#yes some of this is ch 2 relevant

[lucithornz]

Races I have watched just so I can write backstory for RH: Britain 2018, Germany 2018, Hungary 2018, Austria 2019, Brazil 2019, Austria 2022, Vegas 23(okay that was for fun but also research)

The amount of research happening so that the omegaverse lestappen fic is accurate is really concerning.

[sy-on-boy]

My 2 cents on the plot / thematic relevance of Ch 95

This is not about advancing Plot B or showing Anya's school life (which is still true but has been discussed), but rather the overall theme of education and war. There was an excellent post about how Eden is at the frontline of the cold war and it is subtly shown through the innocent lens of the first graders (I can't find it now, would link it if I could). And I think that perfectly applies to Ch 95.

Quick recap on some references about education/students/war throughout the series (that I remember at the moment):

Sylvia gravely condemning the Berlint University Student Terrorists during the Doggy Crisis arc (Ch 20) and saying "did you learn nothing about war at your university?"

Henderson talking about his experience as a history teacher (Ch 27.5, Short Mission 4) and quote: "Yes, well, I have always maintained that there is nothing to be learned from the memorization of time lines. From the grand efforts with which our forefathers crafted society to the foolish notions that sent them racing to war, to not study the human element at history's root is to not understand history at all"

Note that Damian's best subject has been established to be history, and his family (father) has been involved in war, at least Donovan was PM during most of the war (established by Melinda in Ch 91). Donovan is also a graduated Imperial Scholar (Ch 64).

The Red Circus group started out as a peaceful student demonstration "advocating for peace and quality" (Ch 72) and "speaking out to protect the weakest members of our society". And Billy Squire said, "We were a respectable movement that fought for our cause with respectable means. It was the state that turned violent against us. So I'm not taking criticism from a member of the establishment (referring to Henderson, an educator). I'm gonna see to it that they reap what they've sown." Billy's daughter Biddy was killed by the state at a protest.

Less of a point, but Becky is the daughter of the CEO of a major military manufacturer. Despite their very likely involvement in military conflicts because they sell arms, the Blackbell cohort has been depicted positively so far: Becky being a kind, wonderful friend to Anya, Becky's father doting on her, and Martha again being kind and dignified (and also being an ex-soldier and acquainted with Henderson).

Eden Academy is a major setting for SxF and the themes of politics, education, and war are embedded in it. The students involved in protests/groups are older (the university students, Billy's daughter), but the political implications remain even among the youngest of the students— the first graders.

Hence, Ch 95. When mere first graders are shown to fight to gain connections, which can be political as pointed out by Henderson: "In the world of politics, dances serve as major social events". But of course, they are kids, so they see it more playfully and innocently, especially Becky with her shipper lens on.

Of course, there is also the aspect of getting to know other people better out of interest (the boys asking Anya and Becky to dance because they were impressed after the bus hijacking). But as people have mentioned, nobody mentions this to Damian despite him being equally involved in saving the class (all three of them got a star). The girls aren't interested in Damian as a person, they're interested in him as an asset because of his family and their power.

And I can see the teachers trying to diffuse the tension and create camaraderie with their friendly competition. To me, this reads as the teachers fully realizing "the battlefield of political maneuvering", and they want to remind the kids to have fun, to show good sportsmanship, to unite the kids, to operate as a class and be friendly with one another, and overall make it more lighthearted. It's nice to see the classes work together and get excited / win as a unit, especially compared to the more "individual" bits of fighting for a dance partner later.

We get a bit of comparison between Bill and Damian, with Bill showing good sportsmanship while Damian scoffs at him. But Damian ends up becoming ultra competitive and telling his classmates to not screw it up.

Like the Dodgeball chapter, Damian is clumsily attempting to lead the class by doing good in his quiz, while getting stressed and yelling at his peers when they don't succeed like he did. So he's not really a good leader. Like how him being good at history does not necessarily mean he is good at being peaceful (Short Mission 4 ends with Henderson staring in exasperation at Damian + Anya bickering with each other). But obviously, he is merely a child, and he is naturally immature.

At first Loid is all for advancing Plan B and analysed Anya's suitors in a rational (reductionist?) way by ranking them in terms of gaining intelligence, but he remembers this is just a dance, Anya is a kid, and she should do whatever she wants. Loid (and the adults) are very aware of the political side of the gala, but ultimately they want the kids to have fun and not worry / worry less about politics.

Because they're kids! They'll grow up and learn more and be politically active later, but right now, they're just kids. Kids who don't know much about the world but are eager to make the world a better place.

In the end, we get a panel of Anya and Loid "teaming up" to win Damian's hand for Plan B / world peace. The Damian-Anya dynamic is cushioned with the silly crushy feelings, but underneath it, Operation Strix continues to be a core motivation.

I find it interesting that Endo chooses to focus on the first graders and their innocent view of the world / politics. It's embedded everywhere and especially in a prominent school like Eden, but the kids don't really realise it / realise the severity of it. Heirs and heiresses are educated at Eden and grow up to have incredible influence and the power to shape the world. Our protagonist's best friend comes from a family that manufactures arms. Henderson mentions the importance of learning history to avoid making the same mistakes (ie. war).

So Ch 95 is a cute prom chapter. But I think it also helps to show the themes underneath the fun, bubbly interactions.

[peakyswritings]

Meet the Ferrante Family

It’s incredible that in less than two weeks it’ll be a year has passed since I posted the first chapter of Heart, Body and Soul. Thank you so much for those who have stuck with me despite the slow updates🤍

Finally, I made a post with the face claims I found for the Ferrante family (although Nina doesn’t have one yet). Are most of them from the Godfather movies? Yes. Do I regret it? No. And note that a great number of aunts, uncles and cousins are missing, but I decided not to introduce them since they are not relevant to the story.

Nina Ferrante is the OC from my ongoing Tommy Shelby x OC series Heart, Body and Soul.

NINA’S FAMILY

Vincenzo and Maria Ferrante

Pietro, Salvatore and Nina’s parents

Vincenzo Ferrante: he runs the Italian side of the business. He’s the oldest brother (older generation). Despite being a very traditional man, he has a soft spot for his daughter that leads him to give her a bit more freedom. In fact, Nina’s the only girl in her family who was allowed to finish school.

Maria Ferrante: she’s a conservative woman, very religious and apparently meek.

Her mother had spent her whole life convinced that all she was born to do was to take care of someone else, without ever being able to make a single decision for herself, or voice her thoughts, and that conviction was too deeply rooted inside her to be eradicated. (Excerpt from CH.6)

However, there’s more to her than she lets on.

Pietro and Salvatore Ferrante

Pietro Ferrante (on the left): he’s the oldest of the Ferrante siblings, and he’s expected to become the head of the Italian side of the family business after his father. He fought in the war and almost lost an arm in combat, and sometimes it still hurts. After the war, he built walls around him.

Pietro, the older one, had almost lost an arm in combat, and even though two years had passed, sometimes it still hurt. But in exchange for the arm, the war took something else away from him. There seemed to be nothing left of his once caring nature, and his innate attention for details had turned into a urge to have everything under control. (Excerpt from CH.5)

Salvatore Ferrante (on the right): he’s the middle child. He fought in the war and returned with a deep scar on his face.

As for Salvatore, the war had enhanced the restlessness that had always distinguished him. He was angry, easily triggered, spiteful. And now he had a deep scar which crossed the left side of his face, making his expression appear even more grim. (Excerpt from CH.5)

Nina Ferrante

Nina Ferrante: she’s the youngest child and only daughter. Her fiery nature and unusual views make her a bit of an outcast in her family. She’s believed to be a witch by many of her cousins and other girls from the village. She rather enjoys the rumours.

There was nothing soft about Nina. She was all sharp edges and searing looks. […] She was outspoken, and defensive, and angry. Angry at her family, whose judgmental stare burned on her skin. Angry at her mother, who had wanted her different since the moment she had drawn her first breath. Angry at her father, who still treated her like a little girl who knew nothing of the word. Angry at Tommy Shelby, who thought he could just barge in and state some claim over one of them. (Excerpt from CH.2)

However, behind the mask, she’s extremely sensitive, and feels everything deeply.

Winston

Winston: Nina found him when he was just a kitten, and took him in without a second thought. He’s a little shit, just like his owner.

AGNESE’S FAMILY

Mario and Rita Ferrante

Agnese, Rosa and Sofia’s parents

Mario Ferrante: he’s the youngest among the Ferrante brothers (older generation) and runs the Italian side of the business alongside Vincenzo.

Rita Ferrante: she’s Agnese’s mother, and has a love-hate relationship with Maria Ferrante. They care about each other in their own way, but are stuck in an endless competition.

Agnese Ferrante

Agnese Ferrante: she’s Nina’s cousin, and the one Tommy is expected to marry. She’s considered the most beautiful girl in the village, she’s soft and kind and probably the only one of Nina’s cousins who doesn’t ostracise her. Being the oldest child, she feels responsible for her sisters. She knows she needs to get married, cause she has no brothers and if something were to happen to her father, which is likely, considering the family’s line of work, they’d have no protection. Of course their uncles would take care of them, but it wouldn’t be the same.

Rosa and Sofia Ferrante

Rosa Ferrante (on the left): she’s the middle child.

Sofia Ferrante (on the right): she’s the youngest child.

OTHERS

Antonio Ferrante

Antonio Ferrante: he’s the middle child of the Ferrante brothers (older generation) and runs the English side of the business. He has two sons, Alfredo (the oldest) and Angelo (the youngest), who are expected to run the English side of the business after their father. Their mother passed during childbirth. No face claims for them yet.

THE SPINIETTA FAMILY

The Spinietta family is another Mafia family who operates both in Sicily and New York. There’s a delicate balance of power among the Spinietta family and the Ferrante family, and they’re struggling to keep the peace. Spinietta has two sons: Vito (the oldest) and Stefano (the youngest). They didn’t fight in the war thanks to their father.

They walked around as if they owned every street, every shop, every person; as if everything was owed to them, because they had money and power. (Except from CH.5)

Stefano Spinietta

Behind the courtesy and the charm, Stefano is actually a monster. He has been obsessed with Nina for years, and recently started pressuring her father into arranging a marriage between them.

Stefano Spinietta was a disgusting person. He was the son of one of her father’s business partners, the boss of another mafia family, which operated both in Sicily and in New York. In the last few years, Stefano had been very clear about his intentions towards Nina, and he had taken too many liberties with her, to the point where she had found herself in the position of putting a knife to his throat. But the threat didn’t have the intended effect; if anything, it only made him more relentless. (Excerpt from CH.3)

Stefano still has a scar on his neck from that episode with Nina.

-

Heart, Body and Soul taglist

@zablife @queenofshinigamis @raincoffeeandfandoms / @justrainandcoffee @call-sign-shark

@kmc1989 @babayaga67 @kmhappybunny240 @diorrfairy @mariaelizabeth21-blog1

@gaslysainz @brummiereader @loverhymeswith @fairypitou @prettywhenicry4

@mysticalbouquetwolf-posts @woofgocows @girlwith-thepearlearring @goblinjnr @outlanderuniverse

@citylights31 @neonpurplestars89-blog @red-riding-wood @evita-shelby

@look-at-the-soul

General tag list:

@iamngoclinh08 @lilywinchesterlove @fandom-puff @capitanostella @caelys

@lucillethings @peakyxtommy @queenofkings1212 @lyarr24 @kmc1989

@call-sign-shark @jomarch-wannabe @ce1iat

@red-riding-wood @optimisticsandwichgladiator

Tommy Shelby taglist:

@50svibes

[thebadjoe]

BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY PART 6

Wow! It's been a long while, but it's finally here! DRDT Chapter 2 is back with part 2 starting since more than a week ago!

...Oh? What's that? There's some reveals that is damaging my theory and I should get to fixing? Awwww, man.... what a drag.... I am so doomed... nanchatte!

Anyways, hi! It's me, the dude who makes-overly-complex-and-ridiculously-long-theories-in-the-hopes-of-trying-to-solve-the-murder-case-that-not-many-people-agree-with-for-more-reasons-than-my-theory's-word-count. (Okay, the last part about the reasons is probably not true... yet!)

I am back yet again with some more updates regarding my theory.

NOOOOO!!! NOT AGAIN!!! PLEASE, I DON'T WANNA READ ANOTHER GODDAMN DICTIONARY LENGTH OF A THEORY POST!!!!

Woah! Calm down, imaginary self that is under the impression that some people were way too overwhelmed by my latest part of the theory post! You have nothing to worry about!

It would be silly of me to rewrite all of it again with some small changes. I will of course link up my part 5 later as source of reference, but really, all I'm gonna be doing here today is point out the newest problems with my theory ever since episode 12 and 13 and give my personal thoughts on those.

Also, to make sure that people hasn't forgotten what I've been all about since the beginning, I will do a short recap of my theory, displaying only what's most relevant to the murder case.

Besides, ain't no way I'm writing something this long ever again (except for maybe trying to solve the future chapters, but that's a matter for the far future).

With that said, I feel obliged to point out that this is spoilers for the fangan Danganronpa Despair Time Chapter 2, up until episode 13.

With that out of the way, let's get to it!

Hey look! I still remember how to use that show more button again, hurray! (I'm really sorry again to @1moreff-creator and everyone else who's been reading my very first posts last year that didn't have a show more button)

So, first things first, I'd like to apologize in advance because as amazing the episode 12 and 13 were, I will not be doing a reaction post of said episodes. I think I'm just too lazy to actually display my whole stream of consciousness through two whole videos and I think it is safe to say that practically all of us had a very similar reaction to those episodes.

What was the common reaction, you may ask? Well, it's simple, really... it went something like... OMG, THIS IS SO FUCKING HYPE! OMG!!! THAT WAS SO INSANE!!! THE DRAMA!!! DAVID BEING DAVID!!! THE LEVI REVEAL!!! THE FLASHBACK PART 2 SCENE!!! OMG, WHAT IS EDEN DOING?!! AREI IS HOLDING DAVID'S HANDS?! WE'RE FINALLY TALKING ABOUT THE MURDER METHODS?!?! OMG, SO GOOD!!!

...right? Yeah! I thought so! :D

Although I may not be showing proper and precise reactions to these episodes, if you're interested, I'd definitly recommend reading @venus-is-thinking 's, reactions on episode 12 and episode 13, @1moreff-creator 's reactions on episode 12 and episode 13 and @accirax 's reactions on episode 12 and episode 13. They're pretty good reads (and no, I'm not just saying this because they all believe that Eden is the culprit, I swear!).

And for those who are totally blind or new to my shenanigans, yes, I do believe that Eden is the culprit behind this murder case.

There is indeed a few problems that arose ever since the latest episodes, so to make sure that everyone is up to speed with what I'm gonna be talking about, I'm now going to be doing a short recap of the events, according to me.

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THE RECAP

DAY 1 : The day where everyone receives their mixed up secrets and explore the second floor. DAY 2 : The day where the attempted murder on Ace happened. DAY 3 : The day where Whit suggests David to chill for the evening in the relaxation room. DAY 4 : The day (morning) of the body discovery announcement.

Ever since Arei bullied Eden who then cried and exited the playground on DAY 2, that was what triggered Eden to decide to commit murder for the sake of escaping this hellish killing game. Knowing that her secret is that she kissed a girl, I deduced that she's probably trying to escape because she misses her beloved dearly.

So while she was off screen during most of that day, she spent time making plans for the murder set up and narrative, which is why she decided to share Arturo's secret (as seen in the flashback).

During the evening of DAY 2, Ace was working out in the gym, then he hears a conversation happening between David and Arei in the relax room. The conversation that Ace was quietly listening to did not happen in the evening of DAY 3, but rather the evening of DAY 2. Ace lied about when he was listening to that conversation.

At some point during the conversation or perhaps even after the conversation, Eden sneaks up on Ace and knocks him out with the turpentine that anyone could've gotten access to that day. Ace is Eden's chosen murder victim.

Sometime later, Eden eitheir used a letter or called out Arei's name to lure her into the playground or somewhere close to knock her unconscious with that very same turpentine. She then moves Arei's body into the relaxation room to lock her up inside because of the specific nighttime rules regarding that room.

Eden also brought old spares of clothing to cover Arei's body to make sure she doesn't get stained with starch from the water misting formula from the relaxation room.

During the night of DAY 2, she prepares the murder mechanism in the gym with some needed tools from the storage room and some wire that she took out from possibly a grandfather clock that she may have in her dorm. I deduced it as such because of Whit's description of everyone's dorms being suited to their needs.

I also deduced that there is actually a switch to turn on and off the fans, which is important since the attempted murder involved the fans. As Eden finished setting it up, as she was about to clear up with evidence, she heard someone using the elevator.

She hid in the dress up room, then Nico enters the second floor, looking for Ace to kill him. As Nico explores the gym, Teruko shortly enters the elevator to get to the second floor as well.

Teruko, looking for her spares, runs into Eden, who was hidden in the dress up room. After some talk, they heard a loud noise coming from the gym, which they both take a look inside.

Upon seeing this mess of a crime, Eden realised that her murder plan failed and that she needs to come up with a plan B really quick. So while she is taking time to "process this emotionally", Teruko was investigating.

Eden finally comes up with a plan B and figured that she needed to get her hands on the roll of tape ASAP. She managed to do so with a sleight of hand when Ace "suddenly wakes up", knocking Eden out of the way, distracting Teruko in the process.

Later that night, Eden proceeds with her plan B by making a murder mechanism in the playground. She also took the rope from the storage room. Once it's all properly set up, all's left was waiting for the relaxation to unlock at 8:00 AM on DAY 3.

In the morning of DAY 3, she retrieves Arei's unconscious body and proceeds with murdering Arei. Then, she proceeds to conceal the body somewhat behind the curtains in the relaxation room. She also grabs her glove, her monopad and the necessary materials in the dress up room for the next step of her plan.

She spends the rest of the morning to prepare her disguise trick. Then during lunchtime, Eden spends a short amount of time disguised as Arei to hide the actual time of death.

Once lunchtime is over, she returns to eitheir her or Arei's dorm to remove the disguise, spend time cleaning up, relax, power nap, etc. Then, during the evening of DAY 3, she spends time with Hu to fabricate her perfect alibi.

Later that evening, David explores the relaxation room. That's when he notices something wrong with the room and becomes the first person to discover Arei's dead body.

For some personal reasons, David brings the body back into the playground and hangs it by the swingset. Eitheir he or Eden (earlier in the morning) balls up the clothes and hides it in the closet of the dress-up room. Then, in the morning of DAY 4, David grabs everyone's attention to the fact that Arei is missing right before the secrets reveal. Then fast forward a bit, then we get the BDA of Arei

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And there ya go, that's my recap regarding how I believe the murder case happened. Pretty short, eh?

HELL NO!!! THAT WAS STILL PRETTY LONG!!! AHHHHH!!!!

Eh... I guess I couldn't really make it that shorter, my bad! If I tried to make it any shorter than that, it would've been extremely confusing.

Ah! Speaking of which, if you're confused in the sense that it feels like none of this should work at all, and there's a lot of contradictions and whatnot, then I would heavily recommend reading my actual theory post. I am not going to spend time refuting with people in the comments about points I've already pointed out in my previous post.

However, if there are things that are unclear to you, things that you do not understand and want to know what I'm talking about, please, feel free to ask away! I will help in any way I can.

With that out the way, I guess I can now start with pointing out the pr-

HAH! THERE IS A MAJOR ISSUE WITH YOUR THEORY!!! BASED ON EPISODE 12, THE MURDER COULD'VE ONLY HAPPENED IN THE MORNING OF DAY 4 BECAUSE OF THE BODY SWING! YOU'RE DONE FOR!

Ah... yeah... that! Of course! That's not a problem!

!!!

Let's talk about it first, shall we? :D

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AREI'S BODY SWING : CONFIRMED TIME OF DEATH???

I'd like to come clean with something, everyone. Ever since I came up with the theory that murder happened at a totally unexpected time, there was something that was constantly bothering me.

That's right, I was very well aware of the body swing happening during the BDA ever since the beginning.

HUH?! Then all this time, you wrote all of this despite knowing that?!

Correct! I'm really sorry about that, but please, understand that I had a very good reason for it. For you see... everytime I saw it, I was often under the impression that this was simply an eerie effect / animation, to give a more dramatic intensity towards the BDA, without meaning anything. I legit thought it could be a thing, I swear!

But despite all that... I couldn't help but feel uneasy about it. Deep down, I felt like that maybe there was an actual meaning to it, maybe it was an actual clue that I shouldn't disregard. But I figured that because of my theory beliefs, then it would be rather unlikely that it would be used as evidence.

But alas, I was wrong about that. The body swing plays a very important rule in determining what happened in this murder case. I cannot deny that fact, especially since Teruko brought it up, plain as day. Despite it seeming like it damages my theory, I'm thankful that the dev finally cleared that little doubt I had since then.

Then you admit it, the murder actually happened in the mor-

Oh, not so fast! Let's not jump to conclusions just yet, alright? Arei's body swinging by the swing set doesn't quite exactly prove that the murder occured during the morning of DAY 4. The body swing only proves that someone messed with the body by the swingset.

W-What?! That doesn't make sense! The murder clearly happened in the morning of DAY 4!

Nuh-uh, not quite. You believe it clearly happened in the morning because that's what the cast concluded on top of Charles pointing out that the culprit could've clearly fake the time of death by saving the fishes for later.

But unless we have decisive evidence that the murder happened in the morning, we can't be 100% sure that the murder happened in the morning of DAY 4.

From the looks of it, you just seem very desperate, if you ask me.

At first, when episode 12 released, I kind of was... up until I figured out a fairly logical solution to it. That's right! I have a way to explain who made the body swing and why.

You're not going to suggest that David did all of what he supposedly did in the evening of DAY 3, but instead in the morning of DAY 4, right?!

Nope! Not at all. Disregarding the facts that it wouldn't really make sense and that he'd have to move the body out of the relax room anyways before nighttime (because of the water misting rules), David actually has an alibi in the morning of DAY 4.

(As does Veronika too as she was with them in the cafeteria)

With all of these reasons mentioned above, as much as I initially wanted to make it somehow possible that David came back to the crime scene to mess with the body somehow, it just isn't possible.

So instead, someone else did it.

Then out with it already, you staller! Who is it?!

There is only one possible candidate that would make the most sense in that scenario : Eden. Eden is the person who messed with Arei's body in the morning of DAY 4.

WHHAAAAT?!?! WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT?! THAT'S SO RISKY!

That's what I initially thought at first, not gonna lie. But then... something hit me : Eden doesn't have an alibi for the morning of DAY 4 eitheir.

I thought that there would be absolutely no need for Eden to come back to the crime scene a certain short amount of time before the BDA, so instead, I needed to reverse my way of thinking.

What could she possibly aim to do that would prompt her to come back to the crime scene last minute?

Considering the facts (based on my theory, mind you) that she killed Arei in the morning of DAY 3, hid the body somewhere in the relaxation room, built up an evening to night alibi with Hu and that David was the first person to discover it during the evening, there is a simple explanation behind it.

Arei's BDA was meant to be triggered much earlier than the morning of DAY 4. The original intent behind this whole scheme was to have the BDA trigger during the evening of DAY 3.

That doesn't make sense!

No, that's wrong! It does make a whole lot of sense. Think about it. Let's say you were a participant in this killing game and were in David's shoes during the evening of DAY 3... you come across a dead body in the relaxation, what would you do?

!!!

That's right, you wouldn't just mess with the body and move it somewhere else, now would you? Aside from freaking out, the most natural and human thing to do would be to gather help.

If it were anyone else than David who discovered the body in that exact scenario, they would cry out for help, tell everyone that they found Arei dead inside the relaxation room, which would then result in a body discovery announcement.

But what if the person who found the body were to personally ask for Hu's and Eden's help, wouldn't that ruin her plan since it wouldn't trigger the BDA?

There's an easy solution to that. Eden could've simply decided to find more people to share the news to meet up with the corpse. This wouldn't ruin her plan in the slightest.

Quite the opposite, actually. If the body were to be discovered and trigger the BDA during the evening, it would solidify her air tight alibi even further as she wouldn't have any possible timeframe to commit murder in the evening as she was spending time with her friend Hu.

Ugh, so what? It didn't really happen anyways because of David being David! That doesn't change anything!

Actually, it does change things considerably. If you put yourself in the culprit's perspective where the whole intent was to have the body discovery happen in the evening of DAY 3 and that during the whole night, nothing happened, you would certainly find that very strange.

The culprit would be clearly confused, yet really curious to find out what even happened.

Couldn't she have taken a look much later during the night?

Perhaps, but she figured it would've been pointless. The reason why is that if she thought that nobody found the body, then the body would've still remained hidden in the relaxation room which would then be currently locked away because of the water misting.

So instead of checking it out during the late night of DAY 3, Eden decided to investigate during the very early morning of DAY 4, sometime past 7:30 AM.

But the relaxation room is still locked up until 8:00 AM! Why not wait until then?

It's simple! She just wanted to be there a little bit in advance to make sure she can enter the room as early as possible. And so... while she is waiting for the relaxation room to unlock, she probably figured that she should take a look around the other rooms, why not?

And thus, that leads to Eden finding the body being hung by the swingset, alongside fishes scattered around the floor for some reason.

To reconfirm, I still believe that David is the first person who discovered Arei's dead body in the relaxation room and that he's responsible for hanging her body alongside placing those fishes by the playground.

Okay, Eden discovers that the body has been moved to the playground? What now? Everything's already in place, so what could she possibly do with the dead body?

Well, since the BDA was not triggered on the evening of DAY 3, she figured that she may as well put Arei's monopad back into the corpse's pockets.

But what about her missing glove? Why didn't she return that as well if she wanted to return her monopad?

That's a good point, that's for sure. But there are two easy fixes to this counter argument. First one being that she simply forgot about the gloves. No one's really perfect, after all. She was so concerned about the body not being discovered yet that this completly slipped her mind.

The second fix would be that it would've been way too risky to try to retrieve the glove. Maybe initially, Eden, after she removed her disguise, she placed the clothes and the glove back into Arei's dorm. So if she wanted to retrieve the glove, she'd have to return to Arei's room, unlocking it with a monopad that isn't her own.

Would she really risk that again after making this much progress without getting caught so far? Like imagine if she tried to take that risk one last time only to get caught, that would be quite the devastating result, wouldn't it?

Ok, fine. Nevermind the gloves. Is that all she did?

Pretty much, yeah. She returned the monopad back into her pockets, which moved the body somewhat.

...

Well, it's also possible that she tripped and moved the body even more by accident. Or perhaps she felt like she was in such a hurry to avoid getting found out that she accidently bumped into Arei's dead body.

...Are you kidding me? There's no way that's gonna be enough to move the body for this long!

Well... maybe her being there at exactly 7:30 AM is not the exact time. She could've been there a couple minutes before 8:00 AM, which could make this possible.

But that's ridiculous! There's no way Eden is strong enough to make the body swing that way. To make the body swing for a good amount of time, she'd need more than just accidently bumping into the body! It needs considerable force.

And I'll stop you there. If you've read my last theory post, you should know by now that I'm a firm believer that because it's a work of fiction, anything that seems unlikely can become possible.

The main thing we should take from Arei's body swinging during the BDA is that at some point in time during the morning, someone messed with the body, proving that someone was there during the morning of DAY 4.

And there you go, that's my whole explanation as to how Arei's body was swinging during the BDA that doesn't necessarily mean that the murder occured during that exact morning.

If you're not quite convinced yet, there is a certain part of my theory that begins to make a lot more logical sense with this solution in mind. Take a look at this!

Thanks to the solution I suggested, these two lines become a lot more fitting to my updated theory. Here's why!

If Eden were to explore and find the body hanging by the swing set during the morning of DAY 4, she would know that at least 1 person found the body, but not who exactly.

Because of Whit's silly comment, Eden immediatly thought of the body in the playground and jumped to the worst conclusion : Whit is the person who found the body first.

So if they were to open the door to the playground, the BDA would not trigger since Eden is the culprit. So in a moment of panic, Eden uttered : "Teruko, wait--".

It is still pretty much the same as what I had in mind according to the previous part of my theory post, except that it works a whole lot better now that Eden personally saw the actual state of the dead body in the morning of DAY 4.

So there you have it. This seemingly major problem for my theory actually turned out to be very beneficial for my theory after all! Ah, the joys of making logical sounding deductions! My theory should be saf-

HAH! YOU THINK YOUR THEORY IS SAFE FROM HARM YET?! WRONG!!!! IN EPISODE 13, THEY ACTUALLY SHOWED HOW THE MURDER MECHANISM WORKED! NOT ONLY IS EDEN TOO WEAK TO OPERATE IT, BUT THEY PUT FISH WATER INSIDE THOSE JUGS! SINCE THEY REVEALED THAT MURDER METHOD, IT HAS TO BE THE SOLUTION. YOUR THEORY IS RUINED! GOOD DAY SIR!

Oh, you mean this?

Oh no, this murder mechanism is different from mine and this one requires a certain amount of strength that Eden possibly doesn't have! And the fishes! Since they brought it up, then there's no way my theory can work! Whatever shall I do??? It's joever.... just kidding!

I don't mean to alarm you guys, but the current proposed murder mechanism idea actually has flaws. Let's talk some more about the murder mechanism in the playground, shall we? :)

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

TERUKO'S CURRENT MURDER MECHANISM IDEA : RIGHT OR WRONG???

Before I get into it, I'd like to remind everyone that just because we've been shown how the murder may have been done for the first time means that's how it actually happened. Let's not forget that they spent so much time arguing and discussing about the secrets that they barely ever talked about the murder case in itself.

So if anything, episode 13 is practically just them beginning their actual work! Mistakes are bound to happen. We shouldn't jump to conclusions just yet. Besides, there is actually a problem with this murder mechanism.

I'll present it to you in pictures to show you what I'm talking about.

The taped up wrists. This was practically the decisive proof that this wasn't a suicide nor could it have been an assisted suicide. So now that they've introduced a murder mechanism in an actual episode... what's actually the point of the taped wrists in that scenario?

If the culprit used exactly this kind of murder mechanism, then there would be absolutely no need to tape up her wrists together.

Maybe it was to stop Arei from trying to struggle?

Nope. If that was the case, we would've seen much more signs of struggle coming from Arei. There may be scuffs on the ground, but there's absolutely no other form of injury on Arei aside from her broken neck.

Well, I saw a theory where the accomplice was Levi and he could've easily overpower her!

(I believe that was something that @1moreff-creator theorized, if I recall? At least, that was the theory pre part 2)

It used to be borderline possible, but not this time anymore! Thanks to the first two episodes of part 2 of chapter 2, it seems extremely unlikely that Levi wanted to work with the culprit as an accomplice.

Not only because of what we find out regarding his secret, what kind of character he is, but also because of something he said in episode 12.

I don't know about you, but this doesn't look like something an accomplice would say at all, right? If the culprit was someone who didn't have an alibi in the evening, it would be a different story, but the most fitting theory for having Levi work as an accomplice is to work for Eden, who happens to have an alibi in the evening as you already know.

So since we gotta take Levi out of the equation, then we don't really have much other possible candidates who could've easily overpower Arei to the point where taping up her wrists would've helped better on that regard.

Therefore, the most logical solution would be that Arei was knocked unconscious with the turpentine. But since that's the most likely scenario, then what's up with the taped wrists?

If the taped wrists weren't used to prevent any remote chance for Arei to try to get out of this situation, then it must've been used as part of the murder mechanism.

But since the murder mechanism as shown by Teruko doesn't explain the taped up wrists whatsoever, then this becomes a discrepancy. Therefore, that can't be quite the correct answer to solving the how this murder mechanism works.

And since this murder mechanism idea is flawed, it also means that there's no guarantee that the jugs contained fish water inside, they could've simply gathered water somewhere else or perhaps there jugs were already filled with clean water to begin with.

Because this murder mechanism idea is flawed, there's no guarantee that the culprit used this method which required some unknown amount of strength, but an amount of strength regardless (unless the author wants to pass it off as anyone could've done it since it's easier to do it by spinning it, I'm not sure).

Because of that flaw, my theory isn't affected by the murder mechanism idea that Teruko suggested since there is no guarantee that this is the correct answer.

So yeah, there's no problem whatsoever! Also, as far as I'm aware, since the release of the latest episodes, I have a very logically sound reason to explain the taped up wrists as shown in part 5 of my theory.

To give you a small reminder, it was for something like this!

(Whole murder mechanism not properly shown in the drawing because I'm lazy as heck, but just take a close attention to the arms)

By having Arei's arms go between the pillars of the seasaw, you can make it so that she can't get out of it by taping her wrists together, which plays an important role in the murder mechanism. Not going to elaborate further, if you want to know more, you gotta read the big post right there!

And there you have it! Those were the two main concerns that could've negatively affect my theory, but fortunately for me, it doesn't. In fact, it supports it even more than before.

Especially regarding the David / Arei conversation flashback (shown from David's memory's perspective). This conversation told us a lot more between these two, do you know what that means?

That's right! It means that Ace is full of shit! There's no way he didn't hear anything else. The only way he could've not hear anything else is if he gets snuck up from behind and gets knocked out with the turpentine, but it could've easily simply been Ace witholding that information to make David look more suspicious.

Therefore, if he lied about this, he could've also easily lied about when he actually overheard that conversation for his own selfish gains!

There's also a few couple other points that could further support my theory, but I don't feel like going over every single little detail as of now. I mainly wanted to solve these two issues and nothing else.

So, DRDTers, I need to ask you the following : Do you still believe that I am delusional with this overly complex theory of mine? :)

Thanks for reading another one of my big posts, as usual!

[grainjew]

Nikaposting Pt 4: Sun God Tropes

This is the fourth of a series of posts about Nika & associated religious practice in the One Piece world. As I write and post the rest of the series, I’ll add links to this header.

Pt 1: Crypto-Religion | Pt 2: Symbology & Syncretism | Pt 3: Joyboy was Shandian

Enormous credit to @oriigami for being my discussion partner through all of this and having a substantial influence on the final product. Check out our ao3 series Joyful for a narrative rather than analytical take on the Nika tradition, and definitely go read her OP blog @kaizokuou-ni-naru for meta and translation fun facts.

-

#JustLittleSunGodThings

So Luffy’s a sun god, or the embodied power of the wishes for one, or whatever. But does he do mythological solar deity things?

Yes actually.

This post is the fourth and last (as of now) in this series, and it’s entirely for fun. I’ll almost certainly miss things as I go down the list here- if you can think of other solar or dawn deity things he gets up to, please add them in the replies!

With no further ado, here is a list of sun god things Luffy has been known to get up to, & which will no doubt inform the mythology developing around him in the One Piece world. (How many people were deifying this guy even before he awakened his devil fruit? Like it was definitely not zero is all I’m saying.)

Getting eaten by snakes

What started this whole list was me turning to @oriigami in the middle of the night after we’d been rewatching Little Garden and trying to make an accurate count of how many times Luffy’s been swallowed whole and going “you know what’s sun god shit? getting eaten by snakes.”

Sun gods are often doing this. Take Apep in Egyptian myth, who tries to devour the sun god Ra every day. Or Rahu, the Hindu shadow planet and serpent, who swallows the sun to cause solar eclipses.

Luffy is also often doing this. The most notable example is of course the Nola Incident in Skypiea arc, but if we expand the definition of snake to include generally snakeish sort of guys, he also gets briefly ate by Kaidou very shortly after awakening, and just now by Mister Sandworm in ch 1110. (And by Kaidou fish-fish fruit equivalency I’d argue we can also count the Little Garden goldfish and the crocodile that ate him as a kid here but obviously that’s more tenuous and mostly just funny.)

Slightly more tenuously as well, there’s Amaterasu of Shinto lore retreating into her cave (a cave is a kind of snake), as well as the Norse wolf that chases the sun Sköll (occasionally merged with Fenrir), the Javanese god (described as an ogre) Batara Kala who eats the sun and moon to cause eclipses, and the alchemical Green Lion that devours the sun.

Storm and sky gods are also often interacting with, killing, and being eaten by snakes, which is less relevant here except that Nami is storm god coded and she also got ate in the Nola Incident. So that’s fun!

Having a chariot that circumnavigates the world

Many sun gods, especially in the Indo-European sphere of traditions, have some sort of chariot or boat that they ride from east to west each day to carry the sun across the sky. Often they have attendants (sometimes dawn and dusk gods; or sometimes these gods have their own chariots or horses as well) to help them with this.

If you want a list of sun vehicles the wikipedia page for solar deities has a whole bunch of them. Have fun.

I think Thousand Sunny speaks for herself on this front: not only is Sunny a ship designed, destined, and dreamed up to herself circumnavigate the world with Luffy as her captain, but she also has the Sun on the front as her figurehead in a manner that does kinda remind me of some depictions I’ve seen of the sun being carried across the sky in such a chariot. Also, she can fly!

Association with royalty

Kings and emperors love to use sun gods to give divine legitimacy to their rule. This is in no way universal (there’s lots of storm gods out there who also do this, just off the top of my head) but take Amaterasu (Shinto), Inti (Incan), Amun-Ra (also Aten) (Egyptian), Sol Invictus (Roman), etc.

Obviously Luffy is going to be King, and is currently an Emperor. But also, he tends to go around and toppling kings and gods and tyrants and vaguely lending legitimacy to whoever is stepping up to the throne in their place. He’s got the Mandate of Heaven (this is a joke mostly but we HAVE all read Loguetown)! And also distributes it to people he likes. Thanks Luffy.

Solar discs, radiate crowns, and beetles

A solar disc is a flat circle, sometimes with rays, that symbolically represents the sun or the sun personified. If you have read pt 2 of this series, you will recognize the Nika symbol in this description.

In the same vein, when applied to a personified depiction of the sun, the solar disc has the habit of becoming a halo or a radiate crown (such as the one worn by the Statue of Liberty - the radiate crown used to be an emperors and sun gods thing and has since become associated with personifications of liberty. So That’s Fun). Obviously Luffy is not in the habit of having either of these representationally, except of course for. The hat that encircles his head in gold.

The final note on symbology I have here is that the Egyptian god of the morning sun, Khepri, is associated with scarabs/dung beetles. A fact that I think known beetle-lover Luffy would appreciate. Get this guy some scarab symbolism stat. Check these bugs out!!!

Bonus: descending into the underworld and eclipse stories

Katabasis, that is, a descent into the underworld, is in no way a sun god exclusive, although solar myths do often involve the sun god, having traveled across the sky by day, needing to find their way through the ocean, the underworld, or some other sort of nether realm to return, overnight, to their morning home in the east. And it’s very fun to look at in the context of Luffy, eclipse myths, and the Marineford saga.

So obviously the Impel Down arc is is a very literal katabasis. It’s Hell, it’s got all the Dante’s Inferno theming, and, like in so many katabases, Luffy descends to the depths in pursuit of some goal, eventually emerging miraculously alive but unsuccessful (see, for a very quick shortlist of katabases of this type, Orpheus & Eurydice, Inanna, and Izanagi & Izanami).

So that’s delightful. But I think it’s even more fun to think about the Marineford saga in general, eventually culminating in the timeskip, as a prototype for an eclipse story.

Solar eclipses, though predictable, are something like a rarer and more frightening form of night, and so their associated myths have a general tendency to involve a more dramatic and/or violent symbolic death of the sun- see, for example, the various devourers of the sun mentioned in the first bullet point of this post.

So, we have the timeskip. The fire goes out. The sun, having descended into the underworld and pushed himself past his own limits, is defeated, disappearing completely from the world for two years. Until- In a way that was, technically, predictable, if you had the correct sphere of knowledge, he returns, miraculously renewed.

I’d incorporate that into my belief system, is all I’m saying.

-

Thank you all for reading! This is all for the series so far, but not, I hope, forever. Many more thoughts to have and webs to weave!

Have a lovely week!

[mdzs-fanon-exposed]

MDZS Fanon VS Canon: 2/?

Wen Ning fits Jiang Cheng's list of requirements for a wife

Rating: FANON – NEUTRAL

A lot of ships involving Jiang Cheng will use a list detailing the characteristics of his ideal woman as evidence for one pairing for another, and the character brought to me to evaluate as a suitable match was Wen Ning. Unfortunately, I have to rate this as fanon because Jiang Cheng's wife requirements... aren't canon to the novels.

In terms of the official adaptations, Jiang Cheng's requirements for his perfect wife seem to be Untamed-only canon, as part of the Jiang Cheng/Wen Qing subplot the drama invented. However, the MDZS Fandom Wiki (which, side note, is a horrible source for anything) credits the following list of requirements to a since-deleted Tumblr post:

Naturally beautiful, graceful and obedient, hard-working and thrifty, coming from a respected family, cultivation level not too high, personality not too strong, not too talkative, voice not too loud and must treat Jin Ling nicely. (source)

Using the Wayback Machine, I managed to find the original Tumblr post in question (seen here). According to the user who posted it, this is a translated excerpt from a Weibo post written by MXTX herself, listing 10 supplemental facts about the books – supposedly posted a year before The Untamed was first announced.

I do not have Weibo and cannot verify this claim, but regardless, I do not consider "word of God" to be canon for the purposes of this blog. Whatever MXTX's intentions were when writing this list, Jiang Cheng's requirements are not mentioned anywhere in the actual text, and so I cannot rate this suggestion as anything but fanon. You, the reader, are free to choose whether you think MXTX's supplemental material is canon-accurate.

As for Wen Ning himself: Canonically, Jiang Cheng "could never tolerate" him (Seven Seas Ch. 19, p. 251), and so unfortunately this ship cannot officially sail. Even if Wen Ning does fit every entry on this list, Jiang Cheng would not consider him a prospective match. I do not consider the list canon, and so any attempts to figure out if Wen Ning fits the letter of the list (if not the spirit) can not be anything but subjective.

But, well, this post is about the list itself, not Jiang Cheng's feelings about it. So while I'm here, I might as well have some fun with it.... Feel free to use the notes to debate whether or not you think Wen Ning is secretly right for Jiang Cheng's dubiously-canon standards.

Naturally beautiful: Wen Ning is ADORABLE and I LOVE HIM. You can't look at him and NOT call him cute; even Wei Wuxian thinks his "side profile [is] delicate and refined" (Seven Seas Ch. 12, p. 141). Would Jiang Cheng think this? Um,

Graceful and obedient: He's pretty meek and he's described as a yes-man (Seven Seas Ch. 16, p. 22), and he does what Wei Wuxian says a lot (under magical flute coercion or otherwise), but he can be pretty stubborn when he wants to be. I wouldn't call him falling off a roof "graceful," but I suppose that was after he was zombified.

Hard-working and thrifty: Yes – I can't imagine he got all those Wen subordinates by being completely lazy. And if anything he's kind of the pack horse for the Burial Mounds crew lol.

Coming from a respected family: Technically? Yes. The Wens have historically been a powerful and influential family, and Wen Ning is the younger brother of someone of "a rank on par with Wen Chao" (Seven Seas Ch. 12, p. 148). Functionally? Uhhhh

Cultivation level not too high: This one is debatable, but probably a yes. We don't receive much information about Wen Ning's cultivation level, since his fighting prowess isn't really plot-relevant until he dies, but he is described as "unremarkable" in comparison to Wen Qing. Just like, in general, I guess. (Seven Seas Ch. 12, p. 149)

Personality not too strong: See #2. I would say yes with some caveats. Especially (and ironically) when Jiang Cheng is involved.

Not too talkative/voice not too loud: Also a match! Wen Ning stutters a lot and doesn't really raise his voice unless he's angry, so he's pretty quiet. Remember that time he and wangxian were on that boat and Wei Wuxian straight up didn't notice him for like five minutes? Poor guy. Can you believe this happened to him twice.

Must treat Jin Ling nicely: Do we count murdering his dad? Because if we don't, then Wen Ning treats Jin Ling very nicely. He even saves his life multiple times!

In conclusion: ?????????

[safe-from-sharp-teeth]

Ayo! I haven't answered asks in FOREVER, so it's time for some spring cleaning :) Also answering other stuff, like what I've been up to.

If you sent an ask and it's not here, sorry! I may have deleted it because the prompt required too much work of me and I wasn't feeling it, or I was uncomfortable.

Let's gooooo !

Firstly - where have I been? Work REALLY picked up in a way I wasn't expecting over the last...4 months? I was working double and often triple the hours I was used to. With work, vacations, random illnesses, and many video games I got a bit too obsessed with, this blog took a backseat. Plus, sometimes I get disinterested in vore when obsessed with something else. Sometimes, that lasts months, and it did this time.

But now I can confirm that work will FINALLY chill for a long period of time. I'm free! And more motivated than ever! Wahoo! Thanks for your support ALWAYS.

Next big question - when am I going to do more of my story? The one with Asyr? AHHHHHGHHGHH this story has consumed my life. I think about it daily. I dream about it. And yet I'm not as comfortable writing as I am drawing, so writing is a slow process that my perfectionist ass struggles with. I can assure you that there is a story in the works - and I am working on it at a snail's pace.

Okay, ask time...

@ponyluvesonic09 AYO maybe I'll make a full ghost pred pros/con list for you, because that sounds awesome! Kir//by is one of the silliest canon preds out there. Honestly getting eaten by him would be like getting vored by a vacuum, LOL. Galaxy tummy!! Imagine a prey floating around in one of those item bubbles all grumpy. Thank u for the ask, this is good stuff.

no. ( /・・)ノ

UWAGHHHHH I LIKE HER!!! Never played O/verwat/ch but what a gem!! I have a random fondness for centaur-like preds nowadays. She looks so cozy. THANK U I LOVE HER!!!

@tiger9o0 I have not played r//ain w//orld or know what it's about, LOL. Looks like a platformer? Man, I'm terrrriiiiibblleee at those. But whoever this is on the cover, I LIKE EM. A+. (That might not answer ur question shdjbghkjg SORRY)

@heimkoheimkofan LOVE THAT I GOT THE ROBOT ENJOYERS AFTER THAT ONE POST....YES yall are so right and I'm so wrong for just hard metal robot tums. I will rectify my mistake soon I PROMISE. Also oh! You were the one asking about stomachs other than elemental ones! IVE HAD THAT IN MY DRAFTS FOREVER IM SORRY AHHHH. I REALLY love your imagination with tums and you've inspired me to think of some awesome environments! THANKS

@fastfur07 BWAH?? Ugh I'm all over the place when it comes to art. Some pieces take 30 min (like the zangooc I drew at the top of this post), most take 2 days. Some really hard drawings like my wolf bat creechur from a few months ago and my shrimp from last year took a month. THANK U??

We're going back so far that I think this is about my naga oc (which I'm in the midst of redesigning cough cough). For him, he would never tolerate being prey, extremely unwilling bahaha. In general, I haven't thought much about naga or snake prey! I get the appeal of slurping up a noodle, but I just prefer human prey :)

@fastfur07 you fiend, you always give me the best drawing ideas. UNFORTUNATELY, I didn't have time to draw something for this one. BUTTTT....

(i've had this next one in my drafts for forever)

then i had a silly comic. I'll post the wip here because I won't finish it, so enjoy bahaha.

@blizzaria123-blog THANK U im rapidly melting into a puddle from ur words

@mrpotatomanversionsix relevant. i will continue drawing them 4 u

?!??!!??!?!??!?!?!??!?!? how dare u enter my ask box with this blasphemy

@sfwsillynoms WAH!!! you!!! I'm currently redesigning my naga oc but when I finish I'll tag you, if you're still around! And he can 100% be drawn with ur preysona :)

@mystorl i am SO late to this, but SMART. I like it. I shall give my lil guy this friend. I just want to let u know that I see this and it's wonderful and I will do something abt it.

I remember this ask made me laugh a ton when I first got it. thank u. idk why I find this so funny

@sillylilprey IM CRYING RIGHT BACK AHHHH this is an ancient ask, but thank u! hope you're still enjoying!

@terrytheinsane finally, the last ask in my askbox. I love it. You have been wronged with how long it took me to answer you. I have gained knowledge from your ask. THANKS

AND THAT'S IT!! Thanks guys, I hope to make you proud! Feel free to send more asks, and hopefully I will answer in a TIMELY manner.

Goodnight! And remember: Nice Vore ᕕ༼⌐■-■༽ᕗ

[pap03]

Okay so I originally wrote this on Discord so apologies for any jank

But I need to get out my mega LOVE theory for Deltarune somehow, and Discord is the only place I've wrote it down lol

Anyways what got me going was this here difference in stats

Both being a post-Snowgrave Kris, just one from the Light World and the other from the Dark World

And this discrepancy would be strange right? If both LV's stood for the same thing

Which I'd why I claim that they do not

Rather that the LV in the Light World still refers to the LOVE of UT

While the LV in the Dark Worlds stands more properly for a "Level" a way of gauging the amount of Experience the Fun Gang have

Doubly true as the Dark World stats measure nowhere "EXP" aka "Execution Points"

From what I can tell Level only goes up upon reaching certain HP values, as Noelle goes from Level 1 to Level 2 in the Dark World

Since Noelle "Levels up" upon finishing just one act of violence in the Dark World

So I think it'll be possible later on to Level up early if you're violent enough

Sorta opposite of how it worked in UT, where you needed to LOVE up to get HP

In Dark Worlds you need to get your HP up to Level up

But that’s a bit of a tangent; continuing on

With the ground rules laid out that LV and LV can exist synchronously the next thought in my ramblings was that I need some proof that Noelle will continue to be our main Puppet, to explain why this LV theory should be relevant

And on that front, I got several bits

Easiest for me to lay out here is that the Survey taker at the beginning of ch 1 has special dialogue if you name yourself after a majority of the party members

This includes: Kris, Susie, and Noelle

All 4 share the same reaction

Secondarily Noelle lays out herself in the hospital that she's gonna figure out what's going on with Kris, which means to me that she'll keep coming around Kris, even despite the coercion into murder

And lastly, Noelle’s crush on Susie has so much unmissable screentime that Chekov would shit his grave if there were no resolution to it

This established leaves the first 2 core tenents of my theory

1. LOVE exists

2. Noelle will be the sole Snowgraver as the game progresses

For the sake of it, let's tackle the ramifications of both of these in order, as 1 heavily leans into 2

1. LOVE as we know it in Undertale exists in some way form or fashion in Deltarune

Natural questions that raises

- Do Darkners count for EXP? Yes, I'd say so, given the inverse effect on how Levels contribute to HP compared to how Undertale's LOVE and HP work, and the fact Noelle gains HP faster than the rest of the Party when they commit violence I'd argue there's a secondary element increasing her vitality, that being her LOVE increasing

- If LOVE exists why isn't Noelle a complete psycho killer in the Light World? Because that's not how LOVE works, by sans's admission LV contributes to making it easier to hurt others, and easier to distance yourself, but never expresses that it creates a want to kill, although that does seem to be a side effect which I'll get into next section

Mechanics of LOVE across Undertale and Deltarune:

For most people who've played a neutral run of Undertale, you'll be remiss to note anything going on as you gain LV. As much as I love Frisk as the blank slate of a protagonist that they are, their lack of emotions makes it hard to tell what exact the differences are between an LV 3 individual and an LV 7 one, differences sans can tell, but we can't really

So then we have to look elsewhere, mainly the Genocide run and comparing characters who may have killed in UT to their murderless counterparts in Deltarune

- Early LV's 1-6

At this point a person has killed a bit, but is also where the effects of each individual LV is the most noticeable, as sans has unique dialog for every LV here

What this tells me is that your first kills change you the most compared to later kills

Also during this LV range we see Frisk start their way through Snowdin in a Geno run, where they skip puzzles without our input, and are generally quieter than even before

I call this part of the LV grind "Getting Colder" for many reasons, partially for the pun, but also how we see Frisk act much more distant, aka cold, towards their surroundings and walk through situations, giving of an energy of "I don't care, let me through"

Considering this is also the LV's you'd end the game at for killing just Toriel or Undyne (two impassable bosses without killing or their special sparing method) that general sentiment persists

For the sake of it, I also reference Gerson and Asgore, Gerson was in the War of Humans and Monsters and has intimate knowledge about human combat and abilities, and while it's canon that no human casualties were suffered through the whole War, I would not be surprised if Gerson had to put down a fellow monster or two during the chaos after the Barrier was first erected. Yet despite that idea, Gerson is still just a bubbly, slightly traumatized, old man in Waterfall telling me that you can work past Early LVs. Yet there's also Asgore, as of the time of me writing this the only character who has canonically (and confirmed to) taken the life of anything, and as of our time encountering him, he's distantly removed from the act he's doing, which is another murder. However I must mention that there's a lot of shit there for Asgore compared to Deltarune's Asgore that could lead to the state he's in beyond LOVE so take that with a grain of salt

- Middle LV's 7-14

This is where an interesting switch occurs, specifically at LV 9 but the larger grouping together sorta encompasses it all. This is where Frisk (yes Frisk I'll elaborate if I have to) begins to enjoy the act of killing, smiling before every encounter, and even reveling in the fear of others, such as when Frisk intimidates Monster Kid just before the Undying fight

Now above I talk about how wanting to kill isn't a symptom of LV, and I still believe that

While this seems to be contradicting evidence to that claim I don't think so, as I think it's around this point that one becomes so distant that the act of killing someone else doesn't invoke any feeling of remorse anymore

Where Frisk's enjoyment is derived from is their "Determination" as at the point they're smiling they've killed every monster they could find up to this point, so they're happy to "finish what they started" and also why the Smile goes away if you abort Geno at this point forward as that goal of eradication is gone

- High LV's 15-19

This is the grouping we know the least about, as the majority of these are Geno exclusive, CORE/Hotland exclusives no less which at this point the whole Underground is on lockdown so any unique traits from here are lost in translation, from best we can tell, anything shy of all kills isn't labeled as "True Evil" by MTT and LV 17 is labeled as "Bad at being evil" by sans

So perhaps there's some room for redemption at this point? Idk, sans doesn't think so at LV 19, but it's an interesting thought

- LV 20

This one gets a special mention just because of how everything goes down

The Mercy Button is gone

Frisk is able to make inputs without Player input

And at this LV it's possible to summon the Demon, a manifestation of the evils you caused and power you gained by pushing this world to its limits that quite literally has the power to attack the game box Undertale is played in

This demon is the single most powerful being we've encountered inside of UT/DR outside of maybe Asriel

Now, with everything LOVE-related established we can also use it as a symptom list to diagnose Noelle at where she's at and take a rough estimate as to how much LOVE a single Snowgrave run would allow for

And well, I won't run yall through the numbers so to speak but she's solidly in the Early LV's

She still has remorse for the deaths she did cause

But she's also able to distance herself from her actions there, could be grief but her interactions with her father on Snowgrave compared to a Main Route shows to me that she's a little more reserved, which also falls in line with Early LV symptoms

So what does that leave?

Well, as someone pointed out to me before, Noelle has some violent tendencies

They're reserved, but come out when say, Berdly also has a crush on Susie, or if it's encouraged (see what this whole post is about lol)

See also the theory that the damage at the beginning of the Cyber World was caused by Noelle, not Queen, and there's reason to see where things may go as Noelle breaches into the Middle LV's

I see her, like Frisk, enjoying the slaughter as things continue on

So to conclude my little LOVE Theory I see the rest of Deltarune going as such

1 more route of us manipulating Noelle into killing, she'll be far more resistive, but I know we'll break through, with the boss of that area that she kills (secret boss or another Lightner) the last we'll see of Noelle she'll have cracked a smile

Then from there on she'll easy, fights will break out just from her instigation, or from others more heroic trying to get in her way

By the end I think we'll have to fight her, and she'll kick our asses

Or we'll have to fight Kris

It's hard to know that far ahead

But using LOVE alone, that's how I see things going

Thanks for reading if you did! Feel free to comment and discuss or ask me questions through my ask box. Hope you enjoyed my transcribed madness lol

[badbatchposts]

Quiet Corners of the Galaxy, Ch. 21

Fic Teaser: While on a routine mission for Cid, the Bad Batch encounter a woman fleeing from the Empire. Crosshair suspects her seemingly free-spirited, nomadic existence is actually a cover for something else, but struggles to keep his attraction toward her in check as their personalities and ideals clash.

Relevant tags/content warnings: Crosshair/Original Female Character, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Periodic Smut, Canon-Typical Violence, Alcohol Use

Read the full fic so far on AO3

Read previous chapters on Tumblr: Ch. 1 l Ch. 2 l Ch. 3 l Ch. 4 l Ch. 5 l Ch. 6 l Ch. 7 l Ch. 8 l Ch. 9 l Ch. 10 l Ch. 11 l Ch. 12 l Ch. 13 l Ch. 14 l Ch. 15 l Ch. 16 l Ch. 17 l Ch. 18 l Ch. 19 l Ch. 20

Chapter 21 summary: Omega encounters a stranger on Rex's base, and the clones get some answers.

Omega was finally content again.

Sure, she loved being on Pabu, and—for the first time ever—had even chosen to stay behind while her brothers went on a job for Cid. It had disappointed her when Hunter holoed to say that they would have to be away a while longer, but still, she was doing fine, enjoying her time with her friends, keeping up with her training.

But when they called and said they still wouldn’t be coming back for her—and that they were even planning on going to Rex’s base without her, which was unfathomable—she decided she had had enough.

Her brothers really underestimated her sometimes. Yes, she was a kid, and she was still learning. But it hadn’t been hard at all to make it here on her own.

Of course, they weren’t too happy about how she’d done it.

But even then, Rex could always use a new ship, and hers—yes, hers, she’d won it fair and square, but she was happy to loan it to the Captain, since she already had the Marauder—was a beauty. That pirate captain had even been rather nice, he was funny. But terrible at sabacc. Even when he was cheating.

Hunter and Echo had given her a scolding when they arrived, which was undermined almost immediately by Wrecker and Tech’s eagerness to hear the story and all of their happiness at finally being together again. And now she was excitedly exploring the base while the others spoke worriedly with Rex. She would find out what was going on later, whatever it was that had kept Crosshair back at the Marauder. Sometimes Hunter liked to protect her from the things they were concerned over, but she knew they would eventually tell her all about it. They would need her advice, after all.

But until then, she had plenty of time for enthusiastically running across the bridges that linked the base’s many interconnected, covered platforms, gazing into the shallow water of the grassy wetlands below and spotting the brightly colored flying fish that alternated between diving beneath the surface and flapping through the air. Omega slowed as she crossed one bridge and approached an open-sided platform hosting a brightly lit communications array at the center, where a silver-haired woman was tapping away.

“You’re not a clone,” Omega observed. She had never seen a non-clone working with Rex and the others outside of Senator Chuchi and her guards on Coruscant. “What are you doing?”

The woman glanced up. She looked the young girl over for a moment before turning back to her work calmly.

“You must be Omega,” the woman replied.

“Yes. What’s your name?” Omega asked.

“Dara.” The woman wasn’t very chatty, but not in an altogether unfriendly way. She just seemed focused on what she was doing, like Tech at his datapad.

“Hello, Dara. So, what are you doing?” Omega repeated brightly.

“Sending a message.”

Omega scrunched her nose a little at the succinct reply. Maybe it was less that this woman was focused like Tech, and more that she was quiet and solitary like Crosshair. The young girl peered over Dara’s shoulder curiously, trying to make out what she was up to for herself.  

“But you’re not saying anything,” she pointed out.

Dara looked up again, raising an eyebrow at Omega with amusement. Tenacious thing, isn’t she, she thought.

“Not exactly,” she explained as she continued to work. “Instead of sending text or words, I’m sending sounds over the line. They’ll just seem like interference so no one will be able to tell it’s a message if it’s intercepted.”

Omega was instantly fascinated. “Ohhhh. Well, how does the person you’re sending it to understand it?”

“The combinations of sounds all stand for something. They know the key, so they can decode it.” Dara finished sending her message. She crossed her arms and leaned back on the array, turning her full attention to Omega, who looked calculating.

“What if the wrong person figures out the pattern?” Not just tenacious, the kid was smart, too, thinking through all the possibilities. Dara was impressed, and happy enough now to satisfy Omega’s interest. She was in no rush.

“It won’t matter. The message is in a language that very few other people understand anymore.” Dara, in fact, had known one of the only recognized experts in the galaxy on this ancient language. He was dead now.

“But…what if someone identifies it?” Omega countered. It was like a game for the girl, considering all the contingencies. It reminded Dara of herself. She wished that it didn’t.

Dara smiled, a little sadly. “It still won’t matter. The content is coded too. The message seems like something normal. It might say that I’m excited because I’m going on a trip soon. But the person I’m contacting will know that means something different. Like, I won’t be able to make a rendezvous.”

Omega was suitably impressed. “Wow. That’s pretty cool. And complicated.”

The woman nodded knowingly. “The more layers the harder it is to crack, and the more likely it’ll be overlooked by the Empire.”

“Neat!”

“Indeed. That is quite clever. Unfortunately, your unauthorized access of our communications system did trigger an alert.” Tech was approaching from one end of the platform, pistols drawn. Dara didn’t have to look around to know that Wrecker and Hunter would be similarly cutting off her access to the other bridges. But then, she wasn’t interested in escaping—not before she had the chance to chat with Rex. If she had been, she would be long gone already.

Sure enough, Dara heard the Sergeant’s gravelly voice coming from behind her. “Omega. Get away from her. Now,” Hunter barked.

Omega looked back and forth from Dara to Hunter, the confusion on her face quickly turning to suspicion. The woman gestured with her chin. “Go on, kid. Go to your—dads? Brothers? Honestly, I still haven’t worked out whatever this is.”

The girl backed away quickly towards Wrecker, who had advanced from a third direction. He moved to position his sister behind him, putting his body between her and Dara.

“What’s going on?” Omega demanded.

“She’s been spying on us,” Hunter replied darkly. “That’s why we were gone longer than we expected. We thought it was too risky for her to find out about you. And we were right.”

Dara snickered. “I’m a risk? Do you even have any idea how many innocent people Crosshair has killed?”

Tech frowned. “Dara, where is Crosshair? What did you do?”

“Less than he deserved.” Dara’s eyes were glinting, but they softened when she noticed Omega peer with distress around Wrecker. She sighed and shook her head. With one hand held out in front of her, she unholstered her blaster slowly and let it clatter to the floor a few feet away. “He’s fine. Go ahead, I know when I’m beat.”

Dara held her wrists out in front of her and allowed Hunter to clamp binders around them yet again. Omega was still examining her curiously as they led her away.

***

Crosshair had a splitting headache. He supposed he should be grateful that Dara had only stunned him, rather than cutting his throat, but it was a small consolation. A slightly bigger consolation was the fact that at least she hadn’t escaped. When he awoke to Tech’s concerned expression as his brother held a medical scanner irritatingly close to his face, he had been certain that Dara was long gone, and was surprised to learn that they had intercepted her so easily. He could only speculate as to why.

Now he was watching from a perch atop a pile of crates in the corner as Rex prepared to question her, worrying a toothpick and scowling at anyone that looked at him. Scowling at anyone, that is, except for Omega, who scrambled up the crates to take a seat next to him before Rex got started.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Terrible,” he griped.

She grinned and gave him an affectionate pat on the arm. “Mad that she got the drop on you?” she replied knowingly.

The sniper grumbled. In fact, he was mad—at himself, for underestimating Dara. After all that time suspecting her, he’d almost let himself believe he was wrong. And then, seeing her in the cargo hold, hands bound behind her back and looking up at him with fury etched into every line of her face—he’d let himself get distracted by how badly he still wanted her anyway. Even as she looked back at him with every bit of the disgust that he deserved.

But he couldn’t tell Omega that. Instead, he ignored her teasing and changed the subject. “Heard you got up to some fun without us, kid.”

Omega rolled her eyes. “I already got a lecture.”

“You won’t hear one from me. I know you’re the most capable member of the squad.” Crosshair mussed up her hair, earning an even bigger grin. He had missed her.

Omega furrowed her brow thoughtfully, gazing at Dara, who was leaning back in her chair and had her feet up on the table as Rex approached, her nonchalance and familiarity belying the seriousness of the situation. After so long observing her expressions and characteristics while she was undercover, Crosshair was now struggling to read her; she was still controlled, but somehow harsher, more commanding, her every move more transparently calculated. If they had known Dara the free-spirited nomad, this was now Dara the rebel spy—and though this version was closer to the truth, the Dara he had been seeking to draw out still seemed to lay buried beneath who knows how many layers.

As he watched, she directed a quick wink to Howzer, shrugging, unbothered, when the reg scowled back. Gregor, however, who was seated next to Howzer, sent his own cheeky wink back, making Dara smirk with amusement. Crosshair clenched his fists.

“So, what’s going on with her?” Omega asked. “Echo said she’s not with the Empire, so why was she spying on the squad?”

Crosshair frowned. “We rescued her from Imperials. She was using us to hide out from them and reporting back on us to her rebel faction.”

“Huh.”

Omega looked like she was going to say more, but the sniper was grateful to be saved from further questions by the beginning of Rex’s interrogation, which they both leaned forward eagerly to see. The rest of the Batch were seated elsewhere around the platform, similarly interested in hearing what Rex came up with in the face of Dara’s usual restraint.

The Captain seated himself across the table from Dara and nodded in greeting. “Hello again, Keranji.”

Dara smiled crookedly. “Thought maybe you’d forgotten me, Captain. But I don’t go by that name anymore.”

No wonder Tech hadn’t found anything about her; she’d changed identities since the Clone Wars. Crosshair could see his brother tapping furiously at his datapad, no doubt already using the new information to search for more background.

Rex smiled back. “Dara, then. Your hair used to be darker.”

“I used to be younger.” Dara cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders, as if to suggest that she could feel the tension of the years building up bodily. Maybe she could.

“We all did,” Rex acknowledged. “Still, I don’t usually forget a face.”

“I used to laugh more too.”

She seemed weary. It was strange to look at her now, when only a few rotations earlier she would have made every effort to disguise that bone-deep exhaustion. Crosshair tried to imagine her as a hopeful, fresh-faced insurgent learning from Rex and the Jedi how to fight back against the Separatists that had taken over her planet. It was a difficult image to conjure up. Instead, all he could think of was her grief from the night of the bar fight—the devastation that made it look like she might shatter at any moment.

That night, had she been thinking of her friend—the one he’d killed? No—he remembered what day that was on the standard calendar, and that wasn’t the anniversary. She must have been thinking of another dead friend. Another one of many, a number he had only added to.

“We all did,” Rex agreed with her softly. The Captain paused a moment, let them sit with their shared loss, before he continued. “Still palling around with Saw, then?”

Dara shrugged. “Took a bit of a sabbatical after we liberated Onderon, but couldn’t stay away I guess.”

“Not tired of fighting?”

The rebel slowly removed her feet from the table, planted her boots firmly on the floor, and leveled a steady gaze at him. “All of us are tired. Hasn’t stopped us yet, has it?”

Rex chuckled. “I guess not.” Crosshair began to get the sense that this was no longer an interrogation—if it ever had been. It was a negotiation. “I have to say,” the Captain continued, “I wish you would’ve reached out directly instead of spying on us.”

Dara, hands still clasped in binders, drummed her fingers against the table thoughtfully. “I’m sure you understand the need for caution. Trust isn’t a currency I trade in much these days. I thought it was too risky until I knew more. I apologize.”

Crosshair raised an eyebrow. She had wanted to trust them, to forge an alliance, but Saw had ordered her not to. She made no move to clarify further, and he quickly realized that she wouldn’t. Dara had said “I,” not “we.” She was owning the decision, like it had been her decision all along.

Rex tilted his head, considering her words. The Captain had heard the audio recording of Dara’s call with Saw—Tech had passed it along while they were still in hyperspace. Crosshair wondered what Rex would make of the discrepancy.

He would probably think it showed loyalty.

“Before we caught you, you got a message out to Saw. Should we expect him here soon?” Rex inquired slowly.

Dara pursed her lips. “No. You’re stuck with me.”

“Why is that?” he pressed.

“Against protocol to attempt a rescue.”

“Ah.” Rex stood, radiating an easy authority from his perfect military posture. “Well, I would like him to come. I understand you don’t trust us. And I understand why. But it’s clear that we’re working on parallel missions, and we’re willing to extend our own trust. Enough to have him and a few of your people on base, and to see if we can work towards some sort of cooperation.”

Dara regarded him seriously, then glanced around at the other members of the Batch watching the conversation, although she studiously avoided looking at Crosshair’s corner. “I may be able to arrange that.”

“Come on, then.” Rex removed her binders and led her to a holoprojector nearby. Stretching and rubbing her wrists a little, Dara entered the information to call Gerrera.

When Gerrera’s image popped up, his arms were crossed, and his gaze was smoldering. “Rex. It’s good to see you’re alive. I trust you’re treating Dara well.”

The Captain nodded. “Nice to see you, too, Saw. I wish the circumstances were better, but Dara and I have come to something of an agreement.”

“Uh-huh.” Gerrera still looked severe, and he was eyeing Dara closely, as though checking that she was uninjured. “I hope the terms of that agreement don’t involve holding my head of intelligence hostage.”

Now that was some useful information. Crosshair thought he could see Dara grinding her teeth. If he’d learned anything about her at all, he was willing to bet that she had hoped she could keep them thinking she was nothing more than an everyday operative, still holding back information even as they took a step toward trust. Paranoid, indeed.

A lesser man than Rex would have rolled his eyes at Gerrera’s accusation, but the Captain only stiffened a little. “Dara is free to go whenever she likes. What we want is to invite you here, to see if we can find a way to collaborate,” he countered.

Dara spoke up, not giving Saw the chance to reject the idea outright again. “I think it would be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Both our groups could do with some intelligence sharing and joint strategizing, and—if Rex’s people are willing—I’d like to learn from some of their tactics and receive training for a few of my specialists. Their encryption skills in particular far surpass our own capabilities. By working together and sharing information like that, we can all get stronger.”

This seemed to convince the rebel leader. Where he had been unwilling to consider Dara’s arguments before, he now had to acknowledge that the ruse was over. Their only options left were to cooperate or to walk away. Hesitating only a little—though looking no less intense—Gerrera accepted the proposal.

“Okay. We can talk about it. But it’s going to be at least ten rotations before I can make it.”

Dara nodded. “I’d like to discuss with Rex the possibility of conducting a small, joint operation before then. Something to demonstrate the potential of the alliance.”

“I’m sure we can find something,” Rex agreed.

“Good. Dara, keep me up to speed. Rex, I’m looking forward to seeing you in person again. It’s been a long time.” Gerrera’s holoprojection blinked out.

Rex visibly relaxed, clapping Dara on the shoulder. “Well done. I think he’s well on his way to being convinced. Much more amenable to it than during your earlier call.”

Dara shook her head, equal parts annoyed and amused. “ I should’ve known better than to talk to him directly. It only takes one time being sloppy to get caught.”

“That was him being amenable?” Echo murmured.

Dara turned and grinned at him, a real, toothy, un-curated smile that broke through her barriers. This was what she actually looked like, Crosshair realized, when she was happy. When her guard was down for a moment.

She shrugged. “You should see what he’s like usually.”

Tag list: @stardusthuntress @skellymom @megmegalodondon @somewhere-on-kamino @morerandombullshit @zahmaddog

Thanks again to @cloneflo99 for the amazing banner!!!

Author's note: SMUT IS FINALLY COMING NEXT CHAPTER! Which should be posted next week!

Next chapter

[moon-delia]

★ ៸៸៸ CH. QUIRKS 2 ╱ post ❜ ✸ ៸ !?!

The problem with character quirks is that if overused, and done badly, what could be a fun and memorable way to distinguish one character from another can quickly become grating for the reader and stop them from wanting to turn the page.

★ ! AVOID THESE ❪ 🎧 ❫ ៸ !?!

# ៸ steer clear of clichés. Some character quirks and certain words have been overdone to the point of being farcical (although, if writing satire or a genre where readers expect certain tropes, go to town with the cheese!).

# ៸ avoid stereotypes. Racist, sexist, ableist, or any other type of stereotypical observations are not quirks. Mental health issues and disabilities are not quirks. Think about why you are giving certain characters a unique trait, how it fits into the plot, and try to be original with it.

# ៸ don't overdo it. If all your characters are ever so quirky it will detract from the story. It's important to create unique characters, yes, but each one doesn't have to be weird and kooky. Sometimes having a fall guy, a straight and serious foil, can enhance the hero's quirkier traits.

★ ! PLAN IT ❪ 🎧 ❫ ៸ !?!

# ៸ think about what you're trying to say. Every character in your story should look and act a certain way for a reason. So imagine your cast, (create a vision board on Pinterest if it helps with physical features), and ask yourself why they look and behave the way they do.

# ៸ make a list of your characters' quirks. Try to be original, amusing, or endearing. Don’t match a quirk with a character for the sake of it, make sure it’s relevant to who they are, what they are trying to achieve, or to the outcome of the story.

# ៸ make your characters rounded. Ensure their name, backstory, and how they interact with the rest of the characters matches their personality and quirks.

# ៸ remember quirks are a reflection of a character's disposition. Think about their mental state, their personality, their backstory, and their constant state of mind.

Here Are Some Ideas For Character Quirks:

# ៸ physical quirks.

★ a birthmark

★ wears braces

★ tall / short

★ tattoos / piercings

★ keeps dying their hair a different color

★ unusual hair color

★ noticeable scar

―

★ walking habits

★ sleeps in a strange position

★ avoids eye contact

★ sits extremely straight

★ laughs behind their mouth

★ claps to accentuate each word

★ moves arms and hands a lot when talking

★ does little dances when happy

―

★ raspy voice

★ talkative

★ sings when speaking

★ they clear their throat before speaking

★ hums all the time

★ says ‘err’ or other fillers a lot

★ loud talker/quiet talker

# ៸ behavioral quirks.

★ obsessive cleaning

★ tying their hair up

★ sleeves always rolled up

★ always chewing their lip

★ cracking knuckles

―

★ extremely loyal

★ people pleaser

★ unnecessarily rude

★ fusses over people

★ makes their friends gifts

―

★ chews their nails

★ twirls their hair

★ uses the same word over and over

★ swears a lot (creative swear words are the most fun)

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Sunday, July 14th

WESLEY: I should've done a better job protecting you. FRED: What? WESLEY: (sighs) That didn't come out... FRED: Do you realize how patronizing that sounds? Protecting me? WESLEY: I just meant you shouldn't have been there in the first place. FRED: That's not for you to decide.

~~Lineage~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

The Green Monster by veronyxk84 (Buffy, PG-13)

Awakening by seredelgi (Buffy x Spike, G)

I Would Dye For You by spikesummers (Buffy/Spike, T)

Another Life by tastes_like_rain (Greek mythology fusion, Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Angelus, G)

Reprieve by tastes_like_rain (Buffy/Angel, not rated)

Lie by tastes_like_rain (Buffy/Angel, T)

She, Her by tastes_like_rain (Angel/Buffy, T)

Call me! Maybe? by Spikelover4ever (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

The Green Monster by VeroNyxK84 (Buffy, PG-13)

[Chaptered Fiction]

Truth and Consequences, Ch. 20 by JamesMFan (Buffy/Spike, R)

Infernal Fire, Ch. 7 by Melme1325 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

The Degradation of Duality [Series Part 2] Ch. 26 by Ragini (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Itty Bitty Wiggy Piggy, Ch. 2 by ClowniestLivEver (Buffy/Spike, R)

Get Out, Ch. 2 by simmony (Buffy/Spike, R)

Mysteries of the Unexplained, Ch. 2 by Willow25 (Buffy/Spike, R)

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, Ch. 2 by cawthraven (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

There Is a Season, Ch. 2 by Inevitablethief (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Free to a Good Home, Ch. 2 by though_you_try (Buffy/Spike, R)

It's Good Branding! Ch. 2 by Amina (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

The Summoning, Ch. 2 by the_big_bad (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Laid, Ch. 2 by Holly (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Close to Home, Ch. 2 by Sigyn (Buffy/Spike, R)

Another Truce? Ch. 2 by To Be Hers (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Some lovely glorious nothing I did see... Ch. 2 by fortes775 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

First Love, Ch. 1 by Spikesgirl28, DeamonQueen (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Shenanigans, Ch. 2 by flootzavut

[Images, Audio & Video]

Gifset: What do you know? Bitty Buffy. by 5bi5 (Buffy, Dawn, worksafe)

A Buffy/Willow gifset by ladyverdance (worksafe)

A scene from Holly's fic "Seven" illustrated by lystacre (Buffy/Spike, worksafe)

A Funko Pop of David Boreanaz and his dog customized by myboyknows (worksafe)

Screencaps captioned with text posts by tara-maclays-gf (Spike, Willow/Tara, Andrew, worksafe)

Spike by flootzavut (G)

Buffy and Spike in Baldur’s Gate 3 by CalytrixRoyale (worksafe)

demon sluts by Anonymous (Angel, Wesley, Explicit)

[Reviews & Recaps]

How would you change/recreate the show? (cont'd) by KaitKat, Anyanka Bunny Slayer

Just finished watching for the first time by Azzie8107

S2E7 ("Darla") -- Epic Crossovers and Dark Legacies: Unpacking Darla's Story – Wolfram & Cast

[Recs & In Search Of]

[AtS] Rewatch podcast recs by multiple people for Rodimusprime8877

[Fandom Discussions]

Re: which buffy characters do you think could do the salmon ladder by dykemarcille

the scoobies are so mean to cordelia and for what. by mistyheartrbs

Who [on AtS] has no screen time but all the plot relevance? hosted by Gothamstreetcat

What would you say is the most painful onscreen injury in the series? by Whedonite144

Spike's fighting ability by SwiftDelRey13

Do you think Xander knows how to play guitar? [Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered] by agrizzlybear23

What's a hard truth for most Buffyverse fans to accept? hosted by PristineSituation498

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

Updated James Marsters GalaxyCon Raleigh 2024 Schedule via jamie_marsters

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 6 Tsumihoroboshi pt. 29

Could you imagine how massively large these posts would be if I spent the money to upload more pictures per post? How unwieldy and unreadable?

Like with Meakashi, Tsumihoroboshi includes a post-game TIP. Unlike Meakashi this one is relevant to the large narrative and isn’t just the summation of the episode or character information for a character who hadn’t existed in the narrative at that point.

What I like about this so far is the ambiguity of when it could be set. There’s nothing really to confirm one way or the other if this is post Tatarigoroshi, or after Rena had taken her class hostage. It’s a fine piece of misdirection.

I seem to recall reading somewhere along the way that there basically already was a concrete quarry in Hinamizawa. I don’t remember if it was in any of the other chapters, or if this was a set up for one of the console arcs, or the manga. I don’t think it matters in relation to this because clearly the concrete swamp is a newer construction to cover up the mysterious goings-on in Hinamizawa. I assure you we’ll find out more about this in Minagoroshi. That said, I don’t really know how concrete works, I know that it hardens over time, and it’s a vaguely liquid substance when its being set, but I don’t think that it’s basically Jello where you just dump a load of it into a liquid and stir. Hell, maybe that’s exactly it, but then again, I’m not sure, my knowledge of construction is limited at best.

I can completely buy the idea that conspiracy nuts on the internet just adopted and love the idea of File No. 34. Early 2000s, little baby internet just awash with a wide assortment of brand new conspiracy theories you’d never heard of? It’d be more surprising if people didn’t buy into the alien conspiracy, especially since it comes paired with a lovely demonic, supernatural element? That’s like all of Coast to Coast AMs Christmases came all at the same time.

Reading this again does make me wonder about the culprit’s motive overall. But I feel that’s a discussion that should probably be saved for Minagoroshi. Also the world of copyright is weird, you can basically describe the entirety of a movie, but the second you mention the name you’re in legal trouble.

I’m choosing to interpret this as there was no additional damage that could be attributed to the volcanic gases. Because if you just leave cars and buildings unattended for twenty years there will be natural wear and tear. Why yes, I do feel like a big man for picking a fight with a translation over a couple of weird phrases.

See, up until the specific mention of Rika dying the same day Rena had taken the school hostage I was firmly convinced this was taking place in the timeline of Tatarigoroshi. Which I suppose in hindsight is probably stupid on my part since it mentions specifically Rena having the scrapbooks and all that. At the time, when reading it it made sense to me, but the revelation that Rika died shortly after the hostage situation took me by surprise.

I knew about the Sarin gas terrorism attack because it was mentioned very briefly in Saw 2. And then I had heard about some Japanese horror film that was about that incident. I don’t remember the name of it, but then again that movie came out nearly twenty years ago or so. Also I don’t know how to explain it that despite the text of the visual novel agreeing with earlier theories of mine that the Great Hinamizawa Disaster was a perpetrated by a cultist, my brain at the time was just dwelling on the notion of the alien explanation. That’s my fault, and I truly wish I had a better explanation for why my brain interpreted it the way that it did.

I don’t know if I agree with the notion that Rena did this to expose the conspiracy. I guess she did, but during the fight with Keiichi she mentions that she doesn’t necessarily believe in the conspiracy any more. Also there isn’t any documents from the trial to gauge one way or the other about whether she actually still believes in the aliens/mind control parasite any more. For all we know, she got over the whole thing and just accepted her actions as a matter of course.

[catgirl-catboy]

Hey! I watched the new total drama season you send I enjoyed the new season I must say

Did you enjoyed it? What is your opinions?

I really did enjoy it, but I also think it had the same flaws as the rest of the total drama series, as expected. (the danganronpa ask is sitting half completed because I got a case of the TD brainworms!)

Namely, that except for gen 2, every generation has a character whose personality is 80% fart jokes. Now, I love me a fart joke as much as any self-respecting 12 y/o boy, so its not that I don't find them funny. But I also think that a character shouldn't just be gross-out humor, and should have some other qualities to them. How does Ripper's bullying affect the goal of the game. Why is he on total drama if his main ambition in life is something else? He clearly feels insecure, but so does his designated victim. Explore that!

One take I saw floating around is that Emma and Chase's relationship is repetitive and annoying. That was the point! You aren't meant to ship them, and Bowie's thoughts on them are meant to mirror the audiences! That being said, I hope they change up the dynamic in season 2 because doing it for another season would get stale.

This is more of a personal preference than a complaint with the writing, but I found Raj's arc in this boring. "realizing you are gay because of a crush and then kissing him" is really overdone, and it felt like the main players in the Rajbow ship were Bowie and WAYNE. This isn't a bad thing, but I hope he becomes a more distinct character in season 2. Maybe Bowie can teach him game strategy and he betrays Wayne to stay in the game longer tee hee hee.

I also don't really agree with the take that Bowie is bad rep because he's a very stereotypical gay man. A lot of total drama characters are based off stereotypes, like Lindsey being the Dumb Blonde and Heather being the Mean Girl. They evolve beyond those tropes throughout the reason of the show, and we actually see that with Bowie in just the one season he was in so far! After Raj got eliminated, he did a whole bunch of plot relevant shit that didn't involve him and was a compelling character outside of his romance plot. I call that a sign of good writing, but this is total drama so who knows if it will last.

And I don't think that TD is saying all gay man are stereotypical, because we have Raj, who is very much not that. He's a dumb jock that happens to be gay, and falls into the jock stereotype more than any gay one. I really respect that writing choice.

Pryia is one of my favorite TD characters, but season 1 Court still takes the number one spot. (even if she is hanging on Hall Monitor coattails!) I adore her! She totally deserved the win.

They made Axel too much like Eva and it felt like a really missed opportunity. We already have Eva and Jo, can we have a more GNC gal character that isn't totally aggressive? I'd like that. Hopefully, she becomes more of a player in the second series?

I also wish they gave Julia a different strategy than Heather. If a character needs constant immunity to stay in the game, then maybe they deserve to leave the game at that stage. Its overdone. I also feel like Julia showed skills in turning people against each other, which could have easily been her M.O. That being said, my favorite Villain Elimination by a longshot.

I really liked the energy brought to the jokes about Zee's leg. It doesn't come up often since my hearing aid isn't too visible, but if I have the opportunity to joke about my disability, I will take it! He's probably one of my favorite disabled rep besides Toph, and I'm glad that he wasn't looked down upon by his team during challenges. He didn't struggle with any challenges, and his leg actually helped at one point!

(one time, a teacher asked in frustration if anyone was deaf in here. Saying "Yes :)" was my crowning achievement and one of the best jokes I ever made. Its not relevant, but c'mon.)

I wish he had more of a character outside of comic relief, but still!!!

[thebadjoe]

BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY PART 4

Heyo! It's me again! I'm here to solve a mystery regarding this chapter. AS USUAL, MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR DANGANRONPA DESPAIR TIME CHAPTER 2, SO BEWARE! (Click here to see my previous parts if needed)

The heck are you talking about?! You've already solved the case!

Not quite. There is one mystery that I never managed to solve... until now. So yeah, I'm going to share my ideas in regards to what happened during the failed murder attempt on Ace in chapter 2. On top of that, there's a few other discoveries that may help or hinder my theory that I also wanna share with you guys. So sit tight people, this may be the last ride to my crime solving theory (I hope...).

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Step #1 : What happened to Ace back then?

Let's bring up a picture of the crime scene, shall we? Actually, better than that, I'll bring 2 pictures!

The fitness room before the murder attempt (Picture A)

The fitness room after the murder attempt (Picture B)

As you can see, there is quite the major difference between the two. Yes... quite indeed! There is no mistaking it, there was no body before the murder attempt then poof! Ace's body appeared after the murder attempt!

...............................................

Alright, alright! I'm sorry! That was a bad joke. Let's get to business!

Let me give you a list of the relevant and noteworthy discoveries.

A fan that fell down (Ripped out according to Teruko)

A bloody wire broken in half (one half attached to the blade of the fan)

A stepstool

A broom

A roll of grippy tape (originally came from the bar by the wall)

2 weight plates on the ground next to the treadmills

Moved benches (Right bench toppled over)

Moved and toppled over weight plate rack

Traces of blood on the wall, behind Ace's neck

The fan on the left in Picture B isn't moving

So last time I talked about this crime scene, not knowing exactly how it went, I simply presumed that because there's a part of the wire taped up on the blade, it must've been some complex murder mechanism involved to make it work, kind of like the mechanism the culprit pulled for the murder of Arei (Part 1 for reference).

It is the logical way to think about this, after all. However, if you were to think that the culprit created a mechanism that works in a loop motion like a chainsaw, but in slowmotion, there are two issues with it.

There is no blood traces shown on any of the props.

Aside from the wall, the body and the wire, there are no other visible traces of blood, which is very problematic. If we want to make that looping mechanism work, the wire would probably need to be going around some prop so that the wire pattern would be more on Ace's neck height. But since there's missing blood traces, it's just simply impossible.

As long as one end of the wire is attached to the fan, the possibility of a looping mechanism doesn't exist.

Think about it. For the looping effect to work, the beginning part of the wire would also need to be moved so that it would do a lap, but once you stick the beginning of that wire to something, then that part of the wire can't move away from here.

Therefore, once the whole wire follows its intended path, it doesn't come back, it doesn't create a loop. It's yet again another impossibility.

Why does creating a looping effect mechanism matter anyway?

Because according to my theory, the culprit (Eden) created a mechanism that would work on its own while she's away from the crime scene for the sole purpose of playing around the killing game rules which would make her seem even less suspicious.

Not only that, but because of the wounds on Ace's neck, it seemed like the wire damaged his neck multiple times, so surely the mechanism must've gone back and forth to make that happen.

Yet, creating that kind of mechanism is just plain impossible.

Ha! Then your theory doesn't work! Someone else did it!

Nope, not quite. It just narrows down the list of possibilities as to how it could've been done by Eden. It's an impossible mechanism because there's no other traces of blood and it cannot be looped?! Sure, but I just gotta think outside the box.

How do I create a murder mechanism involving a wire attached to the blade that doesn't loop nor does it leave traces of blood on any of the props? There's only one possibility I can think of. Here goes!

The wire was wrapped around Ace's neck multiple times, somewhat tightly.

Huh? That can't be right! Wouldn't the wire simply leave the body after a short while, not damaging the neck enough?

That's what I thought initially at first, but then I decided to make some experiments. ....No! Not that kind of experiment! I did not wrap it there to test it out, I promise! Well... I tried out around my arm first, but took precautions.

There is a way to test it out without endangering ourselves. Find some kind of wire and use it to wrap around an object that doesn't take most of your wire to make a lap like a bottle or a deodorant and try pulling eitheir ends of the wire. You will notice that the wire just stays there, it remains tangled around the object, it even tries to kinda squeeze the object and that's precisely what happened to Ace's neck.

Because of how many times it was wrapped around Ace's neck and the type of wire it was used, with the pulling motion from the fan, it would make considerable damage to his neck which could've turned for the worst if the mechanism wasn't stopped early enough.

And that's how the culprit created a murder mechanism that can do the job without being around to see it, without creating a looping mechanism and leaving barely any blood traces on the props.

There are some issues with this idea however. But since this is the most logical sound conclusion for the murder mechanism, there's most likely an answer to each issue.

It would be very difficult to wrap the wire around Ace's neck without any kind of help.

Let me explain. First things first, they didn't wrap the wire while the body was sitting down against the wall, it would most likely be impossible. Reason why lies in the blood traces of the wire as shown in Picture B.

Only parts of it is bloody, but more importantly is the fact that a good portion of the wire starting from the part that's attached to the blade doesn't have any blood. The beginning part that's clean is obviously the length between the body and the blade of the fan. We can kinda guess from this that it shouldn't be able to reach his neck if it was sitting down.

Therefore, the body needed to be standing for the whole duration, even setting up the murder mechanism. And that's where the benches come in handy, by keeping him in place. The weight plates probably helped a bit too? In any case, there's still another problem.

The body would bend forward as there's simply nothing supporting the upper part of Ace's body.

You could say that the culprit tried to hold the body against the wall with one arm while she used the other arm to wrap the wire around the neck. However, that would be pretty difficult to pull it off as the body could problably move still (she's probably not that strong to begin with) and it would take a greater amount of physical efforts to pull it off.

So she must've used something to help with that. Some kind of prop. It took me quite some time to think about it, but I think I found a pretty good answer to this riddle.

The culprit used the broom to increase the stability of Ace's body while setting up the murder mechanism.

Honestly, the broom confused me a lot when I was trying to figure out how this whole scheme worked on the murder attempt on Ace. To me, it made no sense as to why there was a broom laying around the fitness room. I couldn't understand it.

But now, I'm pretty sure I know why. The culprit placed the broom through Ace's shirt, in the back. Then, she placed the body against the wall and with the remaining support on the lower part of Ace's body (the benches), the body would barely move from its initial position.

Hah! I don't believe you! I'm calling bluff on that one!

Oh yeah? Then how about this? Why don't you test it out yourself? This one is a pretty simple and safe test to do (as you as you don't pull any stupid stunts).

Pick up a broom or a long wooden/plastic pole, place it through your shirt, from top to bottom, in the back. Lean against the wall or a door and try bending your upper body forward. I can guarantee you that it will be very difficult to do so.

That way, it would explain the purpose of most of the props found at the crime scene.

Not true! You still haven't explained why the weight rack was moved and toppled over!

Yeah... you're right. This toppled weight rack was probably the most challenging and annoying piece of the puzzle. No matter how much pondering I've made, even to this day, I can't find anything that relates the weight rack to the murder mechanism. Yet, it has been moved.

Considering who I believe the culprit is, I don't think she would be strong enough to move it wothout someone else's help. But according to my theory, she doesn't have an accomplice.

Then you admit it. Your theory doesn't work because of this.

No, that's wrong!

It's true that I can't make a connection between the weight rack and the murder mechanism, but why should I? We already know that most props aren't part of the murder mechanism as there's no traces of blood on them. Even though the broom was used to keep the body steady while setting up the murder, the culprit removed the broom afterwards.

Alright, but what about the culprit? You just said that she can't move it without someone's help, but you denied the possibility of an accomplice. So it's impossible!

Heh! It's impossible because we're looking at this from the wrong perspective. If it's not the culprit who did it, then it's clearly someone else who did, but I highly doubt it was Nico. Considering what we know, I propose the following possibility :

The person who moved and toppled the weight rack was Ace himself.

Huuuuuh?!!! Ace?! Why would the victim do that?! That doesn't make sense!

You say that because you think that this happened around the time of the murder setup. But that's where we got the wrong idea. In fact, the weight rack in itself has nothing to do with the attempted murder at all!

Ace moved it during the evening, when he was working out. The reason why he did it is most likely to get it closer to the bench press, making it more convenient to swap around weight plates. He basically did it to match his preferences.

Didn't he work out at evening, the day before the BDA?

Nope. I've proved last time that this actually happened the previous evening, before the night of the failed murder attempt. Not only that, but my proposition would actually prove that Ace was indeed working out that specific evening. Therefore, he didn't lie about working out.

So with this, that should explain the purpose of every single clue. The rest are pretty self explanatory.

The fan was stopped to set up the murder mechanism, then turned back on only to be turned off later again by Nico, who saved Ace unintentionally or not. Otherwise, it turned off automaticly as soon as it broke. The stepladder was used to reach the fan as she was setting up the murder mechanism and the roll of tape has already been explained in part 1 of my theory.

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Step #2 : One more clue in the trash

This is a discovery made by thefandomenchantress! (Thank you btw!). This discovery actually helps support my theory and I'll explain why.

So there is this one very subtle clue that can be found in the trash can as seen in the post. There's actually a needle with black string in that small hole. It must've been part of the murder scheme somehow cause I don't quite see why else it would be found here. I have 2 possibilities that could explain the use of that needle while also supporting my theory.

First one is that the culprit used it to do adjustments to her Arei costume. Remember, Eden's pretty small compared to most of the cast, so it's possible that Arei's outfit would've been a tad too tall for her. It would require some considerable amount of time to do it, but she could've easily done it during the night, while waiting for the relaxation room doors to open next morning to pull off her murder.

Second one is related to the ball of clothes. It's possible that she sew the old clothes together to make a bigger piece of cloth, like some kind of tarp to hide and preserve the unconscious body. It would'be been easier that way instead of trying to place multiple pieces of clothing and hope that it covers the whole body.

Heck, it's possible that the culprit used it for both possibilities instead of only one of them. And that, ladies and gentlemen, would explain why there was a needle with black string in the trash can.

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Step #3 : Arei, you look so different right now!

This has probably been mentioned a couple times in the past, but it definitly caught my attention when I read this subreddit thread. Let's take another look at Arei's corpse, shall we?

So according to OP in that subreddit thread, some observations about her indicate would indicate that these parts were done recently, like probably in the morning, a bit before 8:00 am and I'm sadly inclined to agreed on that.

Basically, there are two important things to note about the BDA : the red marks on her wrists and the fact that her body was swinging at the time. There's also the fact that the crime scene left out a lot of clues, like many of them weren't removed from the scene. The left out clues are explained in the 3rd part of my theory, so I'm not gonna dwelve on that.

Instead, I wanna talk about the red marks and the body swing. Initially, I thought the body swing was just a way to had some kind of mood to the BDA while I didn't bother thinking that deep about the red marks.

But I can't deny these two visible clues can't remain that way for a long time, especially the body swing. The red marks, I don't know how long it lasts, but it probably doesn't last that long. That's why the OP in this subreddit thread figured that this whole crime must've been carried out by 7:30 AM instead, but if you read all my theories so far, you should know that it's impossible (I also explained it in that thread's comment if you need a reminder).

It is conflicting my theory slightly however because the body hanging among a few other clues (like the dead fishes in the playground and the ball of clothes thrown in the dress up room) must've be done in the evening by David, before the day of the BDA. Yet he couldn't hang the body then otherwise the body would've stopped swinging a long time ago. So that's a contradiction. Yet, it feels like David is the only person who could've done it considering what I've told in my theory. So instead, I just need to fix my idea a bit to make it work.

When David found Arei's corpse, he figured out some kind of plan that would benefit him. First, he hid the body inside the changing room in the dress-up room. Then, he proceeded to grab the fishes with the old clothes to place them in the playground and once that's done, he rolled up the clothes into a ball and discarded it somewhere in the dress-up room. Then, next morning at 7:30 AM, he retrieved Arei's body and hung it at the swing set in the playground. He then removed the tape on her wrists and threw these in the trash before meeting up with the group in the movie screening room.

Why wouldn't David move the body to the playground much earlier, during the evening instead? He placed the fishes there already, so what gives?

About the fishes... you know what? I just made a quick realisation. Let me add something.

It's possible that he didn't place the fishes in the playground during the evening, but rather kept them inside the clothes, hidden in the dress-up room, waiting for next morning to "set up the crime scene in the playground".

Going back to the question previously, considering that it's possible he didn't move anything in the playground until next morning, I'm more inclined to believe that maybe he panicked. It was the evening, everyone else was still awake at the time, there was no telling when someone else would show up, so he neede to quickly hide the body somewhere else.

Why somewhere else? Remember the conversation that happened earlier that evening in the kitchen?

He knows damn well there were a few witnesses who knew that he headed to the relaxation room at the time. So if he left that corpse there and everyone else would find it the next day, he would've been the prime suspect almost instantly, no doubt about it.

So once he hid it somewhere else for the time being, went back to the first floor and took that time to think of a plan to solve the case while hopefully not having suspicions thrown at him and possibly even get his secret safe. Sadly, he really couldn't tell whodunnit (I mean, who could?), so the best thing he could do is investigate a bit.

So he goes back into the elevator next morning, probably around 7:30 AM and lo and behold, he finds clues in the playground. Those were clues that the real culprit left them there because she was in a hurry. So upon seeing this, he knew what he had to do. He needed to drag the remaining clues into the playground, thinking that it would make it a lot easier to pinpoint the culprit and solve the case.

But why the fishes? According to your theory, he grabbed and hid them quickly before even having a plan to set up the fake crime scene.

Well, since he couldn't grab the fishes before 8:00 AM nor would it have made sense to do so if he was able to, there's only one reason I could think of : he did it for the insurance.

Insurance? What do you mean?

That's because at the time, he didn't actually know much about the murder. He didn't actually know if that was the real place where she died or if that was a temporary hiding spot. So he must've figured that if someone else were to find the body hidden in the changing room, the fishes would indicate that the relaxation room is related to the murder somehow.

Like sure, he wanted to avoid having his secret revealed at all cost, but there's something else he wanted more than anything else : David wants to survive.

And since he's not the culprit, the best thing he can do is help the group solve the murder in his own way. If he left those fishes there, if he ever became a suspect and tried to tell everyone that he found the body in the relaxation room, it's very likely that no one would've believed him. So the fishes serve as proof in that scenario.

So there you have it. This should explain the meaning behind these clues discovered recently. While we're at it, it's been stated from others, but did you notice Arei's hair during the BDA? It looks pretty messy and I'm fairly it's because her hair was wet before, just like what some people suggested before.

And before you ask, no she was not drowned. It wouldn't make sense at all and I'm fairly sure it would've shown clear signs of drowning if that was the actual cause of death, so I'm gonna leave it at that.

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Step #4 : A big flaw in my theory

So... there is a discovery that I made on my own and it's not a good look on a certain aspect of my theory. Let me explain.

While I was finishing up my theory, making sure I didn't miss anything, I replayed in my mind how the crime happened according to me and I somehow managed to spot a major flaw in my own theory. It's such a big flaw, I'm actually surprised I didn't notice it for quite some time after making that post.

The major flaw in question lies in my motive.

Your motive? Again?! You've been changing your motive practically every post! What's up with you?!

Sorry, sorry! I thought for sure that I was right on the money with my crazy motive theory, but it looks like I'm way off the mark. You know... motives can be pretty complicated sometimes, they're a real pain in the you know what!

So to give a little reminder as to what my proposed motive was, it has something to do with the secrets. I deduced that there must've been a possibility that Eden had the exact same secret as David (the manipulator one) and she thought that this was going to be the revealed secret if no one commits murder.

I figured it'd make sense considering her murder scheme. It practically requires a fair amount of lying and manipulation. And if she indeed had that dark secret, since David had the same secret, the host had to make a decision choosing which one of the two should inherit that secret as the public reveal. The host wouldn't want two people having the same exact secret revealed, it would seem really odd.

So the host chose David as the person who would get this secret revealed to the public (if the murder is not done on time) while Eden would have a different secret. Not a fake one, of course. Something that's still part of her, not as dark, but still embarassing enough.

I figured that since Eden's secret seemed so light compared to the others, there must've been more to it. So that's why I came up with this idea. But you know what? This actually can't work. It wouldn't make sense.

Why not?

To explain it properly, we're gonna have to go back a couple episodes and use our imagination to think of what-if scenarios. Trust me, it'll be worth it.

So Eden plans ahead for a murder because on the first episode of chapter 2, when the secrets were given, because of the unknown, she thought for sure she had a very dark secret that she didn't want anyone to know.

So what was the actual murder plan? Killing Arei? Nope! Her intended target was Ace, mostly because he happened to be at the right place at the right time while also dropping his guard. It was the perfect opportunity.

Then later on, she knocks Arei unconscious and locks her inside the relaxation room so that she'll become the prime suspect of the murder of Ace. So the culprit sets up the murder mechanism, she turns it on, then leaves the room. Then all of a sudden, Nico comes in and screws up her plan as the murder attempt failed.

And that, right there, is where we're jump into a what if scenario. Let's go back a bit and pretend that Nico never showed up to begin with. Let's do one better, let's pretend that the murder attempt on Ace actually succeeded and he actually dies. So what now? What would happen?

Well, for starters, monoTV wouldn't display the secrets on the monitor since the BDA would most likely be done much before the deadline. Then Arei would become the main suspect, as predicted by the culprit. Then after that, they would struggle a lot more to figure out who the culprit is and whatnot. So whether the groups solve it or not, at the end of that trial, they wouldn't be able to figure out Eden's dark secret (let's pretend that she actually had a very dark secret for now). So everything works out in the culprit's favor, right?

BZZZZZZZ! WRONG!

We would be forgetting a very important fact if we believe that it would go down that way in a what-if scenario. Because the secrets were mixed-up, everyone knew the secret of a different person. So in that case, Charles knows Eden's secret.

Let's keep moving with the what-if scenario. So say that they're investigating the murder of Ace, they would find a few clues, but probably not enough to solve the mystery.

So what would happen if they have to do everything they can to solve the case, but don't have a lot of information to go on? They would reveal the next best bit of information they have at their disposal : the secrets!

Considering Charles' personality, there's no way he wouldn't reveal Eden's secret. He would definitly let everyone know about her secret. Whether it was indeed a very dark secret or not and whether they find out Eden has something to do with the crime or not. He'd even ask Teruko to show it as proof since he gave the piece of paper to her.

Basically, if that was the actual motive, it would only lead to her doom. Her secret would've been exposed anyways. Therefore, Eden's motive of trying to protect her believed dark secret can't work.

While I'm at it. The same applies to any theories out there that uses something like "they want to protect their secret" as a murder motive. None of these work for any individuals... except for one. The only one that could get away with it is whoever Arei had as a secret.

I knew it! Levi did it! Levi has to be the person with the murderer secret. He killed her to retrieve the secret!

Yeah... no. While it would've been an interesting motive and plot, I very much doubt he's the culprit. The roll of tape disappearance from the first part of my theory narrows down the list of suspect by a lot.

This is another reason why my motive theory doesn't make sense. To make sure that she fulfills that "goal", she would need to find out who has her secret and kill that target. She did neitheir of those. Otherwise, Charles would've been the victim.

So now what? Are you gonna propose that there was no motive?

Not at all! There was definitly a motive for commiting murder. It took me some time to think about it, but I may have a more plausible theory for the motive.

Eden has someone she loves and cares about a lot outside this killing game. She misses her dearly.

She... killed someone because of love?! Are you kidding me?!

Nope. Well, it wasn't just love. It was more like a chain of events that led her to be done with this place and wanted a way out of here to meet her beloved ASAP. Once you start thinking about the narrative in Eden's pov, it'll start to make sense. Let's rewind back to the very beginning : the prologue.

After everyone's introductions, monoTV shows up to announce the killing game show, that they're here to kill each other and whatnot. Levi came close to dying because he broke a rule for rebelling against the mascot. Realising the gravity, most people were pretty concerned about this. Eden's reaction in that scene was the following :

Well, to be fair, I'm sure most people, even yourself if you were in their shoes, would react like this. This is pretty scary, after all. In any case, this shows that from the beginning that she wanted to get out of here.

Later on, the next day, they try to figure out any ways to escape this place which, interestingly enough, Eden is the first person to bring it up as a reminder.

And then fast forward during chapter 1, there's some wholesome friendship moments happening with the girls in the kitchen, then some other stuff happens, then there's the murder, the investigation, the trial.

Then once Teruko figures out that the culprit is Min. It becomes quite a big shock for Eden since Min was in the kitchen with Hu and Eden most of the time, but as you know, it wasn't an airtight alibi.

So, to say the least, this chapter was pretty dramatic for most of the ultimates. Even towards the end of that chapter, it was quite a shocker when Teruko pretty much pulled the middle finger on all of them, telling that she carried the trial to victory (which she honestly did). She then swore that she would never trust anyone else ever again, which set a pretty dark tone going forward. Then the screen fades to black, introducing the beginning of the chapter 2.

Right before the beginning of that chapter, we get the following quote : "I still miss you. I miss you so much that I wish I you had never been a part of my life. The worst part is, even though you left me like this, there's nothing I can blame you for."

Then once the chapter begins, we jump right into Eden's pov. So based on everything we know about both chapters and that her secret is : "Ever since you kissed her, you were afraid your sexuality would ruin your friendships," it feels like the quote we saw earlier was actually Eden's thoughts.

Anyways, despite how gloomy this atmosphere seemed to be, after monoTV revealed the motive, she says the following.

Once again, she's the first person to bring up the "escape the killing game plan". She's seems a tad keen on wanting to get out of here. She could've also been trying to lift the mood up because of everything awful that happened in chapter 1, who knows.

We all know that there's been a lot more arguing this chapter, especially that one time where there were 3 different groups bickering : Ace and Nico, Arturo and J, Arei and monoTV. Basically, not a single day goes by without a dramatic moment happening this chapter.

Despite all that, Eden tries to remain positive and try to make more friends despite how stressed out she must've felt deep down. And then this happens...

Yeah, Arei coming in the the very intense bullying on Eden, which broke her down real bad. By the way, do you remember in the first part of my theory, when I claimed that this whole scene was the spark that made Eden decide to commit murder? Then in the second part, I rejected that idea because of her flashback showing a very wholesome moment between Arei and Eden? Guess what? I'm changing my mind yet again : Arei's bullying is definitly what caused Eden to kill someone.

What the heck are you saying?! Arei apologized and they both made up afterwards. You're just contradicting yourself!

I could claim that the flashback was entirely made up, but I seriously believe that everything she told in that flashback was the truth. Yes, it's true that they made up and became friends, but that doesn't matter anymore. She had her sights on something a lot more important : get the heck out of here by any means necessary!

It's exactly because of that bullying that it made Eden realise that she really misses that certain someone outside the killing game. She misses her dearly. So to make sure that she could escape this hellish show, she needed to come up with a flawless murder plan. Hence why there's been so much efforts put into this. She's serious about this.

Becoming friends with Arei was a golden opportunity for her. She could use this to her advantage and betray her. Make Arei become the scapegoat in this case, which was the original intent in her plan. As for the murder victim, it seriously didn't matter, she only needed to sneak on someone that would drop off their guard (which in that case, it would be Ace when he was spying on David and Arei).

Of course, things sadly didn't go according to plan for Eden and she had no choice but to murder Arei if she wanted her plan to succeed. Well, she could've still made the choice, but her desire to meet her beloved out there was much much stronger than anything else. She had to.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the whole truth behind this case. Well... would be if I end up being right. It's possible I may have a few things wrong once we learn the actual truth. Let's be honest there though : everything I've told you guys so far, it makes sense, doesn't it?

If you combine all my ideas, they all seem to be connected, don't you think?

Well, it's still up to you to decide whether you believe in my culprit theory or not. There's probably a couple other possibilities out there, but it'd take as much work, if not more, to connect all the dots, so be mindful of that.

And with that, I'd like to thank you all again for reading my theory post. It's another big read, I know. I'm sorry. Maybe I could've word things better, make it much easier to read, but hey. We never truly learn or improve if we never try in the first place, right?

Alright! Next post will be a closing argument post, which should make things kinda easier to understand my whole theory. See you then!

[asbestieos]

looks at you. hi. spare mayoi lore thoughts

GEHEJSHDJFBJ HII.. OK LET ME JUST PREFACE i have yet to read ch 5 mainstory + most of the stories out in !! currently so there may be preexisting evidence that totally contradicts my scuffed theory, n most of this is my imagination i thinks. but umm

you know how Kanata was revered as a god? im of the belief that Mayoi was like that, but directly opposite, with he and his family considered descendants of evil by the Yaobikuni cult

[ ID: Three screenshots of dialogue from Main Story Chapter 2: Troublemakers, Episode 28: Seniors. Mayoi: Even so, it must be uncomfortable for others to be around people like me, so I chose to live in as secluded a place as possible. Tatsumi: Haha. You talk like you are not a human being yourself. Mayoi: Oh...I'm sorry, but I've spent a lot of time not being treated like a human being. I can't help but think that I'm different from the rest of the world. End ID ]

Mayoi has nonexistent self-esteem, and he reveals that he wasn't treated as human for a good portion of his life. it's clear he was super fecking neglected and abused as a kid and made to feel subhuman, but he speaks as if he is / was meant to play that role. he thinks of himself as an evil and wretched thing who will never change and who should disappear from the world. it's almost like he was purposely raised to be a scapegoat... perhaps an embodiment of evil...

[ ID: Two screenshots of dialogue from Motor Show, Snail’s Pace / Episode 5. Kanata: Hmm~ ... Somehow, I can sense a nostalgic "smell" on him. Mayoi: Ehh? Oh, sorry for disturbing! Please ignore me, gentleman of [the] Five Eccentrics! End ID ]

additionally, it’s established in Motor Show that Kanata has some unconscious familiarity with Mayoi — it could just be that Mayoi was a student of Yumenosaki and was Eccentric-adjacent enough to be noticed by the student body (i mean he's one of the mysteries of Yumenosaki) so maybe his name was thrown around or Kanata had a meeting with him once, but what if they had a deeper connection (o_o ) what if they were connected, not by any meaningful relationship, but rather by a cult making figureheads of them

after all it's not just coincidence that Mayoi has a masterkey to nearly every room in Ensemble Square, right? that the land Ensemble Square was built on was bought from the Yaobikuni cult? that Mayoi has been living on that land for a long time before Ensemble Square was even built?

it makes sense to me because with a majority of mythology, where there's a "god", a force of good, there's usually a "devil", an opposing force of evil. in contrast to the Shinkai family, wish-granting descendants of the god of the Yaobikuni, the Ayase family serves as the embodiment of sin, the perpetrators to blame for any and all misfortune. the sacrifice, if you will, but in a different sense.

this is just a crazy ass theory though, and there are other connections i wanna make that i shrimply cannot bc of Not Reading Stories syndrome </3 if he is connected to the Yaobikuni cult, i can't explain why Mama doesn't seem to have relevant knowledge of him outside of being the phantom of Yumenosaki. his fear of the Sakumas is interesting to me though, and i'd love to look into his 2nd Featured Scout's story if i can find a translation (esp knowing that it involves Madara (O_O ))

so um. yes. thats why Mayoi is the devil! hope you liked the read!

[altraviolet]

Why is everyone horny on main today?

But also when we get to that chapter (whenever it happens, please don't rush) could we skip it without missing something to the story? I don't know if someone asked that or not already.

TF fandom is famously hornt to the max. It's the robots. They're gorgeous.

Technically, yes, you'll be missing 2 things if you skip that chapter. You can survive the story without reading those two things in that ch, you just might be a little confused later, but you'll be able to pick up, using context clues (probably) on what's going on/what happened.

I kinda feel for people who don't wanna read explicit material. I get it. But also I gotta write this for myself foremost, and I've always been really uneasy with explicit stuff (and SHARING explicit stuff, holy shit, it's excruciating). And this fic is literally me trying to become okay with it, because I've written it to be necessary to the plot, so I can fight that old saying "sex is never relevant to the plot." Cuz sometimes it is, and here it is/will be.

Maybe it'll help some other people be okay with it :D