (assuming it wouldn’t have dried and MonoTV wouldn’t have thrown it out for some reason)? What even is that pink paper thing? Who knows.

-Ball of clothes: Held together by something Teruko identified as starch, there’s been around three hundred theories involving this thing. The only one that’s actually incriminating (for the two possibilities being discussed) is thebadjoe’s idea of the starch being from the enriched formula of the relax room, which could implicate Eden as she was acting suspiciously around the dress-up room on night 2.

I’ve seen it argued that the clothes would be dirty in that case, but that can be solved with an extra layer of clothes under the clothes that actually get starched up, which would later be either discarded, washed, or simply put inside the ball itself.

(This might be the last murder diagram I make for this case. Holy shit I can’t believe that)

Which is all well and good, but this is still ultimately assuming both that the cast has some way of making sure Ace couldn’t have done this, which I’m not sure exists, and that the starch comes from the relax room in the first place.

Because something I learnt, like, last week, is that people put starch on clothes. Like that’s a thing they do. So it’s entirely possible there’s starch for clothes in the dress-up room and anyone could have done this. If that’s the case, this cannot be used to argue at all. I don’t love the idea, since we don’t know if there really is starch there or not, but it’s there.

-Grammar: The letter to Arei pretty famously misspells “responsibel” (responsible), has horrible punctuation, etc. It’s possible someone in the trial will realize, ask Ace and Eden to spell the word, and whoever gets it right is cleared. We can’t know, but it’s a possibility. This also has the benefit of being obscenely funny.

-Custom weapon: If the killer used their custom weapon, it may point to them as guilty, as only they have access to it. However, I fail to see how a riding crop (Ace) or a wrench (Eden) would help in the slightest.

There is, however, one more item that only one of these characters has access to. And while I am very unsure of this assumption, if you ask me right now what is the decisive piece of evidence that will close the case once and for all, I will tell you:

-The shoulder band thingy:

Ace: Too fucking bad. Mine now. I’m keeping it.

Yep. This one.

For starters, remember that thing I said about the tape? That Ace has precedent of stealing completely random shit for no reason, and so it’s plausible he grabbed the tape just because? This is the precedent.

More importantly though, it’s something only Ace has access to, so if it can be determined it was used in the crime scene, it’s curtains.

And there is actually one place I could see it being used. Followers of my method theories know that, through the fire and the flames, there’s been one deduction that’s remain constant: the rope was tied to the ball of clothes, which was thrown over the railings to get the rope as high as needed. The ball also hit the lights, displacing the bulb and causing it to flicker.

(He he I snuck the image into a fourth post >:D)

I’ve always sorta assumed DRDT takes place in a physics exercise where air drag is ignored, but it’s true that this might be harder than I’ve been presenting it as.

So, we get the use for the shoulder band; a slingshot. I’m unsure on how it would be constructed (swingset maybe? seesaw?), but the idea is that. Create a slingshot, throw the clothes, badabim badabum, Ace is the culprit.

I’m not the only one to think of this btw. Reddit user (yes we’re cross-platforming for this) Makatrull seems to have arrived at the same conclusion. Great minds think alike ig.

Of course, this comes with its own issues. Mainly, how do you connect the shoulder band to the crime scene? The only way I see that happening is if the cast determines this is literally the only way the lights get broken, which… yeah, I’m gonna have to let them do the math on that one.

It’s impossible to judge without existing in the DRDT world. Is the ceiling higher than I’d previously assumed? Then it’s possible to come to this conclusion. Is it lower, and possible that even Eden would have managed to just throw the ball over the railing? Certainly. So, for now, inconclusive. When I say it’s the most likely to be the decisive evidence, I mean by like, 0.1%, I really have no clue.

———

There’s probably more, but that’s all I can think of for now.

Seeing as we’re reaching the end, I’m gonna say that regardless of the outcome, this might be one of my favorite trials in all of both canon and fan-made Danganronpa. So much shit happened. I’ll save my full thoughts for a more dedicated post, but goddamn, I can’t wait to see the conclusion!

Hope you enjoyed! If you made it this far, you deserve a shoulder band thing. Do with it as you please. See you!

[bitethedevil]

What do you like about the character of Raphael ?

A Feral Love Letter to the Devil We Know

Oh boy. Here’s my list of why Raphael is like catnip to me (it’s not short and it is possibly a bit extra deranged because I am currently sick).

Purely physical things that convince me that this man was made for me in a lab:

Brown eyes and dark hair has always been my type

The slight stubble and those cheekbones (generally just his whole facial structure is beautiful)

The fucking n o s e <3 <3

Those thick thighs (perfectly sittable and bitable). He is just perfectly shaped.

Those hands he waves in your face all the time and those long fingers (does things to me)

His clothes. Yes, even in cambion form and even the silly clown boots, I love them. It is just all too extra, and I live for it

Everything about his cambion form

I have this crazy theory. There has been made these studies that depending on hormone levels, women are attracted to different kinds of men. At one end of their cycle, they prefer more ‘feminine’ looking men, and on the other end they prefer more traditionally ‘masculine’ looking men. If I get tired of his human form, I get more attracted to his cambion form and the cycle repeats. I think that is why I just do not get tired of staring at this stupid man every day. I know I’m not crazy. It’s science (and we all know I’m a trusted scientist).

Non-physical things that intrigue me:

How expressive he is. I love how his face changes constantly and dramatically with each sentence he speaks. It’s mostly an act but he is so charismatic. He has ‘rizz’ like the kids would say.

I can’t fix him. I don’t want to. His mind games intrigue me. I want to study him like a bug and play mind games with him too (I’m not delusional enough to think I’d win). Let it be toxic as fuck on both parts.

This man is just chucking stones from his glass house like there is no tomorrow. He plays such a big bad devil, but he is really just a little wet cat with a god complex and daddy issues. Not to mention his little hissy fits if any of his perceived weaknesses are pointed out. I find it endearing (unfortunately).

His voice and his eloquence. I love it. Even his shitty poetry. I could listen to it for eternity.

He is so smart. I have been shouting it from the roof tops: he is not stupid. He is always ten steps ahead.

He’s honest. He doesn’t lie and you know where you’ve got him (if you know how to keep up with him).

Genuinely everyone thinks he sucks, both devils and mortals, and yet he thinks he is the shit, either genuinely or as a coping mechanism.

He just such a nuances character if you really dig into it.

Things I relate to:

The scheming and overthinking. Everything is meticulously thought out to the point of obsession. He is playing 4D chess but doesn’t even consider that the other players might just eat the pieces to win. He strikes me as someone who completely overcomplicates things for no reason, and I felt that.

His idea of order is very different from what’s actually orderly. It just has to make sense to him, like ‘what do you mean it’s not orderly to have dead people lying around, trash everywhere, and debtors running around aimlessly in my house? Completely intentional. What’s not clicking?”. I felt that too. There is order to my chaos, and you don’t have to understand it. I get it.

He’s a cringy theater kid with a love for poetry too.

I too find it annoying when other people don’t follow the script I had in mind for the conversation.

Just human enough to understand how human interactions works, but either doesn’t give a shit or genuinely thinks that just spouting vaguely threatening poetry to strangers is a completely normal thing to do.

The obsession and ambition that just completely makes him lose the plot of everything else.

He is just so obsessed with everything being perfect to a point where it almost seems silly.

Acts like he doesn’t care, but actually cares A LOT about how other people perceive him.

I could honestly keep going but you get the picture.

(Thank you for the ask <3)

[luniviravosshipper]

Did Lissa Go Back to Soren and Claudia After Leaving?

I’ve actually had this post saved up in my drafts uncompleted for over a month now, but I got inspired by this post to finally talk about the theory I’ve been developing.

Buckle in because this is going to be a pretty lengthy post.

It seems to me that a lot of people are confused, as was I initially, about how old Soren was supposedly when everything happened, from him first getting sick to his mom leaving and the events from Puzzle House taking place.

Seeing that the little boy he was depicted as in the show could barely even speak and seemed extradionarly young, a lot of people didn’t understand if he was supposed to be the same age as he was shown to be in Puzzle House.

A lot of people just kind of assumed with the show depicting him so young and small compared to how we saw him in the graphic novel, that the writers were just diverging from their original canon and switching up what ages they wanted Soren and Claudia to be when everything happened. And others have just assumed the writers must have forgotten what ages they initially showed them as or that this is just another one of those cases where the writers weren’t able to write a proper timeline of events.

But… there’s kind of a lot of issues I’ve found in the logic of both assumptions. There’s actually a lot of things the writers have put in the show and its corresponding graphic novels and short stories that could point to neither of those two options being the actual case. I also think it’s incredibly unfair to suggest that the writers must have just been so stupid to have made such a slip up, if they did make one.

Regardless of what’s true, however, the one thing that’s clear is that the inconsistencies with how the creators choose to portray Claudia and Soren’s ages throughout the series has stirred up quite a bit of confusion and conflict within the fandom. So the question must be asked. Why?

Why so many inconsistencies? Are these inconsistencies evident of some sort of issue on the writers’ part, like one of the possible ones that’s been suggested by others that I’ve listed above? Or are these inconsistencies more evident of how the writers have actually intended to cause such confusion in the fandom space for an ulterior purpose that has yet to be revealed?

So, having those questions in mind, I’ve done a little digging and I think I might have figured out what’s going on from my investigation. Or I at least figured out part of it.

Let’s get into it.

From what I’ve seen online, Soren’s age in particular seems to be the main focus within the discussion surrounding what the kids’ speculated ages were when everything happened. Probably because of how most of these events specifically revolve around him and the fact that we’ve mainly seen him at different ages from Viren’s perspective. So I’ll start by talking about him first.

We first see Soren as this little kid who can almost barely pronounce his words with ruffled up hair and chubby cheeks back in episode 2 of season 5.

And for a very large part of season 6 we see him to be of that same age and of that same physical description in the flashbacks.

We even get a retelling of the same scene we saw when this version of him was first introduced back in season 5 in season 6. And it seems safe to assume that this retelling is supposed to be more representative of what actually happened than what we saw from Viren’s dream sequence, given that it’s a lot more negative.

So, right off the bat, that might already be an indicator that Soren was this young at some point in the series of events between him first getting sick and what happened in Puzzle House and this isn’t merely a distorted view of young Soren from Viren’s perspective.

Besides Soren, we also do see Claudia at a younger age in the series compared to how she first appeared in the Puzzle House graphic novel a couple of times.

And even earlier than that as well, back in season 5 in Viren’s dream sequence.

I wouldn’t say she’s as young as she’s been shown in the flashbacks in season 6 when she had the pig tails, but I also don’t think she’s quite the same age as she was in Puzzle House. It does look like she’s wearing the same undershirt as she was in the graphic novel, so maybe she’s closer to her age in Puzzle House here. But I think she looks like she could be more in between. (I actually have a smaller theory that this is supposed to be showing Claudia and how she looked like when she first learned dark magic because of the whole “I’m following in your footsteps” motif here.)

For the majority of the scenes we’ve seen of Claudia as a little kid though, we’ve mostly just seen her with those pig tails. And we haven’t seen her nearly as much as we’ve seen Soren. So we’ve been kind of led to believe that was her age when most of the events with Soren getting sick and healed and their mom leaving took place. I mean, we quite literally see her chasing after her mom leaving when she was that little.

But… Claudia does not look to be that young in the Reflections story “Lost Child”.

In fact, Claudia looks like how she did in Puzzle House here. And her mom is riding horseback when she’s leaving, making the setting of this image seem entirely different to the one we saw in season 6 of what we assumed to be her mom leaving.

I saw some people claim that Scholastic has restrictions for what ages characters can take in comics, which I haven’t found a source at all for yet, but some people think that that might have messed some things up with their age depictions in the show. But, this image comes from their official website where they don’t have to be subjected to such restrictions. And I just don’t see why they wouldn’t adjust their ages or the timeline of events in the show to make everything line up.

Puzzle House was first announced in September of 2022 with cover art and previews before season 5 was released in August of 2023. Even though it wasn’t officially released till after season 5, they were clearly working on it and planning the story for a much longer time before the season came out. They would’ve had plenty of time to fix their storyline so that it would make sense. But they didn’t. They still choose to depict Soren much younger then how we saw him in the graphic novel, and later on Claudia too in season 6. And we haven’t really found a good reason yet for why they would want to diverge from their already established canon. So, what if it was intentional?

So when I first started investigating everything, I went back to episode 8 of season 6 to look for a certain image. Because I could have sworn I did see Soren aged up, like he was in Puzzle House, in one of Viren’s memories. Which initially confused me because I had no idea what age we were supposed to have figured he had been when everything happened. And I did find it. It was this lovely shot of their entire family.

And Soren does not at all look like how we’ve been seeing him in any of the memories the creators have been showing us thus far of Viren’s. He has a different hairstyle and looks less chibi like. And he looks a lot closer here to how he looked in Puzzle House.

And so did Claudia.

At first, I was left even more confused about what was happening. Because I thought Lissa left when they were way younger. But this image seems to imply that she could have still been with the kids when they were older. Older then in the image we saw of Lissa leaving. And, a lot like many others, I originally thought that they were just trying to completely disregard the fact that they depicted them way older in the graphic novel and were trying to pretend that they were way younger in the show. Because this is perhaps one of the only shots in the show that we get to see them to be around the same age as they were in the comics and reflections stories.

But the thing is, only a couple seconds before do we get this shot.

And in this shot, do they actually look like how we’ve been seeing them so far in Viren’s memories. As very little toddlers.

So… what is happening here? How old were they actually when everything was happening?

Well, let’s review everything we know so far. Soren and Claudia were first depicted older in the reflection story “Lost Child” back in May of 2023 and the Puzzle House graphic novel back in September of 2022 way before season 5 came out in August of 2023, so there was plenty of time for them to change their depicted ages in season 5 to align more with the ages we’ve been previously shown of them having. And there was a large enough gap between the release of season 5 and season 6 for them to fix any issues with their timeline and depictions of their ages if there were any. And, in spite of how young they were depicted mostly in seasons 5 and 6, we still do see them depicted as similar ages as they were in the reflection stories and comics, so that obviously indicates that the writers are very much aware of the differences in their shown ages between those different stories. And it overall just seems like it’d be way easier and convenient for them to keep them aged up in the series to align with the ages we’ve already been shown of them having when a lot of these events first occurred if that was what they really wanted.

None of this information seems to point to the creators making a mistake or an accident in their different depictions of Claudia and Soren’s ages throughout the series. If anything, it seems to point to the opposite. Because why would they make any of these decisions in the first place if they weren’t for a specific intended purpose?

So, why exactly were Soren and Claudia’s ages so inconsistent and why were they mostly shown to be so young in the series? I think there’s only one answer here that really makes sense. Because they never really had a fixed age when everything happened. It all happened over a very long period of time. Spanning from when Soren was perhaps, like, four and Claudia was about two or three all the way to when they were around ten or something.

And this might mean that we have also been misled on one other thing (although it’s likely more on many other things, but that’s not the point here). When their mom actually left. Because there’s a chance that she might have left when they were much older. Long after Soren was actually healed from his sickness.

Because, a) what was that image in the reflections story about? And b) what’s up with Soren, Claudia, and Viren all being so emotionally distraught in the Puzzle House graphic novel about Lissa leaving if she left such a long time ago?

Okay, before I start explaining my second point, I should probably clarify something here. I initially thought and claimed awhile back that Atticus said that everything happened during a span of a year. I was completely wrong and I don’t know where I got that idea from. (I might have gotten confused since I saw someone else suggest awhile back ago that Harrow and Sarai got together only 5 to 7 months after that scene of Viren and Harrow talking in season 6. But in retrospect, that doesn’t really make all that much sense. Not that it’s their fault for having that misunderstanding, they were probably as confused as I was on the passage of time between, well, everything that happened in Viren and the children’s lives. The writers really did make it seem like everything happened all at once, but there was probably a lot more space between all the events that occurred as I’m trying to examine and explain in this post.)

All that King Atticus says is that it all happened one after the other. But he in no way specified a time frame of when and of how long.

However, after rereading Puzzle House, I have found that there is an indication made about the time frame between some of these events. That being the time between them first exploring the Puzzle House and Lissa leaving them.

It’s implied here that it’s only been a couple of weeks since she left because it’s only been a couple of weeks since Claudia has started to act more emotionally off.

I mean, I know that he also says that she’s been acting odd since Kpp’ar disappeared too, which we now know from season 6 that he disappeared before Soren got healed and when he was likely smaller. (This is actually where things seem sort of weird to me and I have trouble understanding the timeline of events most. I feel like he should have gotten coined when they were older because of the clear influence he’s had in their lives. But maybe they were actually older when he did and the two scenes that we saw of Lissa leaving and Viren shutting out Soren happened before Viren got the staff and was still trying to figure out how to heal Soren. But I don’t know. Why would Viren start resenting Soren so early on before he even healed him yet? Why would Soren be so much older when he actually got healed if we have only seen him be heavily implied to be young when he did? Why would Lissa leave then in the very beginning of everything, unless maybe it was in immediate reaction to Viren taking advantage of her and using her tears? But then why would she leave if Soren was still sick? Maybe that’s why she came back?? Because she felt guilty?? Maybe Lissa officially left later when Viren got the staff and she found out that he might have done something to Kpp’ar ??? I don’t know. This is all just speculation and I’m just not sure. Anyways.) But the fact he specifies that it’s been weeks since she hasn’t been speaking a lot and that she seems a lot more affected by what’s happened in their lives, I feel like that’s more of a sign that that’s the time frame from when their mom first officially left to them being in the Puzzle House.

And if it had only been just a couple weeks since Lissa left before they went into the Puzzle House, then that would better explain the image from the reflections.

It would also explain why a lot of the conflict in the graphic novel revolved around Claudia struggling to come to terms with her feelings on her mom leaving them and why Viren is shown to be so emotionally distant in it.

Then there’s the other hints that have been made outside of the graphic novel and the flashbacks we’ve seen.

There’s the information that we know about how Viren made attempts to win back Lissa’s trust, most notably by using the Sunray Monarchs to change his corrupted appearance. But Lissa wasn’t won over. And there was a lot of conflict that grew between them as a result which eventually encouraged them to split.

Of course, Viren could have tried to change his appearance and gain Lissa’s trust before the image we saw of Lissa leaving in season 6. But I think it would make more sense if it happened afterwards so that they would be fighting for longer and it would be while Soren and Claudia were old enough to be able to remember it.

And, I mean, just stating the most obvious explanation here. It’s like what people have been saying. How could they ask them to make such an adult decision? How could Lissa and Viren ask their kids to choose between the two of them? Probably because they could actually make the choice at the time. They could actually articulate their words and were grown up enough at the time to understand what was happening. They weren’t as small as we might have been led on to think they were. They were much older when she officially left them.

Anyways, I’m sure that there’s even more evidence I haven’t picked out yet that could also be hinting to Lissa leaving at a later point in the kids’ lives then we’ve been led to believe. (I would try to gather more intel from the novels but I sadly do not own either one of the two as of right now.) But in general, those are some of my biggest pieces of evidence I have to support my theory.

So, this very significant scene showcasing when Viren first started to resent Soren…

Might have happened way before Lissa actually left. And, given this added context that she hadn’t left yet (or at least permanently left), this completely reframes this scene and what it means.

And, that just leaves what is still largely unknown.

What is happening here exactly?

Not only does it completely contradict the image from the reflection story, but it also just outright doesn’t really make sense on its own.

Where does this fit into the timeline and what is its relevance?

Is this supposed to be showing Lissa trying to leave for the first time, even though she later on decided to go back, like I’ve been speculating? But then why would she go back? And why would she leave again only permanently that time if she chose to go back after the first attempt? What sparked her to try to leave both those times?

Truth is, I have some ideas and some of those ideas I’ve already listed and insinuated to having in this post, but overall I quite simply don’t know. The only thing I’m truly certain of is that this image alone suggests that there is a lot more going on here than we fully know about yet.

[utilitycaster]

Where in the world was Ludinus Da'leth?

With the reveal that Ludinus was indeed telling the truth about being a Calamity survivor, as well as that he "suffered a lot of trauma at the tail end of the Calamity", implying he was relatively young (and indicating he's probably not Avaliran nor Aeorian since those were destroyed at least 50 years prior to the end of the Calamity and likely more, ie, his trauma would date back to much earlier within the Calamity):

[darkfluffydragon]

Here are some sketches I drew of Phantasmagoria Corrupted Burning Spice (Change) and Mystic Flour (Volition) :D

Just a fun lil thing while I debate to myself over whether to focus on the world-building or the story. Also Change as a cowboy..just for fun :')

[taikk0]

3 - Battle

the first thought to go through my head was a battle of the bands type thing, and I thought "haha what if Leo defeated the krang with the power of song" then I immediately thought of the ending to the spongebob movie so I scrapped everything else that would've been cooler and did what I do best... the silly.

[myokk]

before it felt like a sin, ch. 1

pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!MC

word count: 3000

summary: Eloise never wanted to be different.

And yet, her differences are what have defined her life up until this point: growing up as a squib in one of the most prominent wizarding families, being exiled to muggle society, and then attending Hogwarts at the age of sixteen.

She finds herself thrust into the life she should have been prepared for from birth but was denied. As she navigates this new life and her new precarious position in her family, she must come to terms with the fact that maybe what she dreamed of her whole life isn't turning out how she ever expected it would.

a/n: Hi everyone!! I decided to post this here too...I'm slowly going through everything I've written so far, and I want to post each chapter here as I edit them. I'm hoping that this can be a way to a) get back in to writing more, and b) get better at my art as I make full illustrations for each chapter. Let me know what you think!! :)

There is nothing quite as horrible as being a muggle, Eloise thought savagely as she ripped out yet another stitch in the landscape she was embroidering. At least, it was supposed to be a landscape. Maybe with her head tilted to the left and with her eyes almost closed so everything blurred together, it might resemble one. She did just that, trying her hardest to make out some recognizable shape and blast the stupid practice of manually pushing colored thread through a fabric in some sort of -

“And what is this, Miss Babbit?”

Eloise jumped at the sound and looked up at the scowling face of her teacher, and then quickly back down at the tangled thread in her lap. Behind her, she could hear the hushed giggles of the other girls in her class.

“Oh! Er…it’s -”

“How long have you been here?” the woman interrupted.

“One hour…I just -”

“Don’t be smart with me. I mean, at this institute.”

“Five years.” Eloise glared down at her embroidery as if it had personally offended her. It wasn’t like she was actively trying to be bad at everything, but she had the distinct disadvantage - how had it ever come to be that she would be at a disadvantage to muggles? - of not having spent a lifetime being prepared for muggle society and all that it entailed. The last five years had been a monotonous, endless cycle of lessons designed to turn her into the perfect lady: French (a waste of time as Eloise was already fluent), embroidery (a waste of time as the things she embroidered weren’t actually useful), dancing (a waste of time as she was already engaged to be married - why would she bother trying to woo another silly man?), and her most dreaded class of all: etiquette. No matter how many years had been spent trying to assimilate into muggle culture, her thoughts still got muddled when she tried to remember the steps to a dance, or how to properly address the son of a duke.

Did it really matter, anyways, what the other girls thought? She had pretended her whole life to be the daughter she thought her parents had wanted - now she was simply pretending that she hadn’t been thrown into the muggle world without a second thought. What was a bit more pretending - that she didn’t care? That she hadn’t been tossed aside without a second thought?

“Exactly. Five years. And yet, you have shown no progress whatsoever. This -” a finger jabbed accusingly at the embroidery - “is absolutely horrendous. If your parents hadn’t continued to make such a sizeable donation every year, I would have deemed you a lost cause and sent you packing when you first arrived. How your family ever managed your betrothal to the son of an earl is beyond me.”

Eloise grimaced at the mention of her fiance as her teacher clapped her hands together to get the attention of the class - a wholly unnecessary action due to the fact that it was already being given. “Class is dismissed. Please collect your belongings and put them in the correct place. Remember, as future wives and mothers, you must be organized in all aspects of your life. Many of you will be managing important households and the slightest misstep -“ a slight glance to Eloise out of the corner of her eye - “can cause the biggest of scandals.”

Eloise raced to gather her things and leave the classroom before everyone else. No matter how many years had been spent at the school, she couldn’t help but hate sitting through the classes amongst the judgmental stares and snide remarks. Although things had started out shaky at the finishing school - to be expected, really, when you’ve grown up in wizarding society and then are then forced to live as a muggle - it still stung that after all these years, she still hadn’t found a friendly face. She was treated as if she were a pariah: it was as if the other girls just knew that something was different about her. But…wasn’t that the great irony of it all? She wasn’t different than them. She was a filthy squib.

When she first arrived at the school, she was an anomaly. A twelve-year-old girl who didn’t know how to play the piano or who the queen was. It was clear to everyone that Eloise wasn’t the charity case of the school - her parents were obviously quite wealthy - and yet they seemingly wanted nothing to do with her. Whereas the others got regular letters and visits from their family, it was as if Eloise were an orphan. Nothing new to her of course, but to her peers this otherness aided them in her ostracization.

Upon entering her room, she was abruptly pulled out of her thoughts. Something wasn’t right. Everything seemed the same: a twin bed perfectly made opposite a small wardrobe, a plain wooden desk placed between them. The weak afternoon sunlight shone through the window, illuminating her desk. But…there.

That…

Placed on her bed, resting on the pillow, was a letter.

She never received letters.

Eloise shoved her embroidery under her bed and hungrily grabbed at it, pausing when she saw the address. Miss E. Babbit. The Third Bedroom on the Left… It seemed vaguely familiar to her in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

As she read the letter, though, it became apparent to her exactly why this was. Although not exactly the same as the one her brother had received six years earlier, it quickly became apparent that this was a Hogwarts letter. For her. For Miss E. Babbit.

Hands shaking, she set the letter down on her desk and sat on the edge of her bed. She smoothed her hands over her skirt over and over, taking comfort in the familiar softness as she tried to even her breathing.

How was this possible? She had all but accepted the fact that she was a squib. The shame of her family, a dirty secret to be hidden away and never talked about or mentioned again. Her parents had suspected as much by the time she had turned seven without any signs of magic whatsoever manifesting around her - not even a basic transformation of brussel sprouts to sweets during dinner. It was ultimately confirmed, however, when her own Hogwarts acceptance letter never arrived. She had spent the whole year before her banishment daydreaming about her life at Hogwarts, still optimistic that there could be something magical inside of her. Her brother, Leo, came home every holiday with wonderful stories of his new friends and teachers, and the subjects he was learning at school. Even back then, at twelve years old, Eloise hadn’t been sure if he was actually hopeful she wasn’t a squib, or if he had been trying to prolong the fantasy for her before it all came crashing down.

Although she had had five years to come to terms with her new life, there was still a small part of her that hoped. A small “what if…”. She had tried time and time again to squash that tiny ray of optimism that would escape every so often, tried so very hard to cultivate a hard exterior that wouldn’t let any sort of vulnerability shine through. And that optimism was a vulnerability, after all. It was that vulnerability that had made it absolutely impossible for her to fit in the muggle world, and made it so that she didn’t really want to try.

Five years to come to terms with the fact that she needed a new purpose for her life and…

…not anymore?

Eloise grabbed the letter and greedily read through it again, drinking in all of the words. She paused at the end, thinking. Was this a forgery? Some sort of awful joke orchestrated by her brother? Leo had never been cruel to her in the past; in fact, he was the one who always encouraged her and was the most probable source of the small optimism that remained within her. However, she had no way of knowing how he had changed since she had last seen him. It had been, after all, five very long years. And not once had she heard from him, even though he had promised her through huge sobbing gulps that he would never abandon her. Maybe their parents had slowly poisoned him against her. It would be right on the nose for them, after all.

Looking at the envelope again, however…Third Bedroom on the Left…no. It was too specific. Nobody in her previous life had any reason to even want to contact her again, and nobody in her current life even knew what Hogwarts was, let alone have the ability to convincingly forge a letter just to have some fun at her expense.

A light, bubbly feeling began to spread throughout her body as it sunk in that this was real. She was going to Hogwarts. Soon, a - squinting at the letter again - a Professor Fig would be contacting her and giving her things to study. A huge grin slowly spread across her face and she hugged the letter to her chest as she fell back on her bed. She read through it again. Was it the fifth time already? It felt as though no amount of times rereading the letter would ever be enough.

Eloise got up and walked over to look at the calendar on her desk. She was surprised to see that September 1st was in only two days. The days at the finishing school moved in such a strange, sluggish way. They all felt the same. Monotonous. French and Latin and embroidery and household management and Merlin even knows what else all blending into each other in an endless parade of dusty classrooms and gossip and boredom.

The light feeling left her in an instant as, after years of practice, the optimism was squashed back down. But how will you even get to London? And, her brain added sneakily, you haven’t even shown any signs of magic. Maybe you’ll just be returned back here after they realize their mistake.

No, she thought fiercely, gripping the letter. Until -

A tapping came from the window. A tentative smile returned at the sight of a tawny brown owl with another envelope in its beak. She ripped it open as soon as it was in her hands (again addressed to Miss E. Babbit) and along with the letter a small, purple pouch fell out of the envelope and onto her bed.

Miss Eloise Babbit,

I am pleased to be the wizard charged with such an important task as escorting you to Hogwarts in two days’ time. It is something extraordinary to be accepted in your fifth-year, and as such, I expect extraordinary things from you. I have enclosed a small pouch along with this envelope, and in it are some items that will be vital to you in the upcoming days. I have included books for you to study at your leisure, and a small gobstone that will bring you to our rendezvous point in London. All you have to do is touch it at noon on the 1st and you will be transported instantly.

Your family has not been informed of your acceptance. I am sure you understand why - at this, Eloise scoffed quietly to herself - which is why I will personally be your escort.

I am looking forward to meeting you and bringing you to the sorting ceremony in two days’ time.

Yours,

Eleazar Fig

The handwriting was tiny and spidery and cramped, but it didn’t stop Eloise from reading it with the same vigor as the previous letter and as many times. Finally, she turned to the small pouch that had fallen onto her bed when she opened the second envelope. It must have had an invisible extension charm, because it was filled to the brim with books on basic spellwork and general wizarding history. Professor Fig had no way of knowing, but Eloise had already read many of these books and many more during the year her brother had started Hogwarts, as she had needed to know absolutely everything about what would be awaiting her. A few years may have passed since she had stepped foot in her family’s library, but she couldn’t get the books or their contents out of her brain even if she had wanted to. She had really wanted to forget everything she knew about the magical world when it was confirmed she was a squib but it was a futile effort. As she zoned out during her piano lessons, she would find herself mentally going through the movements to cast different charms.

It was painful to be thinking about things from the life that had been ripped away from her, to know that what she was thinking about would never come to pass, that she would never be able to wield magic - and yet she couldn’t find herself able to stop.

As Eloise picked out one of the books and settled into her armchair, a steely resolve overcame her.

She would prove that she deserved to be there, and was just as capable as any of they were. She would make her parents regret ever discarding her like she was nothing.

She was worthy. She was capable. And she would prove it.

The morning of September 1st dawned cold and rainy. Absolutely perfect.

Eloise had pretended to be sick the night before, and no one had suspected a thing when she stayed in bed long after all of the other girls had gotten ready and headed to breakfast. As the last of the chattering faded away down the hallway, Eloise finally got out of bed and prepared herself for the day. It was difficult to sit still long enough to braid her hair. Her fingers wouldn’t stop trembling and she had to restart countless times. Finally, she tied the black ribbon at the end into a neat bow and turned to the drawer of her desk to retrieve the small purple pouch she had hidden away.

Everything she deemed important enough to come along with her had already been placed inside: the books from Professor Fig, the hair ribbons gifted to her by her brother many years ago, and some clothing. Nothing else was coming with. She needed the fresh start. Besides, anything else she might need would be supplied, as her acceptance letter had specifically stated that any school supplies would be provided to her.

Waiting the hours before noon came along proved to be more difficult than Eloise had imagined. Time seemed to be moving slower than the molasses that had come with the breakfast sent up to her, the steady patter of the rain becoming a sort of metronome keeping time as she paced back and forth. Wasn’t there anything that could distract her, even for a bit? She glanced at the clock. Only five minutes had passed since the last time. 10.35.

The second hand ticking away in tandem with the sound of rain splashing against her window.

What if this was all a trick? What if she arrived at Hogwarts, and they turned her away because they realized they had made a mistake? After all, why would they admit a sixteen-year-old? Surely she was too old; every other student had started Hogwarts at the age of twelve and had shown signs of magic much earlier than that. She still hadn’t shown any signs of magical capability whatsoever, and didn’t feel any different than she had before receiving the letter. It had to be a fluke.

As her thoughts started veering into the melancholy she was prone to, she shook her head. No. Today was a happy, exciting day. She wasn’t going to squash the optimism down today, not when she needed it most. All of these thoughts she was having were simply that: thoughts. Not reality. Hogwarts never made a mistake, and in all of the history books she had read, she couldn’t recall an instance of someone being turned away at the door. Granted, she had also never heard of someone being admitted so late. But, better to focus on what she did know, which was that she had gotten the letter. It must be right in its assumption that she had magic.

Trying to pass the time was easier said than done. She ended up quizzing herself on all of the charms she had memorized in the books sent by Professor Fig, moving an imaginary wand in the precise movements needed to successfully cast and focusing on her pronunciation. She had studied all of these forms late into both nights she had had the books, and when she would eventually close her eyes to sleep, the wand movements were all she saw.

Eloise was determined that she would receive pity from nobody. Nobody was going to look at her like she was lacking. She had gotten enough of that to last a lifetime, and now that she was given this opportunity she wasn’t about to waste it.

When noon finally struck, Eloise was ready and waiting. She eagerly grabbed the gobstone that was sitting on her desk and felt the familiar tugging sensation in her navel as she was whisked away to London and the beginning of her new life.

next chapter

[phoenixcatch7]

The more I think about it the more confused I am by the very brief appearance the triforce makes in botw (and then nothing at all in totk?). Like, it should have evaporated calamity ganon on the spot, it should have overpowered him completely. If zelda had his triforce piece, if he didn't have the Power piece to resist like in tp. He should have gone poof.

Did she accidentally use her wish early? Pure hearted don't break the triforce by wishing on it, it didn't save link, it didn't defeat ganon. Did it break? Where did the pieces go? I can't remember if she actually had a triforce mark on her hand?

Totk having the triforce be in pieces above the clouds would have been so cool...

I'm not considering aoc canon for this but also?? What's zeldas magic and what's the triforce? Did -

Did she just wish for the power to save link? To defend him and protect the kingdom? Is THAT why she suddenly became so insanely strong??

Wait I think I'm onto something here. Zelda carrying the triforce without realising and only having the strength to wish upon it in her darkest hour, but being unaware and untrained, the triforce lost to faintest myth over eons, instead of wishing for ganon to be destroyed and the kingdom restored like every other purposeful use in other games, she instead simply wished to be able to save link, to not be powerless, not be helpless.

And the triforce granted it. Which is why that's the only time it appeared in botk.

[yellow-yarrow]

have you perhaps a list of readings you would recommend to understand better disco elysium/sacred and terrible air? i wouldn't know where to start and your posts are interesting so worth trying to ask :)

aw thank you! Well, I feel like I’m not really that well-read, and the order I read philosophy/history/etc is all over the place lol

If I had to recommend some reading, there is this essay about the pale, that I think is essential to understanding Elysium. :

https://ghelgheli.substack.com/p/introductory-entroponetics

as for books, I would say Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher could be a good starting point. And I think it would be worth to read something about these topics:

neoliberalism, capitalism

communism - marxism, history of socialist countries

russian nihilism

christianity - dispensationalism

The devs have said that they were influenced by Hegel, Marx, Slavoj Žižek, Lenin, & they also said they used to be anarchists so I would say reading some anarchist text could be interesting too if you want to really dive into it (idk, Emma Goldmann for example)

You can find a lot of these writings on these websites:

https://www.marxists.org/

https://theanarchistlibrary.org

[crystalkitty1220]

Man I wonder where the leader of the fear realm could've gone, it's alMOST LIKE NEVIN HAS AN

[kurthorton]

im just saying i could do aria justice better than the show ever did and i dont even like aria

[gilliontidestriderchampionoftheu]

Little detail that is never addressed or brought up again- when Jay first meets Julian Booker, she notices he has a tattoo on his wrist, but can't make out what it is. i wonder if he also made a deal with niklaus in the past?

[palukoo]

i love watching a semi obscure and often not very good old movie bc uh. woman. and then walking away with niche and in depth queer interpretations of the film and like having a mental conspiracy board and being like do you see it? do you see the vision? but like no. you haven’t even seen the movie lol

[gothsuguru]

on a major gojo satoru kick it’s abt time i write a fic just for him but i literally can’t think of anything

[twilightarcade]

What is the best/most recent/most interesting (up to you!) Dream youve had that you can somewhat rememeber?

OK SO. my dreams are somewhat all over the board. Either bleeding into reality (this is annoying as hell and really fucks with me sometimes), being mildly off the walls (Things Occurring in rapid succession with no clear reason or logic), or something really silly we're not geting into. Generally this is more of a spectrum however (imagine an xyz plane of borderline reality to clearly never happened, off the walls things happening to basic and understandable narrative, and silly to not silly). Last night's dream for example lands on the slightly silly, would be near reality if not for the batshit plot.

MORE UNDER CUT IDFJFT HOW LOMG IT SHOUDL BE BEFORE I CUT IT BUT I LOOKED AT IT LIKE HM. THATS LONG.

THAT SAID. We aren't talking about lasts night dream sorry babe (BABE REFFERINGTO THE DREAM). I DO however have a few assorted dreams that I've tucked under the "try not to forget because they were of interest" category (they're living in my brain right next to the dreams that I won't forget.) I may or may not have talked about them before, but we have the reoccurring power rangers plot, the dragon under the Italian restaurant dream, THEN THIS ONE DREAM.

power rangers plot. Alright. Basically, I'm generally at my house or my childhood home (feels dramatic to say it like that), and like. Things start occurring. Ranging from me getting evicted to there being fighting outside for no good reason. Regardless of the case, I get contacted by none other than the power rangers. For some reason, I have the morphin crystal whatevers in my possession and I need to go fight whatever evil is occurring directly outside my home (they want to steal the crystals. Obviously.) I, a power ranger, go fight them, nearly die a bunch of times (can't actually die I'm a power ranger. Duh.) And inevitably wake up with no real. Conclusion.

DRAGON DREAM. Had this dream when I was a kid (I forget exact age) and fell absolutely in love like I thought about this dream so much I expanded the world and made more characters and plot lines to fit in and everything. I tried sooo hard to have this dream again just so I could make my dreams (thoughts???) a reality (dream.?) I don't think I ever managed to. Very basic plot summary is: restaurant is advertising dragon slides, huge room with dragon, one real, one clearly fake, dragon advertised as hyper realistic replica, dragon is real and literally eating people. I fell. Absolutely in love with this concept. Thought about it for days on end. There was even this "plot"??? Where people were divided over whether they hated and wanted to kill the dragon or wanted to continue living under the dragon in fear (dragon was orchestrating the whole thing in this plotline and threatened to eat anyone who disagreed) and I don't think that plotline ever actually reached a conclusion.

ANYWAYS DROPPING THAT FOR NOW umm. There's a lot of like. People from my dreams I think about a bit. There was this one particularly fucked up dream I'm not getting into, and there's this one lady I think about a bit. She was a deeply saddened individual to say the least and I wish her the best. There's potato the white lab (maybe?) who I kind of love and would do anything for (he got lost then I found him. Ignoring the rest of the dream. Obama was there.) Who wasn't there for like half the dream and wasn't even my dog. There's the awkward host from dragon dream. Absolute loser. A few days ago we had the lesbians that blocked my way to the drinking fountain because they were making out and i didnt want to bother them (this dream had an absolutely unfollowable plot too.)

ALSO shout out to all those silly dreams that appealed to my fears. Generally those have the most solid plotline which is mildly annoying. Honestly I don't really need their help to be scared thanks I do that to myself enough though. I'm still not sure if the screwdriver thing was from a dream or just a really stupidly active imagination because well! It's certainly active. Just don't know why that in particular really stuck with me.

I think we would be here all day if I ever got to talk about everything I remember in depth </3

[xviruserrorx]

Why the ever living fuck does having endometriosis in your throat, lungs, and your general breathing space area exist!!!???