#-> but i've never done this before so? it's just easiest to try through them
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i've made bigger version of this for testing use for !nprnt--- i wanted to order sticker + print for myself to see how those turn out so. there's few extra options, i'd love to try a phone case but i didn't check is my phone there yet.
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U CAN GRAB THE CHEEK PULLING STICKER HERE IF INTERESTED!!!
and 15% off code -> -> KZIOWBIS (4 days i think)
#※saltlog#trigun stampede#-> NICE MUTUAL SUGGESTED THIS 1 I FORGOR IT EXISTED..#-> i'm raises brow how you post links on twitter anymore i'll post here first..........#-> the other print is there for me only sdfsd#-> as of now i assume the site has cleared up the update issues#-> but i've never done this before so? it's just easiest to try through them
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The Changes Through Time
And my project is finish! My gift to the CAS series and @somerandomdudelmao! (This is technically supposed to be for the 1 year anniversary of CAS, but I don't have the time to post it on the 12th and I don't understand the queue system lol)
I deeply love this series as I have made fanart for it before several times and honestly it really improved my art. Cass is also an amazing creator and I look forward to anything they post in the future.
(A bit of a spiel about the illustrations from this point on)
I was honestly going to go for more of a tarot card style with boarders and everything, but as I was composing the 1st illustration, I ditched the idea and just when for simple text. The third image (like how tarot cards read the past, present/current, & future) was going to be the present, but honestly I was confused enough trying to decide which illustration was the past & future with the first two. Plus the "current" state of the story doesn't have much significance yet (and references of them aren't made because it's generally their other outfits) so I went with their spirits!
1st illustration: Representing the start of it all with the current state of all the characters. Of course we didn't know the condition of Raph in the beginning, but since he remained static until Casey found him I believe it's safe to assume that he was in that state the whole time. This illustration is unfortunately my least favorite because it's not rendered the same as the others, due to it being the first fully rendered image I've done in a while. But oh well, I still like it for the most part.
2nd illustration: Representing all of the turtles resurrections with a group hug. Not much else to note about the meaning other than the fact that I almost gave Leo an arm that he does not have. This one was also the greatest to render as I had the most fun with the bright colors. This one is definitely my favorite.
3rd illustration: Representing the turtles spirits when they were dead. Though the last one was the best to render, this one was the best to compose as a whole. Mikey and Donnie were the easiest to do since their broken states were shown in the comic, but with Raph and Leo I had to be a bit creative. With Raph I wanted to show the lack of his senses due to being in a robot for a long time and everything being subconscious. It's not as strongly detailed as the others, but he did have the most stable conditions compared to the rest of his brothers. With Leo I wanted to display his lack of self physically. Since he was fading away, at first, I wanted his spirit to be more faded and weaker compared to the rest.
Nothing else to be said that wasn't said before, but I am very glad that I started reading CAS. I've never felt more invested and moved by a fanmade comic before, so this experience is actually life changing for me. And seeing others fanart for it only inspired me! I am truly amazed by Cass and this series. Happy early 1 year anniversary
#rottmnt#cass fanart tag#cass apocalypse series#rottmnt leo#rottmnt donnie#rottmnt raph#rottmnt mikey#rottmnt casey jr
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My Pain Fits In The Palm Of Your Freezing Hand
Din Djarin x GN!Reader
Summary: When you and your Mandalorian companion are ambushed by a group of bandits, you hope that his stubborn nature will not make the task of treating his wounds any more difficult than it needs to be. But that is not the only obstacle. You also hope that the depth of your unrequited feelings for Din will not impact on your ability to care for him...
Word Count: 2.2k ✯ Rating: General ✯ Content Warnings: Canon typical violence briefly described, reader provides first-aid to minor, bloody injuries. ✯ Author's Note: A daydream about holding the stubborn tin can man's hand turned into whatever this is!! I've never written unrequited feelings for Din before but it made my heart ache in the best possible way. Hope you enjoyed!
✯ My Masterlist ✯ Read on AO3 ✯
Once the adrenaline of your latest brush with death subsides, your focus immediately pivots to caring for your Mandalorian companion. Although the heightened emotions leaving your body render you a trembling, shaky mess, your priority is to ensure his well-being. Maker knows he will never take care of himself.
As you approach the Razor Crest, you mentally scan yourself for painful areas. Casting your mind back towards the encounter as you try to recall anywhere you could have been hurt. After all, you will struggle to assist him if you are not healthy.
You recall that you had taken a couple of painful blows to the side during the skirmish, but your clumsy assailants had fortunately missed all of your vital organs. Aside from a pounding heart and dry mouth, you have mercifully made it through the ambush unscathed.
Satisfied that there are no immediate areas of concern to treat, you turn your attention towards Din. You cast your mind back over the altercation, towards any wounds he may have sustained. It is easier said than done, considering how many of them leapt out of nowhere and caught the two of you off-guard as you walked through the thick forest towards the ship.
You remember how many of them Din fought off with his bare hands. Well, through his gloves. Still, you know they will have provided scant protection, so you are keen to check them for injuries.
You momentarily struggle to remember what happened after Din had seen most of them off as you crouched behind a bush, hiding.
Then, you recall how one of your assailants had slashed at Din’s hands when he grabbed the remaining pair of them around the throat. It had been a frenzied attack, which momentarily worked as his grip loosened. Just when you had feared that all hope was lost and they were going to escape, Din brought his boot up to deliver a swift kick in the stomach to the slower of the duo, which sent them careening into each other.
Din had used many parts of his body, as well as all of his wits and expertise as a warrior to see your attackers off. He had done a formidable job, considering how much they had taken you by surprise.
Still, the state of his hands concern you.
You are pretty sure they sustained the most severe damage. Plus, as they are vitally important for everyday function, treating them takes priority.
It is settled... Din’s hands are the first area you will treat.
If he will let you, that is.
Your Mandalorian companion does not possess a reputation for being the easiest man in the galaxy to take care of... a willing patient, Din Djarin is not.
As the two of you ascend the ramp up to his beloved ship, you hope for both of your sakes that he makes this process as painless as possible.
“Din, sit down and let me get the medkit,” you order when you finally enter the familiar old ship's hull.
“Let me initiate the launch sequence first,” Din stubbornly responds.
“No,” you reply, shaking your head as you fold your arms, glaring at him.
“Fine,” Din mutters in annoyance.
It seems your sternness has done the trick.
Din perches atop a crate as you grab the medkit in preparation to treat his wounds. You hope he does not make it harder for you than necessary. Din has never made any secret that he is comfortable being fussed over. You are no stranger to the fact that he hates being taken care of like this, but if you do not tend to his wounds, you know he will never do so himself.
“Your gloves,” you nod towards the two-toned leather which covers his hands, “Take them off, Din.”
Din sighs and lifts his gloves beneath his helmet, seemingly biting at each finger to loosen them before repeating the process with his other hand. You feel like a voyeur and wonder whether you should turn your head and look away, as though his gloved hand disappearing beneath his helmet is somehow sacrilegious. Despite your inner turmoil, you cannot help but watch, unable to tear your gaze away until finally, he slides the gloves off and bares his flesh to you.
It is not the first time Din has removed his gloves in your presence, yet you still feel a thrill travelling across your body at the faintest sight of his skin.
For Din Djarin’s bare hands provide you with the tiniest peek at the man that lies beneath the cold, hard beskar. To catch a glimpse of the human side of the formidable warrior, the side of him you yearn to know entirely.
You remember how stunned you had been the first time he had removed his gloves in your presence while he was repairing a blaster several months ago.
You had been sitting elsewhere in the hull as he worked at the bench, tools spread out as he dutifully performed much-needed maintenance on one of his many beloved weapons.
A grunt of frustration indicated that the parts had been far too intricate to repair with his cumbersome gloves. So, he had pulled on each finger one by one, tugging them off. Seemingly uncaring about baring himself, even ever so slightly, in your presence.
You had tried your best not to look, but you had been unable to resist sneaking a glance at who he was underneath his armour. Although for the most part, you kept to yourselves, there was no lingering frostiness in your dynamic. You and Din were amicable, possibly even friends... if he could even have such a thing.
That day, you watched as his hands meticulously repaired his blaster. You noticed the smattering of dark hairs across the back of his hand, the surprisingly tanned skin and the calluses and scars which littered the back of his hand. It was a fascinating glimpse into the man who hid so much of himself from you, yet you still felt you knew enough about him to believe he was, deep down, a good man.
Your mind ran wild with so many questions. Was his skin a similar colour elsewhere on his body, or was it tanned because his hands were the only parts of him that saw the sun? Did the dark hairs on the back of his hand mean that the hair on his head–if he had any–was a similar colour?
They were questions you knew you would likely never get answers to. Nor did you expect to.
When Din had hired you to care for The Child and attend to maintenance on his ship, he had informed you of the rules regarding his armour and helmet. He would remove neither his helmet nor armour in your presence. You were never to question the reasons why or attempt to subvert this stipulation in any way.
That was why glimpsing a sliver of his skin had thrilled you. It had exposed the man you had been yearning to see in a way that was not a violation of his Creed.
Yet, when you see his hands this time the circumstances could not be more different. Neither could the emotions Din’s bare hands provoke in you.
Rather than feeling a thrill at the sight of his skin, now you cringe when you see the wounds that litter his flesh. His knuckles are split and bloodied, contusions that will surely colour shades of blue and black before eventually healing. There are also angry red gashes in all directions, a result of the bandit’s vibroblade making contact with his hands.
You steady yourself, mentally preparing for the gargantuan task of providing first aid to a stubborn Mandalorian. Din values all you do for him. You are certain of that fact, even if he does not often vocalise it. Still, having someone take care of him is an uncomfortable prospect for a man who has spent so long leading a solitary, nomadic existence.
When you finally take his calloused, yet soft, skin in your hand, Din sucks in a harsh breath at the sensation. The sound is amplified and crackles slightly through the vocoder. A reminder that, although he has bared some of himself, he is still mostly hidden from you. He feels like more machine than man sometimes.
You take a bacta wipe from your medkit, and the antiseptic’s sour smell lingers unpleasantly in the air. You hold Din’s hand still, as you carefully bring the wipe towards his skin, your brow furrowed in concentration.
“This is going to sting,” you murmur apologetically.
Din nods. You hear him inhale deeply as he braces for the first contact with the remedy. You prepare yourself to be as gentle as possible, not wanting to make the process needlessly painful for him.
At the first touch of the bacta wipe against his bronze skin, he jerks away from your touch, groaning slightly in pain at what you are sure is an uncomfortable, stinging sensation against his cuts.
“Hold still,” you sigh, flashing a disapproving glance in what you hope is the direction of Din’s eyes, hidden by his helmet.
“Sorry,” he huffs.
You cannot help how your lips curl upwards at the sight of him sulking. This hulking man, all broad shoulders and gleaming beskar, reduced to a wounded child. You wonder if he is pouting beneath his helmet.
Din flinches again when you resume your task, but this time, you do not chastise him. Instead, you are thankful that he is not making this any more difficult than it needs to be.
At least he has not told you he can look after himself.
Content with his behaviour, you diligently tend to Din’s wounds. You ensure each one is cleaned thoroughly with the bacta patch and then wrapped in a bandage. It will take a few days to heal, but he will have plenty of time as you hurtle through hyperspace towards Nevarro again. Unfortunately, it will mean he likely has to refrain from being the hands-on father you know he loves to be.
When your task is almost complete, you move to sit by his side on the crate. You need to steady your hands by placing your elbows against your thighs as you wrap a particularly nasty wound, which already streaks angry red tendrils across two knuckles.
Din groans again in pain, and you quickly reassure him, “Almost there,” you whisper encouragingly.
With the task finally completed, you cannot resist gently taking his hand in yours. Ostensibly, to check him for any wounds you have missed. In reality, it is borne out of a selfish desire to feel his skin against yours. Precious contact you had been yearning for since you first laid eyes upon his skin all those months ago.
If Din notices the way you subtly lace your fingers with his and hold his hand in your lap for a few moments longer than necessary, he does not say a thing. Only when you disentangle your fingers from his grip does he speak again.
When you move to stand up from the crate, he places his arm across your stomach to stop you. You look at him questioningly, wondering what is going on beneath that bucket of metal.
“Thank you,” Din finally whispers, voice thick with emotion.
You move to open your mouth, to respond. Before you can, Din’s deep voice cuts through the stillness.
“For everything… I…” Din pauses, sighs deeply, then continues, “I appreciate everything you do for me.”
You simply nod, too taken aback to speak. It is unlike Din to be sentimental or emotional, not with anyone other than Grogu. It is part of what makes him such a respected and feared hunter. Yet, here he is, confessing his appreciation for you. It causes hotness to creep up your neck and face, embarrassed by his earnestness. Desperate to respond, but not entirely trusting that you can keep it together.
“You’re worth it, Din,” you smile, daring to believe that this moment will change something for the two of you. You hope he will finally realise the depth of the feelings you hold for him; that you have always held for him.
As you take his hand in yours once again, you sit back on the crate. You take up a more comfortable position and daringly lean your head against his shoulder. The pauldron is bitingly cold beneath your cheek. But with how warm your skin suddenly feels at his words, it is an altogether welcome sensation.
Din noticeably inhales at your gesture, and you momentarily fear you have hurt his tender skin. Until he relaxes once again and squeezes your hand as best as he can considering his injuries, a reassuring gesture that soothes your worries.
As you sit there holding hands in the relative darkness of the hull, you imagine a shooting star passing somewhere far in the skies above.
You wish on it and dare to dream that, one day, Din Djarin will love you, too.
Follow @thefrogdalorianfics for updates on my latest fics!
#din djarin fic#din djarin fanfiction#din djarin#din djarin x reader#din djarin x you#the mandalorian x reader#mando x reader#mando x you#the mandalorian fanfiction#din djarin fluff#pedro pascal characters#my fics#pleasE LET ME HOLD HIS HAND AND TAKE CARE OF THIS STUBBORN MAN#JUST ONCE PLEASE I M BEGIGIN YO UU1!!
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I just adore your blog! Something about it and your imagines are just so sweet and homey 🥺 Could I please request some headcanons for Vash, Woowoo and Knives with a reader who loves to draw and is really passionate about it? I mostly have general sketching/figure studies in mind but you can do whatever is easiest for you! I hope that you have a good day and your blog continues to prosper <3
Thank you for the compliment 🥺!!! I'm so glad it feels homey. I try to make things like a home here... after all I LIVE HERE... thank you I hope to keep this blog going for a while after trying to revive it like twice before!
I think this request is so cute, I'm an artist too (have been for like, over a decade ^_^) so I've got lots of ideas in that aspect. I tried to keep to general sketching/traditional stylings of art but I think a lot of these can be applied to other art areas too!!
Vash, Wolfwood, and Knives x Reader: Artistry
Content Warnings: None! Reader doesn't have a specified gender, and some parts of the imagines are a little romance-oriented but this could also be interpreted as a strong friendship. Also this is my first mutli x reader so I hope the formatting's alright. No version was in mind for any of these so take them as you will!
Vash
Oh, he is definitely excited about this.
Vash is a bit of an artist, himself. He can do those super-complex technical drawings, and he really likes making art of machinery and stuff like that. There's a lot of diagrams of his arm lost in a notebook somewhere.
He loves to see your style and interpretation of the things around you. Seeing the world through your eyes, even for just a moment, is like heaven to him.
If you ever give him some of your art as a gift, he keeps it hung up on a wall or wherever he can stay for a while. (If he's in a more permanent place, his walls are covered in your art. He just loves it that much.)
The ones that are most special to him, he likes to keep in his pockets, so he can look at them whenever he needs a morale boost. Like, this is what he's fighting for: a world full of love and peace, a world that's able to keep creating beautiful art like this for years to come.
One day, the two of you get to draw each other as a sort of practice. Seeing each other through the others' eyes... again, it feels like a dream. Vash draws all the parts of you that you weren't always confident about with such care that you feel truly loved by him in that moment.
Wolfwood
"Oh, yer an artist? ... Can ya draw me?"
Yes he will absolutely pull that stunt at least once or twice, if only to get a hilarious dirty glare out of you. If you do actually take him up on this, he might let out a nervous "Haha... I mean, ya didn't have ta' do it, but..." He'll be really charmed.
Though his hands are strong and nimble from doing all those flippant tricks with the Punisher, he's entranced with the way you're able to use yours to create, to draw.
He's always sneaking you extra supplies, like pens, pencils, and paper, whenever you least expect it. You never have to ask for any of those things anymore, or even shop for them--they just happen upon your desk whenever you think you're running low.
One day, he takes a piece of your paper and a pen and doesn't let you see what he's doing until he's all done. He's a little dodgy about showing you, eventually he does. It's a crude scribble of the two of you, though you can tell he really put his all into it.
It's your most prized possession, and you give him a big hug for it.
Knives
Much like Vash, he's actually an artist himself--but doesn't really call himself one, rather saying that he's... capable of copying something he's seen part-for-part. So, his drawings are more like pictures or prints. They're exact. Eerily so.
The art that you make gets a half-hearted snort of approval from Knives, which is basically one of the highest praises he can offer in his own sort of language.
Though normally he'd want to give some sort of unwarranted criticism for a drawing looking wonky or off, he saves you from it. He doesn't want to break your passion--but he's not going to admit that outright.
If you do ask for criticism, though, he's very thorough while keeping you on the road to improvement. If you're studying a specific style, he's reading up on it. If you're trying new materials, he's making sure you have all the tools necessary for it.
And speaking of materials, he's able to secure uncommon colors and rare tools for you to use for art. He's making sure that everything you create is of the highest quality.
One day, you drew a portrait of him and presented it to him as a gift. He gave out that little snort of approval and maybe even a a tiny "Thanks..." as he wandered off. He secretly keeps it close to look at it in his private time, tracing his fingers over the ink marks and recalling your movements.
#vash x reader#wolfwood x reader#knives x reader#vash the stampede x reader#nicholas d. wolfwood x reader#millions knives x reader#trigun x reader#galactifics#love mail#Anonymous
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Do you have any advice on doing a character study for a character before writing them? Stuff like how they’d act/respond 👁👄👁
haha it's quite tricky, I won't lie! it's definitely one of the things I struggle with the most (writing really well-rounded and defined characters). Here are a couple things that I do, but keep in mind that I'm reeaaalllyyyy not an expert on this. I'm still learning so much about characterization every day.
If you're writing fanfiction, watch or read the source material as much as possible, until you can almost hear the way the character sounds in your head. Take time to understand things like their accent and how they speak (do they talk a lot or very little? do they use slang or enunciate everything? do they speak quickly or slowly?). Here, you just want to concentrate on the cadence of their speech / their speech patterns. If they speak plainly or use lots of proverbs or turns of phrases, that sort of thing.
If you have that down, you've honestly done half the work. Even I often reread my work and go "fuck, all of these people SOUND the same even though they're saying different things".
This is harder if you're not writing fanfiction and have to create your own universe, but regardless of whether you're writing for an existing IP or your own 'verse, I think understanding your character's cultural and religious background is so crucial to developing them. It's a big part of the lens through which they see the world, whether consciously (if they're a very religious character for example, or raised in a specific country) or subconsciously (for example, I grew up catholic so I relate to the world through that lens, even though I'm not a religious person - it just heavily informed me in my childhood years).
For this Bear story, I had to do a bit of research around Baptist theology because I knew Bear would be a religious character (whether or not he's struggling with that religion) and it would heavily inform how he sees the world around him. I listened to some sermons, talked to someone with a Baptist background, and also thought about how that background with tie into his desire to have a family).
Pick like 3-5 words that you think best describe your character and just write them down somewhere. I've never been very successful when I make huge character sheets for my characters or try to write a super detailed background for them, so I try to give myself a bit of grace and be brief about it. You can always expand on it going forward. Like for someone like Bear, I might pick: family-oriented, religious (Christian), gruff, and scrupulous. You can also do this in the reverse way and try to think of what they're not (same example with Bear, I might go: conniving, hedonistic, flighty, and optimistic LMAO). This is a nice way to put like, boundaries around your character.
In the framework of your story, try to pick a trajectory for your character, or a goal. At least have one, but you could have a couple. If they're directionless, that works too! But they should want something or aspire to be something. This counts even if they think that thing they want is beyond them or unattainable - it's still a want/goal pushing them forward. This can also be an unconscious goal by the way -> like a very hedonistic character that likes to party who's slowly getting worn down from that life and doesn't even realize they want to settle down, or vice versa! Someone who feels trapped in their mundane life but thinks that's what's expected of them. The character doesn't have to know they want this goal.
Fatal flaws. This is a big one. What is something that might get in the way of them achieving their goal or might influence how they get it? Easiest way to think of this is just looking at the 7 deadly sins (soooo corny, but it's a good place to start). Characters are never perfect, so give them a reason to struggle.
And honestly lastly? Trial and error, baby. Take your vaguely defined character and figure out what you want them to achieve (whether or not they get it is beside the point), and then work out how they might go about achieving that. If they'd run full throttle towards it because they think they deserve it or whether they'd fight it every step of the way because they either don't think they want it or don't think they deserve it.
I'm sorry if this is very messy!! It also totally depends on you as a writer. When I try to make "character background sheets", it gives me anxiety and I end up not following through with my writing versus when I try to keep it brief and just dive into the writing and slowly change things and edit as I write. But maybe a sheet works best for you!
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Who can say no to bridezilla? |
Part one
I had to write another after seeing the love the last one got, thank you btw! I've actually missed writing a fair bit so I'm glad you enjoyed it.
> With this one, I started and just couldn't stop, so I might make it into a couple of parts? Maybe? Idk, let me know if that's something anyone would want:)
Summary: With no date to your sister's wedding, what are you to do? No worries though, she's already got it covered, well, sort of...
Masterlist
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"It's just annoying. I mean- don't get me wrong, I'm proper chuffed you're finally tying the knot and all, but it's just a shitty situation.” I huffed defeatedly as I leant up against the cabinet, watching as a grey sky crept by my kitchen window.
“I know,” I heard my sister sigh, her voice soft even through the phone’s tinny speaker. “And I’m sorry, but you know what mum’s like, y/n/n. She’ll be devastated when she finds out you’re coming alone! That, and the fact that if you don’t end up bringing a plus one, all of my wedding photos will turn out uneven… And I really, really need this day to be perfect! I want you to think its perfect! To enjoy it! Not just be sat there on the sidelines, watching.”
I closed my eyes for a long moment as I ran a hand through my hair. It was in dire need of a good wash, but between my job and the stress of having recently moved, I hadn’t found the time to even sit down. Still, I could understand where my sister was coming from, and I really wanted her to have the picture perfect day she’d always dreamt of too. But, we both knew that she was laying it on thick now, and with me being the eldest, we both also knew I’d do just about anything to make her happy. This though, was a big ask.
“Listen, yes things ended badly between Alex and I, but now that it’s all finally over, I just don’t think I have it in me to try and force myself to find someone else to replace him. Not yet, anyway.”
Alex, being my most recent ex. We’d parted ways about three months ago now- though ‘parted’ definitely wasn’t the term I preferred to use. But how else was I supposed to describe him cheating and me having to walk in on it happening? With my best mate of all people, too.
Yeah, that hadn’t been the easiest of transitions, especially since I’d also been flat-sharing with the pair of them.
But my sister knew all of this already.
“Mum will just have to worry about me being lonely a little longer, y/s/n, and I'll just have to prepare myself to deal with her constant fussing over me for the entire evening.” I attempted to cajole, not wanting to outright deny her. “As well as the rest of my life, I suppose.” I added unhelpfully under my breath.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love my mum, God, she was just about the only person who truly understood me. That, and she’d done absolutely everything within her power to make sure that her kids had gotten everything she'd never had. She was an utter saint. But saying that, she could also tend to be a tad bit… overbearing.
“Ah come on, she won’t be that bad!” My sister fired back before she then paused, as though she’d only just understood the words she’d spoken. I couldn’t not let out an airy chuckle when she sighed, “Alright, fair enough, she will be. But! If you just ask someone along, you won’t have to spend my entire wedding day avoiding her!”
I groaned, rubbing at my face.
“It’s been months since I ended things with Al- mum knows that, babe. I’ve had her on the phone almost every day since, hassling and FaceTiming me constantly to make sure I’m still alive. She even sends down little care packages in the post! Care. Packages. Y/s/n.”
I actually looked over towards the most recent arrival which had awoken me early the previous morning. It was still where I’d left it, chucked beside the foot of the sofa, barely opened.
Again, I adored the woman, but she tended to be a fair bit dramatic. I could really see where my sister got it all from.
“Besides, how am I supposed to convince her I'm perfectly fine with someone I've only just met hanging off my arm?” I added, puttering on over to the sink to fill the kettle. I think I could feel another migraine coming on.
“I get it, y/n, I do. And I’m also sorry for suggesting it, but if I knew of an easier solution that would magically solve all our problems, then I would. But I don’t, and even though I want the biggest day of my life to go perfectly, I also want you happy.”
I could hear the sincerity in her voice and as I picked up my mug and tossed a teabag inside, I could also picture her sat at the dinning table back home, foot anxiously tapping away in an attempt to conjure up a better idea. She was a nitpicker, right down to the very bone, and I could only guess the amount of stress she was putting herself under in order to make sure that her wedding went off without a hitch for all those involved.
After a few moments of shared silence, she spoke again, “To be honest, I can’t believe you stuck around as long as you did.”
My mind wandered back to all the time I’d wasted on Alex. We’d met growing up, he’d been our next door neighbour. We went through all of primary school despising one another, only to end up in the same friendship group come secondary. It didn’t take much more than that for us to suddenly become joined at the hip. He’d been my best mate, and when we finally got together, I’d pictured the rest of our lives spent with one another.
He’d honestly really fucked me over in the end. I hadn’t just lost my boyfriend that day, but both of my closest friends, as well as a few others who’d taken his side in the awkward aftermath that came when most relationships ended. But that being said, I felt more at peace now than I had in a long while. With every relationship came troubles, and by the end of ours, I guessed we had more than most. That wasn’t me making excuses for him though- nah, he was still a massive prick.
“Yeah, me either.” I admitted, a breathy chuckle slipping from my lips as I softly shook away the rest of my thoughts.
“I am proud of you though, for moving on as well as you have. Always knew he was an arse.” Came my sister’s voice and I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me.
I grinned, so very thankful for her.
“God, was he!” I agreed instantly, listening to her giggle as I laughed, “A right tit.”
“Oh!”
I blinked at the sudden exclamation heard from down the phone and furrowed my brow slightly as the last of my laughter tittered out, “You alright there?”
“Uh, yes! I’ve just had the most perfect idea!” My sister declared, not even giving me the chance to question her before she was off on a tangent. “Forget about having to chat anyone up, or having some godawful colleague of yours to pose as a fake date- I’ve already got the perfect person for you!”
I felt my mouth part slightly in confusion and was just about to speak up when she beat me to the punch, seemingly excited about whatever plan she’d formulated in her head.
“Right, okay, just listen. I know this guy, a friend of Adam’s, yeah? He’s been off of relationships for a little while now, not really looking for anything at the moment ‘cause he’s been away for a bit. Busy, and what not. But y/n, he’s a right charmer, proper looker, too! He also happens to owe Ad a big favour!”
I closed my eyes for a moment, frowning. “What are you getting at here, y/s/n?”
The huff that sounded then, all but echoed in my ear and I couldn’t not roll my eyes at her dramatics.
“He can be your date, y/n! I know he’d be well up for helping us out if I give him free-rein to do what he pleases, always up for a laugh, and he'll be able to keep mum off your back about finding someone new. Plus, I can guarantee you a good time because I just know that the two of you will instantly hit it off.”
“What?” I squawk, far beyond perplexed. “You can’t just ask some randomer to pretend to be my date to your wedding, y/s/n! Are you actually insane?”
“He’s not some randomer though! I know him through Adam, and Adam’s known him since school!” My sister pestered, and I could practically feel her excitement bubbling up from down the phone. “He’s well lovely, nothing like He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named— Plus! When we were first introduced, I’d had the thought of setting him up with you, but well, you know, you were still with What’s-his-face and you seemed happy enough.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, to be frank. And went to say as much, when she cut me off again.
“Come on, y/n/n! It’ll be so great! And besides, who would it hurt? You’re both single, not looking for any sort of commitment, and both without dates to my wedding. Mum’ll be over the moon about it, too, once I let her know! And this way, I won’t have to fork out God knows how much on another two plus ones.”
“I’m really not sure about- hang on, he’s already going?” I questioned, confusedly.
“He’s Adam’s best mate, of course he’s coming!”
“I thought Ad’s best mate was George?”
Her eye roll was implied when she retorted. “You can have more than one best mate, y/n. Look, you worry too much. I’ll have Ad phone him now and ask, yeah? If he agrees, I’ll get him to message you.” I was still beyond fucking baffled and could hear the obvious delight which lined my sister’s tone. “That settles it, I’ll do it right now. So talk to you later, yeah? God, I'm so excited! Love you lots!”
Then she was gone.
I let the phone fall away from my ear and stared down at the blank screen with vacant eyes.
What the fuck.
“What the actual fuck?” I found myself asking my empty flat aloud. I rubbed at my forehead tiredly before I ultimately tossed the device onto the pile of cushions perched on the nearest armchair, leaving it there to hopefully die, or something.
Didn’t quite turn out that way though. I ended up fishing it out about an hour later when I’d started running a bath, needing it for it’s musical capabilities.
It was then, after the tub had filled and I’d slipped into its mountain of bubbles, that a notification disturbed the perfect playlist I’d curated.
I grumbled as I pulled myself up and out of the water.
It was a text from an unknown number, I frowned as I unlocked the device.
“Oh, for fucks sake!”
I hadn’t actually believed that she would do it. Ask someone to be her sister’s fake date to her own wedding! But I really, really, really should’ve known better.
And so I tossed the phone back on the side, submerging my body in its entirety back under the soapy water in hopes that I might just drown. She was so dead.
—
Maybe I’d been a tad bit hasty in scheduling the perfectly timed event of my sister’s impending death.
Listen, I could admit when I was being a total drama queen, but my sister had well and truly pushed her luck this time around, and so I’d been quick in my judgement of the situation. Perhaps a little too quick.
Several weeks had passed since that day and in the time leading up to my sister’s wedding, I had spent a good portion of it texting Matty back and forth.
That was his name, by the way- the poor bloke my sister had roped into accompanying me on her big day. And if I was being honest, I was rather grateful for the fact that she’d chosen to stick her big nose in where it wasn’t wanted and set the whole thing up. Though, I might have been better inclined to admit so if she’d been a whole lot more normal and just introduced the two of us in a much more conventional way.
When Matty had texted me that first night- rather delighted by the fact that he’d been gifted the privilege of a front row ticket to the shit-show I was still calling my life- I’d been dreading the entire thing.
He had taken the utter piss out of me in all truth, and had then proceeded to rinse the shit out of the entire situation for all it was worth. But, strangely enough, he’d done so in the very best way.
I can honestly admit that I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard as I have than when I’m messaging Matty. He was everything my sister had described and more.
He knew how to have a good laugh, when to flirt or to tease, and he was pretty open about the things that mattered most to him once you’d bartered your way past that overzealous ego of his. He also appeared to love music almost as much as me, which was honestly saying something. And he spoke highly of his family and friends, in length too when they had come up here and there in conversation.
I really hadn’t expected to have grown so close to him in the time we’d spent texting back and forth, but there was just something about him, in his nature maybe, that just made things feel so easy.
It was so, so strange, because I hadn’t even seen a picture of the bloke, and I’d only ever heard a few short snippets of his voice through the odd voicenote we'd shared here and there, but I’d openly call him a close friend to any one who now asked. It was as though we’d known each other for years.
And I really wasn’t one to let many people in, I liked the small family I had created for myself, one full of friends I’d known for eons, and relatives that meant the world to me. So to have Matty slip by all of my defences so effortlessly, was something I thought a lot about.
“Oi,” Jamie suddenly prompted with a bright grin, a jabbing finger to my side untangled me from my thoughts. "You ready for the big day?
I’d been stood a little way a way from the chapel’s entrance, waiting for everyone else to arrive, and was seemingly a little lost in my own head. Apprehensive, maybe. Jamie had startled me slightly as I’d not even heard his approach, but I allowed myself to relax somewhat as I gave him the once over.
“Just about.” I replied with a teasing smile, “Clean up nice, Jim. Loving the suit.”
Jamie was my cousin, but we were so close in age I practically saw him as another brother. We’d grown up together, which also meant that he’d been close with Alex too.
Though, he’d actually been one of the few people who had taken my side after everything that happened, even with the two boys having been rather close since they were kids. I was glad to still have him, so glad, even if it did mean that I still felt a little guilty about the whole thing from time to time.
“Don’t look too surprised.” Jamie laughed at my light jab as he pulled me in for a short hug. “Though, you are looking good too, I suppose.”
I swatted at his shoulder when we parted. “Don’t be a twat, you know I’m the best dressed here.”
“Oh yeah…” He dragged out sarcastically, a small smirk playing on his lips. “Definitely ready to upstage the bride.”
I just rolled my eyes as I laughed. “Where is bridezilla anyway?”
“Just saw her with your mum, actually. They were fussing about something or other, but I reckon they ended up sorting it out.” Jamie replied with a small shrug as he pulled on his lapels.
I let my eyes roam around the surrounding area again for a brief moment as he did, skirting over the mass of maple trees, which were now in full bloom, and the familiar faces that crowded the gravel drive.
“Exactly why I can never see myself going through with any of this.” I commented offhandedly, too preoccupied with the anxiety of finally meeting my so called date.
My gaze found Jamie’s again when he wearily voiced, “What- even when you were with…?” His voice held a hint of genuine curiosity.
I shrugged, in truth, I’d never really given it much thought, my wedding day. Even after having been with Alex all that time. I could just never see it happening for myself.
“Not really.” I said, “How about you though? Can you picture yourself all kitted out and waiting at the end of that aisle?”
Jamie laughed, his eyes squinted. “Not too sure about that. I mean I like the sound of it, spending forever with someone and all, but I dunno who’d be brave enough to have me.”
I snorted as I clapped my cousin’s shoulder in condolence. “They’d have to be a tad bit mental, Jim. But they’d also be fucking lucky too. You’re a gooden.”
“Love you.” Jamie smiled as he enveloped me in another hug. He was a lot taller than me now so he all but squished me into his side, but I couldn’t bring myself to mind even as I jokingly shoved him away.
“Stop, you’ll ruin my hair and makeup.” I scolded lightly, wrinkling my nose.
Jamie just chuckled, “Since when have you cared about any of that crap?”
“Never.” I grinned back at him in retort, “Just didn’t want you sliming all over me, snail-face.”
“You’re a right fucking weirdo, you know that?”
“I do, Jim, I do.”
I fixed the side of my dress whilst my cousin just rolled his eyes, seemingly content with waiting beside me now.
When I’d made sure that I was still somewhat presentable, mostly for both my mother and sister’s sake, I allowed myself to reevaluate the rest of the oncoming arrivers. Still no sign of that date of mine.
I sighed quietly, checking the time on my phone again to make sure I hadn’t missed a text.
“You all good there?” Jamie questioned quietly after a few minutes, I looked up to find him staring down at me with a concerned frown.
I hummed, “Fine, why?”
“Just seem a bit nervous, not like you that.”
I huffed a light laugh before shooting my cousin a somewhat strained smile. “Yeah, maybe a bit. It’s just I’m waiting for my date to arrive and-”
As I uttered that sentence Jamie’s eyes all but boggled out of his head, “You never said nowt about a date!”
I gave him a sheepish grin, I hadn’t really mentioned Matty to anyone. Only having allowed my sister to pass on the message that I wasn’t turning up completely alone to my mum. I’d not given much thought to anyone else’s reaction.
“Um, yeah.” I replied, feeling a little uncomfortable upon having to mentally decide whether I should let Jamie in on the truth or not. The kid had always been a massive blabbermouth though, he just couldn’t seem to help it, but I knew he’d understand wholeheartedly. “It's new, but it’s going good…”
Jamie’s smile was wide enough that I could practically see either side of his molars, a megawatt sort of thing.
Immediately I felt my stomach churn. There was that guilt again.
“I’m well chuffed for you, y/n/n! Can’t wait to meet the lucky fella- when’s he set to get here? Didn’t you come together? Where’d you even meet him, anyhow? Does y/s/n know you’re bringing him along?”
Fucking hell, what was with the twenty-one questions?
I swallowed thickly. I hadn’t realise how hard this was all going to be. Was the rest of the day going to be like this? All consuming guilt?
“Er, should be here soon enough, I think.” I found myself saying, playing with one of the rings on my left hand. “Something came up last minute- his mum needed him. Urgent, you know how it is… and he’s a right mummy’s boy that one! So I suggested he just meet me here, and well, he was grateful. Felt really bad though. Promised he wouldn’t be late and all that.”
Jamie seemed to be eating it up and just kept nodding along, making me feel as though I had to continue on.
“We actually met through y/s/n, weirdly enough. She introduced us when I’d popped round to surprise her a while back. He’s close with Adam, best mates and that. We just hit it off I guess.”
I silently cursed myself and my ability to not know when to stop. fucking. rambling. But I was too nervous to think up a believable enough lie and so I’d decided to just tangent off from the truth. It was close enough, I figured.
“Awh, I’m so happy for you, cuz. Congrats!” Jamie said, obviously thrilled for me, as he wrapped an arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “Know why you’re so wound up now, your mum will be on your case all night!”
We shared a laugh. Because wasn’t that the fucking truth.
I tried my hardest to hide my slight grimace though as I allowed my cousin to congratulate me. During a few shared conversations with Matty, we had thought up a convincing enough plan, but now that it was time to put it all into action I wasn’t sure we’d actually be able to pull it off. Especially with the reminder that we’d be lying to my mum of all people.
“Oh shit, there’s Laura! Best head on over.” Jamie suddenly announced, his eyes focused on a brunette in the distance, far enough that I had to squint to even make out who he was referring to.
But before I could comment or question Jamie’s twenty/twenty vision, my cousin was already bouncing on the balls of his feet, all but ready to run off.
He turned to me before he did though, squeezing my shoulder slightly. “Make sure you come find me with this date of yours, yeah? Gotta make sure he meets the mark.” I smiled, a little touched. “But I truly am buzzing for you, y/n. After everything, you deserve someone good.”
My chest ached and as my cousin gave me one final grin I couldn’t help but feel a little like the grinch, my heart had to have shrunk to half its size at the very thought of having just lied to Jamie.
I couldn’t linger too long on the regret I felt though as my phone buzzed in my hand. Immediately I peered down at it, chewing on my lower lip.
As the screen lit up, I frowned. What the fuck had I gotten myself into?
Matty had just messaged, but before I could even think up a reply I heard a few of the other guests around me start to whisper. I glanced up and over to where I then heard a muffled squeal. I pulled a face as I watched one of my younger cousins, Arielle who’d just turned fifteen, jump behind Jordan, her older brother.
I shook my head and pivoted slightly, eyes scanning over the rest of the guests who had yet to make their way into the chapel. A few of the women were openly staring down the gravel drive, gossiping amongst themselves, and I couldn’t not follow their gaze.
I was really confused, everyone’s attention seemed to be drawn towards the figure who was wandering closer. He was decent looking, I supposed, clad in a fitted tuxedo he'd paired with a black bowtie and an uncaring expression, but he was no James Dean. So I couldn’t quite get my head round why they were all so bothered.
As he grew nearer, I took in what I could. The dark narrowed eyes hidden beneath a pair of furrowed brows, the cropped cut of the hair he’d greased back, the handful of silver rings which cluttered his fingers. What caused me to pause though was the cigarette, which hung effortlessly from his bottom lip. Because, shit.
Instantly my focus moved back down to where my phone screen was now dimming and I quickly tapped at the home screen to view the last message I’d been sent.
Keep an eye out for the oncoming smoker, alright x
My heartbeat quickened, and my gaze flitted back and forth between the approaching figure and the text. Surely it couldn’t have been anyone else.
“Sweetheart?” A voice called out with a sure northern twang, erupting goosebumps up both of my arms. I glanced up.
Sure enough it was him, he’d been the only one to ever call me that.
My throat grew dry, “Fuck me.”
“Little early for that, I reckon. Heard about there being an open bar though, buy me a drink and we can talk again later, yeah?” The man ribbed, smirking as he plucked the fag from his lip. He drew closer and I was taken back a bit from how confident he appeared, almost identical to the way he seemed over the phone. But now in tenfold.
"God, sorry.” I laughed, covering my face with the back of my hand as I shook my head to try and cover my reddening cheeks. “Didn’t expect, well- this.” I added, only furthering my embarrassment by vaguely gesturing towards him.
Matty’s grin dimmed almost immediately then, and I frowned.
“Hang on, you are Matty, right? The same Matty I’ve been messaging for weeks. The guy who texts me at all hours of the night going on about how ripe a banana has to be before you can eat it… and who sends me little voice memos of theme tunes he’s rewritten so that they sound aesthetically more pleasing?”
The man looked confused for a moment, and his brown eyes surveyed me before he ultimately chuckled. I blinked at the sudden change in behaviour.
“Guess you could put it like that.” Matty laughed once more, this time a little more airily. And God, did I want to listen to it on repeat. I’d thought about it once or twice, what it would be like to hear him laugh, to listen to him talk. “Hope you weren’t half-expecting some model to come waltzing in here. I mean, I’m fit but I can only do so much, babe.”
It was said jokingly and though Matty was probably one of the most vainest people I’d had the pleasure of meeting, I also knew that there was some genuine apprehension in his eyes. Almost like he’d been both dreading and craving this moment as much as I had.
“Fuck off! Model.” I scoffed, and laughed alongside him as I shook my head. But then I peered around at the few who were still staring and was now suddenly hyperaware of them all. I didn’t really think too much about it as I stepped in closer to shield him somewhat. “Christ, Matty. Feels like you’ve just walked off an album cover or something, with the way you’ve got everyone leering at you.”
And wow. I watched in slight disbelief as Matty scratched at the back his neck with a small, almost bashful smile. I took note of the small hoop he had cuffed around his lobe.
“Piss off.” The man chuckled, finding his feet again as he realised the proximity we now held. “Reckon they’re all looking at you though.” He commented, looking me over with a sly smile. “Hann painted a good picture, but you’ve exceeded all expectations, darling.”
I couldn’t help but smirk, regaining my usual confidence. “Spent a lot of time thinking about me, have you Healy?”
Matty’s tongue darted out to wet his lower lip, his unlit cigarette dangling between his fingers in the small space that separated our bodies.
“You’d know all about that, babe. Your first words, if I do recall, were 'fuck me'. And though I’d be happy to comply with your reasonable request, I don’t think Adam, or your sister, would very much approve of me taking you in front of all these lovely people.”
I hummed mischievously, eyeing him. Yeah, this was my Matty alright.
“Can’t say I’ll come to regret those words.” Then, before Matty could even think up another retort, I wound my arm around his and started leading us in towards the chapel. “Best play the part, yeah?”
And I had to dampen my grin when I heard the man’s joyous laughter sound beside me. Ignoring all of the other onlookers to sneak a peak over at him, I found myself loving the squinted grin he made as he tucked his cigarette behind his ear.
This night would definitely be memorable.
Part two >
#the 1975#Matty#Healy#Matty Healy#x reader#matty healy x reader#matty healy x you#y/n#fluff#weddings#dates#imagine#Matty Healy imagine#1975 band#the 1975 imagines#fic#Drabble#short works#reader#flirting#meet cute
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period comfort, bloomic style
i'm about ten years late to this game but better late than never!! title says it all. i started writing this on my period but then it took me like a whole week to get done with it so i'm not even on it anymore LMAO. oh well
these are written with gender neutral reader in mind, tho they do have a uterus for the sake of the prompt lol. i also use the username lovelylola for them, for simplicity's sake. i imagine these as taking place after the events of the bulk of the story, but before you guys meet in person. i may make a follow-up of what they do when y'all finally live together if i feel inspired enough haha
Quest:
lovelylola: i know i said i was going to bed early to sleep it off but it hurts so bad
lovelylola: can we have our usual call after all?
Quest: of course, angel <3
He hated the fact you were in pain, but he also couldn't help but feel honored that you felt comfortable sharing your pain with him, going to him when you were hurting. It felt so good to be trusted like that, especially by you.
When you joined voice, Quest almost choked on the water he was drinking. You were so. Fucking. Cute.
There you were, curled on your side in bed, wrapped in blankets, smiling through a pained grimace. Your eyes lit up at the sight of him. "Hey, handsome."
"Hey, angel," he replied softly. Immediately, his caretaker tendencies took over. "Are you drinking water?" A nod on your end. "Did you take any medicine?" "Yeah, but I think we can officially cross Aleve out of the running, too; it isn't helping anymore." You winced and curled in on yourself, a cramp shooting through your lower belly, almost as if your body was bragging about the way it resisted your attempts at easing the pain.
Obviously this was something you'd learned to deal with, and it was natural, you weren't in any danger...but Quest still couldn't help but feel like he was letting you down somehow. Damn, he wished he could be there with you now. He so desperately wanted to take care of you. It's what you deserved.
"Is there anything else to try?" He asked. "Mmm, I have my period demon." "...Your what?" You laughed as he arched his eyebrow in confusion and lifted his water for a sip. To Quest's surprise, you pulled the blankets from your body and angled your phone camera down to your midsection. This time, he did choke a little. He managed to mute his microphone just in time to hide it from you. With your phone angled the way it was, you couldn't see the way his face reddened slightly, or the way his eyes wandered. He took in the loose top draped over your body, the way it rode up slightly and exposed a bit of your stomach. And those sweatpants resting low on your hips...you were so damn beautiful. He was the luckiest man alive for you to feel this comfortable with him.
"Anyway, his name is Gengar, because when I opened him up on Christmas and saw his face I thought it was a gengar plushie at first. Cute, isn't he?" Quest snapped back to reality. He had heard you speaking the whole time, and not fully processed it until now, but he was catching up now that he was done...admiring. Sure, that word fits well enough. He realized what you had angled your camera down for was to show him the heated, lower-belly pillow with a sewn-on face and little horns. Ah; this must be the period demon.
You angled the camera back up to your face, a content smile on it from the memories you had just shared with him. Your shirt had slid down off one of your shoulders, and some bedhead was definitely already forming from your time spent tossing turning. Quest cleared his throat.
"Yes. Very cute, angel."
Xyx:
lovelylola: hey not to be a bother but
lovelylola: would love to hear your sexy accent rn <3
lovelylola: to ease my unceasing suffering (my period cramps)
xyx: rip
xyx: as you wish
"That was the easiest time I've had getting you into a call since we met, I'm pretty sure," you said when he joined you in voice chat. "Oh, so now I can't be nice to my doll when they're enduring 'unceasing suffering?'" He rested his chin in his hand, his usual smug yet fond grin appearing. "That is not what I meant and you know it."
The two of you both laughed. You often closed your eyes when you laughed, and Xyx took the opportunity to get a good look at you while you weren't able to see his lovesick eyes - he could never hide the love in his eyes from you, even when he was doing his best to guard his heart when you first met.
You were on your side, in bed. It occurred to him he'd never seen you anywhere but in the chair at your desk. And you'd never seen him anywhere but in the chair at his desk. ...He hid a wobbly smile behind his hand when the thought came to him that he didn't mind this view. He could get used to it, even. The only way it could've been better was if he was actually there, could reach out and pull you to him...
Your laughing fit was interrupted suddenly when you groaned in pain and curled in on yourself. "Don't - don't make me laugh, Xyx," your eyes were open again, gazing at him with a weary smile. "It hurts."
Laughing hurts, hm? He couldn't help but be reminded of when you first made him laugh on a tough day; you told him you were terrible at tongue twisters, but he still hadn't expected you to be that bad. Or that cute. The laughter both helped and hurt him, that day; helped because he needed it, and hurt because it made him realize he was falling again...and that was a painful thought, at first. It was before he knew you'd treat him, and his heart, and his mess, with all the sweetness in the world.
"Oof, that's going to be tough restriction, doll. No making you laugh? Not even when it sounds so lovely?~" You grinned and giggled, hiding the lower half of your face beneath your sheets.
"Is a giggle like that off limits, too?" He continued. "What about a nice chuckle? Maybe even a snicker?" You snorted, your eyes closing in glee yet again. Xyx watched, eye full of both smugness and adoration.
"Mmm...I think I can allow those. None of them seem to make my cramps worse. They do make my cheeks hurt from smiling, though," you said. "That tends to happen a lot when you're around." You smiled at Xyx tenderly, and he offered an equally soft one back...for a few seconds. Then came the grin.
"Are you saying I always leave you sore, love?~" "Haha, stop, you'll make me cramp!!"
Nakedtoaster:
nakedtoaster: ffxiv?
lovelylola: nnn...not tonight. cramping
nakedtoaster: understandable
lovelylola: can we still call, though? hearing your voice would be a balm to my aching uterus <3
nakedtoaster: ...don't ever write those words in that order again
nakedtoaster: but yes. I'll be in voice
lovelylola: <3333
"I take it saying your voice will sooth my sore womb is not your favorite way for me to call your voice sexy?" Those were really the first words out of your mouth when you entered the call, yes. Toaster's cheeks turned red, and they frowned in that adorable way they always did. "You could say that," he huffed. You laughed. At that sound, all the grumpiness from your teasing left him in an instant and a soft smile appeared on his face instead.
"Are you holding up okay?" They briefly glanced away from their screen and looked at you, on your side in bed. "You look cozy, at least." "I'm definitely cozy now that you're here to keep me company." "You-!" Toaster squirmed in their seat, pulling their microphone closer. You smiled brightly, affection sparkling in your eyes.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's just...you're so cute, Toaster. Teasing you a little helps me forget that my guts are trying to kill me." You propped yourself up on your elbow as you spoke. "I'd hardly call that only teasing me a little," your boyfriend mumbled. You snorted. "Okay, maybe a lot." You winced before you could continue. Toaster frowned, this time out of concern.
They turned away from their gaming monitor. "Even teasing me a lot doesn't make it go away, though, huh?" "No, unfortunately," you grimaced, sitting up. "But don't worry your pretty pink-haired head about it, yeah? I'm gonna go downstairs and heat up a water bottle. Don't miss me too much.~" Toaster rolled his eyes, huffing a laugh at your parting remark. Once you were out of both eye and earshot, he got to work.
Minimizing FFXIV, for just a moment, he started searching. They reasoned that, since you were using a water bottle as a heating pad/pillow, you must not have had one. And what kind of boyfriend would they be if they didn't remedy that as soon as possible?
When you clambered back into bed and came back into frame, heated water bottle in hand, Toaster had a smile on his face. "Wow, is it that fun when I'm not around?" They scoffed at you while you giggled. "You don't have a heating pad or pillow, do you?" He asked you. You shook your head. "Nope. I gotta get myself one of those cute heatable stuffies; you know, the ones shaped like animals? Those are adorable."
"That's what I thought," Toaster smiled to himself. You watched him move his mouse around, clicking on a few things, before opening FFXIV back up. They looked at you before they started playing again.
"I wouldn't worry about getting yourself one of those anymore; you've got about three different ones on the way."
Nightowl:
lovelylola: pspspspspsps
nightowl: :3 ?
lovelylola: hi <3 can we call? i'm having a uterus moment (tm)
nightowl: askdhskdfhs
nightowl: anything for my cutie!! (`･ω･)ゞ (i'm using this in place of that one salute emoji they use on the bloomic server LOL)
Nightowl looked at you with gentle eyes when you joined him in vc. You knew when you asked that he'd call you as soon as possible, but you hadn't expected him to be in voice before you could even crawl into bed! Honestly, in restrospect, you weren't sure why you were surprised.
"How you are you doing over there, cutie?" He asked, unable to stop himself from smiling at the sight of you snuggled up under your covers. "Mmm...not great. But seeing and hearing you helps." You watched as his face lit up. "Awwww, you mean it?" "Mmmmmhm! You're my painkiller tonight."
Nightowl let out a laugh and smiled widely. "Happy to help. What can I do?" "Just talking to me like this is enough. Ramble to me about architecture? I love hearing you talk about your passions." You watched as your boyfriend's happy smile melted into a lovestruck one right before your eyes.
"You...you make me so happy, cutie. Really." There was a brief pause where neither of you dared speak. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."
And indeed he did. He talked about his favorite style of architecture for a good while. He asked you yours, to which you said ancient Greek because 'adding all those columns was a sexy design choice,' which made him almost fall backwards on his bed laughing. Once he could stop giggling, he taught you the types of Greek columns.
"Okay, now that you know what they're called, which style is your favorite?" He asked. "Corinthian, for sure. They went all out on those." He chuckled a little, but before he could respond, you were hit with a wave of pain. You curled in one yourself for a moment, letting out a small groan.
"You okay?" The worried voice of your boyfriend came from your phone. You offered him a weak smile. "Yeah. I just...I wish you were here, nightowl."
"I wish I was there, too, cutie," he responded immediately. He leaned closer to his computer as he continued speaking, seemingly not even realizing it. "I wish I was there so I could get you that ice cream you like and bring it to you in bed, and heat up your water bottle for you whenever it stopped helping, and give you my hand to squeeze when the cramps get bad. And so we could cuddle. Shit, do I want to cuddle you so bad." By the end of his little declaration, you had hidden your face in your patterned sheets, your face bright red. "Nightowl..." you murmured, voice muffled ever so slightly behind cotton.
"Holy shit," he said softly. "...What?" You lowered your sheets down to just below your eyes. "Even your sheets are fucking adorable."
#anyway here hi have this i hope you like it#posts#my writing#blooming panic#bloomic#blooming panic fic#quest#xyx#nakedtoaster#nightowl
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Just thinking about some stuff, whole train-of-thought re: Wash's induction into PFL, (and the idea that it would be hilarious if he was actually one of the first Freelancers selected for the project despite being considered by the others to be a rookie) and it sort of spiraled back into the idea that he and Ohio (Vera) worked together pre-PFL.
Cause like, Wash had to have done at least 7* years in the military, he reached at least corporal (I've seen a head-canon he might have even been a sergeant on his way to staff sergeant but got demoted as part of his court-martial and I'm here for that tbh) and as a corporal he would have been a team leader for a small team, or at least he would be cleared to act in that capacity. (UNICOM Corporal: Enlisted Officer 4th rank - Typical Responsibilities: Fireteam leader)
(*IRL court-martials can come with prison time, so Wash might have been in prison for 'a little while' before PFL, then released with just enough time to realise how hard it would be to get back in the fight before PFL “conveniently” came along with a job offer, or they offered to broker a deal to keep him out of prison if he worked for them instead. If he was discharged right before being recruited and he was recruited at the start of the recruitment period he actually would have been in the military for 9 years at least, which I think we all know by this point?)
Anyway, I'm just picturing rookie!Vera has been assigned to David's team (and yes, as always I'm secretly running “his last name starts with 'C' and his 'call sign' was D.C.” head-canons) and she's not fresh from an academy new, but D.C.'s team is the elite in their field type team, so she's still out of her depth a bit.
Naturally, Military Intelligence has proven to be an oxymoron still, and bad intel has them all in over their heads. The team gets split as they're trying to wipe out a target via ground assault. D.C. takes a flash-bang (or alien equivalent) basically to the face and ends up blind (temporarily) so he's out there with a makeshift blindfold wrapped around his head to stop his eyes taking any more radiant damage and letting Vera steer them through the unfriendly terrain.
And Vera would really like to go home but they still have a job to do, especially if they're the only ones left, so she and D.C. stealth their way to their objective, but they run into a problem, a small covie strike team, and Vera doesn't know how they manage to take them out between her and her currently blind commanding officer, but they do, except for one, who makes a run for it back towards the covie base to tattle on them after the radio gets wiped out.
The covie is way too far ahead of them, they'll never catch up, and they're running out of time before it alerts the base, Vera doesn't know what to do, but D.C. tells her she has to use the sniper and take the shot herself.
“Can-can't you do it?”
“Literally blind kid.”
“Right. … shit.”
“Yep.”
“Okay, okay, I can do this, I can totally do this.”
And Vera fumbles the sniper into position and freezes. She can't do this, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, and the covie bastard is running fucking serpentine!
And then D.C.'s hand is on her back and he's telling her to breathe with him.
“You know where he's running too, look at the ground, he can't stack it now, he'll take the easiest path, that's how he's going to move, aim, lead the target for distance and speed, take the shot. You can do this, look how well you've already done while lugging my blind ass around, you have the potential, the skills, the training. Breathe. Aim. Lead. Take the shot.”
For three long seconds after she shoots, Vera worries she's hyperventilated herself high and imagined landing the shot that turned the covie's head into confetti.
It was an improbably shot and she'd landed it.
"Holy shit did you fucking see that? I mean, uh... sir? boss? -"
"Nope, still blind :) and you know what, you can just call me David; David's fine."
They finish the mission and rejoin the rest of the team, complete success thanks to their maintained stealth.
A few years later, Agent Washington will point to that shot as proof Vera has what it takes to be a Freelancer when he's asked for his opinions on some potential recruits.
It's the reason Wash was the last to know the Triplets were gone. If he'd heard it from on-high, he would have known something sus had gone down, and his penchant for breathtakingly vicious revenge would have endangered Price. Instead, hearing it fifth hand, Wash was left believing Vera had dropped out without telling him because he'd somehow made her think he'd be ashamed of her, and what kind of bastard was he, that she didn't think she could come to him with her worries, that she'd leave without leaving. Did she know he'd put her name forward, did she blame him?
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Clone Trooper Headcanons
Based off my experience with reality shifting so I guess they're not really headcanons lol I've met everyone except Omega, as the timeline is still pre-Order 66. Updated now that I've met (most of) the Bad Batch.
Rex
It can be hard to get him to open up when you first meet him, but once this man decides he likes having you around, it's hard to get rid of him.
Seriously. Try putting yourself in danger and he will throw himself into the line of fire, whether you're a Jedi or not.
And after you both get out of there alive, expect a lecture from him as if he were your older brother.
I can't tell you how many lectures I've gotten from this man. He really is the older brother you never knew you wanted or even had. He always means well, though. He just worries.
Fives
This man can, and will, goof off and give you sarcastic comments.
Rex has actively said that Fives is going to be the death of him someday.
He makes it his mission to annoy Rex as much as possible, but also knows when and where to do it. If things go south, you'd think you're suddenly standing next to Cody with how fast his attitude changes.
I once had to do a double-take with how fast he switched from goofy to serious. That was not a very fun day. We scrapped a lot of clankers though.
Echo
This man just wants some peace and quiet every so often.
Don't underestimate his quietness, however. He will throw a punch at someone if he has to.
Sometimes it's Fives on the receiving end and Echo does it just for fun.
He's also fascinated with far off galaxies, especially if they're vastly different from the one he's from. It's nice to sit and read with him, too. He loves real discussions, not debates.
Update to Echo: He's still as chaotic as he was before. He's definitely loosened up a lot more, especially on regulations. He and Wrecker seem to be close since they were feeding off each other about naming the moon we crashed on.
Cody
Don't do anything that breaks protocol. Just don't. At least not around him.
He will have you neck-deep in paperwork and other assignments if he catches you.
He's loosened up a bit, but not much. Fives always reminds him to, though.
I've got nothing. I've tried, Fives has tried, even Rex has. This man loves protocol and won't be separated from it. We've joked before about him one day marrying it. That was the day I found out just how much datawork there really is in the Grand Army of the Republic. Did that stop us? Never.
Tech
If someone were to show genuine interest in the information he spews, he'd be riding the high of seeing his brothers proved wrong for weeks, months even.
And this man can talk.
He would randomly spew out facts if said person was around, not even needing any cue that he was heard.
This man has tattoos. He knows what he's doing regarding them, too. He's done Hunter's tattoos, as well as Crosshair's. He can definitely talk. We spent so much time just talking about random things. I think he was happy to have someone to talk to, honestly. He doesn't randomly give out facts often, but he learns very quickly what someone is interested in and bases his randomly given facts on that. He told me that during our half a rotation's worth of time conversation we had because I asked him how he felt about randomly giving out facts.
Crosshair
Getting through to him would take a miracle. He's a hard nut to crack.
If he thinks you're useful to the team at all, he'd at least tolerate you.
Spend enough time around him and his brothers, he may even pick on you like he does with the others.
Even though he came to sit with us by the fire, that was literally as far as we got. He went right back to being a loner, but that's okay. So, he's definitely not the easiest to get along with (especially with the rocky introductions we had with each other), but it's not impossible to do it. For everything else, I have no idea yet lol
Hunter
He knows more about you than anyone around before you even open your mouth.
He could even tell whether you're Force-sensitive or not.
This man is incredible and everyone forgets just how good his senses actually are until he actively needs to use them.
I learned a lot about Hunter while on our hunting trip. This man might as well be Force sensitive with how good his senses are. During the actual hunts, we didn't need to speak, only needed to rely on our senses. He works incredibly well with Jedi. It's amazing.
Wrecker
If you even just casually mention that there's the smallest possiblity you like to blow things up, you've just gained a new best friend.
If you give him something to blow up on top of that, he won't let you sit out on it. He'd have both of you press the button at the same time.
Literally would have his finger on one half, yours on the other.
Nobody tell Wrecker that I'm planning to find and secure explosives on our next mission together that he will 100% get to use. I'm serious. No one tell him.
Bonus!
Omega
She'd probably be the first to befriend you. Let's be real.
She'd want to show you her room on the Marauder and would be excited the entire time.
She'd probably be extremely happy to know someone who doesn't see them as just clones. She'd be even happier if you became part of their little dysfunctional family, whether they see you a lot or not.
#star wars the clone wars#sw tcw#clone troopers#clone trooper rex#clone trooper fives#clone trooper echo#clone commander cody#star wars the bad batch#sw tbb#tbb tech#tbb crosshair#tbb hunter#tbb wrecker#tbb omega#clone trooper headcanons#clone headcanons#reality shifting#shifting community#shifting realities#desired reality#randomfandomdreaming
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"People have names on pretend birthdays, too."
"You could call yourself Ezra,"
"What's an Ezra?"
"It's a very special name from a very special person. You could have him, if you'd like."
"Can Ezra have the curliest hair?"
"Of course he can."
"... Ezra, with the Curliest Hair."
drawn for day 6 of the @june-doe-event - Swapped roles! I have an actual AU that I've been thinking about for the past week or two, and I'm going to talk about it below.
Ocean - The Most Imaginative Girl in Town. She's doomed from the start. she imagines a better world, a world where she's a leader and everything goes the way she wants it to. But in reality, she "will never leave this town at all," so to speak. During her time in the warehouse, she taps into the side of her in canon that feels distraught and helpless, the part that spirals into the "we're all just starfarts!" rhetoric. Due to her being so religious, she understands that this was the time for her to die, she's just having a REALLY hard time accepting it. She concedes not because she wants to, but because she knows this is her end. Her song is a poppy tune with secretly dismal lyrics about how no matter how hard you try, death is inevitable.
Noel - The Most Ambitious Boy in Town. His ambitions to get to France are very strong in this AU. He works insanely hard to get out of Uranium. He didn't get to have a life where he was himself, poetic and out in the open, and that's his main drive for wanting to go back. I think his song is pretty much the same as in canon.
Mischa - The Most Romantic Boy in Town. Mischa was adopted into a good adoptive family who decided they were going to give this obviously troubled teenager a safe, stable home. They provided him with a trusting, loving space, and his adoptive father taught him how to play the acoustic guitar. Mischa still finds Talia online through youtube and their relationship is the same. Instead of hip hop and rap, he mostly writes love songs and Ukrainian folk music. Instead of two songs, he has one about Talia and his love for her and need to be with her.
John Doe - In this AU, Ricky is a John Doe. The authorities were from out of town and wanted everything to be over with, and didn't understand ASL, so Ricky was left unidentified. His head is an astronaut helmet with cat ears that he made himself (sculpted the ears out of foam and clay and glued them to a normal helmet before painting it purple) Before his song, Ricky usually signs rather than speaks. Penny is the only choir member to understand ASL because it was taught in Elysium, which means that the rest of the choir can't understand Ricky unless she's interpreting. He has no voice and he doesn't know why. Ricky's song is about feeling misunderstood with no way to be understood, because he doesn't know who he is. He can't voice his feelings because he doesn't know them.
Penny - The Nicest Girl in Town. The town perceives her as "easy", easiest to bully, easiest to forget, easiest to ask for the science homework from. They label her as the nice one bc she's gullible enough to fall for it. Swap Penny is a pushover, and her need to be liked is much more prevalent here. She's desperate for positive attention, and her bullies label her the nice one to get away with using her. Her song is more about her life and how there's so much more to her than what the town perceives her as. She still has her dolly in this AU, and gives her to John as a birthday present. She and John actually become good friends throughout the course of the warehouse.
Constance - The Angriest Girl in Town. She was treated the same way she was in canon, but in death she lets loose and reveals her true emotions about everything. She's done with being a doormat. She's dead! Who cares anymore? She's dead and she spent her life catering to Ocean, and she's not going to spend the afterlife the same way. Constance says "fuck it" and lets her real self show, and I love her for that. She gets two songs - one that's really just a big vent session, with a punk rock theme where she gets to just let loose, and Sugar Cloud, where she talks about how life wasn't all terrible. I think she still has her realization in the middle of death that life was worth loving, it just comes along with realizing that life is both the good and the bad, that it's okay and even deserved to be angry.
#please send asks abt this au i love it sm#june doe#june doe event#rtc swap au#rtc#ride the cyclone#john doe ricky#john doe ricky potts#ricky potts#ocean o'connell rosenberg#noel gruber#mischa bachinski#penny lamb#constance blackwood#bird likes to art#spacedolls
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BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY PART 5
...It's been a while, hasn't it? I spent time working on a different project and I suppose I needed a break.
I'm here to give you an update regarding my culprit theory in DRDT chapter 2. So of course, SPOILERS WARNING FOR DANGANRONPA DESPAIR TIME CHAPTER 2 in case it wasn't obvious enough. It's also a very long read, so...sorry about that! Before I start, I'd like to say something. This is a message for DRDT-dev.
Not gonna dwelve on the past except for one specific moment : the appeciation/thank you e-mails you've received ever since the start of your hiatus after episode 11 was launched.
I wanted to give you words of appreciation at the time, but it completly slipped my mind because of real life + me working on my crazy theories. I felt bad that I missed it because I seriously wanted to thank you and your team for the amazing work that you've done in this fangan.
I've never been this attached to a fangan before and it's not like I've played/watched through a lot of those eitheir. But this one... it was really enjoyable! I don't think there's a single character that I dislike in this fangan. Like they all got something interesting going on or something interesting that might be bound to unfold. The mystery's also really good. I got really hooked to trying to figure out the truth behind the murder mystery of chapter 2.
I can't do art nor music, but the least I can do to show how much I appreciate the amount of work put into this is by proving it to you. This... is the final time I'm making a theory post for the murder case of chapter 2. After that, I have my own projects to work on.
Of course, I can't ask you to read it all (it's super long anyways), but the post itself is proof that I'm truly passionate about this fangan and that I truly appreciate the amazing work. It's a good source of inspiration. So honestly, thank you! Looking forward to see the future of DRDT!
So... I know I've pretty much covered everything I could explain from part 1 to 4 regarding my Eden Culprit theory. However, I feel like that this is a big confusing mess. After all, I changed a lot of things over the course of these 4 parts and even past that, I updated my culprit theory even further, but didn't provide any updates or edits to my posts.
So I'm gonna go over my whole theory once again, from beginning to the end, in a more logical order. I'll start with the easiest topics being the whodunnit and whydunnit. After that, I'll talk about the rather long howdunnit and give a better and updated explanation as to what I believe happened in each scenario.
I will also have a few texts in bolded blue to represent my evil ego personality trying to take down my whole theory, which really, they're just pretend questions/arguments based on things I believe people will think about or things that's been brought up before in the past.
Then, I'll finish it off with a section to talk about a certain something that may possibly change people's mind about not just mine, but many other theories. Let's do this!
Whodunnit
Of course, if it wasn't obvious enough, I accuse Eden of being the culprit of DRDT Chapter 2. There's a couple reasons why I suspect her, but let's focus on only one for now : the smoking gun evidence.
The decisive evidence lies in this video. Chapter 2, Episode 6 : The "Body Discovery" of Ace in the fitness room.
youtube
I skipped it to the proper scene, so no need to worry about that. So there are 4 characters involved in this scene. There's Teruko, Eden, Nico and Ace. At first sight, it really looks like Nico was trying to kill Ace, so Teruko yells at them and then they run away.
So since then, we need to focus on the following three characters : Teruko, Eden and Ace. So judging that Ace is probably dead, Teruko decides to investigate while Eden needed a minute to process this.
Not gonna list everything. For now, let's just focus on what's important to prove that Eden's the culprit : the roll of grippy tape.
This is an important clue because even though it wasn't pointed out by Teruko herself, it was clearly shown in the background (you can see it clearly at 19:55). This clue in question is what the culprit clearly used to set up their murder mechanism for the murder of Arei considering what was found in the playground in episode 8.
At 20:32, Eden decides to give a hand to Teruko with the investigation.
For the following couple seconds, it's a bit hard to see, but behind those speech bubbles, you can still see the roll of tape.
At 20:50, Ace wakes up and shouts that he's not dead. Then at 20:54...
The tape is no longer there, where it's supposed to be.
So what happened there? Was it a creator error? That's actually very unlikely considering how important this clue is. So the only logical explanation to this is that someone took the roll of grippy tape in that moment. Therefore, eitheir Teruko, Eden or Ace took it meaning that eitheir one of them is the true culprit behind the murder of Arei!
It can't be Teruko because she'd literally have no reason to commit murder and we've been under her POV most of the time, so it's very unlikely that there were windows for her to commit murder. Nothing would make sense if she was the culprit, so it's not Teruko.
Ace... there's a slight possibility, but it's still unlikely. I have a couple ideas that could make him seem like he could be the culprit (that I might explain later in the howdunnit), but it's still really difficult because of the fact that Ace is clearly wounded and he probably wouldn't be thinking about killing Arei at some point later. It would be hard to explain certain events, so it's not Ace.
So by process of elimination, that only leaves Eden. She would definitly have a perfect window to grab the roll of tape without being seen. The proof lies in 20:32 in the video. She wanted to help out Teruko in the investigation, which would've been the perfect opportunity to grab it.
This is a very sneaky and demonic trick that the DRDT creator pulled here. Giving us an incriminating evidence that was so hard to spot that they must've been wondering when it'd be found out. It really makes me wonder what would've happened if I was never part of this. Would someone actually discover this damning clue?
Let's move on.
Whydunnit
Man, I came up with plenty wild theories for the motive a while back. It went from "she wants to eliminate bullies" to "she has a dark secret she wants to keep it hidden" to "she misses her beloved dearly".
Eventually, the "she misses her beloved dearly" motive become the official one for my theory and it's not just applied to mine eitheir. There's a few others who seem to approve this motive and use it in their own theories as well.
To give some context as a reminder, Eden Tobisa is a very kind girl. We also know that her secret is "Ever since you kissed her, you were afraid your sexuality would ruin your friendship." This would indicate that she's most potentially in love with someone.
She tries to help whenever she can and tries to organize fun activities with a few, become friends with as many people as possible.
She's basically trying to keep her hopes up. Especially considering her reaction during the prologue...
She appears to be quite a tad desperate in wanting to get out. Anyways, the murder and trial happened in chapter 1. That inflicted quite a mental hit to most of the cast.
Right before the beginning of chapter 2, 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 in chapter 2, after monoTV reveals the motives, Eden suggests that they should take that opportunity to work together and escape. She's the first person who brings up the escape topic.
Even though she tried to keep her and everyone's spirits up, most of the time, it's been people arguing over everything and nothing. It's mostly a few specific people, but still, it was definitly unpleasant. But the worst part of it all is the event that unfolded in the first 4 minutes of Chapter 2, Episode 5.
youtube
That bullying that Eden received was the final straw. She had enough of all of this. That made her realise that there's only one thing that matters to her : getting the heck out of here to meet her beloved, the person she kissed.
This is mostly my logical explanation for the motive based on all the possible clues that were given to be able to find a viable motive for the murder.
For those who believe that it'd be bad writing or whatever, I'm not really gonna delve into this myself, but I'd heavily suggest reading @venus-is-thinking's post here. There's some interesting points related to the narrative possibilities. (Might not fully support my theory, but you get the idea). In any case, whether you believe it or not, the fact remains that this is a possible motive that can be used to explain why Eden commited murder.
Howdunnit
Oh boy, here we go. The most difficult, yet most fun part to explain in this theory. Even though it's only a chapter 2 murder case, there's A LOT that happened that led to the crime. This time around, I'm gonna make sure to list everything in chronological order while also providing the most updated information regarding my theory.
I'll also separate certain events in Acts, to make it easier to comprehend. Let's do this!
Act 1
It all began a few days ago, when monoTV announced the motive reveal. MonoTV gave each participant a troubling secret and told them that if no one commits murder, the secrets would be revealed to the whole world.
MonoTV is a dumb dumb however because it made a mistake and all the secrets have been swapped around, meaning that no one has their own secret. So each participant has a secret that belongs to someone else.
For a few of them, it was pretty much "eh, it's whatever!", but it was especially troubling for David. The reason why is because he knows deep down what his secret is, it's a pretty meaningful one, after all.
We already know by now that his secret is "You exist to manipulate others. Everyone else exists to be taken advantage of." Considering his talent, it would totally ruin his career. So he needed to come up with a plan to not be exposed, and fast.
MonoTV also reveals that the second floor is unlocked and they're free to explore. We're not gonna go over each one of them yet, but I want to talk about this particular scene in the fitness room.
During the investigation of the new rooms, Teruko meets up with Ace and Levi in the gym. There's an argument going on because Levi is trying to apologize to Ace for his behavior in the trial of chapter 1 (when he threatened Ace). Ace is having none of it.
Ace was also arguing with Teruko a bit regarding some comments she made behind his back that he heard, which made him behave like so...
So what is he actually gonna do about it? You'll see shortly in the next coming acts.
Act 2
Teruko spends the rest of the first day secluded in her own room until next morning because girl has to eat, ya know? As soon as she gets out of her dorm, this happens...
Eden sneaks up on Teruko to surprise her, which she didn't see this coming at all. On top of that, she claims that she could hear Teruko clearly in her dorm doing a puppet show with the cactuses. The walls are pretty thin, therefore not really soundproof. This was also shown in Act 1 when Teruko talked behind Ace's back, but could hear that conversation.
Truth bullet acquired : Eden's sneakiness
Truth bullet acquired : Non-soundproof walls
Because of that embarassing reveal, Eden used it to her advantage to blackmail Teruko, forcing her to do friendly activities with her. So Teruko has no choice but to follow her orders and go eat breakfast with Eden.
As they're preparing something in the kitchen, they suddenly hear people arguing in the cafeteria, so they go check it out. It's of course that scene where 3 different pairs fighting against each other.
So first we have J (Julia Rosales) asking Arturo to leave her alone and to stop pestering her with her secret. Nothing too relevant for the murder.
Then we have Ace bullying Nico hardcore all of a sudden. Considering the events that happened in the gym in Act 1 and the purpose of a bully, it's safe to deduce that he's doing this because he's trying to act tough. Ace is trying to display superiority over a targetted victim by bullying them. Ace wasn't really hostile towards Nico before that.
It's also very important to take this into consideration since in chapter 1, most of the time, he was behaving like an absolute coward and that's no pretending. He really has a fear of a lot of things.
Well, actually... Ace bullied Nico once in chapter 1!
Sure, he made a dumb mean comment by calling them losers for liking animals or whatever, but that wasn't just directed at Nico, it was directed at Xander as well. I think he was mostly trying to get attention by being provocative.
Besides, that was only one time compared to the multiple times that Ace bullied Nico throughout the whole chapter 2, so there's clearly a behavior change there.
Truth bullet acquired : Ace's phobias
Truth bullet acquired : Ace acting tough
Moving on...
We also have Arei arguing with monoTV about getting rid of the rope. Arei believes that this is a cruel joke of a custom weapon for her since it reminds her a lot of her past. She wants to dispose it, but monoTV refuses.
They eventually come to some kind of agreement and monoTV places that rope in the storage room, so anyone can take it if they wish.
Truth bullet acquired : Easily accessible rope
They arguing kept going for a while until David comes in, telling them to shut up and that he has an announcement to make. He reveals his secret : "My family has a history of depression."
He makes that reveal because he is suggesting that it would be best for everyone to share their secrets before the time is up. That way, once it's already out in the open, no one would have any remaining motive to commit murder according to David.
But as we know already, that was all a lie. He revealed a fake secret and wanted others to share secrets since it would help create even more conflicts which could lead to more dramatic results... like murder.
That was his master plan to instigate a murder. He wanted to have others cause a murder before the deadline, which would keep his secret safe.
Truth bullet acquired : David's plan
Act 3
Eden tells Teruko about her fun activity plan being decorating the clocks in this killing game establishment, but she wanted to invite one more person. She wanted to invite someone who complained that she wasn't invited at the cake decorating activity back in chapter 1 : Arei.
So they both enter the playground, meeting up with David and Arei who were about to have a discussion about secrets. You know the rest of that scene afterwards, I've also brought it up in the whydunnit.
Arei bullies Eden, putting the blame on her for Min's death. Eden gets out of the playground, crying in utter sadness. Then right after that, Arei laughs and...
Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls
Even though she got out of the room, it's very possible that Eden heard it which would be the absolute final straw. She had enough of all of this, then her actual motive kicked in : she wanted to get out of her as soon as possible to meet her beloved.
Of course, we know by now that Arei wasn't really that spiteful. She just wanted to give a tough and harsh lesson about this killing. To stop being so nice and naive as that would make Eden the most vulnerable target to any murder cases in the future. But alas, Eden didn't stick long enough to listen to that part, which makes me wonder if it would've made a drastic different in how chapter 2 would play out.
Well, it's possible that Eden actually heard that part of the conversation!
But we don't know that for sure. Considering the smoking gun evidence, it makes more sense to believe that she didn't hear the rest of the conversation happening in the playground.
Anyways, this was the very beginning to Eden's murder scheme. She had a lot of work to do.
Act 4
Teruko proceeds to meet up with Rose in the dress-up room who was currently having a painting session. She had Rose's secret, so she figured she might as well share the secret, which Rose agreed to.
Then they have a chat about various things, then to Teruko's surprise, she realises that Nico was here this whole time, laying down on the ground.
Nico asks Rose if she could teach him how to paint, which Rose said yes.
Let me pause for a bit to mention an important clue : Rose's custom weapon. It's turpentine. It wouldn't be out of the question to think that since this is a painting supply, she would bring it with her during painting sessions and based on what we know in later episodes...
Well, realisticly, that's not how turpentine is supposed to work!
Probably not, but this is made very clear that the author wants us to believe that it works that way in their world. There's no reason for them to make something up about it other than explaining its intended purpose.
This turpentine is meant to be served as a tool/weapon to knock someone out, kind of like chloroform.
Truth bullet acquired : Turpentine
Teruko was already out of that room to head to the cafeteria while the other two were thinking about going there because they were hungry.
Fast forward a bit in the cafeteria, Ace is having another argument with poor Nico.
Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough
He's bullying Nico once again to make himself look tough. He's even ready to threaten Nico that he would reveal their secret (we learned in the trial that Nico and Ace have each other's secret).
This failed however because David managed to snatch it from Ace's hands while he was distracted. Then Ace proceeds to keep on bullying Nico, asking : "What are you gonna do about it?"
This surprised Ace, no doubt. Then afterwards, he gets slapped by Hu. She defends Nico, telling Ace that she's had enough of this.
At the time, I thought that Nico's death threat would've been the main reason why Ace kept suspecting that Nico tried to kill him, but it's actually a lot more simple than that. I'll explain it later...
While I'm at it, let's keep in mind that Hu's custom weapon is wires.
Truth bullet acquired : Nico's motive to kill Ace
Truth bullet acquired : Hu being protective of Nico
Truth bullet acquired : Hu's wires
Then we later have Nico's secret reveal, which is not too relevant to the actual murder. What's important however are two things.
Not everyone was present in the cafeteria at the time
Rose was later sleeping in the cafeteria for an unknown amount of time
Let's go back a little bit and talk about what happened to the few other relevant characters.
Meanwhile...
Eden was working on her murder scheme. Based on a Q&A that the DRDT creator did a while ago, we learned that Eden's not very strong or fit. So if she wanted to pull a good murder, she needed to be really smart about it.
So she needed to come up with a murder mechanism to pull it off. So to make it happen, she needed the right materials.
Truth bullet used : Turpentine
She remembered the list of custom weapons written by Charles that Whit showed during the trial. Considering the hidden purpose of this weapon according to this world, she knew that she could use it to knock someone out.
It would be very easy to get a target unconscious without resorting to physical force. Next up, she needed some kind of murder weapon that would do the deed for her.
Truth bullet used : Hu's wires
Eden probably considered using Hu's custom weapon, but that would've been incredibly risky. Even if she was friends with Hu, how would she be able to get her weapon without seeming suspicious?
She needed to use something else. Something that could work just as well as Hu's wires.
Initially, I was thinking of the analog clocks that could be found in the killing game building, a specific wire within it, but it seems quite convoluted on top of being unsure if that would've been enough wire to pull it off.
So I kept looking into it, and I discovered two interesting facts about this fangan.
During the prologue, we learn a few things about Eden, but most importantly, she loves hand-making antique clocks. Meaning it's not wrong to assume that she loves antique clocks overall.
The other fact is the following...
Whoever made this killing game, everyone's dorm has been customized to fit their needs and style. So if we combine this fact, Eden's talent and her love for antique clocks, then it's safe to deduce that she must have antique clocks in her dorm, don't you think?
Not only that, but it could very well be a grandfather clock! There's a seemingly grand variety of grandfather clocks, but what's important is that you can find clock cables in them. They're usually used to maintain the clock's weights.
This could very well be the weapon that she used for the murder attempt on Ace. Otherwise, it could very well be some kind of material that she already had available considering her talent and her love to craft antique clocks.
Truth bullet created : Eden's cables
Murder attempt on Ace? Isn't it Nico who tried to kill Ace in the gym?
I'll explain that confusion later... For now, let's just say that her initial plan was not killing Arei in particular. At least, not the things we've seen in the playground. Whatever we discovered in the fitness room instead was her initial plan.
Well, there's no way to know for sure that Eden had those wires.
No, but as long as it's a possibility, it can work.
But that's only based on your assumptions, that's just wrong!
It's a logical deduction based on facts about this fangan. But you know what? I refuse to elaborate further on this. I'll explain why in the finale.
Moving on, Eden did something else while there was an argument happening in the cafeteria. She decided to have a meeting with Arturo in the infirmary to share his secret. Eden has Arturo's secret : "Your younger sister killed herself because of you. You should have never left."
This is pretty much the flashback scene that we see in Chapter 2, Episode 10. Eden reveals the secret, Arturo threatens her, Arei comes in to save the day. Arei then apologies for her bullying back in playground. Then Arei and Eden become friends.
There's of course more to it than that, but you get the idea.
Wouldn't your motive become null and void when Eden became friends with Arei?
Not necessarily. Eden probably made up her mind already about leaving this place. Besides, there's no guarantee that she fully believed what Arei said.
I personally think that this was a perfect opportunity for Eden to take advantage of Arei when she would need it most.
But this was supposed to be a meeting with Arturo. How would Eden know that Arei would come to the infirmary?
That's the thing. She didn't know. The fact that Arei came in to save her was an unexpected, yet pleasant event. It was literally a golden opportunity for the culprit.
Then she was only expecting Arturo. What would be the point of that meeting if she intended to murder someone that wasn't necessarily Arei?
Right, cause back in episode 10, we were led to believe for a while that Arturo could've been a suspect of the murder of Arei. It was also because of the fake letter that was adressed to Arei.
Well, we know that Eden knew Arturo's secret and that's no light secret eitheir. It's a pretty bad one. So she must've been expecting a negative reaction out of Arturo.
Truth bullet used : David's plan
I doubt that she was aware of David's intentions, but she could've used David's idea to her advantage. She had a feeling that some of these secrets could cause conflicts. Which is precisely why she decided to share it to Arturo.
She was creating a potential suspect for her plan in the future.
Why would that matter if she was only meeting up with Arturo? She would have no other witnesses if that went according to plan!
Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls
She knew that any conversations could be heard from outside of said room, so she made a gamble on it. She was hoping that someone else would hear the conversation happening and they would be the potential witness.
Luckily for her, that worked out a lot better than anticipated when Arei came in to save and befriend her.
Truth bullet acquired : Eden's incident in the infirmary
Before getting her murder scheme in motion, all that was left was grabbing Rose's turpentine.
Wasn't it Nico who stole the turpentine from Rose?
I'll explain the thing about Nico later, but no, it could've been anyone else. Like I said before, she was painting in the dress-up room, her turpentine could've been there.
Also, after the argument between Ace and Nico, Rose fell asleep, so for an unknown period of time, the dress-up room was left unattended, meaning that anyone could've stolen it, not just Nico.
But how would Eden know that the turpentine was there?
Normally, she would think that it's in Rose's dorm, but it's very likely that she saw Rose painting in the distance and spotted the turpentine. It's not because we don't see her since the bullying that we should expect her to be secluded in her room for an unknown amount of time.
But then she would rely on luck yet again to get what she wants!
It's possible that she considered to use something else to knock someone unconscious, but when she came across that turpentine in the dress-up room, she figured it would've been a much better option.
But wouldn't Rose have noticed the turpentine missing during the practice session she was supposed to have with Nico later?
Not necessarily, she tends to be easily distracted and absent-minded. So she might've not noticed until later.
Well, she also has a photographic memory. She can precisely remember things. Wouldn't she remember when it was missing?
Not if she didn't notice it beforehand. Anyways, we're getting nowhere with this, so I refuse to elaborate further. I'll explain why later in the finale.
Act 5
During the evening of DAY 2, a few things happened on the second floor. Ace was working out alone in the gym and a meeting was about to happen between Arei and David in the relaxation room.
Hold up, didn't that happen on the evening of DAY 3?
That's what we're all led to believe, but there are plenty reasons to believe that's not what happened. I'll explain it later when the time comes. For now, whether you believe it or not, let's say that this happened in the evening of DAY 2.
So Ace is working out during that time, most likely doing benchpress. The reason why is somewhat related to this...
Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough
Obviously he's not pretending to work out, he's actually a fairly fit and strong person, which was also shown during the Q&A with DRDT creator. He's also an athlete.
Even since the scene in the fitness room in DAY 1, he's trying to rely on himself alone and doesn't want others to see him as a joke. So he's also working out to stay in shape.
Truth bullet acquired : Ace working out
Isn't that because of his eating disorder that he's working out?
Probably, but I don't think it's just that. I think it also has something to do with trying to get stronger to make sure he can survive the killing game.
He then hears a conversation happening between Arei and David in the relaxation room. Ace got curious, so he stopped training and decided to eavesdrop on them.
This is pretty much the flashback scene that we get in Chapter 2, Episode 11. Of course, the events according to my theory are different compared to what's shown in episode 11. Aside from it happening at a different day, there's a few other details that Ace tricked us into believing that this truly happened on DAY 3.
Truth bullet acquired : Ace's testimony
I'll explain them later once we get to this particular Act. There is one thing that's very important thing to recall right now though.
He said that right after Arei asked David to say something. That was after she revealed David's secret in private because she was seeking an explanation for his actions. Since she knows David's actual secret, it means that she knew that he lied about "family history of depression" secret and that his secret share plan is suspicious.
So Ace claiming that he didn't hear anything else right after that moment is just incredibly suspicious. It just wouldn't make sense! David must have said something to Arei. He couldn't have simply ran away because he would've run into Ace otherwise.
David must have said something afterwards, regardless of what it is.
Then can you explain what happened then? Why didn't Ace hear anything else.
Ace truly didn't hear anything else, but not for the reason that most are led to believe.
What's that supposed to mean?!
Something happened shortly afterwards that made Ace physically unable to hear anything else.
Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness
Truth bullet used : Turpentine
In that precise moment, Eden snuck up on Ace and knocked him unconscious with the turpentine that she stole in the dress-up room earlier. Ace became the intended victim target for Eden's murder scheme.
Wouldn't Arei and David hear anything happening?
Probably not. As long as she's stealthy enough and that the turpentine is strong enough, it could knock him out pretty quick with having time to react to it. It's entirely possible to do this quietly.
Alright, but wouldn't they see the unconscious body sometime later after the discussion?
Not if Eden dragged the body to hide it. Initially, I thought she would bring it to the dress-up room and hide it in the changing room, but I think it'd ask too much physically for Eden. So the only option remaining is dragging the body back to the gym. This should work as long as it's not in the hallway and the door is closed.
But earlier, you said that Eden's weak and not fit. How would she be able to drag a body?
In a real life scenario, it would probably be really different and incredibly difficult. But that's the only explanation I can come up with to explain how she was able to do that without getting caught.
It's not like she waited for Ace inside the gym. Otherwise, he would've prolly heard more about the conversation.
Anyways, I refuse to elaborate further on this. I'll explain why later in the finale.
Moving on...
After capturing Ace, she had one remaining step to do before preparing the murder mechanism : she needed a scapegoat. Arei was the perfect target for that.
Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness
Truth bullet used : Turpentine
So Eden knocked her unconscious at the most appropriate time when no one else was around.
Wasn't David here? Wouldn't he have known?
Obviously, the culprit didn't do that while they were both present. Considering the matter of the discussion, it's probably likely that David got out of the relaxation room first, before Arei. So Eden simply needed to wait for David to use the elevator.
Otherwise, she could've also prepared a fake letter, asking Arei to meet up in the playground so that she could knock her out. This is probably the most logical explanation to this. It would match up the contents of the letter that was revealed in Chapter 2, Episode 10.
Truth bullet created : Eden's letter
Before I proceed with the next Acts, I'd like to pause it to explain every other possible clues that was found on the second floor that could be relevant to the murder mystery.
The 2nd Floor
The dress-up room
A few things to note about this room that even though none of the characters talked about, as long as it's presented, it can be used as a potential clue. We got some wigs on the left and the pink heart shaped case looks most likely to be a makeup-kit. It would make a lot of sense, considering where it is.
Truth bullet acquired : Wigs
Truth bullet acquired : Makeup-kit
Then post Arei's murder, Charles finds a ball of clothes in this room.
Truth bullet acquired : Ball of clothes
The relaxation room
There's a few things I'll list that may seem mundane at first, but they will become important as I explain it later.
First, we got those green mats, they look like light green yoga mats? Let's call em green yoga mats, why not?
Then, we have the incense sticks. They give a pretty good smell inside that room. Burning a whole stick can take up to an hour, but the lingering smell can last for multiple hours. They originally come the incense box that we're seeing to the right.
Truth bullet acquired : Green yoga mats
Truth bullet acquired : Incense sticks
Truth bullet acquired : Box of incense
We also learn about a special feature within this room in Episode 2.
We also learn that the room becomes locked at 10:00 PM up until 8:00 AM because of this misting system that monoTV implemented. He doesn't want anyone to enter that room at night while this is happening since it would leave a mess.
Truth bullet acquired : Relax room's nighttime features
The fitness room
I decided to use the crime scene in Episode 6 since most of the much needed clues are found in here.
Let's start with both the broom and the stepladder. They're not from the gym originally, so someone must have brought them here. They must've played a role in setting up some kind of murder scheme in here. Are they from the storage room, perhaps?
Truth bullet acquired : Broom
Truth bullet acquired : Stepladder
Next up, we have the whole weight rack. It wasn't there originally. Uh... I mean, it came from the gym, but not in this unusual position. So someone moved it. Was it part of the murder scheme?
Truth bullet acquired : Moved weight rack
Then, we have those benches adjacent to Ace that's been moved. We also have the right fan that fell down. It was ripped out according to Teruko. Also, the left side fan isn't working.
This is strange because the first time Teruko explored that room, it was working just fine and even after monoTV finishing cleaning up that failed murder attempt mess, the left side fan was working again. Why would it suddenly stop turning if that fan wasn't ripped out?
We have two weight plates neatly placed next to the threadmills. Why are they here?
Truth bullet acquired : Moved benches
Truth bullet acquired : Ripped out right fan
Truth bullet acquired : Left fan not spinning
Truth bullet acquired : Weight plates next to treadmill
Onto the more important clues.
We have a piece of wire that's attached to a blade of the fan with tape. A part of it has blood on it. The other piece of the wire, which was held by Nico when Teruko and Eden came across this crime scene, but then they dropped it. There's also blood on it, but there's a couple spots where there's no blood somehow. Is it two wires or the same wire snapped in two?
Truth bullet acquired : Piece of wire attached to fan
Truth bullet acquired : Other piece of wire
Speaking of tape, this is the roll of grippy tape that I was talking about in the Whodunnit part of my post. According to Rose in Episode 7, when she failed to do a pull-up, she says that there was originally grippy tape on that bar, which Teruko didn't believe.
But if you rewind back to the previous episodes, you can clearly see that there was something on that pull-up bar, but then during the crime scene of the attempted murder, it's no longer there. It's very safe to presume that the roll of tape and what was on the pull-up bar are the same kind of grippy tape.
Truth bullet acquired : Roll of grippy tape
Truth bullet acquired : Missing tape on pull-up bar
Let's take a closer look at the body.
A couple things to note...
The neck wounds on Ace. We were first led to believe that he died to those wounds, but it turns out, he's still alive. They must still hurt though. Right behind that we can see a glimpse of smeared blood on the wall, behind his neck. Even when Ace wakes up, the blood on the wall is still trying, so it's no magic trick or illusion there. It's very real.
Then, even more subtle than that, there's blood on his Ace's fingers (on his right hand). Because of the way it's positioned and because the other hand is hidden, it's possible that there's more blood on these hands.
And then we have Nico being "caught in the act". Anyone who sees this will immediatly think that Nico tried to kill him, no doubt about it. While I'm at it, let's keep in mind the odd position that Ace's body is found. Another thing even weirder than that is the utter lack of other traces of blood. There's no blood on any of the equipments, other walls and so on. What happened here?
Truth bullet acquired : Neck wounds
Truth bullet acquired : Smeared blood on the wall
Truth bullet acquired : Blood on Ace's fingers
Truth bullet acquired : Nico caught in the act
Truth bullet acquired : Ace's sitting position
Truth bullet acquired : Lack of blood anywhere else
Quite a lot of truth bullets in that room, ain't it?
The playground
(I can't find a good screenshot to take to see the whole crime scene without any distractions, so I'll trust that you have a fairly good idea of what it looked like. Also, I'm getting close to the limit of pictures I can send, so...)
Let's start with the body.
She is seen hanging by a rope on the swing set. Someone tied her up there, but who would be strong enough to pull that off? Then when Arturo inspected the body, he found out that Arei has a broken neck, so something with the rope must caused her neck to snap somehow.
We also find red marks on her wrists, indicating that her wrists must've been tied up with something. Other than that, there's no other visible wounds or details regarding the body. Well, there is one thing... it's not mentioned by the cast, but it's clearly visible : Arei's glove is missing.
Truth bullet acquired : Rope attached to Arei's neck
Truth bullet acquired : Arei's broken neck
Truth bullet acquired : Red marks on Arei's wrists
Truth bullet acquired : Arei's missing glove
Close to the seasaw, which is like in front of the swing set, we can find scuffed marks on the ground, which is caused by something being scraped against it. Seemingly easy to damage the ground.
And there's also the dead fishes found close by. Why are they here? According to Nico, the fishes were fed last evening/night by them, so the fishes were still alive by then.
Truth bullet acquired : Scuffed ground
Truth bullet acquired : Dead fishes
Moving on... to the right, if we look at the carousel aka the spinny thing, there are two clues. First one is the long rope found under the carousel. The bars of the carousel are wrapped with tape. It looks like the very same tape that was found in the fitness room.
Truth bullet acquired : Long rope under carousel
Truth bullet acquired : Carousel wrapped with tape
Oh right, before I forget... according to MonoTV, there was also a broken ceiling light on the ceiling, so they turned it off for now.
Truth bullet acquired : Broken ceiling light
Then in the hallway, Rose knocks over the only trash can available on the second floor and they find a couple clues.
We have the empty water jugs with broken handles. Quite peculiar, don't you think? Then we have a torn-up note which we already what it is by now. It's the letter "signed by Eden" adressing to Arei to ask her to meet in the playground about an issue regarding a secret being exposed.
We also have scrunched up tape, which looks very similar to the tapes we found in both the playground and the gym. Can't be a coincidence!
More subtle and not mentioned by the characters, there's a needle with a black string attached to it.
Truth bullet acquired : Empty jugs with broken handles
Truth bullet acquired : Torn-up note
Truth bullet acquired : Scrunched up tape
Truth bullet acquired : Needle with black string attached
I believe that's all the relevant clues I can find in each of these rooms. Time to get back on track!
Act 6
So to give a tiny recap to where we were last time in Act 5, Eden knocked Ace unconscious, dragged him back to the gym. Then sometime later, she knocked Arei unconscious.
Why would she knock Arei unconscious?! The culprit already found her intended victim for the murder!
There's only one possible explanation for this. Arei was supposed to be the scapegoat for her murder scheme. She was supposed to be the main suspect.
That makes no sense! If it went according to plan, during the trial, Arei would've mentioned that she's been knocked unconscious by Eden.
Not quite!
Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness
If she can sneak up on Teruko without her noticing, then she can also sneak up on Ace to knock him unconscious without being noticed. Therefore, if she can do that with Ace, she can do the exact same thing with Arei.
So sure, she would've mentioned that she's been knocked out, but who would believe her? Would they rather believe Eden or Arei? I think the answer is pretty clear.
But she must've been knocked unconscious not too late at night, meaning that she could've woken up sometime later at night and no one would suspect a thing about her!
There's no way to tell if the turpentine's effect would make someone go unconscious for a short or long time. That aside, there's a simple solution to explain how she couldn't escape without being suspected. To make sure that she doesn't go anywhere, you just need to trap Arei somewhere, lock her somewhere.
But there's no such place for that!
Truth bullet used : Relax's room nighttime features
The culprit hid Arei's unconscious body inside the relaxation room. Even if Arei somehow woke up early, she would be unable to get out of here because of the features of that room.
The room closes at 10:00 PM and only reopens at 8:00 AM. It's heavily implied that it would be locked. If someone wouldn't be able to enter that room at night, it's possible that someone wouldn't be able to exit that room eitheir if they were stuck inside.
But according to said features, it's locked because of a misting system that uses an enriched formula for the plants inside. Wouldn't Arei be covered in said enriched formula as well?
She would, unless the culprit used something to cover her body.
Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes
Truth bullet used : Needle with black string attached
The ball of clothes has starch on it and according to some google research, starch is actually very beneficial in plant growth. So it's safe to presume that this enriched formula that monoTV mentioned has something to do with starch. Meaning that the ball of clothes is physical proof that it was used in the relaxation room for the night.
This ball of clothes in question is a bundle of all the old uniforms that Teruko and Hu used to have until monoTV changed their style.
Then, it's possible that the culprit used a needle with string to attach pieces of clothes together to make a custom blanket of sorts.
But the turf in the relaxation room would get wet at night and that would stick to Arei's body!
Truth bullet used : Green yoga mats
The culprit placed the body on top of a yoga mat. That way, it wouldn't leave any traces on the back side of her body. Then add the blanket of clothes as mentioned earlier and she'd be covered from all sides.
To summarize this act, after hiding Ace's body in the gym, she knocked Arei unconscious with the turpentine and made sure that Arei would be locked up inside the relaxation room and covered from the misting system. She did all of that before 10:00 PM.
Act 7
Now that Arei's unconscious body was taken care of, it was now time to set up the murder mechanism!
Truth bullet used : Moved weight rack
Let's get that out of the way right off the bat. We know Eden's weak, so there's no way she could've moved the weight rack, even though it seemed to have been moved to make space for the murder mechanism. I doubt that Eden would put the time and physical efforts to move the weight plates one by one, then the weight rack and then putting back the weight plates.
So if she didn't do it, who did?
Truth bullet used : Ace working out
According to my theory, Ace was working out that evening, so wouldn't it make more sense to believe that he's the one who moved that weight rack? That would also be evidence that he was working out during the evening of DAY 2, not DAY 3 (I know what some of you think about this, but I'll get back to it later, don't worry).
But that doesn't make sense! The way that the weight rack was moved and toppled over, it's facing away from the bench where he would be doing the bench pressing.
Maybe, but we don't quite know what the characters are truly thinking. For all we know, this could be his actual workout preference, as weird as it may seem. With that said, I refuse to elaborate further. I will explain why in the finale.
Besides, we know that Ace is fairly fit, so he could move a bunch of these weight plates easily. Moving on...
Truth bullet used : Missing tape on pull-up bar
Since we know that Eden took the roll of tape with her as shown in the whodunnit, sometime after the failed murder reveal, it's logical to conclude that she's also the person who removed the tape on that bar. She removed all of the available tape on the pull-up bars to make a single roll of grippy tape.
Ha! There's a problem with that! It doesn't seem like there's a lot of tape on that pull-up bar, it's highly doubtful that it would be the same quantity as what's shown on the roll of tape. She must have gotten that tape somewhere else.
There's a very simple explanation for it...
See this on the left? That's also a pull-up bar, but slightly hidden by the weird workout contraption directly in front. But still, there's definitly a pull-up bar there.
So tell me... if there was grippy tape on the pull-up bar to the right, wouldn't there be tape on the pull-up bar to the left as well? There was a reason why I mentioned "available tape on the pull-up bars" and it wasn't a typo.
If you combine the tape from both pull-up bars, there would surely be enough to make a complete roll of tape. Moving on...
Truth bullet used : Eden's cables
Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan
Truth bullet used : Other piece of wire
Since the culprit didn't use Hu's custom weapon according to my theory, it's safe to presume to the wire that was found in the gym is the exact same as Eden's cables that I came up with. This also means that both pieces of the wire were originally a single, longer piece of wire.
So she used her accessible weapon for the next step...
Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan
Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape
Truth bullet used : Stepladder
She attached one end of the wire to one of the blades of the right fan. The culprit circled the cable around the blade a few times and then did the finishing touches by sticking tape to it to make sure it'll stay there.
Of course, she's not as tall as a giraffe or as tall as Arturo, so she needed something to boost her height. That's where the stepladder comes into play. She placed it below the fan, climbed up and did the thing.
But when Teruko finds the body, you can see that the tape is facing upwards, above the fan. Wouldn't it be much easier to place it under the blade?
Sure, it would make sense, but from a mystery game/novel perspective, what would happen if the tape was placed under? You wouldn't really be able to see it now, would you? Granted, some could easily arrive at the conclusion that the wire was attached with tape since there was a roll of tape found at the scene.
So in that case, there's another simple and logical explanation to it. If you had the option to place tape eitheir above or under the fan, which would be the most efficient?
The right answer would be above the fan! Think about it. The wire is supposed to be holding something, so there would be weight attached to it. If the tape was applied under the blade, it could've easily come off because of the pressure of the weight. If it was taped above the blade instead, even though there would be weight pressure, it wouldn't affect the tape much in that situation.
Therefore, Eden placed the tape above the blade of the fan because that was the most efficient option. While I'm at it...
Truth bullet used : Ripped out right fan
Truth bullet used : Left fan not spinning
Considering what I've said previously regarding the left fan not spinning during the body discovery of Ace, there's a simple solution for this mystery.
The left fan stopped spinning because it was turned off. There is most likely a switch in the gym to turn on and off the fans.
That would easily explain why the left fan started spinning again after monoTV cleaned up the room the following day. That would also easily explain how the culprit managed to place tape on the right fan as well. Even though we have no one mentioning the existence of a switch for the fan, it's very easy to come up with that conclusion.
Truth bullet created : On/Off switch for the fans
Act 8
Now that the cable was set up on one end, it was time to take care of the other hand of the cable. That part would require more steps and efforts than what's shown in Act 7.
First off, to make sure her murder mechanism worked, the end result required Ace's body to be standing up with the wire attached to his neck. So it needed to be just kinda long enough to make it work.
So the body needed to remain in a standing up position while Eden is setting up the other end of the cable to his neck. Of course, she didn't have an accomplice nor would she want to work with one, so she relied on a few materials she planned beforehand to make it work.
Truth bullet used : Moved benches
Truth bullet used : Weight plates next to treadmill
Truth bullet used : Broom
The culprit used the back wall so that Ace's body would rest against it. That way, it wouldn't move backwards. Then, she squeezed the victim's legs with the benches, placing one of them on each side so that the body wouldn't move sideways. She also placed a weight plate on each foot so that his feet wouldn't move around, which could move the body if that were to happen. It would help keep the body stable.
Even with these steps however, it still wouldn't be enough to keep the body still. After all, these steps I mentioned only affect the lower part of the body. So if the culprit let things play out like that, the upper body would simply bend forward which would make all that stability effort go to waste.
Fortunately, the culprit is smart, she thought about that beforehand. That's why she brought the broom to the gym. That was the final step needed to keep the body still.
All Eden had to do next was place the broom through Ace's shirt in the back. As long as the body is standing against the wall, Ace would be unable to bend forward because of the broom. It's physically impossible.
You can even try it out yourself at home if you'd like. Pass a broom (preferably a clean one) through your shirt in the back, stand against a wall and try to bend forward. The broom blocks you from doing that.
Wouldn't the upper body be able to move sideways though?
Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't really matter though because the culprit simply needed to hold the body for a bit and all Eden needed to focus on is making sure that it wouldn't move sideways, everything else was taken care of. Moving on...
Truth bullet used : Eden's cables
Truth bullet used : Neck wounds
Truth bullet used : Smeared blood on the wall
Truth bullet used : Lack of blood anywhere else
Now that the body is stable, she needed to place that wire around Ace's neck, but how? Well, if we look at the neck wounds, you can see multiple slashes across his neck. And judging by the smeared blood on the wall, it seems to heavily imply that the neck wounds also reach the back side of his neck.
Well, actually, there's some incredibly minor pixelly details that seem to indicate that the neck wounds doesn't extend to the back. There's also this and-
Those are incredibly niche and minor details to claim that neck wounds doesn't go around the back of his neck which is still incredibly odd to me that people believe is the case considering the smeared blood. To me, it seems more like the creator added that blood on the wall to indicate that the neck wounds also go around his back even if we can't physically see it. In any case, I refuse to elaborate further on that. I'll explain why in the finale.
Anyways, there's also the lack of blood anywhere else during Teruko's investigation of the attempted murder. It seems really weird that there's not much other signs of blood considering how seemingly complex that mechanism must be. Some claim that some of these bloody spots must've been wiped off somehow, but I think there's a much, much simpler solution to this.
The culprit wrapped the cable around Ace's neck multiple times.
The best part in all this is that the culprit doesn't even need to tie it up. Even though it's simply going around his neck multiple times without a noose, the cable wouldn't come off. Heck, if you were to pull the wire one way, it would just tighten up Ace's neck.
If you're not convinced, you can try wrapping a plastic water bottle with some long wire and then try to pull it. It usually doesn't come off.
Act 9
Now that the cable was properly wrapped around Ace's neck, Eden had a few remaining finishing touches to complete the murder mechanism.
First off, now that Ace is properly tied up with the fan, all the materials that was used to keep the body stable was no longer needed and could be discarded.
Truth bullet used : Moved benches
Truth bullet used : Weight plates next to treadmill
Truth bullet used : Broom
Truth buller used : Stepladder
She removed the broom that was stuck in Ace's shirt. Then, she moved at least the left bench so that she'd have an easier access to drag the unconscious body. After that, she removed the weight plates on his feet and put it next to the treadmills. To finish it off, she moved the stepladder away from the fan since it was in the way.
After doing so, she then dragged Ace's standing body closer to the fan. Or rather, right below it, at the center.
Why didn't she place Ace's body under the fan to begin with? Moving it towards the wall seem unnecessary!
No, it was very much needed. Remember, Eden's not strong and she needed to make sure that the unconscious body wouldn't move while she's setting up the murder mechanism. Even if she were to make the body sit down, she would then need to make him stand up to tighten up the wire, but if there's no way to stabilize the backside, it would just fall backwards. Then if she would try to make sure it wouldn't go backwards, it could bend forward and so on. It wouldn't be practical.
That's precisely why she needed to make his body lean against the wall initially. Anyways, once Eden placed the body under the fan, she readjusted the wire a bit to make sure it would remain tight.
Couldn't she just leave the body standing against the wall for the murder mechanism?
Not really. The way the murder mechanism is supposed is work is like so..
Ace's body would be held by the wire which is attached by a blade of the fan. The fans are currently turned off. The only thing the culprit needed to do to commit murder is turn on the switch. By turning on the switch, the fan would spin along with the wire.
If the body was standing against the wall at the time, the wire would somewhat try to drag the body forward, which could potentially make the body fall, which could potentially break the fan.
If the body is standing right below the fan however, the wire wouldn't really drag his body since it is at the very center of the rotation. Once the fan spins along with the wire, the wire would wrap around his neck further, which tightens it even further, which could be what caused those neck wounds.
And that's what I think is what the murder mechanism is supposed to be.
Why would she go through so much work and efforts to make that kind of mechanism?
There's a couple reasons. Eden's not strong, as stated before, so there's a bunch of murder methods that she couldn't do by herself. Granted, she could easily do something like stabbing, but it's possible that she's the kind of the person who doesn't want to do the actual murder action herself. So the culprit would be more at ease if it was some kind of mechanism that would do the dirty deed for her.
But for a more reasonable explanation, working on a murder mechanism like that reminds her of her time spent working on clocks. Since clocks usually involve mechanisms, Eden would be more at ease working on something that's closer to her talents.
Truth bullet used : Hu's wires
Also, less practical reason, but still a reason nonetheless, since the culprit used some kind of wire as murder weapon, it could've been served as a way to throw in suspicions towards Hu. Even though the plan was meant to have Arei be the main suspect, it doesn't mean she couldn't throw suspicions indirectly on others as well. Besides, the more suspicions that's thrown at others, the less likely she would be caught.
Another good reason to it is because of the BDA rule. The rule states that "The Body Announcement will play when three or more people who did not witness the murder discover the body." She crafted that whole killing machine so that she would be able commit murder without witness the moment of murder.
Truth bullet used : On/Off switch for the fans
Eden simply needed to turn the switch of the fans back on and then exit the gym. She could go back to the dorm, letting the mechanism do its work and then next morning, if she goes with 2 other people to find Ace's dead body in the gym, it would trigger the BDA.
Act 10
That sounds great and all, but the murder plan failed anyways. What is even the point of all this?
Well, if everything went according to plan, it could've been a nearly perfect crime. But that didn't happen, as we all know. So what happened instead? Well, there's a simple reason why I suspect why Eden is the person responsible for the attempted murder on Ace.
Truth bullet used : Nico's motive to kill Ace
Truth bullet used : Nico caught in the act
Consider that Teruko and Eden found Nico next to Ace's that night, they're definitly involved in some shape or form. But since the murder mechanism was all of Eden's work, it would mean that Nico is the third party behind this fiasco.
While Eden was working on her murder mechanism, Nico decided that they wanted to murder Ace. The constant bullying pushed them to the edge. So they were desperatly looking for their target to commit murder.
But wait... if Nico was caught in the gym, how would they know to find Ace in here? Wouldn't they think that Ace would be sleeping at night in his dorm? Why wouldn't they look for him in the evening.
It's hard to say. I think there's honestly a lot of things that we don't know about Nico. They're quite the mystery. What we do know is that they were willing to murder Ace. We don't know their whole thought process, but they probably wanted to kill him at night since they would be less likely to be found out.
They probably tried knocking on Ace's door first, or maybe they kept a close eye to when Ace would come back to his dorm, but it never happened. So they probably eventually decided to go take a look around the building to see where he could be hiding.
But apparently, Nico never really thought about it when Veronika asked about how they envisioned killing Ace.
Maybe, but like I said, there's a lot that we don't know about Nico and from the looks of it, when Ace bullied Nico and they then replied that they would kill him, it seemed like a totally different behavior.
I don't know what's up with that, but that sinister behavior makes me believe that this is like a different form of Nico. Like a split personality, or his true self or something. We don't know for sure what it could be, but that different behavior could be what caused them to want to kill Ace at night.
My point is... because there's so much unknown about Nico, there's a vast amount of possibilities that would explain why they decided to murder Ace then and now. Moving on...
So Nico's looking around for his prey (hehe), they probably look around the first floor, but don't find him anywhere. So the only remaining option is taking the elevator to go on the second floor, he must be there after all.
Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls
Meanwhile, Eden suddenly hears the elevator making sounds. She realises that someone is approaching, but who and why this late at night?
Even though she completed the murder mechanism, she still wanted to clean up the crime scene a bit. Like... you know... placing the broom and stepladder back where it came from (storage room maybe), placing the discarded weight plates and moved benches back to their original position.
Unfortunatly, she can't do that, someone's coming, she needs to hide. So what does she do? She turns the switch of the fan back on, exits the gym and then hides in the dress-up room. Now, all she can do is hope and pray that whoever arrived will go back to the first floor.
But how would she not be aware that someone would arrive late at night? Wouldn't she have known that Nico probably wanted to kill Ace?
That's actually impossible. She couldn't have expected this at all.
Truth bullet used : Eden's incident in the infirmary
While the argument between Nico and Ace happened that day, Eden was busy having a private discussion with Arturo in the infirmary. She had a meeting so that she could reveal his secret and cause a potential conflict.
When Ace was threatening Nico that he would reveal their secret, at the time, Arturo, Eden and Arei was nowhere to be seen in the cafeteria, so it matches up perfectly.
So yeah... that was an unpleasant and unexpected surprise for Eden. The worst part in all of this is that when Nico reached the second floor, they actually entered the gym and that's when they discovered Ace about to be murdered by this weird mechanism.
This just became a disaster for Eden, someone found out about it too early and there's nothing she can do about it at the moment except to wait. So what does Nico do next?
Truth bullet used : On/Off switch for the fans
They turn off the fans.
What?! What would be the point of that?! He wants Ace dead, he doesn't want to save him! That doesn't make sense!
This is a golden opportunity for Nico! Think about it. They want to murder Ace, but then they see that potentially someone else already tried to murder him. It's hard to say if they knew what this whole mechanism meant, but they could see that the fan was playing a part to it.
So they probably realised : "Wait, I could turn it off and then kill him myself." That way, if the group somehow figures out the murder mechanism, they might not realise that someone else killed Ace in that moment.
But then Eden would've told the group about it. She would've been a witness and Nico would've been doomed at the trial.
Maybe, but the thing to keep in mind is that at the time, Nico didn't know that the person responsible for the murder mechanism was hiding somewhere on the second floor. After all...
Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness
Even though the walls are not soundproof, Eden is really sneaky, so she might've been able to hide without being noticed by Nico.
But like I said before, Nico never really thought about it when Veronika asked about how they envisioned killing Ace.
...Again with this. Like I said before, there's a lot that we don't know about Nico yet. It's precisely because he never thought about it that it makes me think that something's going on with Nico.
If Nico had something like a split personality, similar to Toko Fukawa, it would explain those oddities. Cliché'd or not, this is a fangan. So creators could definitly take inspiration from the original ones without a doubt. It would also explain why they weren't willing to share to Charles what happened there. Whether they was filled with regret or not, it's possible that they don't quite clearly remember how it went.
In any case, I refuse to elaborate further on that. I'll explain why in the finale.
Now that the fan is turned off, there are eitheir two things Nico could do : Kill Ace directly with a slightly different method, like physically strangling him or they simply turn the switch back on.
As long as they get the finishing blow, that should work.
Act 11
It's around this time that someone else joins the murder party on the second floor. We must not forget about Teruko! Based on what we saw on Episode 6, Teruko realises that she forgot her spare uniforms in the dress-up room on the second floor because she didn't want to use the same ol stinky clothes after taking a shower. So she then uses the elevator to go get her clothes on the second floor.
Eden hears footsteps, noticing that someone's approaching the dress-up room. Thinking it's the person who was in the gym, she goes : "W-who's there? I know you've been following me!"
But that was in fact Teruko who entered that room, so she replies : "What? No, I'm not. What are you talking about?"
Then Eden gets embarassed and nervous. She asks : "Oh, it's just you, Teruko. What are you doing here?" At the time, the culprit thought that it was the other person who visited the gym : Nico.
Teruko replies : "I could say the same to you. What are *you* doing here, at a time like this?" She makes a very good point. It's very suspicious of Eden to be present in here this late at night and Eden is aware of that. She's in trouble. If she doesn't come up with a valid excuse quickly, her plan will be completly ruined.
Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes
She then remembered that when she was gathering clothes to make some kind of blanket to cover Arei from the starched water, she noticed spares of Teruko's uniform. So with her quick wit, she came up with this : "Hu told me all about how MonoTV gave you both new outfits. I noticed you didn't take any of your new clothes, so I was going to deliver them to you! But I'm guessing that's also why you're here right now."
That excuse worked like a charm. Teruko believed it, as mistrusting as she may be. She was even nearly about to thank Eden for being so nice, but then remembered she needs to retain a mean and mistrusting persona.
So then they talk for a bit, they're about to go back to the first floor. Or at the very least, Teruko was about to go there first because she doesn't trust anyone else to take the elevator with her. Then all of a sudden, they hear loud noises coming from the gym. They enter the room and then we get to the scene of the attempted murder on Ace with Nico being caught in the act.
Act 12
While this whole scene between both girls happened, something else was happening back in the gym. So according to my theory, Nico turned off the fans. That wasn't just because of malicious intents by the way, there was also a logical reason behind it.
Truth bullet used : Left fan not spinning
Truth bullet used : Nico caught in the act
When Teruko and Eden discovered Ace's body while Nico was holding a piece of the wire, in that moment, the left fan wasn't working. It wouldn't make sense for the left fan to be broken like the one on the right since it was working just fine the next day.
This means that someone must've turned off the fans and the only possibility I can think of is if Nico turned them off for their own personal reasons. It just makes sense.
Anyways, as they were about plotting to murder Ace, something else happened that put a stop to their plan.
Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls
They heard someone using the elevator. Not only that, but they could hear Teruko and Eden talking in the dress-up room. They are now aware that there are people close by. They can't afford to do any funny business like murder if there are witnesses close by. They had no choice but to wait for them to go back to the first floor.
To make sure that they were indeed gone, they put their head against the door to listen closely to what's going on outside the fitness room.
While this was happening... yet another unexpected thing happend. Ace came back to consciousness!
That makes no sense! You have no proof of that!
You'll understand why I make that claim shortly. Be quiet and let me continue!
So let's think about Ace's point of view for a minute here. He wakes up in the fitness room. What are some of the things that he notices? Well, he sees Nico in the distance, by the door. Nico doesn't notice Ace who came back to consciousness because they were busy listening to the conversation between Teruko and Eden.
Truth bullet used : Neck wounds
Shortly afterwards, he would notice that his neck hurts. Confused, he's wondering what's going.
Truth bullet used : Eden's cables
Truth bullet used : Blood on Ace's fingers
Truth bullet used : Nico's motive to kill Ace
Truth bullet used : Ace's phobias
So Ace touches his neck and that's when he notices that there's blood. Then upon closer inspection, he realises that he's stuck with a wire wrapped around his neck. The terrifying conclusion comes to him in a flash : "Oh my god! Nico is about to freaking kill me! I don't wanna die!" This is partly why there's blood on Ace's fingers. He's having a moment of panic, but...
Truth bullet used : Non-soundproof walls
He can also hear two girls talking from outside the gym. So Ace knows that there's people around. He probably wanted to scream, but his neck probably hurt so bad that it might've been nearly impossible to speak at the moment.
So he needed to come up with another plan. What could he possibly do to get everyone's attention?
Truth bullet used : Ace working out
Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan
Truth bullet used : Other piece of wire
Truth bullet used : Blood on Ace's fingers
There's only one possible option he could do in a situation like this : brute force his way out of this death trap. So he grabs the wire from the front of his neck with both hands, tries to break that wire with all his might. While doing that, he's also pulling his body backwards.
That way, it would put stress on both the wires and the fan. So as long as eitheir breaks, that would do the trick. That would certainly explain why there spots on the wire that didn't have blood : Ace wiped them simply with his hands.
HOLD ON JUST A MINUTE! That can't be possible! You can't fully wipe blood on wires with just your hands that way. You'd need something to clean it up. Also, the position of the spots wouldn't quite realisticly match up the positions of where his hands would be and-
.........I refuse to elaborate on that. I'll explain why later in the finale.
Moving on... Fortunately for Ace, when he tried to eitheir break the wire or the fan, both happened at the same time.
Truth bullet used : Moved benches
Truth bullet used : Piece of wire attached to fan
Truth bullet used : Other piece of wire
Truth bullet used : Ripped out right fan
Truth bullet used : Ace's sitting position
Truth bullet used : Smeared blood on the wall
So what exactly happened when he succeeded in brute forcing his way out? Well, the cable break in two, which would explain both pieces of wire found. Then, the right fan would be ripped out of the ceiling, which would perfectly explain why it was found on the ground.
As the fan breaks, Ace's backwards momemtum would make him fall behind. This would result in him having a sitting position with his back against the wall. The impact of his head against the wall, would make his head move a bit, which would perfectly explain the smear on the wall.
Also, while he's falling backwards, he would also hit the right bench, which would make it topple over. That would cleanly explain why Teruko found a toppled bench during Ace's body discovery.
And of course, all of that creates a very loud noise, which got Teruko and Eden curious.
But what about Nico?
Well... they're kinda screwed. But more importantly, they're as confused as the girls outside. After all, they were busy listening to the conversation, so they have no idea what the hell just happened there.
So when they turn around, they just see this mess... They can't help but wonder what in the heavens happened here. So they approach the "crime scene" and get rather curious about the broken wire. So they grab one piece of the wire and...
Act 13
Truth bullet used : Nico caught in the act
Truth bullet used : Nico's motive to kill Ace
Truth bullet used : Hu's wires
Truth bullet used : Hu being protective of Nico
Truth bullet used : Turpentine
That's when we get the scene where Teruko and Eden finds Ace presumably dead. They also find Nico holding a piece of the wire that has blood on it. This, ladies and gentleman, is how the whole attempted murder on Ace went down in my opinion. It would perfectly explain all the clues found here.
Not only that, but that would be perfect to make us believe without a shred of a doubt that it was Nico who truly did all of that.
Why? It's simple! Teruko catches Nico in the act, so that's already very suspicious. We also know that they wanted to have a painting session with Rose, so it's very easy to believe that Nico might've stolen the turpentine to knock Ace unconscious.
Then, we see that the murder weapon looks like some kind of wire. What do we know about wires? According to the list of custom weapons, Hu's weapon are wires.
Add that to the fact that she's trying to protect Nico from all the bullying like an overprotective mother, we get the following result : Nico really wanted to kill Ace and Hu wanted to help, so Hu became the accomplice by giving them wires.
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to believe that all of this is just a giant red herring?! A devil trick pulled by the DRDT creator themselves! If that's truly what happened, then I can't help but applaud the creator for coming up with such an elaborate mystery.
Another thing to take note : Eden is really surprised and confused upon seeing the chaotic mess. Her whole mechanical creation broken apart. She couldn't but utter those words : "AHHHHHHH! Wh...What?? What is this??"
Also, Eden notices something else that's entirely wrong : she knows that Ace is not dead.
Huh? How come?!
Think about it. The reason why she made this murder mechanism is to be able to count as a person for the BDA rule since she didn't need to be in the gym for the murder to happen. So when they came across this whole mess, there were at least 3 alive people : Teruko, Eden and Nico. If Ace was truly dead, the BDA would've triggered by now, but that's not what happened.
So Eden knew that her whole murder attempt on Ace failed. Her whole plan failed.
Anyways, Teruko shouts at Nico, they run away and leave the crime scene. So what about Ace? Well...
Act 14
Ace is supposed to be back to consciousness, yet at the time, he's presumably. Well... it's more accurate to say that we were led to believe that he's unconscious. So what's up with that?
There's two options. He eitheir hit his head so hard against the wall that he lost consciousness again. It's a funny theory to think about, but I seriously don't think that's what happened.
So that means it's most likely the other option : Ace pretended to be dead/unconscious.
That's just insane! Why would Ace do that?!
Well, initially, I think it was to fool Nico. Since Ace was absolutely that he was the murderer, he didn't know what to expect of them. So by pretending to be unconscious still, Nico would turn around to see the mess and they would probably not immediatly suspect that this was caused by Ace. It would make sense since they were seen holding a piece of wire, probably wondering what the hell happened.
Well, Nico's gone though. Couldn't he have dropped the act?
He probably could've, but there was something that made him not want to reveal it.
Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough
By that, I don't mean that he's pretending to be dead because he wants to act tough. That wouldn't make sense. I'm referring to the argument scene with Levi way back in Episode 2. He had a change of behavior since then and he even stated that he would rely on himself alone.
In simpler terms, he's practically acting like Teruko : not trusting anyone and working on his own. In essence, when Teruko does that, it really does make her look tough. Maybe Ace took a little bit of inspiration from it, who knows?
Wouldn't it make more sense to reveal to the girls what truly happened? That would make him look like a tough badass!
Maybe, but remember, he doesn't trust anyone else anymore and wants to work on his own. So by pretending to be dead at the time, no one would realise what truly transpired in the fitness room. So by doing that, he's hiding secrets from others, kind of like hiding the real strength of his hand in poker by making it look weak. That's also why Ace refuses to share anything to Charles about what happened in the gym. Moving on...
Teruko proceeds with the investigation while Eden is busy crying over this "body discovery".
What is Eden truly plotting here? It's simple. She's trying to think of an plan B and quick. After all, like I mentioned in the whydunnit, she really wants to get out of here, so she needs to murder someone.
On top of that, Arei is still stuck inside the relaxation room. If no murder happens real soon, things would look pretty bad for Eden. But then, she realised something... Arei is still trapped inside the relaxation room. This is the perfect opportunity.
As long as Arei is trapped in here, she could proceed to kill her next morning at the earliest time. She would rather not do it, but she has no choice, especially if she wants to complete her goal of exiting this killing game. This is the only remaining move possible. It's all or nothing!
So by the time Teruko finishes the investigation, Eden finally comes up with a proper plan B for the murder scheme. For that to work, she needed something in that gym.
Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape
So Eden tells Teruko : "Okay, I'm ready. I'm okay. Am I needed, Teruko? Let me help investigate." She would then proceed to "investigate" the crime scene when in reality, she's trying to grab the roll of tape while she's distracted.
The distraction happens around the time where Teruko approaches Ace's body to inspect it more closely.
This is bad for Ace for two reasons. One, she would notice that Ace is still alive which we do notice her reaction in Episode 6. Two, she would notice the blood on his fingers/hands. If she were to notice that, it would help her get closer to learning the truth about what happened here and that's not what Ace wants at all.
That's why he comes up with potentially the best bluff I've ever seen.
Act 15
Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough
Truth bullet used : Blood on Ace's fingers
Truth bullet used : Neck wounds
Ace decides that now's the best time to pretend to wake up to consciousness and make this hilariously loud shout to showcase that he's not dead. Here's something really interesting about this pose however.
Look at his hands. He put his left hand on his neck wounds while he's clenching his right hand. What do they both have in common? Well, it's meant to hide the fact that there was blood on his fingers beforehand, of course! The same thing happens later on.
Ace now placed his right hand on his neck wounds, covering his hand with blood to make it look like the blood on his hands originally came from touching his wounds at the moment, not before.
So by putting on this act, Ace was able to disguise his bloody hands which hides the truth behind what may have truly happened while also putting on this tough guy act. Neitheir Teruko or Eden would suspect a thing.
And of course, this would also explain why Ace is so insistent on believing that Nico tried to kill him : He saw them with his own eyes. Anyone in Ace's shoes would believe the same thing.
Truth bullet created : Ace's actions in the gym
So later on, Ace tries to chase after Nico back to their dorm. MonoTV kicks Eden and Teruko out of the gym and locks it. Then they back to the first floor to follow Ace. Then there's the scene with Teruko, Eden, Ace and Levi involved. Ace claims that he doesn't need help because he doesn't trust the others and wants to act tough and on his own.
Ace goes back to his dorm, Levi goes back to his dorm and Teruko doesn't care about Ace's condition, so she goes back to her dorm. What about Eden? Well... it's time for plan B!
Act 16
Now that everyone went back to bed. Eden shouldn't have to worry about any other surprises, so late night of DAY 2 should be the perfect time to set up the second murder mechanism among other things. There was yet again a lot of work to do. But that's fine, she mentioned in the prologue that she can work on something for many hours without taking a break.
She had two main goals in mind to make her whole murder scheme work.
Create a murder mechanism at a different location so that the mechanism would do the dirty deed for her. The best possible location for this would be the playground.
Create a perfect alibi so that no one would suspect her. For that to work, she would need to disguise the actual time of death so that people would presume the victim died at a later died, which would be a time where the culprit would have an alibi.
So while Arei is still trapped inside the relaxation room, Eden could work on gathering the materials to make a nearly perfect disguise and make the necessary preparations for the murder mechanism in the playground. Let's start with gathering the materials for the disguise.
Why would Eden need to make a disguise?
It's simple. What would be the best way to make it look like Arei was still alive on DAY 3? By having someone disguised practically like her and being present in a place where there's multiple people for a short period of time.
But she looks nothing like Arei! That's impossible!
We have a lot of clues that could make it possible, as unbelievable as it may sound.
Truth bullet used : Wigs
Truth bullet used : Make-up kit
Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness
First, she stealthily entered Arei's dorm (she probably had Arei's monopad or whatever it was to unlock that door) to take a look at her spare uniforms. Upon closer inspection, she notices that there's a small problem : there are no spare gloves. It would appear that this is a unique kind of accessory for Arei, so she's gonna have no choice but to take it from Arei's body after killing her.
Truth bullet created : Arei's spare uniform
Next up, she would go to the second floor to grab a certain wig and the make-up kit in the dress-up room. There's this blue wig that looks like Arei's hairstyle, so that should do the trick. Once it's been gathered, she temporarily placed them in Arei's dorm. Most of the disguise materials were collected, time for the next step.
Act 17
It was time to gather the materials for the second murder mechanism.
Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape
Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel
Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck
Truth bullet used : Empty jugs with broken handles
Eden already had the roll of grippy tape with her, so we don't have to worry about that. She first grabbed the water jugs that probably came from the fridge. Of course, the handles weren't broken at the time.
And finally, she took the rope that belonged to Arei, but was sent to the storage room. I don't know if there were two ropes or only one very long rope. But if there was only one, then Eden must've used a knife in the kitchen to cut it in two. That was necessary to make her murder mechanism work. That would explain the two ropes found in the playground on Episode 8.
Truth bullet created : Water jugs
Now that this was all gathered, she then needed to move them to the playground to start building that murder machinery.
Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape
Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel
Truth bullet used : Broken ceiling light
Once she arrived at the playground, Eden first needed to throw that rope above this metal railing by the ceiling, whatever it's called. She wanted to create a pulley system, so that step was important.
The culprit picked the longer rope of the two, then she put the rope through the roll of tape, tied it up and then threw it upwards as hard as possible.
It's two floors high, Eden's not strong enough to throw it up there!
She may be weak, but she can definitly pull that task. There's a specific reason why I believe the culprit used the roll of tape. It'd be incredibly light and it has a handle, which makes it really easy to chuck it high up in the air.
Even if she doesn't succeed the first, she had plenty time to keep trying until she succeeded. Eventually, she would succeed, but she would accidently hit the lights which would break it in the process.
The weight of the tape is probably not enough to break it.
We don't know that for sure. Besides, if I recall, MonoTV mentioned that the lights were flickering, which can simply be caused by a misplaced light bulb. So it could very well do the trick with enough speed. But in case you think that's not enough, I'll go ahead and say that I refuse to elaborate further on that matter, I'll explain why in the finale. Moving on...
Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape
Truth bullet used : Carousel wrapped with tape
Next up, the culprit wrapped the bars of the spinny thing with tape. The reason why was because the carousel was essential for the pulley system. She needed to spin it to raise the rope among other things
At the moment, the bars are pretty slippery, so she needed something applied to the bars so that she wouldn't the grip. Hence, the grippy tape.
Well, that's impossible! The roll of tape by itself wouldn't be enough to cover all the bars of that carousel. Where would she get more of that tape?!
Eden didn't need more tape, that was all that she needed to wrap all those bars.
Now, you're just being delusional! It can't cover all the bars with that alone!
Heh! Are you sure about that? I know that most of you are under the impression that the bars of the spinny thing must be wrapped up horizontally, kind of like putting tape on a tennis racket's handle.
By thinking outside the box, there's actually a way to explain this issue. It's very simple once you realise it. The culprit wrapped the bars vertically!
By that, I mean that she starts applying the tape from the top of the bar and then drags it straight down. Once it reaches the bottom, she just needs to cut the tape and then the extra width of the tape will go around the carousel bar. That way, Eden can save a lot of tape and would have plenty with that roll of tape.
The bars seem fairly large though. I doubt it would be enough to cover the bar with only one length of tape.
Hard to say. But if that's truly a problem, you can easily fix it by using a second length of tape on that same bar. So each bar would have 2 lengths of tape.
And if that somehow makes you think that there wouldn't be enough tape by doing it that way, then there's nothing else I can do to please you. I refuse to elaborate further on that. I will explain why in the finale. Moving on...
Truth bullet used : Water jugs
Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel
It's not time to attach that rope to the appropriate items. On one end, she would tie both water jugs together in such a way that it would be hanging from the handles. At the other end of that rope, Eden makes a noose around one of the bars of the carousel.
She then tests out the pulley system to see if it actually works. If the pulley system doesn't properly work from simply tying up the rope to one of the bars, then there's an alternative. As @1moreff-creator suggested in the past, you just weave the rope through some of the handlebars and that should do the trick.
Truth bullet created : Pulley system
And with that, the preparations for the second murder mechanism would be complete at the moment. There are a few remaining steps, but she can't do it without the body, so she'll have to wait next morning.
Act 18
While Eden is waiting for the door of the relaxation room to unlock at 8:00 AM, there were a few things that she could do. Those are not necessarily things that she did, but could've happened to make sure the plan was perfect.
Truth bullet used : Wigs
Truth bullet used : Make-up kit
Truth bullet used : Arei's spare uniform
Truth bullet used : Needle with black string attached
Of course, she didn't put on the disguise at night even though that would technicly save time. The reason why is because if Eden proceeded to disguise herself into Arei at night, waited for the doors to unlock next morning, murder her, then hide back the body, it would take so much physical efforts out of her that she would be sweating. This would ruin the disguise.
So instead, she tested out the products to make sure that they worked perfectly. For the wig, the culprit could try to readjust the hair so that it would look a lot more like Arei's hairstyle.
Then, for the make-up kit, she would find the right materials to change her skin tone so that it would match Arei's. She probably puts it on her hand or wrist and tries out various combinations until she finds the perfect color. Once she's done with that, she can simply wash it away for the time being. Oh, also, she would take the time to find proper contacts to match Arei's eye colors as well.
Next up would be the uniform. She tried it on to make sure it would fit perfectly. Eden probably knows that she's a bit smaller than Arei, so there could be some differences. She cannot recreate Arei's height, that would be impossible. It's not like Arei is wearing high heels anyways.
If the disguise is not quite perfect, she could probably try to readjust it somehow with a needle and a few basic sewing skills. I'm no expert in this, and it's unsure if Eden truly did that anyways. What matters is that there was the option available before her if needed.
Now that she's fully prepared for the murder scheme, it was time for the culprit to wait in front of the relaxation room until the door unlocks.
Act 19
It is now 8:00 AM of DAY 3, it's time to retrieve the body!
As the door of the relax room unlocks, Eden would proceed to grab Arei's body and drag it to the playground. The turf would probably be dry by now. Otherwise, why would MonoTV allow others to enter that room this early and potentially make a mess if the ground happened to still be wet and gross?
There's no way Arei would still be unconscious for such a long time. Ace woke up in fewer hours than the time it took for the culprit to wait for the doors of the relax room to open.
Ace woke up earlier because of the neck wounds, most likely. We don't really know how effective or potent this turpentine actually is. But based on my deductions, it would make a lot more sense to believe that Arei was unconscious this whole time.
Otherwise, she would have starch all over her if she woke up at night and wandered around that room. For all we know, maybe she was about to come back to consciousness very soon that morning. Maybe the culprit brought the turpentine with her just in case to make sure she remains unconscious. With that said, I refuse to elaborate further on that. I'll explain why in the finale.
Anyways, now that the culprit brought the body back to the playground, she now had access to the missing piece to complete the perfect disguise.
Truth bullet used : Arei's missing glove
It appears to be unique. So Eden took it off Arei's hand and stored it somewhere safe... like her pouch that's around her belt. That would perfectly explain why the victim's glove was missing during the investigation in Episode 8.
Act 20
The final preparations are complete, it's now time for murder! Eden needed to place the body at the right position along with a few remaining props.
Truth bullet used : Roll of grippy tape
Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck
Truth bullet used : Red marks on Arei's wrists
Truth bullet used : Scrunched up tape
Truth bullet used : Scuffed ground
Considering the red marks on Arei's wrists when she was found dead alongside the scrunched up tape found in the trash, the obvious logical conclusion we can get out of this is that her wrists were tied up with the grippy tape. The real question though is for what purpose did she do that?
According to my theory, the victim would still be unconscious, so there's no point in tying her wrists to make sure she doesn't escape or fight back or whatever. So by thinking outside the box, I've concluded that the culprit did it because it was a necessary step for the murder scheme.
Then you have to consider the scuffed marks that was found on the ground of the playground in a specific location. It couldn't have been from a fight or struggle since Arei should've been unconscious, so something else should've happened. That's when I came up with this brilliant idea.
For reference, the scuffed marks were found a few feet away from the seasaw (Don't mind the drawing). Also, the yellow stickman where we can't see the legs represents the victim : Arei. The green scribbles represent the other piece of rope, the one that's not as long as the one used for the pulley, but still somewhat long. The subtle grey scribbles by the seasaw and the yellow man's hands represents the grippy tape applied to Arei's wrists.
So here's how it's supposed to work. First, Eden brings the body close by the seasaw and then place Arei's arms between both poles (supports) of the seasaw. Next up, she would bind tightly the victim's wrists together with the grippy tape so that the body wouldn't be able to easily move away from the seasaw through a forceful pulling motion.
Then, she would use the other rope to make a noose around Arei's neck. However, she wouldn't tie the other end of the rope to the spinny thing just yet, she will do that later. For now, she placed that end of the rope as close to the carousel as possible.
I still don't see how that would create scuffed marks to the ground...
That's because I haven't shown you the magic trick yet! Let's continue!
Truth bullet used : Pulley system
Now that the other rope was set up, it was now time to use the pulley system she created last night. First, the culprit spins the carousel in the rotation (let's say clockwise) that would pull the water jugs (that are hanging by the other rope of that rope) upwards. She would pull as much as she possibly can. Then once the water jugs reach the maximum height, it was time for the next step.
Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck
The culprit needed her hands to tie the other rope that was close by her with the spinny thing's handlebar. Of course, there's a bit of weight from the water jugs, so she couldn't simply let go of the pulley. Therefore, she must've been holding the carousel with one or both legs. If tying the rope with one of the handlebars wasn't enough, Eden could've also weaved through a few of them like before.
Now, here comes to most exciting part, the "tada!" of the murder trick! She takes out her leg(s) from the spinny thing, she holds it again with her hands and then... she spins it counterclockwise as hard and as fast as possible!
That way, the water jugs would fall down pretty fast, especially if the spinny were to cause resistence of friction (making it fall slowly if it was the culprit only released). So they would fall fast, while the other rope would wind up along the carousel up until that rope reaches the limit.
As the rope reaches the limit... SNAP!
Truth bullet used : Arei's broken neck
Truth bullet used : Empty jugs with broken handles
Truth bullet used : Scuffed ground
So what happened in that moment? Well, Arei's dead. It breaks Arei's neck because of the immediate stop of the rope attached to her neck which was also pulled in by spinny thing in a pretty fast rate. This is the mainly reason why her wrists were bound. Otherwise, her whole body would've been dragged towards the carousel, which wouldn't really guarantee a killing blow.
But since the victim's wrists were stuck around the seasaw, it wouldn't move much... except for her lower body. It created a knee jerk movement reaction of her legs because of that violent pulling motion. Because of that, this would scrape the ground, which would cause the scuffed marks on the ground.
Hold on! Would it actually be enough to explain ALL these scuffed marks on the ground?
Maybe, maybe not. At the very least, the culprit could've simply created more marks on the ground to make it look more like it came from a struggle. That wouldn't be a problem at all since it's very easy to do damage the ground purposefully.
Anyways, that wouldn't be the only thing that would break. There's also the water jugs! As the rope holding Arei's neck would come to an abrupt stop, it would also make an abrupt stop to the longer rope used for the pulley system which is also what was holding the jugs by the handles. The violent motion would make the rope cut through these flimsy plastic handles, which the jugs would then fall to the ground and spill all over the playground.
The water spill is no issue at all whatsoever and was already planned by the culprit because she knew beforehand that the wet ground would dry up fairly quickly because of the fans at the ceiling.
And there you go! This... is how the actual murder happened... in my opinion. That would explain a lot of clues found perfectly, wouldn't it?
Anyways, Eden's nowhere done yet. That would only her first goal achieved : create a murder mechanism at a different location so that the mechanism would do the dirty deed for her.
Next up, it was time to create a perfect alibi so that no one would suspect her. There was still a lot of work to do.
Act 21
She had a disguise trick to do, but before doing that, she needed to get rid of a couple pieces of evidence. The main issue however is that because she had no choice but to murder Arei past 8:00 AM, someone could wake up very soon if they haven't done so already. But Eden couldn't leave all that evidence behind, especially the body. So whatever she needed to get rid of or hide, it needed to be done really fast. So anything that wasn't too essential in hiding could help her save time. So here's what she did...
Truth bullet used : Scrunched up tape
Truth bullet used : Red marks on Arei's wrists
Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel
Truth bullet used : Eden's letter
Truth bullet used : Torn-up note
Truth bullet used : Empty jugs with broken handles
Truth bullet used : Needle with black string attached
Eden took off the tape that kept the victim's wrists bound. Even though it leaves red marks which would make it fairly easy to deduce for the others to figure out that she was bound, she had no choice but to remove that tap if she wanted to move that body and hide it.
She untied both ropes that had a noose on the spinny thing. She then pulled the longer rope used for the pulley system and then put all that rope under the carousel. She left the tape stuck on the handlebars, it would take too long and there was not enough time.
Next up, Eden's letter. It's hard to say if the culprit truly made that letter as a mean to lure Arei into the playground earlier in the evening of DAY 2 and then knock her unconscious or if she simply made up that whole message at nighttime instead for the whole purpose of fabricating a perfect alibi.
Whichever it is, the culprit needed to tear up that note and throw it in the trash can. She didn't want to downright get rid of it. She wanted the others to find out about it sometime during the investigation. It was a necessary step of her plan to both make her alibi look more credible and also make herself look the least suspicious.
She also threw away the tape that was bound to Arei's wrists previously (which would now be scrunched up), the empty jugs and that needle to the trash. She no longer needed them and it wouldn't make it as easy to figure out the crime if the jugs were separated from the playground. Of course, she couldn't bring those jugs with her and get rid of them completly in case that she ends up running into someone back on the first floor.
Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck
Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes
Later on, Eden would drag the body away from the playground to then hide it in the relaxation room. She knew a decent spot to hide the body. She didn't undo the rope attached to the victim's neck since it was unnecessary.
People would know that her cause of death has to be related to the rope. It was also a waste of time, so not doing anything about it would save time which is exactly what the culprit needs. Also, she probably put the blanket of old clothes above the dead body to hide it better.
Ridiculous! Where would Eden even hide the body?
Truth bullet used : Box of incense
If I had to guess... probably somewhere behind those blue curtains. Preferably close by the box of incense. This spot appears to be further away from where most of the people would be relaxing. Most people would relax where there's the yoga mats and pillows. So that spot by the box of incense wouldn't be as obvious. Besides, there was another reason behind it.
Considering that the culprit is hiding it to fabricate their alibi, it would mean that the corpse would be here for a full day possibly. Wouldn't it mean that the body would decompose and create a noticeable smell?
It's honestly hard to say. I have sources that tells me that it doesn't go through that stage of body decomposition after 24 hours, it's usually more than that. But it also depends on various conditions. We don't know eitheir if the creator took that into account at all. But whether or not it was intended, I have an idea that would suggest that Eden planned ahead and used something in the relaxation room to make her alibi even stronger.
That's just utter nonsense! There's no such thing!
That's where you're wrong!
Truth bullet used : Incense sticks
The culprit used the incense sticks to create a natural timer mechanism!
WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!
Do you remember what I've said about these incense sticks before act 6? "Burning a whole stick can take up to an hour, but the lingering smell can last for multiple hours." That wasn't made up. That was something that I found out with a simple google search.
So let's rewind the story back to DAY 1. MonoTV announces that they have access to the 2nd floor. Teruko proceeds to investigate and finds out interesting facts about each room. It's very possible that Eden was also investigating at a different time period that day.
That would explain how she was able to come up with such complex and ingenius murder schemes according to my theory.
Culprit complimentations aside, she learned things about the relaxation room and probably noticed the smell of the incense sticks. Because we had a timeskip due to Teruko isolating herself to her dorm most of DAY 1, it's possible that Eden came back to the relaxation room later in the evening and noticed that the smell of the incense sticks disappeared. She would then have a rough idea of how long this incense smell lasts.
Now fast forward to the night of DAY 2, after the attempted murder on Ace failed. When she was plotting a new murder plan and figured out her only remaining option was killing Arei, she would remember the time of the lingering smell of said incense sticks. She would use that seemingly minor detail to her advantage.
Why does it matter having a timer?! That doesn't make sense!
It all has to do with her second goal : creating the perfect alibi. She didn't just want to hide the body for an unknown period of time, she wanted someone to find the body at some point while she's busy building her alibi with someone else.
So by using the incense sticks as a timer mechanism, she would just need to wait for someone to spend time in the relaxation room sometime in the evening. That person would eitheir notice a weird smell (of the corpse decomposing) or a lack of incense sticks smell and they would approach the box of incense to eitheir burn new sticks or to follow the source of the weird smell.
And that's how it works!
Act 22
Now that Eden cleaned up most of the important clues, she then went back to the first floor, back to Arei's dorm.
Truth bullet used : Eden's sneakiness
As long as she's sneaky enough and waits for the right time, I'm sure she would be able to enter Arei's dorm without being noticed. And then she would spend a couple hours putting on the make up and the disguise. Well actually... maybe she took a shower first.
You don't have a single shred of proof that any of this happened! Your theory just doesn't work!
If that was the case, then why does my theory line up perfectly with most of the clues found. But more importantly, why does it line up perfectly with what happened to Teruko in the morning of DAY 3?
Teruko overslept at the most convenient time for someone like Eden to commit murder around the morning of DAY 3 while also setting up her disguise.
This also lines up perfectly with what's happening afterwards. Teruko wakes, decides to go to the cafeteria during lunchtime. She finds a group of people there. Ace is having an argument with Nico because he's pretty sure that Nico tried to kill him, which is understandable. The others have their eyes on that heated argument and then...
Truth bullet used : Wigs
Truth bullet used : Make-up kit
Truth bullet used : Arei's spare uniform
Truth bullet used : Arei's missing glove
That's all you get from Arei and you don't see her anytime afterwards up until the BDA. Not only that, but she doesn't say a single thing, she's staying quiet. There's no way you can't find that suspicious in any way. Having Eden pull off a disguise trick would explain it perfectly!
Truth bullet created : Eden's disguise trick
This can't work! Teruko was staring at Arei, she would've noticed something strange about her!
Nope, she wouldn't. It's heavily implied that Teruko has prosopagnosia. This defines as having the inability of recognizing faces. She can only recognize people with their hair, eye color, skin tone. At least, that's what it seems to be when she's having a chat with Veronika in the movie screening room in Episode 7, in the evening of DAY 3. Therefore, she couldn't have recognised that something's off about her.
Anyone else who was in the cafeteria would've noticed something strange about her!
Aside from the fact that she's being quiet, not really. Why? It's simple.
Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough
Truth bullet used : Hu being protective of Nico
The constant bullying and arguing that Ace is doing towards Nico is causing a big distraction within the cafeteria. Hu was also busy defending Nico, which also plays a part in the distraction. Also, Ace is doing this because he's trying to show how much of a badass he is, despite being nearly killed. He's not holding back.
Well, Rose would've noticed! She saw her at lunch and she has a photographic memory!
Maybe, maybe not. Granted, she did see her, but we don't know for sure if she truly saw something off. After all, she tends to be absent-minded. It is possible that in future episodes, she will remember something that was a little different about Arei thanks to her photographic memory. We shouldn't fully deny the disguise trick just because of a potential witness.
Even then, it would be ridiculously risky! What if someone wanted to talk to her? The wig's light blue, not blue like Arei's hair! Is Eden even good at using make-up? I don't think she'd be able to replicate a good skin tone. And there's also that bowling pin, it's an accessory, shouldn't it be unique like the glove? What about-
Enough! ...I refuse to elaborate further on that matter. You'll understand why later in the finale. What matters for now is that I found a way to explain how the disguise trick could work and fit in with most of the clues.
Act 23
Now that the disguise trick is completed, what happens next? Well, now that the hardest part of the plan is done, she no longer needs to stick around as Arei, so she probably goes back to her actual dorm when no one's around.
Next up to the plan would be to create her alibi, but she only needs to do that from evening to night. So for the time being, Eden can take a good, hot shower and take a good nap. She did a good job, she deserved it! Let's go Eden! (We're proud of you!)
While it's not evening yet, let's take a look at two other characters who had some pretty big events happening to them yesterday. Let's start with Ace! He... had a very terrifying and traumatic experience last night, that's for sure.
Truth bullet used : Ace's phobias
I mean... He's afraid of a lot of things. Death is especially one of them. So there's no doubt in my mind that this scared the crap out of him. I'd like to believe that when he was arguing with Levi, Teruko and Eden last night sometime after the murder attempt, when he went back to his dorm, he probably shattered.
He was probably shaking at the thought that he honestly seriously died. Not only that, but it was Nico, of all people, who tried to kll him (according to him, of course). Nico, the person that he bullied constantly because they were inferior to him was able to pull that off? He has a weak mental fortitude, so for him to not break down at all anytime we see him after the attempted murder just seems suspicious to me.
Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough
Of course, he's trying to act tough, he doesn't want to show it. Or maybe he wants to be in control of his emotions or whatever. Which, it kinda makes sense, but... there's only so much you can manage mentally. As much as he tries to put on a tough guy act, eventually, the phobias will get to you, the old habits will come back.
Of course, you can improve those kind of issues to the point where it barely becomes a major issue anymore, but these kind of things take time. But of course, that's just my perception and assumption of things. What matters is that there's the possibility that this near death experience affected him a lot more than it seems which will be important later.
As for the other person... let's talk about David for a bit.
Truth bullet used : David's plan
He didn't have an experience as traumatic as Ace, but something happened that messed up with his manipulative plan : Arei knows about his secret and his plan. Well, she doesn't quite know precisely about David's intents regarding the plan of sharing secrets, but she knew something was off and wanted to make sure that there was no ill intent behind it.
Regardless, learning that someone else found out about his secret and their suspicious plan gives a pretty bad taste in his mouth. Not only that, but if his murder instigating plan succeeds, if the victim was someone else than Arei, she could've called him out on it, which would ruin his whole plan.
David is probably constantly thinking about that. He's realising that he's in a very bad spot right now. If no murder happens in the next days, then his secret would be exposed still. So no matter which will it'll go, he's always gonna have his secret exposed. David is literally screwed. That's why he's not in a good mood as shown in the evening of DAY 3.
So what does he do for the afternoon? Nothing much, really. He's probably pondering about a lot of negative things, thinking how miserable he is or something. In any case, he needs some time to be alone.
Act 24
We are now approaching the evening of DAY 3, what happens next?
Let's start with the obvious. Eden wakes up from her nice nap and proceeds to meet up with Hu to spend time with her for the evening. This is pretty much confirmed ever since Chapter 2 Episode 10 when Hu explained her alibi with Eden. According to my theory, that would be part of the culprit's plan to fabricate the perfect alibi.
Next up is Ace. Under normal circumstances, he would've spent the evening working out in the fitness room. However, because of that horrifying near death experience, he didn't want to bother with that at all and he doesn't trust anyone else. So he figured that the best thing to do was isolating himself in his dorm for the night.
But his eating disorder would've compel him to work out in the gym anyways!
Maybe, maybe not. There's no way to tell if the creator really intended for that to happen. So eitheir option would be possible, but the one that would make the most sense is if he stayed in his room. It would match up perfectly with my theory alongside a few other events I haven't explained yet. As long as my method is possible and makes sense, it should do.
And finally, we have David. His plan became a mess, he's in a bad mood. He doesn't know what to do. In any case, he somehow decides to go to the kitchen in the evening.
Why's that? Unsure, there must've been some reason, or maybe there wasn't. Maybe he just wanted to wander in the kitchen. Or maybe he thought he was gonna be able to spend time alone in kitchen, but he didn't think there would be people here at that time. Who knows?
What matters is the following...
Whit suggests to David to chill in the relaxation room, which is exactly what he does. This would conveniently line up well with Eden's plan.
Act 25
At this point during the evening of DAY 3, sometime before 10:00 AM, we only need to focus on David. So upon entering the relaxation room to... you know... relax, David notices at some point something that's off with that room.
Truth bullet used : Incense sticks
There's no longer a lingering smell of a burning incense stick (or maybe it was the weird smell from the corpse).
Truth bullet used : Box of incense
So he approaches the box of incense and then he notices something different about the blue curtains. There's something there! So David removes anything that was in the way and that's when he discovers the dead body of Arei.
David is the first person to discover the victim's corpse.
I object to that! Nico was feeding the fishes earlier that evening. Shouldn't they have noticed something odd about the smell?
Not if the lingering smell of the incense sticks was still there at the time. They wouldn't have noticed if the smell is the same as usual.
The lingering smell of the incense stopped sometime between Nico's visit and David's visit to the relax room. That was a pretty convenient timing, but it makes sense.
Now, we gotta wonder how David reacted to it. He was obviously surprised and shocked. It's hard to say if he felt happy, angry or sad about for one particular reason.
Truth bullet used : David's plan
Earlier, his plan was ruined because Arei knew about most of it. The only way he could make sure that he gets away with his secret hidden would be to have Arei dead. This... is exactly what happened. Arei's been murdered. His secret is now safe again.
Maybe he had a mix of many emotions. His plan was no longer ruined after all. There was a problem however : if he leaves things as is and the group later finds the body, David would become a prime suspect and they would force their way to find out about David's secret.
Not only that, but if they seriously suspect that he's the killer, then he, alongside the others, would lose the class trial and die. David's in big trouble.
Uh... why would David care about the trial? In chapter 1, after the execution, he commented that everyone's gonna die.
Truth bullet used : David's plan
Oh, he does care about death for sure. His whole plan was creating conflicts with others through sharing secrets in the attempt of instigating a murder.
If he didn't care about death or the trial, why wouldn't he simply kill someone instead. There's only one possible explanation : he doesn't want to die. He wanted someone else to do the dirty deed so that he would both have his secret and safe and live to see another day. He tried to kill two birds with one stone.
So anyways, David finds the body, he's shocked and confused. He needs some time to take in what happened. Actually, what happened to the body? He surely doesn't know aside that she's been murdered, of course. Was it a dream? No, it's very real, Arei's dead.
So what did he do afterwards? Well, he probably started doing his own investigation, to try to process how this happened.
Truth bullet used : Rope attached to Arei's neck
Truth bullet used : Arei's broken neck
Truth bullet used : Red marks on Arei's wrists
Truth bullet used : Arei's missing glove
Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes
As far as he's aware, Arei's neck is broken, which must have something to do with the rope, but it doesn't seem like the relaxation room would be the right place to pull that off. Otherwise, it wouldn't be hidden here. Maybe he notices the red marks as well, but doesn't quite know what to make of it. Same thing for the missing glove. It's really hard to say if he actually paid attention to it.
And there's the blanket of Hu and Teruko's old clothes that are used to hide and cover the body. Aside from hiding the body, is there even any other uses for it? He doesn't know the answer to it. Eitheir way, he at least knows that this murder couldn't have happened here, so it was time to look at the other rooms.
He didn't have to look too hard to find out where the crime actually took place. He simply needed to go to the nearest room : the playground.
Truth bullet used : Scuffed ground
Truth bullet used : Carousel wrapped with tape
Truth bullet used : Long rope under carousel
The scuffed ground is the first thing David would probably notice. He's probably wondering if there was a struggle happening here. If so, then whoever killed her must be someone pretty strong. Or maybe it's a trick? After all, he remembers that in the first trial, they've been easily fooled into thinking that Teruko was the murderer. So he can't jump to conclusions just yet.
Next up, he finds something strange with the spinny thing. There's some under there and the handlebars are wrapped up with some kind of tape. What does that even mean? He has frankly no idea.
Also, one thing that I need to point out regarding what David might've done investigation wise... Aside from it being a big assumption, it's possible that he didn't do much of that. At the very least, he was probably trying to figure out where the crime actually took place.
Whether he actually put some kind of efforts into investigating or not, there was still another problem that he needed to deal with quickly...
Act 26
Truth bullet used : Relax room's nighttime features
The relax room is about to close soon. This is bad for David because if he doesn't move the dead body, it will remain locked inside that room for the whole night and early morning. Then someone would definitly discover her corpse next morning, which would get him in big trouble since it would lead to having his secret exposed.
There was no time to waste. He needed to get that corpse out of here and that's what he exactly did. David dragged the corpse back to the playground. Now, he needed to figure out what he could do to indirectly help the group with the investigation.
He must've imagined that her cause of death must be from something like hanging. So he decided to hang her at the swingset. He couldn't quite exactly figure out how it was done, but that's all he could think of. As long as they don't think that it was hidden in the relaxation room to begin with, then he wouldn't be suspected.
But then he realised another problem : How will the others know when she died? If things are left out as is, they might think she was eitheir murdered at night or very early in the morning? There's a lot of possible time of deaths which would stray the group further away from the truth. In David's mind, he's pretty sure she must've been killed sometime in the evening, before he entered that room.
Why would he believe that this was the only possible time of death?
Truth bullet used : Eden's disguise trick
Even though we know, according to my theory, that Eden used a disguise trick to hide Arei's real time of death, the others don't know about it. David saw Arei alive at lunchtime, which means that she was definitly killed sometime after according to his logic. He probably figured it wasn't in the afternoon since it would be much easier for the killer to run into potential witnesses, so the evening was the only option.
Wouldn't David deduce that Nico might be the prime suspect? They were feeding the fishes sometime before David entered that room. Nico saw David use the elevator.
He might've been seen by Nico, but it doesn't mean the opposite applies. It's very likely possible that when David used the elevator, he never saw anyone passing through because Nico had already gone out a while ago. Nico probably noticed David when they were roaming around the first floor.
In any case, he needed to figure what he could do to make the others follow the "right path" into deducing that the crime happened sometime around the evening. David couldn't directly tell them, as ridiculous as it may sound. Remember, he doesn't want his secret to be found out. If he told the group about the actual time of death, they would start questioning him.
They'd be like : "How do you know that she died at that time?" That'd just make him become suspicious no matter what he tries to come up with. Because of that suspicious, they would then press on David which would lead to uncovering his secret.
So what could he possibly do to help them without directly telling them about the "right" time of death? That's when he came up with this crazy idea!
Truth bullet used : Dead fishes
Truth bullet used : Relax room's nighttime features
Truth bullet used : Ball of clothes
He remembered about the fishes in the pond and the nighttime features of the relaxation room. What if he brought those fishes to the playground? It would seem very weird and confusing that there's dead fishes found in the playground, but because of the fact that the relax room closes at 10:00 PM and reopens at 8:00 AM, they would conclude that the fishes were brought to the playground before the relaxation room closes.
Even though the fishes has most likely nothing to do with the whole crime in itself, the others would probably not think too hard about it since it's a seemingly very convoluted crime scene to begin with. He figured that a little "red herring" wouldn't hurt as long as it helps them in knowing the time of death.
That way, he wouldn't need to open up about what he found out, the dead fishes would tell the story for him. Of course, he couldn't simply grab them with his hands. Maybe one by one, but that would be incredibly inefficient.
That's why he used the blanket of old clothes instead. He used that to scoop as many fishes as possible and then brought them to the playground. It's confirmed, everyone! David is a mass murderer! He killed all those fishes that we saw in the playground! (Oh nooo!)
Anyways, once that was taken care of, there was one more thing that he needed to do : get rid of these darn clothes. He doesn't want to leave them in the relaxation room, that would obviously indicate that something or someone must've been hidden there. He can't bring it back to the first floor eitheir, that would be incredibly risky since he could run into someone.
So the next best thing he can do is hide them and also hide what they were supposed to be to begin with. David rolled up that blanket of clothes into a perfectly shaped ball and hid it in the changing room inside the dress-up room. This would explain why Charles found a ball of clothes in the dress-up room.
Now that all of that was done, he headed back to the first floor and called it a day. Nothing else significant happened that night.
Act 27
It is now DAY 4, 8:00 in the morning. Everyone gathers up to the movie screening room. Everyone except... well... you obviously know who by now. It's been 4 days already, so it was time for MonoTV to reveal the secrets, but before that happens... David goes : "Wait! Stop!"
So everyone starts counting and they notice that there's indeed someone missing. So David leads them by saying : "Arei isn't here."
So people start to panic and proceed to look for Arei. Teruko picks up Whit and Eden to make a group of 3 people to find her if she's indeed dead. That way, it would definitly trigger the BDA if all three of them are innocent. Otherwise, one of these three would be suspicious.
Of course, Eden expected that to happen, but she was prepared with her whole murder scheme. Someone should've found the dead body first already last night so it shouldn't be an issue.
So Teruko's group investigates the second floor. Teruko looks inside the gym, she's not here. Whit looks inside the dress-up room, she's not here eitheir. Eden looks inside the relaxation room...
Two things of note here...
Eden did not find the dead body in here even though that was the last place she left it. So she knows for sure someone found the body first and moved it somewhere else.
She could've easily lied about claiming that there's no place where she could be hiding. That would make a lot of sense for her to lie if she was indeed the culprit and hid the body there previously.
So everything's going really well for Eden. It's all going according to plan. The last room remaining to explore was the playground. At this point, the culprit knew that it must be hidden there. There's no way someone would drag a dead body back to the first floor.
But then, before they enter, Whit makes this silly comment : "Do you really think that she'd be hanging out in the playground right now?"
It seems absolutely goofy at first since whether the viewers were making the prediction or they already saw how she died, they would find Whit's comment to be pretty unintentionally punny (or perhaps intentionally even).
For Eden however, that was literally the worst case scenario. She took Whit's comment seriously. Or maybe she didn't at first, but then quickly started to doubt that he was joking. At some point, she must've thought : "What if it was Whit that discovered the body first?"
So as Teruko's about to open the door, in a moment of panic, Eden shouts : "Teruko, wait--" And that's when they discover the corpse of Arei hanging by the swing set, which then triggers the BDA later on.
Unfortunatly for Eden, she made a little slip-up there which could be really troublesome if Teruko catches on to this. Fortunately for Eden however, the BDA still happened, so she's still looking innocent there. On top of that, it doesn't seem like eitheir Teruko or Whit noticed her slip-up (...yet).
And that's how this whole murder mystery happened. From DAY 1 to DAY 4. And you know what? I'm not even done yet. I still have a few remaining events to explain after the body discovery announcement. Let's get into it! We're almost there!
Act 28
Everyone gathers at the playground, they find the body and they're all shocked and stuff. It's investigation time! Obviously, I won't talk about the investigation much details since I've already explained all of the evidence that was found there. Instead, I'm gonna talk about a few noteworthy things that happened during the investigation.
Eden's reaction to finding Arei's dead body is kinda suspicious. Naturally, she would act all sad and in grief upon losing dear Arei. The suspicious thing is what happens afterwards.
Not even a minute after finding the body, she quickly recovers and claims that she's ready to investigate. I know this is a class trial and that they need to take it seriously, but wouldn't it be more natural for Eden to need more time to recover from this? Especially when she was supposed to be friends with Arei according to her narrative.
The next thing is the secrets reveal. J was about to ask MonoTV about the secrets reveal since it would probably help in solving the murder. But then David interjects by claiming that MonoTV would only reveal the motive if a murder didn't happen in the allocated time. But since a murder happened, he's not obligated to reveal them.
Then he goes on about if MonoTV were to reveal the secrets based on the deadline (8:00 in the morning on DAY 4), it would mean that she died very recently, which would narrow down the time of death.
Of course, David knew that she didn't die then. He was just practically forcing MonoTV to not reveal the secrets since he knows that Arei died in the evening of DAY 3, according to his deductions. Basically playing with the rules of the motive reveal deadline. He didn't want his secret exposed, after all.
Sadly for him, MonoTV claims that it's based on the time of the body discovery and not the time of death. So if it was found shortly after the deadline, then it's already past the deadline.
This messes up with his plan to keep his secret from being exposed. So he has no choice but to see that list to find out what this is really all about. At the very least, David knows that it won't directly show whose secret it is since MonoTV himself doesn't know who it belonged to (because of the mixed up secrets).
So later on, David goes to the movie screening room to see the list and he sadly sees that his dark secret is actually there. So he's gonna have to do everything he can to make sure it doesn't get exposed. Of course, all of the actions David's done ever since the beginning of Chapter 2 made Teruko grow very suspicious of him. At least a lot more than the Prologue and Chapter 1.
Enough talk about the investigation. Let's talk about the trial!
Act 29
Kinda like the investigation phase, I'm not gonna go too much into details. I'll only reveal parts of the trial that would line up and make sense if it went according to my theory. So there are three characters who play a big role in this trial.
Eden wants to make sure that no suspicions would be thrown at her. She wants to be the most innocent out of everyone in that trial.
Ace wants to keep up the tough guy act, doesn't want to be seen as someone useless in trial and he doesn't want others to find out what really happened during the attempted murder.
David is hoping that the group will figure out the truth of the trial with a narrowed down time of death (dead fishes) while also being able to keep his secret from being exposed.
Let's start with episode 9! Eden doesn't reveal Arturo's secret. She's going to later, but she needs to build up an innocent girl narrative first.
We get a confirm from Nico that they intentionally try to make a serious attempt on Ace's life when Charles asks the question. The important thing to note here is that this could mean a lot of things. Their mind was most likely set on wanting to kill him, but it doesn't mean that they did all the setup required to make that attempt.
But Rose claimed that they lied and stole from her. Nico's response was : "I--! I didn't kill Arei! I swear!". He didn't deny Rose's claim. That's practically a confession!
Not necessarily! Despite the implication, it could also very well be them wanting to deny that claim, but stopped themselves to simply swear that they didn't kill Arei. There could be various reasons for it, but one that could be the most reasonable is if they were having doubts about it. What if they weren't sure if they actually stole from her or not? His mind could've definitly been chaotic ever since they snapped. So they probably were unable to remember it.
But they were able to remember feeding the fishes and seeing David use the elevator during the evening!
Sure, but that was on DAY 3, not DAY 2. Like I said before, there's still a lot that we don't know about Nico during the events the evening/night of DAY 2. And because it's such an unknown variable, it also leads to a massive amount of possibilities.
Besides, remember what I said in Act 12? It could've been a massive red herring by making us easily believe that Nico's the one responsible for everything involved in the attempted murder on Ace. That trial interaction could also be another trick made by the creator to make us further believe that they're indeed respondible for it all.
Anyways, sometime later, Rose believed that Arei's death was an assisted suicide where the victim played a big role into this. Eden goes out of her way to convince everyone that can't be true. There's no way that someone like Arei would commit suicide.
Why would she do that if she was the true culprit? Wouldn't it make sense to let them believe it was suicide to end the trial early?
There's no guarantee that the smarter people out there (especially Teruko) would let it end that soon. She would've figured out by herself that there's no way it could've been a suicide. So Eden went out of her way to deny the suicide claim simply to direct the group into the proper narrative in regards to Arei. It was a necessary step since she wanted to reveal the incident that happened in the infirmary. That would further confirm that this wasn't suicide.
Next up, Teruko manages to narrow down the time of death by bringing up the dead fish. Based on their knowledge that they last saw the victim at 12:00 PM on DAY 3 and the features of the relaxation room. They were able to narrow it down to sometime between 12:00 PM to 10:00 PM.
Not a satisfying time window for what David had in mind when he placed those fishes, but that will do for now. At least, his plan kind of worked. They won't think that it happened during nighttime. Maybe they'll find out a more accurate time later on.
Act 30
On episode 10, before Eden gives the note, she quickly claims that she didn't do it, whoever did it is trying to impersonate her. So we get the reveal of the torn up note which gives us the letter we all know by now.
She would seem a tiny bit suspicious at first, but that was all part of her plan. Most wouldn't think that she'd be the killer if she wanted to help put the note back together. But in fact, she needed to help for both the narrative and making sure that the ripped apart note would be properly put back together.
She needed to play the scene of the revealed note to make sure that it would eventually lead to the reveal of Arturo's secret. When she would feel like that it'd be best for her to tell the truth, she would also explain the incident in the infirmary.
That would explain why she's friends with Arei. That would explain why she was insistent on believing that she wouldn't kill herself. That whole play would make Eden look the least suspicious so far. Everything's going according to her plan.
Fortunately for David, that note helped narrow down the time of death more accurately. Unfortunatly for him however, this is a fake time of death trick pulled by Eden, the real culprit. Until something major happens, no one's going to believe that Arei actually died in the morning of DAY 3, slightly past 8:00 AM.
Moving on... everyone's discussing their alibis now that the suggested time of death is sometime between 7:30 PM and 10:00 PM.
Hu talks about her time spent with Eden in the kitchen during that whole evening. Which further proves her innocence thanks to Eden's carefully crafted alibi plan. A few have alibis, a few don't have one like Nico.
So Ace lashes out at them as usual, nothing new here. Hu gets defensive and asks for his alibi.
Truth bullet used : Ace's actions in the gym
Truth bullet used : Ace acting tough
He thought about it for a little bit, but then he came up with a great idea. He lied about going to the gym that evening. That'd make him look kinda badass going there the day after being nearly killed.
Also, he doesn't want the others to know the truth about what he actually did during the night of DAY 2 as he wants to hide that kind of strength from the others since he doesn't trust them.
That doesn't make sense. Ace is actively trying to act tough according to your theory!
I know, it seems kinda contradictory, but here's the thing. Ace's kind of an idiot. He's trying not to, but you just can't really improve that in an instant as if you drank an intelligence potion or something.
Truth bullet used : Ace's testimony
There's another reason however. He really wants to tell the others about David's secret. About what he saw and heard in the relaxation room. But so far, he only knows that David's been to the second floor that night. He couldn't have known about DAY 3 since according to my theory, he stayed in his dorm.
So if he decided to reveal it at the earliest time of the trial, he would have no choice but to admit that this happened during the night of DAY 2 which would then lead to others asking "wait, isn't that the night where you almost died?"
This would lead to more questions and getting closer to the truth and they'd find about what Ace was hiding from them since then. Ace doesn't want that to happen. So he holds that information for the time being.
But then a golden opportunity arrived! Teruko calls out David that he should've been in the relaxation room during the evening of DAY 3.
At first, David was starting to play dumb, hoping that no one actually saw him so that he could lie about it and pretend that he went somewhere else. That didn't happen however, Nico saw him use the elevator, so David can't lie his way out of this sadly. Luckily for Ace, that was the perfect opportunity to expose David. He was in the same location both nights? Sweet!
So then Teruko asks the two if they saw anything strange going on in the playground. Ace claims he saw nothing. This is technicly the truth, even though he lied about being in the gym during the evening of DAY 3.
David claims that he didn't find anything odd and never looked at the playground. That's obviously a lie. He doesn't want others to suspect him. Otherwise, that would make them start being curious about his secret.
Then he adds that he never saw Ace once, which he finds strange. You could believe that he's just lying to put the suspicion on Ace, but there's a better idea that would make a lot more sense. David is telling the truth about never seeing Ace because Ace never went to the second floor during the evening of DAY 3 to begin with.
Unfortunatly for him, that was the perfect time for Ace to expose David's secret and making his claim of being in the gym on DAY 3 more believable.
Act 31
Almost done! Time to tackle episode 11!
So Ace starts explaining what he saw and heard in the relax room. We get a flashback scene regarding that event and then-
We literally get a flashback scene! There's a few details that would indicate that Ace is telling the whole truth, including the fact that he heard this on DAY 3, not DAY 2!!!
No, that's wrong! You should never take everything from granted once the author starts giving us more than 1 character point of view. Some could easily lie about the events to fit their narrative and fantasy.
I haven't read or played a lot of mystery novels, but there's a certain tactic that's sometimes used by the author, if not often. It's called unreliable narrator. From a google search, it says : "An unreliable narrator can be defined as any narrator who misleads readers, either deliberately or unwittingly."
Ace could've easily been an unreliable narrator. Here are a couple things that he could've lied about.
There's a missing fan on the right side. Could've been an illusion to make us believe it happened on DAY 3.
We see Ace with neck bandages. Could've been an illusion to make us believe it happened on DAY 3.
When Ace was eavesdropping, Arei says : "Nico got super pissy and tried to turn Ace into cat food." Could've been a line of dialogue that Ace made up to make others believe that it happened on DAY 3.
Then Ace claims he didn't catch anything else. Which, once again, would make sense if he's been knocked unconscious right after that. But he doesn't want to admit that since it would reveal the truth on when the meeting actually happened.
As a few others claimed, it's very strange that Ace brings up that important testimony this late into the trial. So it would make sense if he didn't want to expose him just yet because he didn't want the others to know the actual truth in the gym.
In any case, David's plan is ruined. He eventually gives up and confesses that the manipulative liar secret is actually his secret. (pretty amazing reveal, by the way!) His career's officially over.
We get a few interesting lines from David that would match up insanely well with my theory.
"Normally, I would continue to insist that Ace is an unreliable witness, and a worthless lying piece of shit as well... But I know how it is with you people. Once you've reached a conclusion, you'll refuse to believe any evidence that contradicts it. So I'm not going to bother."
Unreliable witness and a liar... interesting. Doesn't that match perfectly with my claim that Ace is lying about being at the gym during the evening of DAY 3 as well as my claim that he is an unreliable narrator?
"But I will admit, I did indeed meet with Arei last night in the relaxation room." He's telling the truth. He met with her alright on DAY 3. Doesn't mean she was alive though.
"As for what I actually talked about... Well, I've already forgotten! She's dead now, so who cares?" He's lying... or to be more accurate, he's hiding the truth. He doesn't want the others to know that he found her dead body.
Why not? Why wouldn't he tell the whole truth?
For a few reasons. First off, everyone just learned he's a liar. So they might simply think that he's lying about it. Secondly, that would make him incredibly suspicious. He wants to avoid being seen as the main suspect if he can avoid it. Not that it matters anyways since most of them think he's the culprit shortly afterwards.
Also, another reason to explain it is because he's probably still angry about the fact that they exposed his secret. He's been letting all out ever since the reveal anyways. So he probably wants to act like a butthole as a mean to vent off.
But still, he tries to convince them that he's not the culprit (in his own way), but quickly realises that this is pointless since most of them are so stupid and quick to draw to conclusions, just like last trial.
So then he got an idea. He gives up and confesses that he's the murderer. He's gonna lie all the way through up until someone calls him out on it. The interesting thing to note here is that as soon as he made that confession, he looked incredibly nervous. It's almost like... he's afraid of something. Something like being afraid of losing the trial if no one realises that he's lying?
By the way, another interesting thing to add here : As soon as David confessed, Eden starting being "emotional" and "seriously believes" that he actually did it. The real culprit figured that she may as well push the direction of that accusation to end the trial and be the sole winner.
Here's another interesting thing about Eden. I think she made another slip-up and created a contradiction. No one seemed to have noticed though, thankfully. She made those comments about David that she couldn't believe that he would mentally push Arei into commiting suicide.
That's strange... because I'm pretty sure that at the beginning of the trial, she was very insistent on claiming that Arei would never commit suicide.
Anyways... Teruko asks David about how he killed Arei into more details, but will later realise that his story doesn't make sense and that he's just lying. Then Teruko and David argues about it back and forth up until Charles stops the argument.
He realised something major and says : "Teruko, we really fucked up."
Most of us fans seem to believe that this refers to the time of death being wrong (7:30 PM ish on DAY 3). My theory that the actual time of death was slightly after 8:00 AM on DAY 3 would match that up perfectly.
Time For The Finale
Phew! That was quite the long closing argument! With everything I've written here, hopefully that should explain the whole truth behind that murder mystery and explain most of the clues out there. So... what do you guys think about this theory?
.......NO!! It just doesn't work!
It's incredibly CONVOLUTED! Way too convoluted for such a murder mystery! It's also very RISKY! Eden is doing a lot of risks to make her murder scheme work. A single mistake could've ruined it all. There's no way that plan works! It's impossible. Also, there's still a lot of things that wouldn't work. Like the disguise trick, there's just no way! She doesn't look anything like Arei! She doesn't have her physique. You've overthinking this! There are certain things about your theory that wouldn't be able to explain how things actually work in real life, like the blood wipe. It's just not realistic! Your theory doesn't work!
...It's pointless... all of this is just pointless...
...huh?!
You heard me. This is all pointless. All these counterarguments, even those that I refused to elaborate and would talk about it here instead... they're all actually meaningless in DanganRonpa Despair Time.
When it gets to finding errors in a theory by relying on reality or very niche or minute details. Or things like risk factor or things like no one would be able to pull off x trick, unless it's an actual contradiction of the actual facts of the fangan, then all of these arguments are actually pointless!
How dare you?! You can't just simply ignore these arguments because they hurt your theory!
As a matter of fact, I actually can ignore those. After all... most of these arguments fail to follow a certain rule in this murder mystery.
What are you even talking about?!
Alright... let me tell you! THIS IS FICTION, NOT REALITY!!!
!!!
Let me explain. For quite some time, we've been trying to prove/disprove certain theories by claiming that a certain event would be impossible because that's not how it works in real life.
One of the examples in regards to debunking my theory would be that the disguise trick would be impossible because it would've been incredibly risky and the plan could've easily failed if someone decided to speak with her or looked at her closely. Another example would be when Eden knocked out Ace without being noticed by Arei or David, seems incredibly unlikely and really risky.
From a reality perspective, it would be indeed ridiculous of a plan and nearly impossible to pull it off. But that's exactly the problem! Danganronpa Despair Time is a work of fiction, not reality! Anything that seems completly ridiculous or painfully impossible can become a miracle in the world of fiction!
You don't even have any proof that the DRDT creator is using that rule!
I do, actually. Think back on Chapter 1. I don't know if this chapter had weekly releases like Chapter 2 but regardless, let's give ourselves a scenario in regards to what would happen if the latest trial episodes of chapter 1 were not revealed, then the creator takes a break, so the fans have time to investigate and come up with theories to solve the murder mystery. I personally believe that this is made so that you could solve the murder mystery without watching the climax of the trial.
Anyways, let's say there's someone out there who comes up with a theory that's practically the solution of chapter 1. Then, we get to the actual murder method which is from the light switch that's been stripped. So Xander got electrocuted by trying to turn on the lights when he was soaking wet.
Most people who would see this without knowing what the actual solution is would simply believe that this is just impossible. This seems extremely likely. Like even if it was really dark and Xander wanted to turn the lights back on, he should've heard the sound of something being removed. Otherwise, he should've still been able to see light since the door would've been opened anyways.
Or what if the theorist came up with the idea that the culprit lure Xander into the light switch by taunting him or something? What exactly would be the odds that Xander would charge straight towards the light switch?
Yet, Xander truly died from the light switch because he wanted to turn on the lights. Seems really crazy and unbelievable, but when we think about it, the creator made it possible because this is fiction.
So there you have it! I'm sure none of you see it that way (and it's fine!), but to me, this is the perfect solution to the murder case of Chapter 2. I'm running out of lines to write, so there are two things I wanna say before I go.
Feel free to try to debunk my theory or come up with alternatives to this theory or anything else that's related to it. I don't mind. I'm most likely not gonna reply to it however since I have other projects unrelated to tumblr to work on.
I'd like to thank @1moreff-creator, @venus-is-thinking, @accirax and most likely a couple others for trying to find faults in my theories or points that I've made. Even though it may not seem like it, there were some points that helped me get closer to an answer that I would be satisfied with. Also huge thanks for anyone else who's been supporting my theory.
While I'm at it, feel free to disregard some points I've made to debunk certain theories that rely on stuff like reality. As long as you believe that it could work within the world of fiction, then that's good enough! Sorry for the long post! Thank you for everything! Take care!
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tahana // paraluman jk + oc extra
series m.list
taglist: @kakixaku @boraength @4ksj @pamzn @jinsearth @fancycollectormoon @weasleyswizarding-wheezes @fan-ati--c @kthlvr30 @ellesalazar @taeees-world @sukunasrealgf @firesighgirl @jeonninja @bloopkook @butterymin @pinkseokchim @joonsjuice
wanring: character death !!! talks of grieving, breaking up & just sad vibes
note: ok i promised myself that i would never touch paraluman ever again after completing it... but i couldn't help myself with this little blurb.... it lingered a minute too long for me to jus sit still and not write it out </3 enj my wuvs !!
context: this takes place shortly after oc's grandmother passes away. jungkook and oc are slowly mending their friendship and getting close again !!! oc is dating yoongi (at this time but it's nearing the end of their relationship)
Jungkook pats your back as you hunch over the sink. You gag every so often and with each nauseous breath in; he pulls your hair back tighter with his hands. Clearing your face from the loose strands, Jungkook can't help but wonder how much more you have in your tiny body left to throw up. Suddenly, a trio of friends bursts through the washroom doors. Their laughing is put on pause the moment they stumble in and see a very irritated look on Jungkook's face.
"Occupied."
They all share a look with one another and shoot him a dirty look. One girl groans at his stern tone and comes forward. Rolling her eyes at him, she complains; "If you two are trying to fuck in here, get out! This is a fucking public washroom—"
"And it’s fucking occupied.”
The girls all gasp at Jungkook's words. Another girl crosses her arms and speaks out. "You're a dick, you know? Like, are you serious? You can't even ask us nicely to leave—"
"I wasn't asking."
Jungkook lowers his gaze at them. Tension quickly begins to build and before they could make a bigger fuss, Yoongi squeezes himself through.
"Ladies, the washroom downstairs is free. I'll buy you all a shot if you just go and leave them be..." Yoongi bargains. The trio are easily persuaded. Partly because they're too tipsy to continue their fight and partly because a free shot is a fucking free shot. They accept Yoongi's offer, break into giggles, and stick their tongues out at Jungkook. One flips him off right before they turn their heels and head downstairs.
Once they're out of sight, Yoongi closes the door for more privacy. He turns the lock and leans against the door. "You should've locked it," he sighs. "... Is she okay?"
Yoongi then bends down to take a closer look at you. You look a little messy but nothing extensive.
Just drunk.
You were just really drunk.
Jungkook shakes his head, feeling unexpectedly panicked. Perhaps it's because of Yoongi's aura. There is something about him that simply makes Jungkook relax. Even though they've only known each other for a short while, Yoongi is the definition of comfort. Meeting him and getting to know him is the easiest thing Jungkook has ever done for you. He understands why you love Yoongi so much and honestly doesn't feel competitive with him around. It's like he knows you're safe with Yoongi and with that so is he.
“Yoongi, I've never seen her drink this much. I shouldn't have let her drink this fucking much—"
“… Are you kidding me?” Yoongi groans in disbelief. In moments like these, he applauds Jungkook’s devotion to you but also finds it a little sad. “It’s not your fault.. This,” he gestures at your state, “… is not your fault. ___’s grandma just passed away... Of course, she'd be drinking this much! Regardless if you let her or not; she's going to do what she wants. You get that, right?”
Truth be told…
No.
Jungkook doesn’t get it. In his head, you’re still that child that needs him. Him here with you.. Unable to make you feel better makes him feel so fucking useless.
So, Jungkook stays silent.
He still can't help but feel disappointed in himself for not watching out for you better. He sulks in his self resentment.
"I don't know what to do.” Jungkook confides in Yoongi. “Maybe it’s because I haven't been with her in so long but this just feels like karma in some sick way..”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t really know anymore.. It’s just—what… What if too much has changed between us and I'm not good enough for her anymore? I’ve never had to be there for her in this sense.. The grieving and the coping—“
Yoongi chuckles, "You have and will always be good enough for her. God, you're a lot more insecure than I could have ever imagined you to be..."
Jungkook huffs.
“It’s just life. She’ll grow through what she goes through. As long as you stay by her side; it’s enough.”
With that, Yoongi presses a kiss on your cheek before excusing himself. He whispers, "My love, I'll be back. You're in good hands."
"Whose hands?"
"Jungkook is right here.”
Weakly, you lift your head. “Really? He’s back?”
Yoongi smiles at you. “Back? Awh, come on. He’d never leave you.”
"Yes, he would!"
Yoongi rolls his eyes at you. “Well, he’s here now. You can fight him while I’m gone. Okay?"
You nod slowly, eyes closed but ever so understanding. “Okay.”
“I’ll be back.”
“Okay.”
Yoongi furrows his eyebrows. “___, are you still drunk?”
“Okay," you sing. "okay, okay.. Okay!"
Yoongi snorts and pats your head. He gets up and places his hand on Jungkook’s shoulder. “You okay?”
“I’m okay," Jungkook breathes. "... I think. Maybe just call us an Uber and we'll be down in like... Fifteen? She's still throwing up a bit."
Yoongi nods. “Okay.”
Abruptly, you giggle, “okaaaayyy!”
The two boys exchange funny looks. Silently, they find you cute. Yoongi then leaves to go downstairs, pay for the trio's shots, and to grab your bag and jackets. He'll order the Uber in fifteen, just as Jungkook suggested.
Meanwhile, you throw up once more. After you do so, you compose yourself. You attempt to catch your breath and fix your posture.
"You need water. Can you walk? Let's go downstairs and Yoongi can get you some water." Jungkook helps you stand still. You hold your stance for two seconds before collapsing on him.
With your face buried in his chest, you take in his scent. He smells like how he always has. It smells like childhood to you.
"I missed you," you murmur. "You ditched me for this life, right? What's so good about it? I feel like shit right now."
He laughs in response.
You pout.
“You're weak shit," Jungkook teases you. "You can't handle the shit you down.. And I didn't ditch you."
Jungkook then pulls you up to stand better. He reaches over and turns the tap on. Cupping his hands, he lets the water fill up and brings it to your face. Gently, he cleans your face up. He takes the hem of his shirt and wipes the access water off.
"You ditched me."
"No, I didn't,” he insists. “Bhie, I invited you to every club, party, and event. You never wanted to come. You started dating Yoongi and then—"
"And then grandma died."
"Bhie…”
You bite the inside of your cheeks. “You know, Yoongi is leaving for his music career too… Does that mean he's going to break up with me soon? Fuck.." You purse your lips. “I hate my life.”
"Don't manifest bullshit like that," Jungkook chuckles. "He loves you. He wouldn't leave you."
"Y-yeah... And even if he does leave me—"
"—Which he won't—“
"At least he won't be dead, right?" you attempt to humour your pain. You smile for a millisecond before feeling the ache take away your momentary cope.
Silence falls between you two.
"... She's really gone, Jungkook." You can’t hold yourself back. The most you can do now is hope your voice doesn't break and you can get these words out. “I have nobody, you know? She promised me she'd stay but she didn't. She's gone and now you're back so y-you have to promise me that you'll stay, okay?"
You grab a fist full of the collar of his shirt. Looking deep into his eyes as yours water in pure hurt and grief, you plead. "Promise me you'll stay by my side."
"My you, I promise," Jungkook says. He takes his hand and covers your fist with it. He moves it to his heart and offers you a smile. "I won't leave you. If anything, I'll let you leave first. I'd rather watch you walk away than leave you.”
Your breath hitches at his words. You feel a lump in your throat and your heart begins to beat faster and faster. Before you can stop yourself, a small sob escapes your lips. Then, it's followed by a deep breath that fails to give you any relief. You rush to cover your face with your hands and let yourself begin to sob.
Jungkook embraces you. You cry harder and harder, suddenly feeling the weight of the world.
You're exhausted.
You're drunk.
You're just really drunk.
And in the midst of your drunken cries, the faint smell of childhood, and the mere idea of his promise being kept, you think to yourself; this is home.
In Jungkook you find rest. You find parts of yourself you thought you had lost. In him, you feel so much comfort and familiarity. It’s almost like a nostalgic haze you get lost in.
That’s when you decide that he’s your home. From here on out, this is where you stay.
I love him.
I love him one.
I love him too.
I love him three times more than I have ever before.
One I love you for the past. A second for the present and a third for the future.
How could you ever leave his side? How could you ever let him leave you again? Life and its trials will come and go... But him?
He has to stay.
He promised to.
Besides, if it's not him, it's not anybody.
#bts fic#bts smau#bts jungkook x reader#jungkook x yn#jk x yn#jk x y/n#jk angst#jk bf2l#jk f2l#jungkook scenario#jungkook imagine#bts imagine#bts scenario#bts series
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10. Reassuring your partner how amazing they are when they feel insecure
Minthe felt Daedalus' concern for her throughout the evening. All throughout dinner and while they freshened up before bed he had a worried look on his face. If Minthe didn't want to avoid the topic herself, she would have asked for him to say something. But she couldn't find the right words to explain how she felt, so she left it. She thought she would be left to it until Daedalus wrapped all four limbs around her when they started to settle for bed.
"I love you, you know," he said against her neck.
"Mm-hm. And you're worried about me?" She figured a token explanation would suffice for the night.
"Yes, I'm worried for you all the time." He traced swirls on her arm.
Minthe swallowed. "Oh."
He peeked his head over her shoulder. "Is it really that surprising? You've been through a lot. You're doing a lot for me as well."
"I'm choosing to do this." She took his hands and gave them a squeeze.
"It's not a small thing to love me."
"It's not a small thing to love anyone." Minthe turned to look him in the eye. "And Daedalus, darling, you are by far the easiest partner I've had to love."
He smiled and started to laugh bashfully. The full body contact caused Minthe to start laughing with him.
"And here I was, trying to comfort you..." He shook his head and kissed her hair.
"Between Hades constantly trying to get me to do 'more for the Star' and Ariadne... shit, I still love her, but... at any rate, you're doing plenty for me, darling," Minthe said. "Simply by... considering me. As I am, not who I could be."
He gave a happy hum and just rocked with her for a minute. There was something so utterly gratifying to Minthe by being Daedalus' partner. He was always so proper in public spaces - robes and mask properly worn, opinions stated clearly and only to encourage proper discussion - that when he sought creature comfort with her she felt like it was a secret he kept only with her. It was almost more of an honor than being given the Seat of Azem by Kytheon and Venat... so Minthe figured she should tell him.
"I, uh, I was talking to Hades earlier." Minthe traced Daedalus' fingers with her own.
"What about? Is that why you're upset?"
"It is. And I don't know if 'upset' is the right word. Hades was just being Hades, honestly. He said I could be doing more, and when I said I had already held a seat on the Convocation, same as he had, he said that my stint as Azem could've been more productive."
Minthe could feel Daedalus get ruffled up at that. "What on Etheirys has him saying that? You've fulfilled the purpose of the Seat of Azem to the letter as far as I can see. You've given us colleagues in Ur to refer to when we have issues. Therefore broadening the view of the Convocation."
"Well, I think it was more of how I got to be Azem in the first place. He's never been the biggest fan of Kytheon's approach to the Seat. 'It's not how it should be done,' he said."
"Ah. I. I think I know what Hades' actual problem is," Daedalus said.
Minthe turned awkwardly around in Daedalus' arms. "And what, pray tell is the issue that I can't see?"
He turned away. "It has to do with you, actually. Not anything that you actually did, but how Hades sees you."
Minthe scowled at that.
"He... he told me something when you two officially broke up. I remember how torn up he was. Life hadn't gone to plan since he came to Amaurot. He found his heart was pulled to new people and ideas, and how you seemed to have changed after finishing your Undergraduate degree in the Akadaemia."
"I found my passion." She shrugged.
"Yes, but it wasn't what he ascribed to you. Hades thought you were going into music; isn't that what you said you were going to do back home?"
Minthe rolled her eyes. "That was before I realized how much practice it actually takes to be good."
"Right, well, he had even written a song for you to sing."
Minthe took a hissing breath. "That was going to be in that play that I brushed off, wasn't it?"
"To be fair, when he showed me your course load I said that I wouldn't have been able to both do well academically and act in a play at the same time."
"So I have you to thank for that reprieve?" Minthe smiled.
"I suppose so. But every time Hades gets truly upset, it's because things aren't going the way he thinks they should be. Whether it's how you act or how society reacts... he has a hard time with it."
"Well, he needs to get over it, for all of our sakes."
Daedalus took a breath to speak, but shook his head and kissed Minthe instead. "You're right."
"See? You're obviously the easiest to love!" Minthe leaned into Daedalus and nuzzled his neck.
Daedalus hummed and they let the conversation drift off into the night.
Thanks for the prompt!
#i need a writing tag#i melt with you#azem minthe#azem daedalus#huh#i think i was on vacation and forgot this was kinda already done#good ol fashioned i'll sleep on it then never check it type deal
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Finally
summary: soulmate au but you don't find out who till you form a bond w that person
dreamwastaken x gn!reader
word count: 1.4k~
falling in love was such a weird concept to you, especially with the way everyone knows their soulmate, yet it's of course with a twist, way to go life and making everything hard.
"so you're suppose to meet someone, form a close bond with them, possibly fall in love, and even then possibly not meet your soulmate?" your voice raised from anger, yet you calmed down quickly when you looked at the boy across you, his eyes wide from you getting upset, slightly embarrassed at how loud you got in the coffee shop you brought him along to for the first time.
"it's just, so stupid Clay, ya know?" you asked but didn't let him answer "and from my perspective i've never got close with anyone but you, my mom, and my brother" he laughed "i still don't see how you're related to George, you're both wildly different, me and Sap talk about it all the time now that you both live with us" you smiled, rolled your arms and whooshed your hand "don't go being sweet to me when you purposefully embarrassed me when you got our drinks" his wheeze was loud but not too loud to disturb the only other people in the shop on the other side of the room "all i did was try to set you up with a guy" he said smugly "you said i would like to go on a date with him because he looks like my brother!" you yelled at him adding on with "he doesn't even look like George!" that's when you heard someone clearing their throat to get your attention.
looking to your right you see the guy in question "i was bringing over the banana pudding he ordered" he nodded to Dream.
smiling to him as he sets Dream's bowl in front of him, yours in front of you and another next to Dream, when he walked off you smirked "you like banana pudding that much?" he took his spoon and pointed it at you, sass radiating off of him "first of all, if you say something is good, i know it's good" he moves the spoon into the bowl of pudding "secondly, Karl is joining us" your eyes went wide once you processed what he said the look of fear on your face made Dream almost feel bad for inviting Karl.
"no" you shook your head "no, i am not meeting my other best friend for the first time out of no where when one, i look like this" you motion to your black leggings and black Sapnap hoodie "two, again, this is out of no where! i am not prepared!" you pause and look down "you should've told me" he sighs, placing his free left hand on your right one "if i knew it would cause you this much distress i would've never done it sunshine" you took your left one and held onto his hand with both of yours
looking up at him smiling you almost got lost in the green color that were his eyes, the freckles that surrounded them, it almost made it better that he wasn't looking back at you, he was intensely looking at his pudding while eating it, he looked happy, like he was truly enjoying it.
"am i interrupting something?" Dream looked at him confused, he didn't see the look of fear on your face from getting caught, he tilted his head "you confuse me sometimes Jacobs" he points to the bowl on the table on your side "eat"
staring down at your hands only one word was running through your head, nervous. that's the easiest way you could explain this feeling, you've felt nervous around friends before, you've felt nervous meeting new people, but this nervous was on another level, you didn't know why but it almost felt like this was going to be a turning point.
"starlight, do you mind if i sit next to you?" you looked up to see Karl's bright smile, softly nodding he excitedly sat down, immediately engaging in a conversation with Dream.
after about an hour of talking and everyone enjoying the others company Karl spoke up "so Clay, any updates on this whole soulmate thing?" the blond rolled his eyes "no," he shrugged "i don't think i'm going to have an update for a while" you smiled sadly at him, reaching your hand across the table to hold his "i know you'll find them love" he smiled back, him quickly glancing at your wrist going unbeknownst to you, but was noticed by Karl.
it was sad really, from Karl's perspective he saw you both were definitely in love with each other but too nervous to say anything because the universe has told neither of you anything about whether you are soulmates or not, but Karl knew, Sapnap knew, and ben though it made him upset even George knew, but neither of you did.
the day went on to be a lot of fun, going to get dessert later before heading home. Karl going to his hotel while you and Dream went back to your house.
___
it's been a month since Karl decided to visit, and when he was packing to head out he decided to ask you if you'd like to come with, he said you could stay as long as you'd like, he even has an extra computer setup you can use, and how could you say no?
"as long as i want you say?" he tiled his head before nodding "Karl how would you feel about me moving in for a bit" you motioned around the room "almost like i live with both you and Clay" shrugging you finish your thought "i would travel back and fourth when i decided to stay at the other house"
that excited the boy since he really wanted you to be closer to him, of course he agreed, so you walked to your room to start packing some of your stuff.
while packing a knock sounded on your open door "where are you going?" Dream asked nervously, walking toward you with a small amount of speed "did i upset you?" your head whipped to his, not noticing how close both of you were "oh god no, i'm just staying with Karl for a little while" he looked toward your suitcase on the bed "if that's what you want i support your decision" you tilt your head with a playful smile "you don't want me to leave do you?"
grabbing your waist he pulled you in for a hug while burying his head in your neck, grip tight "of course i don't" he sighs "but i want you to do what makes you happy, and if you want to stay with Karl in North Carolina for a few months i'm not going to stop you" you begin to run on of your hands through his hair "if i was to stay, could we go on a friend date?" he nodded, head still rested on your shoulder "we haven't done that in a while" it was silent for a bit before he spoke up, leave it to Dream to speak without thinking first "why don't we just make it a real date?" after realizing what he said he stiffened
"we don't have to, i'm sorry that was so out of nowhere-" you hug him tighter "you don't know how long i've waited for this" you sigh "i agree, let's make it a real date"
suddenly your collarbone burned causing you to let go of him and grasp it. worriedly Dream set his hand on your shoulder "are you okay?" the burning finally went away and so you pulled the collar of your shirt away from your neck to see what almost looked like a tattoo, but it just said a name, the name forever on your body was 'Clay' so with wide eyes you look at him, about to tell him he beats you to speaking first "did it finally show up?" confused you ask "what do you mean finally?" he laughed before rubbing his neck "i got your name a couple months ago on my chest" he points to his left peck , following his lead you point to your right collar bone
"i'm still going to visit Karl at some point though" he smiled "i'm glad"
#dream x reader#dwt x reader#dreamwastaken x reader#mcyt x reader#dsmp x reader#dsmp#mcyt#x reader#georgenotfound#dream#dreamwastaken#sapnap#karl jacobs
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daily notes - may 1, 2024
New microwave sounds less powerful than the previous. It doesn't cook as thoroughly, either. Dad cited some wattage number, intending to mean it's at least on-par with our last one. Uh, don't think so. I already added time to my thing, and it was still cold in the middle.
It's not like anything will be done about this. If anything gets changed, it might be some sticker applied to the display; it's too damn bright. And even that probably won't happen.
A webcomic I've been reading got me thinking sad stuff. The characters were at a columbarium, a place to store and display urns with cremains. (They're common in Korean media, instead of graveyards.) One said to the other, regarding why people visit the dead, "They are saying the things that they couldn't say to them while they were still alive."
I got to thinking, "Why do we not say these things while the person is alive, in our presence?" In my mom's case, she wouldn't listen. For many people, it's to avoid fights - keep the peace, however momentary. When they're "gone", they can no longer attack us, hurt us, with new pain. And, partly due to the comic, I thought of my old bully.
So many of the scenarios I imagined were just me speaking my peace. (Or is it "piece"? I can never remember, those darn homophones.) [edit: It's "piece", according to this page, versus "to hold your peace".] When I felt "ready" to hear his side of things, I became conscious of a gap in my heart. It's the realization that I would never get that closure without re-exposing myself to risk, eg speaking with him again.
To contrast, my imagined scenarios with my mom give enough suspension of disbelief to think that she could change. I imagine her actually listening and understanding, because she is free of the psychological burdens that held her back in life.
I can't remember exactly where I was going with this. But when I thought of it earlier, I felt tears beneath the surface, as I thought about talking to my bully. I became my current-self partly because I've been in pain -a variety of pain- for many years. I was in pain before we fought, but he certainly didn't help the situation.
And that's what I keep reminding myself: a lot of my mental state is because I'm in emotional pain and cannot cope with it like a neurotypical person. The depression was the easiest to recognize, then the anxiety, after I developed physical versions of the anxiety attacks. ADHD got tested because it was trendy at the time, but it also happened to apply.
Years later, autism-spectrum was suggested, and it made everything else sorta fall into place. And even before depression showed up for other reasons, I went through traumatic events in my youth. So there's always been -something- going on, especially when I wasn't aware of it.
It takes a lot of effort and pep talk to forgive myself for feeling/being "broken". I negotiate things with myself, trying to strategize what I can accomplish versus what is too much stress.
A recent example is that drawstring pouch I wanted to make for a friend's birthday. I don't to stress myself out with a deadline, knowing I haven't started stitching yet. (Prepped fabric a bit, but not on the frame yet.) So I will send something I've already made and a small store-bought trinket or card. I think they'll still be accepted, as it's the thought that counts.
=========
Idk where I'm going with this. I just feel a little heavy, emotionally, tonight. That line of thinking brought me down, and I don't have the words to express everything. I also lack the attention-span to pin it down, to -want- to pin it down.
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Omg I loved the valentine's writing so much, thank you :D ✨️
I'd love to hear all your thoughts/process -- I really liked the attention to detail (references to canon convos, Yuno being in the theater club, "my boyfriend is a kind person," etc) while also including some new details (new named characters, details on the siblings, stuff like that). It was so fun!!
Yay you asked about it! I had so many thoughts going through my head when writing this but couldn’t say them during writing (it was a great prompt thank you for it even though you are very predictable /lh) and I needed an excuse to dump them all so thank you :)
I had a couple of ideas at first. The first was a coffee shop au where Yuno works at a café and the other two are regulars, but that one felt a bit cheap and I don't really care about coffee shop aus anyway (I generally won't write something I personally wouldn't want to read). The second was an early trial 2 fic where the three of them are in Shidou's cell and Shidou went out for a while do they talk until he gets back. The problem with that one was that Kotoko's attacks would inevitably come up, which would result in Yuno and Futa having some not nice things to say about her, and even if Mahiru were to defend her she would be outnumbered 2 to 1 and it might end up feeling a bit overpowering, especially since I probably would have made that one Futa POV, and I wasn't sure if it would go against the no undue hate rule. To be clear, I quite like Kotoko, I find her amusing, but it may be difficult to separate my opinions with the characters' and there is no way I can have Yuno and Futa be nice to her as that would be out of character, which is something I cannot stand even in other people's works, let alone mine. The idea to try something with Futa's sister and Mahiru's best friend being beauticians was my third idea, and the one I ended up doing. I don't actually believe they work in the same place, but I have to make the story begin somehow, and it's not like it contradicts anything in canon, so I ran with it. I did really want to try and get all three of them in the fic despite the prompt not requiring it and this was one of the few ways I can think of since, like you said, aside from Mahiru they wouldn't really seek each other out of their own accord in or out of the prison, so it would need to be a chance encounter of a sort.
I chose Yuno for the main POV because I felt that she would be the easiest perspective to write in terms of her being the most realistic of the three and therefore the most likely to describe the events as they are. Of course, her personality and inner monologue would be more difficult to get down, especially because of how misinterpreted she is, so I was somewhat cautious about that. Based on the audience reception I seem to have done it alright, so I'm glad.
I knew from the start that I wanted to have Yuno and Mahiru talking from beginning to end, with Futa only showing up for a short time in the middle. Both have reasons why they would want a beautician's appointment so it would be easy to set them up from the start, but because of his misogyny (sorry about that but you know it's true. Fucking "girl talk is boring" coming from a Twitter user) Futa is unlikely to stick around. I think he was still there long enough to leave an impression. I actually wanted to include another section where Futa would talk more about his childhood and how he spent much of it in the beauty parlour (before Sayori was hired, so she wouldn't know) (I think that's a headcanon I got from you actually hehe) but once I'd written the whole thing I couldn't figure out how to fit that in and his sister and been gone for a long time, so I ended up not doing it. Plus I needed to start prioritising my studies.
In my first draft Mahiru's beautician didn't have a name at all and only had two lines of dialogue: her first line, which was originally just her talking to Mahiru, and the line where she says "I've never heard Kajiyama-senpai speak like that before." It felt a bit awkward to have her say just one line in the middle if she was basically ignored for the rest of the work so I gave her a slightly bigger role (while still focusing on the canon cast. Usually I only include OC and canon interactions when no canon character can fulfil a necessary role) and for that it qas easier to refer to her by a name rather than 'Mahiru's stylist' every time. Also I already thought up of her personality (cheerful and gossipy, similar to Mahiru) so it would have been a bit of a waste not to include her. (Side note: before writing this I generally ignored this but didn't she give Mahiru love advice? I won't assume she meant for anything bad to happen but if Mahiru was taking advice from this woman then I think it's worth putting her under suspicion. Mahiru's view on love comes from the romanticised ideal that gets sold the public, so I wouldn't be surprised if her friend had also bought into it. I imagined her to be slightly older than Mahiru but not much, and I'm unsure if she herself has been in a relationship before so I left it vague, though if she hadn't that does bring into question Mahiru's claim that she is a love expert. Not that Mahiru would question that. Might make that into its own post.)
I intended for the reveal that Yuno's beautician was actually Futa's sister to be a bit of a plot twist. I'm not sure how well that worked, but considering you knew who you asked for seeing a ginger beautician might have raised some flags. I don't really mind, it wasn't a major thing. I imagined her to be considerably older than Futa, to the point where she would become a substitute mother figure in the absence of his birth mother, which I suppose would be possible at any age, but I thought being much older would exemplify that. (The age I put here would make her older than Shidou, which I'd funny to think about considering how he calls himself old (Shidou is NOT FUCKING OLD HE IS YOUNG AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL STOP CALLING HIM OLD-ahem)). In terms of personality, I thought she would be somewhat similar to Futa due to similar environment, but much less pathetic lol. Due to needing to step up fairly young she became pretty responsible, and she is not very talkative despite her job, keeping things very professional unless she's talking to family, of course. I'm an only child, so I don't have much experience with sibling dynamics, but I imagine their relationship would be a mostly playful while secretly caring one, though neither of them would admit it (also from you).
I needed to include a moment where Mahiru talks about love, it wouldn't be Mahiru if she didn't. Half way through, when I realised I didn't do that yet, I jotted down a section where she asks Yuno about it and inserted it where it fit. I also wanted to bring to attention how unhealthy her ideals of love are, both to herself and to her boyfriend, and how she tries to push them onto others anyways, the dramatic irony was too good to miss and I was giggling the entire time while writing it. Yuno, being more... rational, shall I say, than her, realises it but due to her own issues and insecurities as well and not wanting to get involved she doesn't say anything (what I mean by most straightforward perspective). Her friend is as bad as she is, that's why her views went unchecked for so long.
I love putting references to canon in my work, it helps me keep in character. My approach to fanfic is generally take as much from canon as possible and fill in the gaps with what fits, so when discussing hobbies or school I made sure to include details like that and I tried to use dialoguethat was present in the source as well. I even referenced the This Is How To Be In Love With You locations post as well as researched on education systems in Japan to get an idea of how to write that (I ended up not using the latter very much. Still worth knowing).
A while after I started this, I realised the had parallels with each other and... kinda went a little crazy over it. (Listen, Yuno and Futa are opposites of each other, the way they approach life is very different yet in many ways they are also the same guys-) So I wanted to bring it up a little bit here, which is another reason why Yuno is a good POV and she is most likely to catch that while the others will more likely deliberately ignore it due to preconceived dislike. It does do into waxing poetic a bit and I wasn't sure if it was a bit cringe, but it's one of the things you liked about it, so I'm happy.
Initially I thought this would be the only meeting these three would have in this universe; there is something poetic about meeting someone only once, never to think about them again, yet that interaction was still meaningful. While this I'd what happened to Futa, ultimately I felt bad about breaking everyone up, so I decided on a whim that Mahiru would approach Yuno to be her friend because it wouldn't be too out of line for her. I am really proud of that last line.
For now, that's it. For my first finished fanfiction and my first Milgram fanfiction, I am actually quite pleased with that. I hope to be able to make more in the future once I'm done with school!
#wow this got long#Take this ramble of my thought process when writing this#ask#I'm happy that you liked this! So glad I got you.
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