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thenon-fictiondays · 1 year

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Hirano to Kagiura light novel translation 4-1

Chapter 4: Fall.

Part 1

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It might be September by now, but the sun’s rays know no bounds.

Heat from the weather aside, the schoolhouse on the coattails of summer break is permeated with the fervor of the students.

Among all those in the athletic clubs who have undergone away games and training camps, there are many who have deepened both their tans and their virility. The sense of achievement characteristic of those who kept up with their exercise lives within their growth spurts.

Hirano’s roommate is, once again, one of them.

Kagiura, who’s gotten a bit taller, has gotten used to high school, completely devoid of the anxiety he’d seemed to have around the time he’d started school.

Since they’d met up over the summer, he’s become more and more relaxed, and Hirano can’t help but think of him as a beloved younger brother.

Wait, but younger brothers don’t do things like give you earrings, do they?

Hirano isn’t really in a position to judge, with no siblings of his own.

He’d found his original earrings while organizing his luggage after returning from Kagiura’s countryside home. They’d fallen into his school bag and hidden themselves beneath the stiff bottom plate.

What should I do about it? he’d wondered, but figured well, whatever, and didn’t bother switching out his new ones. He’ll keep them in the dorm just in case, but ultimately plans to keep using the ones Kagiura gave him.

As soon as the new term starts, preparations for the Cultural Festival are full speed ahead. Even the first years, who aren’t used to running events without the guidance of a faculty member, are gradually gaining opportunities to build character. The Executive Committee members have so many responsibilities that it has become difficult to carry out their studies without the cooperation of their classmates.

Kagiura also has the situation of being part of the ‘Sports Recommendation Squad’, and his grades are not up to snuff. It would be good if they don’t take a hit from his extracurricular responsibilities, but that will come down to his own efforts.

It’s not just the Executive Committee members who are swamped. The students in the culture clubs are also at their busiest, and with the autumn tournament right around the corner, there’s no way the athletics clubs can cut back on practices.

The sweltering nights have yet to abate; yet despite these conditions which could even be called cruel, most of the students are eagerly awaiting the Cultural Festival. You might even get away with saying all of them.

Because, after all, girls come to visit the cultural festival.

And even without that element, a festival is still a festival.

This is a time when the whole student body is restless, so the Disciplinary Committee will be on top of keeping everyone in line—or such is their public stance, but they won’t be too strict about moderating uniforms and hair styles.

In any case, a high proportion of the students will be in costumes on the day of the festival.

There's also at least one class cross-dressing every year.

This year, that’s right, it's the class that Hirano is unfortunately a part of. More specifically, it's been decided that Hirano will be one of the ones in drag.

Oiwa-san—a famous spirit who makes an appearance in the Yotsuya Kaidan.¹

There are many variations of the famous ghost story, in which Oiwa, the deceased wife, holding a grudge over the betrayal of her husband, Iemon, slaughters every last person involved. Apparently, they will be basing the makeup off of Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan², which is popular among Hirano’s classmates.

He’d been shown reference images of the ghost, her face half disfigured and inflamed by poison, but the picture was nightmare fuel when viewed in the dark.

Supposedly it’s a style of Halloween makeup that’s been popular in recent years, but the trial makeup that had been applied to his arm after school in order to match the shade to his face had been truly grotesque.

This information is to be kept top secret until the last possible minute on the day of, in the interests of building hype.

While Hirano is putting away his homework, the door opens with a click.

His roommate is home.

It’s still bright outside, but the dining hall is just about to open for dinner.

“Hirano-san, I’m home!”

“Welcome home, Kagi-kun.”

These days, Kagiura usually gets a bit bashful in reply to Hirano’s greeting, seemingly tickled. So naive and innocent he must be, making such an expression with no fear of being misunderstood.

There were days they’d spent together, but summer vacation had been long.

There’s an air of a different kind of newness from the one there’d been in the period before they’d gotten used to sharing a dorm—Kagiura probably feels it too. At least, Hirano thinks so.

He feels closer to Kagiura compared to before. After all, he’s met his immediate and extended family, so of course they’d feel more intimate. It’s as if the part of himself that had been on guard while thinking about how to act as a senpai in his second year in the dorms has been absolved.

After Hirano had filled out his print-outs as if in competition with Kagiura, who’d spread out his homework in a frenzy, they’d headed to the dining hall a little later than usual.

It always takes him about 3 or 4 days to get back into the swing of dorm life.

Speaking of which, he thinks.

Before Kagiura moved into the dorms, Hirano had been quite nervous.

He’d talked to Hanzawa about it one time when the Disciplinary Committee had a meeting, and they’d brainstormed strategies to avoid scaring Kagiura off.

He’d also felt it would be a waste of his efforts if he was only friendly at the beginning of their time spent living together; thus, they’d come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be too far out of Hirano’s depths to give him a nickname and use “-kun”.

Oh yeah, that’s right. At the beginning I called him Kagiura-kun.

He’s been calling his name every day, enough that he’d ended up shortening it, thinking it’s too long and clunky.

Kagiura has morning practice tomorrow, too, so there's no way he can let him oversleep.

Hirano got that, but there was something on his mind that just wouldn’t go away, so he asked before shutting off the lights.

".....Hey, um. I know you're working hard, so I don't wanna rain on your parade, but are your studies going all right? I haven't heard how your proficiency test went yet."

As the words leave his mouth, he thinks, what am I, a private tutor? and laughs drily to himself.

For the results of the test held right after summer break, a list ranking every student in their grade and the standard score were passed out to each person, the same as for the periodic exams.

For first years, they can be used as nothing more than a reference, but due to the breadth of the material covered, in some cases they might be used to determine which schools to apply to when compared to results from previous cram schools.

“...I just barely passed.”

“What’s the damage?”

“The teacher said, ‘You didn’t do badly enough that I need to pull you aside, but keep working hard’...”

“I see.”

Which is bad in and of itself, really.

Kagiura hangs his head dejectedly, and Hirano’s tempted to comfort him all the more for having seen the extent of his efforts, but his lack of preparation is unmistakable.

“Kagi-kun, after the cultural festival is over, you gotta step it up. If you miss some of the notes, get someone to show you theirs before the next day. Don’t let them build up. If you end up with a backlog of notes to take, you’re not gonna be able to understand them.”

Hirano knows deep down he’s probably worrying too much, but he keeps the expression on his face stern. The beginning is the key to everything. Among his classmates in the ‘Sports Recommendation Squad’ who, like Kagiura, are bad students, there are many whose grades plummeted after going on to their second year.

Who knew he’d become this much of a worrywort after becoming someone’s senpai?

“Yeah…Hirano-san, will you teach me again?”

“Sure. But you better bring back good grades.”

“I will! …By the way, can I ask you something?”

He ducks his head as he asks the question, a gesture with all the charm one would expect from someone as cute as him.

“What’s up?”

“When you were a first year, did the senpai you roomed with teach you how to study, too?”

“Nah, no way.”

“Hm…did you not get along?”

“It’s not that we didn’t get along, we just weren’t really that close. I wasn’t nearly as friendly a kouhai as you are.”

This is usually the case for dorm students. Hanzawa, contemptuous of homosexual relations, has a reputation in certain circles for having a finely-tuned gaydar and showing up to cockblock any time he senses anyone getting a little too close.³

His distaste isn’t unwarranted; apparently it has to do with his family, so even Hirano feels bad for him.

“...Does that make me special, then?”

“Why are you so happy about that?”

At Hirano’s jests of what are you, a dog? Kagiura breaks into a grin.

“Yeah. You know, I’m glad I’m your roommate, Hirano-san.”

Hirano smiles wryly; Kagiura’s got him wrapped around his little finger without a hint of insincerity.

With Kagiura cozying up to him like this, he doesn’t stand a chance.

*****

T/N: (1) Not sure I need to add more info on this to the story, but it's pretty interesting, so you can read more about it here.

(2) A movie based on the story made in 1959.

(3) Yall....idek what to say about this. I tried to keep the tone lighthearted but the original text literally says 'gay-hating Hanzawa' and describes his feelings as disgust. Idk why the writer put this but our boy is NOT like that 😭 I actually broke my vow of not looking at the official TL just to see how they handled this bit and they completely watered it down lmao. and tbh, yall know my dedication to accuracy but I WAS TEMPTED. While going back and forth about what I should do, I told my sister about it, and she suggested that Hanzawa doesn't actually hate gays, he just hates gay sex and will stand for none of it in his dorm so...we're going with that interpretation 💀🙃💀🙃

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#you guys can reblog these posts btw <3 #remember likes are great but they don't do anything to spread the posts around!#friendly reminder that tumblr is not ig/tt and we love her for it <3 #re 3rd footnote: im still trying to cope #im really hoping that the 'homophobic' and 'disgust' etc are referring to his reputation rather than his real feelings #tho i'm not sure that's much better 💀#also im sorry but wtf is up with the whole 'its to do with his family so hirano feels bad for him thing'#like??? oh poor you your sibling is gay that must be such a struggle #guess you have the right to hate gay people. ??????#this makes it sound like there was some TRAUMA involved #but it was literally just his brother (and other sibling) saying btw im gay and then they all moved on with their lives??#shoutout to my sister for this slightly inaccurate but much better take #i told her about it and she was like 'nah this mf just repressed as hell 💀'#she does not read ssmy/kghr btw #hirano to kagiura #hirano and kagiura #kagihira #hirano to kagiura light novel #hirano to kagiura translation #harusono shou

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givemewallywestorgivemedeath · 1 year

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okay weird q incoming but what ways do you think speedsters can get sick? Like to my understanding, they can’t really come down with normal virus’ like the flu, right? But they could get things like chronic migraines?

NANOBOTS!!! This is one of the best pieces of canon lore ever. I did a whole post on it but TLDR: normal human metabolisms have so much shit going on that they don't even notice nanobots in their body BUT speedsters have hyper accelerated metabolisms that are the equivalent of the straight A's overachiever in school on meth. So speedster metabolisms do notice nanobots and they attack full force, triggering all of the body's defenses and responses.

But the nanobots are metal so it obviously doesn't do anything. It just leaves the speedster lethargic, feverish, vomiting, dizzy, with a headache, sore muscles and a runny nose, ect. It's basically an allergic reaction.

Now, poisoning them can work depending on what the poison is/what the dosage is. You would need a 100% fatal poison and you would need a fairly high dose. Because speedsters heal fast and they have a hyper accelerated metabolism, so any poison that is based on toxicity (alcohol poisoning for example) would be out of their system faster than it could even take effect.

But poisons that can't be cleared out/processed by the body (take cyanide for example, it binds with the chemical receptors in your body making it physically impossible to use oxygen) wouldn't really be affected by their metabolism at all. So while the speedsters could heal the damaged tissues from these poisons fairly quickly (making it seem as though they were only slightly affected) they would ultimately need time to do so, time they would not have if it kills them first. This isn't technically what you are asking because there would be no substance that 'makes them sick', there would only be 'fine', 'not fine for like a minute and then fine again' and 'dead'. (... unless they were hooked up to a steady supply of the toxin)

Likewise, (this is getting more into theoretical territory, less canon) there might be some illnesses that would affect them? Not for long but if you got something super fucking fatal like Rabies, it might make them display mild cold symptoms for a day or something.

I don't know though. They have really fucking good immune systems. And even super fatal diseases can be fought. Take my example of Rabies, while it is commonly thought to be 100% fatal once symptoms show up there actually have been cases of people surviving it. Rabies is a very stealthy and fast disease, so the main problem with treating it is that your body's immune system isn't fast enough to stop it. People have survived by being placed in medically induced comas (slowing their bodily functions and thus the disease) for long enough that the medication can eradicate it. So for a speedster? That's gone in a minute tops. You would need an insane disease that I'm not sure even exists.

There's also like... pregnancy and menstruation. Growing pains, muscle pain from running is a BIG ONE, being dehydrated/starvation, blood loss, ect. Lots of ways to fuck with a speedster in a way they can't immediately fix.

There are also speedster specific ailments. It's basically 50/50 if a natural born speedster gets a weird highly fatal aging disease. Sometimes speedsters can be born without a kinetic energy shield which makes using their powers at all incredibly fatal to them. All speedsters will have connectivity issues at some point that can be fatal. Sometimes Time Gets Bad™ (shout out to when Barry kept chronically stealing time from people/things every time he used his powers). Sometimes they have too much energy and can't maintain human form (shout out to when Wally didn't know what the speedforce was and was accidentally cosplaying Ghost Rider). Velocity 9 is a highly addictive drug that works on speedsters and makes them display typical addiction behavior (and withdrawal). V9 can also cause a speedster to 'overdose' (burst into flames/lightning/energy). They all have the constant urge to yeet themselves into the speedforce. Ect.

#here's the thing: they are made of speedforce but its not a skin deep thing. you feel me? like their CELLS are made of speedforce #so all shit still affects them #i keep saying that they don't need oxygen or food to survive and thats true but its only if they're actively compensating with speedforce #cause they can get energy from the speedforce or they can get energy from oxygen and food or both. they can't do neither #and they don't really *know* or understand that theyd be fine with JUST speedforce energy. they still think they need oxygen and food #so if they were suffocating or something they might instinctively crank up the speedforce to compensate but they're also very stupid #so they might just die. idk it really depends on who it is how much they know and how much SF they're drawing on #cause like... energy beings need energy yo #i hope this makes sense #the muscle pain one is interesting cause Wallys early runs are really big on the whole hitting the wall thing #he would hit a wall that he physically couldn't break through and it caused him a lot of pain.#some of that was not being hooked up properly cause Wally wasn't hooked up properly until he was an ADULT #because he is FUCKING INSANE and he just went 'huh i guess this is my limit and i will stay below it' liKE AN INSANE PERSON #anyway some of it was SF issues and some of it was mental but he actually got really really hurt anytime he got close to the wall #REALLY bad muscle pain. and like... it was potentially extremely fatal. 'breaking down your body into little bits' fatal #he doesn't get that anymore because hes properly hooked up now but jfc that man treated 'entering the death zone' like it was #the high score to beat at his local arcade. he took it as a fucking challenge. absolutely insane dude right there

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tariah23 · 16 days

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I went into the boys tag for the first time (a big mistake lmfaooo) and I just have to say that white people fall for propaganda so easily especially when wrapped in a thin veil of that same whiteness that they value more than anything else in the world, even when a series like the boys is sort of an obvious social commentary on that kinda stuff 😭……. They’re calling Homelander their girl…. Their BABYGIRL, nigga, he is a fascist sksjsjaja.

#it’s so… like of course they’d like this white man 😭!!! he’s a good character tho I guess like he’s a really interesting villain but #come on 😭#I feel so bad for Ryan he’s being indoctrinated I hope mothers milk kills that white man who’s been taking his daughter #his black daughter to those alt right rallies bro 😭!!!#rambling #also #I didn’t know that white man from supernatural was in the boys #I never cared about SN and you know the kind of rep it has but he was really good in the boys??? I haven’t paid too much attention to his #acting but he was actually intimidating like he did his shit #my sister loved Frenchie and kimiko’s relationship lol #she kept on calling him zayn…#edit: not to say that wp are the only ones to fall for propaganda because no one is immune to it but the shit right in from of them is #usually to obvious to black and brown people #like they’ll defend the shit first before anything else

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prismatica-the-strange · 4 days

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Thinking about if Anakin fully killed Frei. Like... they "fight" and he runs her through with his lightsaber but instead of being immediately horrified by his actions he moves on to the younglings and the rest of the story goes on as canon.

Except!!! Darth is constantly haunted by her Force Ghost.

Everything he does is constantly critiqued and gets snarky remarks.

Just imagining him force choking some empire goon or officer and he hears Frei behind him go, "That'll show 'em. Killing off your staff one by one. Great job Ani."

And he just drops them with an annoyed sigh then turns to glare at her.

And after the og trilogy? When he's redeemed and they're reunited as force ghosts. Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. The first thing he does is kiss her cause even as a sith he couldn't help but miss and love her. And they spend eternity together in the afterlife.

#i like my new timeline better but i also love the idea of haunting dead naming darth vader #he's trying to give an important order or speech and she keeps interrupting and distracting him #Leia shows up in a new hope and Frei's like 'Wow! Isn't she JUST like Padme? you know? the senator you had an affair with?'#'man. i guess all it really takes is one time... well at least something good came out of it.'#'I'm still not impressed it happened though.'#And Vader is desperately trying not to tell her to shut up because no one knows she's there #except in the kenobi sho Obi-wan definitely saw her bitcjing at him #that's the first peace vader had was right after that first fight she went and hung around obi wan for a bit #and when he found her with him for the second fight he gets really jealous and is like conflicted about the whole thing #like 'nooooo! don't haunt anyone else! you're MY ghost gf!'#death by anyone's hand but his would never taste as sweet #prisma rambles #prisma self ships

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imrisah · 1 year

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#Life update that no one asked for but I feel like i haven't been present for so long #chronic pain right? i kind of have it #it's jaw related apparently seems like I have lockjaw out whatever and it's uneven and a side of it has to work a lot harder #to close my mouth so my muscles on the right side of my body are just having none of it #a mouth guard had helped reduce the frequency of episodes but it will take a long time for them to go away #if they do #I'm down to one serious full blown episode a month and a lot of smaller negligible instances of pain #a lot of stuff in my chest seizes up in the middle of my sleep cause i clench my jaw really hard apparently #clenching also potentially the cause of my light and poor quality sleep #it's getting better slowly 💪#i Just needed to vent my hopes and fears to the ether i guess #no art unfortunately just d&d in my life right now #i did do maps but I'm jealous of them

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normal-thoughts-official · 8 months

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Putting all my CoP II theories out there before we find out who the killer is tomorrow: a post

So I'm gonna start this by saying that I don't have a definitive theory I'm putting all my money on, this is more a collection of thoughts/leads/evidence as someone who's replayed every chapter as many times as it took to see what happened when you picked each option, and who's really invested in this

First things first: I'm not operating on the assumption that Juliana's killer is necessarily the same one who killed Nadja and Sebastyan, because we have no definitive proof of that and the more I think about it the more I think it makes more sense for them to be different people. I'm also including my theories on the whole Trystan trial thing, which they really should have looked into more deeply from the start to begin with, but anyway

1. Involved Siblings

At this point, I think it's pretty obvious that the only eligible suspects for either of the murders are Lydea, Vasili, Astrid, and the twins. The first three lied about their alibis, and the twins don't have one to begin with. All of them except for Lydea we know for a fact were in the palace by the time of Nadja's murder, and we have no idea where Lydea was. All of them, obviously, had access to the secret passage and the Thorne daggers; Astrid even has a convenient excuse for not having hers (she said she lost it in Tajikistan), but even if it isn't her, it is possible that she didn't lose her dagger but instead had it stolen by one of the other siblings, and doesn't know about it. In that case, I find it worth noting that Lydea is the only one who went out of her way to show that she still has her own dagger, and Vasili wouldn't have been expected to have one anyway; if he's the killer, using it might even be a good move to point the evidence away from him

Finally, we know for a fact that the first three were aware of the location of the cameras in the opera house, and, while we don't know for a fact that the twins do as well, we do know that Emika is perfectly capable of getting inside the surveillance system and get that information should they want to. Last but not least, those are the siblings we always have a chance of watching/asking about, which I think is worth noting. Finally, none of them save for the twins has been the object of a thorough investigation. Also, in the case of Juliana's murder, I think it's safe to say anyone younger than them would have been too young to have dated Juliana OR overpowered her so easily; Marguerite was a minor, and, while we're not sure Patryk was a minor, he was definitely built like a twig at the time, considering that he still is. Plus, by the time Juliana was a teenager, they were both definitely children

With that being said, I think it's safe to rule out the twins in general as well; Kaspar can't have been Nadja's murderer because we know that the murderer escaped through the secret passage, but Kaspar walked straight out of the room holding a bloody garrote like an idiot. He's also generally not smart enough to pull any of this off. And Emika does have an alibi, since we know that they were replying to randos on Twitter by the time of Nadja's murder. Not being Nadja's murderer rules out being Sebastyan's because those were definitely committed by the same person, and they have no motive to kill any of the people involved. I could maybe see Emika killing Juliana if Kaspar was the ex, because they are that insane (the incident with Astrid's ex shows that), but everything so far points to the killer and the ex being the same person. Also, if Kaspar had been Juliana's ex, Emika would never have given Trystan and MC the information about the letters, because it'd give them even more reason to suspect the two of them

That leaves Vasili, Lydea, and Astrid as elligible suspects. I'd like to point out, as a final comment, that Astrid and Vasili both knew that Juliana and Trystan were going to be on the boat the night she was murdered, and that they would be alone, something the killer would obviously have to know in order to kill Juliana. We don't know whether or not Lydea had that information but I don't think it'd have been too hard for her to get that info from the other two, especially considering that Vasili didn't even really want to cover for Trystan anyway and him and Lydea had a good relationship

2. Other possibilities

Other than the siblings, I see two other possibilities for people who could be involved: one of the monarchs, or a 10th sibling who's the illegitimate heir and going on a rampage about it, Veil of Secrets style

3. Juliana's murder

I think it's safe to rule out one of the monarchs being Juliana's ex, because what the fuck, and if the 10th sibling theory is real then Juliana wouldn't have known that whoever she was dating was a Thorne, since she didn't know who the illegitimate child was. That means Juliana's murderer was definitely one of the Three Elligible Siblings. Technically it could still be Sebastyan, but considering his "you've broken my heart every day of my life" line I think evidence points to him having pined desperately for her and not being requited

(Plus, killing her would have been a stupid move for the Act for Heir Equity since he needed her for public support, and the "he killed her out of anger for turning her back on the Act" theory doesn't really hold much water considering he was the one who wanted them to take a break. The e-mail Juliana sent him talking about Trystan also proves that he wasn't the ex, since it was just a few weeks after her angry letter to whoever it was that she hated so much; if the letter had been addressed to Sebastyan, why would she be trading happy e-mails with him gushing about her new love? We know for a fact that they were still on good terms by the time she was writing her ex angry letters; it wouldn't make sense for it to have been him

I see no reason whatsoever why Sebastyan couldn't have just stolen the locket from whoever the ex was because he is creepy about the women he likes [see: the sexy pictures of his ex in his goddamn office]. That would even give them extra motive to kill him, because if Sebastyan took the locket from them, it means he knew who the ex was)

So, we're back to where we begun: Lydea, Astrid, or Vasili. Here's the case for each of them being the ex:

Lydea: frankly, I can't see Lydea being the ex. The image of a jealous possessive person killing someone out of spite, stalking someone, and etc. does not fit her profile at all. Lydea keeps her temper in check no matter what and clearly has a pretty strong sense of honor and duty; and we know that that has been the case since she was a child. The only evidence in favor of Lydea I can think of is that the murderer was wearing the Drakovian Police cloak, but that's just a generic grey cloak anyway; and the fact that she recognized Juliana's locket so quickly, which strikes me as a bit odd for someone who didn't even know her that well, but it isn't exactly hard to believe that she recognized it simply because she's observant and saw Juliana a lot ever since they were kids. She is also too smart to have done such a shit job of burning her letters to her. All in all, she sounds like the least likely candidate

Vasili: the case for Vasili is a bit more substantial, but barely. It's pretty clear that Vasili has a lot more resentment towards Trystan than he lets on, and about his position in the family in general, which is why I think so many people are so deadset on BlameVasili2023. So I could see him being the kind of person who's a creepy bitter stalker without most people expecting it. But Juliana described her ex as being charming, and Vasili barely has any real presence; he seems more neutral than "charming" to me. He also just doesn't sound and act at all like the person we saw in that murder flashback. That means that we have two options here: either Vasili is secretly way more theatrical and sadistic than he lets on, and he's a master manipulator about it, in which case I think he would be able to keep his temper in check long enough to realize that killing Juliana would pretty much ruin any chance of getting the Act to pass; or he isn't all that calculating and good at holding back his temper, in which case I think we would have seen more signs of this incredibly possessive person

It's not impossible, however, especially considering that he knew where Trystan and Juliana would be, and had reasons to be particularly frustrated at her, not only for choosing Trystan but also for leaving Marguerite during her show. It would have been a pretty powerful combination: seeing Juliana with his own sibling, who is also the heir to a throne he will never get, and who is also leaving your little sister that you really care about in a moment that is important to her. Not to mention that she had taken a step back on getting the Act passed. The fact that Trystan is Marguerite's favorite despite all that is just rubbing salt to the wound, too. All in all, pretty decent motive, and we know his temper runs deeper than he lets on, even if he doesn't exactly fit Juliana's killer's profile. Considering his closeness to Bas, it also stands to reason that Bas would know about his relationship with Juliana through him, and resent him less for it than Trystan because he likes Vasili, at least. Vasili is also the only one I can think of that would make sense to say "but I finally found a way we can have everything we always wanted" to Juliana; if the plan had been to get rid of Trystan and get the Act to pass, that would make Vasili the heir, which I assume is something they fantasized about back when they were together. But killing Juliana got in the way of getting the Act to pass, and if Vasili was willing to kill to get it passed, why would he have sat on his ass and done nothing for 8 whole years after that, when the Act was tabled?

Astrid: I think Astrid is definitely the likeliest candidate out of the three. She fits the profile for the killer really well: seeming charming and nice at first (we know how good at manipulating she is, and she can seduce pretty much whoever she wants and definitely has a lot of friends), but really passionate and quick to anger. Trystan even said that the only thing Astrid likes more than falling in love is being angry, and she can definitely hold a grudge and seems vengeful. Juliana's murder was also very personal in general, not to mention theatrical; the bird whistle, the dramatic convo, the super personal murder method (blunt force trauma is pretty passionate, and we know they strangled her, too, which is pretty much the most intimate murder method there is), the relative sloppiness of it. This wasn't the perfect airtight murder plan Lydea would have come up with; so many things could have gone wrong, starting with Trystan waking up from all the drama. And it seems a bit too intense and not calculated enough for Vasili. But Astrid "tantrum" Thorne would definitely have murdered someone exactly how Juliana's murderer did. Plus, she also knew where Trystan and Juliana would be. The only point against her would be that it would have been a little less likely for Bas to know about their relationship, but she could have heard about it from Juliana herself, since they were friends. And I can't really see why she would choose that specific day to kill her, as opposed to any other time, but it could be related to the fact that Juliana was looking into the illegitimate heir. I also think it's worth noting that Astrid was the only one out of the three that had sent letters to Juliana when Trystan and MC went through the stack. Which sounded odd to me, since it was never mentioned that they were particularly close

4. Trystan's trial

I have no doubt in my mind that the one who sent the evidence to the Georgescus, bought off Trystan's lawyer, got the original audio of the "confession" edited, and etc etc etc was Queen Viktoria. We know it had to have been one of the monarchs, since in the book 1 bonus scene we see a Drakovian agent talking to a "Your Majesty" about framing Trystan. And Maksim has no motive whatsoever to want to get rid of Trystan, but boy, does Viktoria

Motive #1: we know for a fact that Queen Viktoria is the de factum leader of Drakovia. Maksim is barely there, and he was only even implied to have participated in official State matters on Trystan's first day back as heir. The whole rest of the time, it was Queen Viktoria and Queen Viktoria only who was calling the shots. She was even the one to preside Trystan's trial and announce Sebastyan's death despite the fact that he's not even her son. And we know from Eveline that Viktoria wanted to be Queen, which is why their arrangement works to begin with. So, Viktoria wants power. She wants to remain in control of the crown, which she will have to relinquish soon once Maksim turns 65. With Lydea as the heir, even if Viktoria handn't been the ruler by name she would definitely be the ruler in practice, because Lydea follows her every order without questioning. Lydea was her favorite, she was disciplined, she was obedient, she was a perfect fit. Trystan, in contrast, had always been a wild card and never seen eye to eye with Viktoria. And no matter what the official Thorne narrative about Trystan is, we know for a fact that Trystan cares. They do have a strong sense of responsibility - to Drakovia, to the people they love, to what they think is right, to people they barely know who got murdered and deserve justice. And we know their politics are progressive; they have talked about misogyny and social inequality and all the laws in Drakovia that they wanted to change, and I have no doubt that they care enough to go through with this. Trystan, as an heir, is Viktoria's worst nightmare, because they're disobedient and have the will and sense of responsibility to see through getting all the reforms Viktoria doesn't want to pass. There is nothing Viktoria wants more than to get rid of them and make sure Lydea inherits the throne instead

Motive #2: She has an illegitimate child. Duh. And we know from that bonus scene conversation that the main reason they wanted to get rid of Trystan is that they knew too much. I can't see anything important enough for Trystan to be able to discover other than Viktoria's illegitimate child. Considering how it is probably close to Juliana's murder, and Trystan was starting to revisit what happened then, it stands to reason that they would be worried about Trystan discovering who she was. Hence the need to neutralize them before Maksim had to relinquish the throne. Which can only mean one thing:

5. The illegitimate child

It has to be Lydea. It would make no sense otherwise

Viktoria has nearly no stakes in making sure no one knows Astrid is illegitimate. Who cares? Illegitimate children are already accepted in Drakovia, and Astrid is the third in line, so, barring Lydea's sudden death, she wouldn't even inherit the throne. And there's no way Viktoria would want her to. Astrid might be the only possible heir that would give Viktoria more grief than Trystan, because she has all the same qualities of being unpredictable and hard to control, without Trystan's sense of responsibility, which makes her harder to manipulate. Plus, she has ties to the mafia, which makes that particular power struggle much harder. If Astrid was the illegitimate child, I think Viktoria would probably shout it from the rooftops to make sure she never lives the nightmare of having Astrid inherit the throne, not go out of her way to make sure Trystan wouldn't be able to hypothetically look into it and find out about it

If it's Lydea, though? Viktoria is fucked. Lydea wouldn't be able to take the throne, which would leave either Trystan or Astrid. Unless the Act for Heir Equity passes, but if it does, Vasili will take the throne, not Lydea. And Vasili has no loyalty whatsoever to Viktoria; he's not even her son. Way I see it, Viktoria's most important interest at the moment is making sure Lydea inherits the throne; that means making sure no one finds out she's illegitimate and that the Act for Heir Equity doesn't pass. That's the only thing that gives her the motive to want to get rid of Trystan, and, possibly, to want to murder Nadja and Sebastyan

6. The current killer

If I'm right about Lydea being the illegitimate child, then what makes the most sense is for the killer to be under Viktoria's orders

I don't think Lydea would kill to make sure no one found out she was the illegitimate child; she doesn't even want the throne. And no one else has any stakes on making sure people don't find out about that. The existence of the illegitimate child has to be important, plot-wise. If it was simply about the Act, there would be no reason for that particular plotline. Plus, as pointed out relentlessly this week's chapter, the Act wasn't going to pass anyway. Whoever the killer is, stopping the Act alone can't be their only motive. But if this is about protecting the secret of the illegitimate heir? Then killing everyone connected to the Act, who also just so happen to have the means to find out about the illegitimate person, is killing two birds with one stone. Plus, Viktoria hates Sebastyan. She even calls him a "stain on the family" if you choose to tell her that she's grieving him. Were it not for the fact that we know from the flashback that Juliana was murdered by her ex, I'd even say that she probably killed all of them: Juliana to get rid of the Act for good, frame Trystan, get rid of a possible future queen with progressive politics, and stop her from looking further into the illegitimate child; Nadja and Sebastyan to make sure the following attempts to get the Act passed (and subsequent looking into the royal line like Juliana did) won't take off

Now. I find it unlikely that Viktoria would kill Nadja and Sebastyan herself, even if she is strong enough for it. If anything, because she can outsource that work, so why wouldn't she? And I don't think she'd want to risk being any closer to any of this than she needs to. Also, I don't think Sebastyan would turn his back to her. Which means she would need to get someone else to do it

I'd love for it to be Lydea, because that'd make a fantastic twist. The killer is the most obvious one, but for the complete opposite reasons than you'd think. It'd also explain Lydea wanting to hide the body, the identation from her ring on Sebastyan's neck (although, really, girl, take the stupid thing off), the remorseful act of placing Sebastyan in a more dignified pose, why Lydea lied about her alibi (twice), why Sebastyan would have turned his back to the killer, the strength and finesse the killer obviously possesses. With Nadja's murder, there was the sloppy attempt to frame Trystan, but there could be an easy explanation for that, which is that she didn't expect Kaspar to fucking show up to steal Trystan's shit. That'd mean she'd have to leave the scene before finishing the job of faking the stab wounds, leaving a sloppier job than usual

Buuut... That doesn't quite fit. For starters, if Viktoria had gotten Lydea to do the kills, why would she take Lydea off the investigation? It'd make much more sense to make her the investigator and lie about it. Plus, Lydea seemed genuinely surprised to see Sebastyan dead, and she seems genuinely invested in finding out who killed him. And if she had killed him under Viktoria's orders in order to protect the secret that she was the illegitimate heir, why would she tell Trystan and MC about the illegitimate child at all?

Even if Viktoria didn't tell her about that (which I don't think she would, because Lydea seems the type to immediately abdicate if she had known her claim wasn't legitimate), that would mean that Lydea really was in Sebastyan's house at the time of the murder, otherwise she wouldn't have gotten that information to begin with. And if Viktoria herself told her about it, why the hell would she want Lydea to share that information? And there is absolutely no way Lydea would have shared it without Viktoria's consent. National security matter and all that shit

So here's my favorite theory as to who she outsourced the job to: Colette

Colette was trailing Sebastyan, so she knew exactly when Sebastyan would be alone and MC and Trystan were conveniently out of the way. Easy enough then to leave the scene later and go after them tearfully telling them that she lost sight of him. In fact, trailing him gives her a wonderful excuse for any evidence they could find against her, since she had a perfectly valid reason to have been following him. We already know that her main allegiance is to the crown; that means Viktoria. And she, apparently, fucking guards the security cameras in the palace alone, so she was probably at the palace, and that'd explain how she didn't see shit about the murder in the surveillance feed. And, of course, Colette has the same training Lydea does, which means she's just as capable of getting the job done cleanly

She's not a Thorne (unless there really is a 10th sibling and it happens to be her), but she wouldn't have to be if she were under Viktoria's orders. Viktoria is too practical to give a shit about giving Colette a Thorne dagger if it were for the greater good or whatever. And let's be real, of course Viktoria knows about the stupid secret passage and its codes. If anything because Trystan probably used to hide in there to avoid their tutors and Lydea would absolutely snitch their room's code if Viktoria asked

But my favorite part of it is that Colette would probably also have her own ulterior motives: namely, getting rid of Lydea

Trystan's return meant that Lydea was no longer heir, which in turn meant that she could take the Captain of the Royal Guard title again. I'm not sure if she was Captain while Trystan was gone, but even if she was, when she took the throne that spot would be vacant again. And considering how closely to the palace Colette works, and how much Lydea trusts her, I think it's likely that Colette would take that spot once Lydea took the throne

It is in both Viktoria's and Colette's best interests that Lydea takes the throne, for different reasons, which means that them working together would have made a lot of sense. And the fact that their motives are different could explain some of the inconsistencies, such as the ring indentation. There's no way whoever the killer is is stupid enough to fucking leave this massive chunky ring on when going out to murder someone, especially considering they'd have put latex gloves on and getting those around a ring that big would be a fucking nightmare. Are these bitches uncapable of taking off a ring? Come on. Please don't insult my intelligence here. But Colette could have put that on with the specific intent to frame Lydea - who wears the ring on her left hand - if she believed that it would be easier to just let her take the fall for the murders than to try and get her to take the throne again. It'd also explain her going behind Lydea's back to give us info. I can also buy Colette rearranging Sebastyan's body out of respect - he was a member of the royal family, after all

The Thorne dagger could be to put us on a wild goose chase after one of the siblings and point us away from Colette/Viktoria. And Juliana's murder would probably be unrelated, which I actually believe it is, because the M.O is completely different. Juliana's murder was obviously a crime of passion (pardon the pun), even if a planned one, while the others were clearly strategic murders. If it's the same person who committed them, then they did it for different reasons

If Viktoria is behind the murders, it'd also explain her handing over the investigation to MC and not Lydea. I have to assume she thought we weren't as competent as Lydea, especially if we were working with Trystan, whom the entire family consistently underestimates. Getting Lydea away from the investigation might have been her way of making sure no one found out. Which obviously backfired, so she needed to change gears, especially if she knew how close MC and Trystan were to uncovering the truth behind Juliana

It's not airtight, but it'd make for an interesting story in my opinion. My main issue with this theory is that, if Viktoria wanted to get rid of Trystan ASAP, why would she have Nadja be murderer on a day when she knew for a fact Trystan had an alibi? Sure, the alibi was herself, which is convenient, but Maksim was also there, and Maksim likes Trystan. They did separate from them a few (minutes?) before the murder, so maybe she was planning to use that window to frame Trystan and wasn't expecting them to have been with MC when they found the body, ruining the "Trystan did it" theory. It could be that she's been scrambling after that, waiting for a good opportunity to get rid of Trystan (again), and she kept MC around because, since they became an unwanted witness, she needed to keep an eye on them, and there's no better way to do that than making sure they report to her

But there are other theories that I think could be interesting/make sense:

ASTRID

Astrid's been my main suspect for most of the book now, both because of the Juliana reasons mentioned ago and because she seems to always be conveniently there to derail the investigation whenever it goes a certain reason. She was the one who pointed us towards Sebastyan; she was the one who was around when we were talking to Olivia; she was the one trying to deflect and/or start drama among her other siblings whenever we were around trying to interrogate them. But now I have a few issues with my own theory:

1- Astrid doesn't give enough of a shit about Sebastyan to rearrange his body

2- Astrid is way too passionate to make such clean murders, especially Sebastyan's; I also don't think Nadja or Bas were close enough to her to be completely caught off guard by her attack the way the scene implied them to be. And if I'm right about Astrid having murdered Juliana, the differences in M.O would point to her not having murdered Nadja and Bas

3- I can't see a convincing motive

Say Astrid is the illegitimate child. I really don't see why she would be willing to kill to keep that information a secret. Maybe if she actually wanted the throne, but let's be serious: why the fuck would she? As is, Astrid has her perfect life. She has all the privilege with none of the responsibilities, and she can more or less do whatever she wants. She's not even interested in having a short talk with her entire family, nevermind spend most of her days in boring as fuck meetings with foreign dignataries having to make a bunch of decisions and fight her mom over it. Astrid doesn't want the throne, she wants to be at brunch in Barcelona with the girlies

My best guess for this one would be that she wanted to keep her status as a legitimate heir; that could track. Status is everything in Astrid's world, and even if becoming illegitimate would still mean she had the same money and privilege, it would kind of be a scandal that would damage her reputation. Maybe she killed Juliana for passion reasons and then found out about her own illegitimacy because of her, then she killed Nadja and Sebastyan to keep that secret when it looked like they would be poking into that information. It does make sense, and accounts for just about everything we've seen in her behavior

I have three issues with this theory: the first is that it's the most boring answer. The second is that I still don't think she is strong or clean enough to commit these murders, or to rearrange Sebastyan's body. The third is that, if Astrid is illegitimate, then I have no fucking clue why anyone in the family would have wanted to summon Trystan so close to Lydea's coronation

Astrid wasn't the one to get the evidence out there, because this was clearly ordered by one of the monarchs, unless Choices forgot that you don't use "your majesty" to refer to princes and princesses. If they did... Then fine, I guess, maybe she could have wanted to make sure Trystan wouldn't go poking around and find out about her, but I don't really see why she would bother with doing that considering that Trystan wasn't even in Drakovia to begin with. If all she wanted was to keep her illegitimacy a secret, then she already had everything sorted out; bringing Trystan back and reopening that whole wound sounds counterproductive

Unless I'm wrong and Astrid does want the throne, for reasons that I really cannot fathom. Then it could be that they called her "your majesty" because this is all part of a huge conspiracy to get her to the throne. I'm still not sure why she would summon Trystan back, but it does sort of explain the inconsistencies in both Nadja's and Sebastyan's murders. Because she could also be trying to frame Lydea. If she did, she could get rid of Trystan (out of psychological pressure, if nothing else) and Lydea if Lydea took the blame for the murders. It would explain the ring indentation on Sebastyan's neck and even the body rearranging if her plan was to point the investigation towards people who actually liked Sebastyan. She doesn't even have to have committed the murders herself, she could have hired someone and given them instructions. But Astrid hasn't really been gunning to turn the investigation towards Lydea; the one she kept pushing into our path was Sebastyan. Also, again, it's just sort of boring

And if it was really Queen Viktoria who tried to frame Trystan in the trial, which I really think is the most logical explanation, then I don't see why she would go through such lengths to protect Astrid's legitimate status. If it's Lydea, then yeah, she'd want to make sure nothing could get in the way of her coronation. But I can't see her going that far to hide Astrid's secret. Again: who cares? She's not even a viable option for the throne currently, and it's not like having bastard children is a massive scandal in Drakovia

If Astrid isn't the illegitimate child and it's Lydea instead... Then I see no motive whatsoever for her to murder Sebastyan and Nadja. Unless, of course, she does want the throne and thought it'd be a good opportunity to frame Lydea and get rid of Trystan. In that case, Juliana's murder, Trystan's summoning, and the subsequent murders are actually kind of unrelated. Which makes sense because there is so many levels of 5D chess going on here. Goddamn it, that works. Fine

But it could be simply that she killed Juliana, has nothing to do with the current murders, but has been hovering around the investigation to make sure we don't find out about Juliana. That would explain why she keeps trying to make us look into Sebastyan; if we believe that he was the ex, then her secret is safe. I think I kind of prefer that one, but I guess it could go either way

VASILI

The main points in favor of BlameVasili2023 are:

Both the ring and the dagger point to a legitimate Thorne being the culprit, and are really dumb moves, so they could have been Vasili's attempt to make sure he wouldn't be a main suspect

He has the most obvious reason to rearrange Sebastyan's body

He definitely seems strong enough to have committed the murders, and clean enough without being as perfect as Lydea to have been pretty good but still leave some clues

This one is lame, but in this week's chapter, if you choose to watch the twins or Astrid, you get +Detective if you guess at the reasons that imply they didn't do it; but if you choose to watch Vasili, you get +Detective if you wonder what could have made him hurt Sebastyan. I'd like to think Choices isn't shortsighted enough to leave such an obvious clue, but they did spoil the story twice in the chapter summaries, so

There is obviously more to him than meets the eye, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if he had some big dark secret. I do think he hates Trystan, or at least resents them deeply. Enough to want them away from the throne, even if he doesn't inherit it; at least Lydea is someone he respects

The main points against Vasili are:

WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MOTIVE

I could maybe see him killing Sebastyan to do that whole weird "vote for the Act to honor my little brother uwu" shit, but it sounds like a bit of an extreme move when getting rid of Markarov would have worked just as well without killing his own little brother. And if killing Sebastyan sounds like a stretch, then I really see no reason whatsoever for killing Nadja. If Vasili wants the throne, then Nadja working on the Act again was his best bet of getting that to happen; and he could have gotten rid of Trystan after that. It would have been more efficient than killing her, actually. Unless he already had his own plans to get the throne once Lydea became queen, and Trystan being back put those in jeopardy, so he impulsively killed her in an attempt to frame Trystan again. But Sebastyan's murder didn't point to Trystan being the culprit in any way; Vasili would have known by now that Trystan would have been with MC the whole time, thus having an alibi

Unless, of course, Vasili is Juliana's ex, and he killed Sebastyan to protect that secret. Or even to protect that he killed Nadja. But I struggle to see why Sebastyan would snitch on Vasili when he worshipped the ground Vasili walked on to begin with. Maybe it could be that Sebastyan couldn't actually forgive him for killing the woman he loved, or that he had a problem with killing Nadja to get their own goals; but Sebastyan isn't really above playing dirty, as we damn well know. And if it's about Juliana, why wait until now to say something?

Best possibility I can think of right now is that Sebastyan only found out recently that Vasili was Juliana's ex, which was when he discovered the locket in Vasili's things somehow. It would explain why he had it with him without being the ex himself. And if Sebastyan really loved Juliana as much as he was implied to, then that might just be the thing that would get him to turn on Vasili. So Vasili could have killed Juliana out of anger and spite, Nadja to try to get rid of Trystan, and Sebastyan to protect his secret after the aforementioned murders. It would explain the remorse, because he did love Sebastyan, and why he would feel like he had no other reason. And the queen summoning Trystan would be unrelated to that; it just forced his hand in the Nadja murder because he wanted to get rid of Trystan ASAP. It was even Vasili's idea to get Marguerite to have her fashion show, so he could have planned to kill him there all along

God damn it, that's actually kind of airtight. Fuck. I'm gonna be so mad if Vasili did it. I've been saying that I didn't see it for weeks and now suddenly he sounds like a prime suspect. God fucking damn it, fuck

I will however say that I still don't think Vasili fits the profile for Juliana's murder, and if he isn't Juliana's murderer, then he has no reason to kill Sebastyan. Even if Vasili killed Nadja for unrelated reasons, I don't think Sebastyan liked her enough to snitch on him; we already know Sebastyan isn't above a little political murder. So I guess I'm still filing that theory as not the most likely

LYDEA

Best guess for Lydea that isn't that she was under Viktoria's orders is that she does want the throne and lied about it. Not impossible, but I have believed that Lydea never wanted the throne from the start; it's pretty obvious that being Captain is what she enjoys. If she is the illegitimate child, then she could be killing to protect that secret. But then why would she tell MC and Trystan that there was one? As a last ditch attempt to turn them on Astrid, maybe, but that'd be really sloppy. Especially since she didn't have to tell them that the killer was female. She could have pointed them to any one of the siblings she wanted, so why Astrid, whom they never really considered?

Or it could be that it was never about the throne, but to protect Juliana's secret. Anyone looking into the Act would be looking into Juliana's death, and that might point them towards her. But again, I think Lydea is the least likely to be Juliana's ex. If she is, then this whole thing was made on impulse, in a sloppy way (using the Thorne dagger and keeping the ring on, really?) and without much care of the consequences, which is out of character for Lydea. Unless she has a way more impulsive and passionate streak than she lets on, which was what Juliana meant in that letter when she said that they wouldn't expect her to be so creepy and possessive. But it's kind of difficult to hide that you're that impulsive, and I just struggle to buy it for Lydea. Not impossible, though, and character consistency isn't Choices' strongest suit, so I guess that theory is on the run as well

THE 10TH SIBLING

This theory is more crack than anything, not to mention it's basically just Veil of Secrets 2.0, but I don't think one could accuse Choices of being incredibly original. If there is a 10th sibling, my favorite bet is that it's the queen's royal advisor. I could see how being put in that position, ignored by all the other siblings, in a position of subservience, etc etc, would make someone bitter enough to go on a killing rampage. Die hate cry. But if it is the 10th sibling, I think that Choices is gonna pull a "the motive is something we could not have possibly guessed at until the exact moment it is revealed to us out of nowhere" yet again, and I really hope they don't do that, because it's lazy and annoying and disappointing. I can't really see any coherent motive for the 10th sibling right now, since there are many holes in that theory:

Why would she get in the way of the Act for Heir Equity, which would basically put her in equal footing with the others?

Why now, and why these particular victims in this particular way?

Why did Viktoria hide the existence of her when the entire country knows Maksim has three entire illegitimate children? Unless she is older than Trystan (which the advisor seems to be. Also, she has no last name, just saying) and it would be particularly problematic for the firstborn to be a bastard, but sounds kind of like a stretch

There is no clear reason why that would in any way tie with Juliana's murder, which would be pretty disappointing and lazy of them

My best guess: the 10th sibling/royal advisor has been planning to take the throne this whole time, and getting Trystan back was the first step to that plan. She was the one who brought him back, and her lackey called her "your majesty" because they are part of a conspiracy to get her the throne. The plan was always to bring Juliana's murder back to light so they would find out there was an illegitimate child who would inherit the throne. And maybe that could rekindle the interest in the Act for Heir Equity, which had been well and truly dead at that point. But if that's the case, I don't see how killing Nadja and Sebastyan would in any way contribute to that. I could, however, see why she would show remorse over killing Sebastyan; he was, after all, the one closest to her position as a fellow bastard who wanted to change things. All in all, this is the theory that would require us to miss the most pieces of the puzzle, and would mean a lot of the information we got on the other siblings is just pointless. Which, let's be honest, is consistent with how they played Book 1, but I want to believe that this mystery is more interesting than that and the Thorne's involvement is more substantial

In conclusion

I need psychological intervention and the next chapters cannot come out fast enough

If you've read it this far, thank you! If you want to discuss theories, feel free to reblog, reply, or shoot an ask or DM

#playchoices #crimes of passion #crimes of passion 2 #cop2 spoilers #choices cop #meta #i guess????#idk this is just a really long rambling i doubt anyone will have the interest and patience to read it #but by god i needed to get it out of my system #also if any of my theories is correct i want the bragging rights even if i obviously don't have a definitive theory #i really hope the finale doesn't disappoint #because there are SO MANY interesting possibilities as of right now #cop2 has the potential to be really fucking good or to have the most disappointing finale in choices history so fingers crossed

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suffarustuffaru · 9 months

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I love your otto brainrot. He's favorite person to gush about in this series. I also love your analysis about one of the latest chapters and regarding Otto! ust, chef's kiss.

Anyhow, I would also like to add a crack theory about why otto never talked about his dp allowing him to talk to infants too. In this moment, it very much be because, as you said, he wants Spica to be eliminated. But! We're thinking small here. My question morphs into a more general perspective; why would Otto, and tappei to an extent, keep such information about his dp under wraps for this long, way before these Spica shenanigans? And I feel like the author may want to expand on that regard. Because as far as the rest of the crew knows (and as far as I remember), they know he can only talk to animals. But that chapter states he can talk to any living being (?), which I think may hint to it being a bigger fucking deal than we may realize. Like outside the Louis development, as well as Otto's frustration development, this power in of itself can cause a ripple of what Otto's capabilities are, and to not underestimate it.

So, now I wonder, would tappei utilize this tidbit for more development about Otto's power? What do you think?

aa thank you for liking my otto stuff!! i adore him a lot and arc 8 has me even more fixated on him bc his development is so Fascinating.... and also my fictional character type has always been the weird fucked up ones with terrible morals HAH.

OK ALSO LIKE i love your crack theory to bits. i think like the idea of his capabilities being A Little More Massive than they already are hasnt really occurred to me if only bc 1. i have like one braincell at a time and 2. ottos unhinged anger and various ugly habits (ie: doing things behind his friends backs HAH) were smth i was distracted by (positive) bc its so fascinating and now Finally everyone reading rezero knows hes crazy For Sure and 3. i think like. idk ive always kind of thought that his power is like super crazy like once you think about it. like iirc theres the canonical fact that other people in the fantasy world whove had ottos dp have gone like insane from it, so hes Basically the outlier here. and also hes insane anyway but his dp absolutely has partly to do with it. not only bc it like affects so much of his life with the constant overstimulation he experienced for a big chunk of his childhood along with the other effects it had with how he was behind his peers for a while and it made him socially awkward and anxious - but also like.

animals Are insane. a lot. genuinely. and then you have a power that allows you to understand them and hear their voices all the time. (more under read more bc its Long.)

theres so many fucked up animal facts out there HAH so i suppose that could just take like a couple google searches (god.... if oceans were in the fantasy world otto might go a little insane with all those sea creatures if he ever came close...) but i always feel like ottos learned at least a bit of his ruthlessness from that. and hes Definitely seen and heard shit (dont forget stuff like livestock ahah T^TT or bug infestations or something aljsdfls or the fact that otto would probably be seeing animal friends eat other animal friends or before he even knew he had his dp he could be eating some cattle he had a convo with like twenty minutes ago and ALSO garf and fred have their meat pie recipe that they adore and its like. that meat came from an animal and otto has most likely seen them make their meat pie before). but like nature is nature. its not always. Nice. survival of the fittest and things just die sometimes (ottos made various animal friends throughout his life and Many animals have smaller lifespans than him as well + some, such as bugs, are more fragile than him) and animals take actions according to their Nature (even if its. Bad, by human moral standards.) and all that - so i think the double whammy of ottos dp and him taking on merchant ideals is very much partly why hes so insane fr HAH.

I WENT A LITTLE OFF TOPIC BUT no yeah i agree. and i just think his dp has always been such a huge factor in what makes him so dangerous - its not only helped mold him into who he is as a person (especially when you remember that the rest of his family are Normal People and he Very Much Is Not Normal) but also like you said. his dp makes him extremely dangerous especially with the new information that he understands babies. iirc otto didnt Necessarily keep that bit of info under wraps - at least not before he met the emilia camp, bc the text said something about how hed take on side jobs where he babysat infants and hed be good at it bc he can understand the intent behind their wordless "words". and i definitely think otto - and tappei - havent really said anything on his ability to talk to infants before this bc it just hasnt come up in much relevant context until now. BUT I ALSO THINK YOU HAVE A POINT bc this does open like. a bit of a can of worms. theres these 2019 tappei qnas where he talks a bit about otto understanding "intent" -

Q: Is Otto's Blessing of the Spirit of Words limited to sounds that the speaker understands? Can he translate something Subaru wrote down in Japanese, or something that someone reads out loud phonetically without understanding it's meaning?

A: He can't. It's a blessing that conveys the intent of the other person's words, so if you said something like "Honbaradaratodetta", it wouldn't mean anything. It's just that, if Subaru had been saying "Honbaradaratodetta" for years to mean "What's for dinner?", it would convey that.

Q: About the "Blessing of the Spirit of Words" that Otto has, in cases where the same word can contain different meanings, can he discern the difference? (The English word 'servant' and a servant from Fate, etc.)

A: It's not the letters, but the speaker's intent that he picks up, so he could tell the difference.

but no yeah like........ ottos dp is specifically about Animals and well. humans and demihumans ARE animals. so it makes sense that it carries into humans and demihumans a bit so the whole catching someones intent thing is super fascinating and i feel like he could Definitely utilize it for more of his schemes?? esp when you combine that with the usual ways he uses his dp with animals - his power is Perfect for spying on others and gathering info in general. from my understanding of his power though, animals have to agree to help him, but given he can communicate with them and hes. well hes a good talker and also a bit of a manipulative bitch (affectionate) so like getting animals to help him doesnt seem like too much of an issue usually for him. so no but yeah his power is like. Off the Charts. and now we got big confirmation in the main story that he can UNDERSTAND PEOPLES INTENT BEHIND THEIR WORDS....? no yeah i think tappei will at least utilize it for the louis-spica plot things (ie otto wants her dead so hes just not gonna say anything about how he knows her true intent isnt to actually hurt anyone).

but i feel like otto could possibly use it for plans... or accidentally catch tidbits of info he shouldnt. im not entirely sure how, but. well. roswaal still hasnt delivered on his promise to kill everyone if even one person subaru cares about dies and Now roswaal knows that 1. otto plans to continue opposing subaru and emilia and keep pulling strings and 2. subaru wants louis to stay alive because he cares about her. it seems like massive emilia camp inner conflict is bound to happen at some point hah... the current situation is a ticking time bomb T^T and thats ON TOP of otto still working on restoring the book of wisdom... it all makes me wonder if otto will overhear a convo he shouldnt and catch the true underlying intent to otherwise innocent dialogue. or something like that.... or if louis's intent fluctuates in some way which otto will be Very aware of. if that happens. or if someone else somehow figures out ottos hiding the fact that he knows louis is innocent via his dp alsdjflsjdf. or maybe roswaal hints at his genocide plan and otto figures out the intent???? everyone is at a stalemate atm fr and im fascinated to see what comes next.

though. ok given otto went insane hearing the white whale..... well you could just fling mabeasts at him and maybe he'll shut up lajsdlfj bc using his dp (especially when overusing it gives him nosebleeds and headaches and pain and etc etc) against him is a Viable strategy to stop him among many others but like. the problem with otto is that hes persistent and Will hold a grudge against you if you wrong him. like i really do feel like he will hunt you down if you do which is the big Thing with otto. T^T hes unpredictable!!! especially now with arc 8 where hes been dragged through all these dangerous situations he did not sign up for and he just wants him and his friends to be safe but said friends want to save a whole country and NOW a sin archbishop alsdjflsjd.

like i really feel that hes so tired of things happening throughout his life out of control (remember his bad luck T^T and the way his dp used to fuck him over in his childhood? yeah T^T) that hes been trying to exert more and more control over his camp. bc like. vincent asking the emilia camp for help was nudged into that direction by otto. ottos also stepped a bit out of line by being hostile to julius and anastasia bc. otto that shit was unncessary aljsdlfjd theyre your camps allies!!!! and now ottos letting his camp be sus of louis by keeping quiet about her true intent. like otto is straight up like. hes kind of possessive of his camp isnt he? bc hes so fixated on making things go the way he wants (not that he wanted to help vollachia, but he wanted to help subaru and emilia which is why he pushed things in that direction, and now he wants to kill louis). it all makes me wonder if he'll ever have to use his dp against his camp given hes. kind of already doing that by lying to them - though itd probably be difficult to use his dp more actively against them if only bc they all already know what his dp is. theres no element of surprise there, but i think with the right circumstances he could possibly use it to figure out Something at least. bc like while he Does feel guilty, there is next to nothing stopping him from doing more shit on top of the shit hes been doing so far in arc 8 HAH. his moral compass is just literally broken and pointing straight down to hell. that mixed with his stubbornness and intellect and anger is like. well anyone going against otto is pretty fucked.

like. what is stopping him from sending a little bug to spy on subaru at all times. probably the fact that subaru and co. have a high chance of maybe noticing it and noticing that ottos keeping. too close of an eye on them. which would stop otto and his new declared "i walk in darkness" goal but all of this keeps making me wonder what lines otto WONT cross. and how far hes willing to go to do what he thinks is necessary to save his camp. and also what the consequences of his decisions will be.

but also like............................................... ok time for a crack theory of my own are you ready. anyway. can you imagine if ottos dp extended into fucking mind reading or something............ HAH.

#otto suwen #rezero #ask #this is a long response and it went a tiny bit off topic at a few points but i hope this made sense aljdslfjs #i dont have like. hyper specific predictions. but the detail that otto understands infants... and intent behind words in general... def #seems like a very specific writing choice fr. like tappei couldve simply said that ottos dp only extends to Animals animals. and not #humanoids. and i know tappei did the whole understands infants thing for the louis spica plot but like you im also wondering if he'll #utilize this part of ottos power more!!!#theres definitely a potential there. for sure.#arc 8 spoilers #but no yeah like ive been thinking about how ottos dp affects his psychology fr. like its not really talked about much past the overstimula #ion which makes sense bc thats affected SO MUCH of his life... but i also think that the. you know. understanding every animal ever is you #know kind of fucked up. once you think about it.#he got the ultimate cocktail of animal morality + merchant ideals and now hes got the moral compass of a chocolate eclair. except he ate th #chocolate eclair and then went welp guess my bffs new daughter figure kind of has to die haha :/#like. otto had to have understood death from a young age bc of his dp right?? like can you imagine. you see a bug crash too hard into somet #hing and you hear it die. you are like five. oh my god fr.

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