I Like Mysteries

This post is a mile long, so for that reason I’m putting a read more very early in. That being said, I got like, every character in the season four intro in here, all several times at least, and a few other characters, so come get y’all juice. If you read all of them ily and also which one is/which ones are your favorite(s)?

The semi-popular headcanon that Kagami and Ondine go to the same school and are jock friends? *chefs kiss*

There’s also that,,, not even headcanon,,,, but theory that Alix used to be friends with Chloe and Sabrina as a mean girl trio. It’s based on scrapped early concepts where Alix was the third mean girl, and their three names referenced the main trio of Totally Spies which Astruc worked on. Considering how ml likes to work its scrapped ideas into canon, I think it’s plausible that this could come up in the show, and it’d explain the interesting way Chloe and Alix interact.

Chloe can’t bring herself to treat Alix the way she treats everyone else because she’s intimidated by the person Alix used to be, or maybe she misses that Alix? On the other hand, Alix cut Chloe off completely when she became a better person, and she doesn’t feel bad giving her a taste of her own medicine, but she isn’t scared of her like everyone else because she’s seen her normal side.

Mylene has a little ukelele she plays sometimes while Ivan plays his hand drum. She knows the basics, and occasionally they sing too.

When Marinette was younger, she was obsessed with those popular crafts like lanyard and bead stuff, rainbow loom, and duct tape fashion. She made Tom and Sabine a duct tape wallet and lanyard keychain and they were like aww. One day they walked into her room to see a full ball gown made of duct tape and woven beads and were like AAA

*Marinette cocking a hot glue gun* “wanna know how I got these scars”

Akane: have you ever heard of “Hair Theory”?

Junpei: huh? What’s that?

Akane: it’s the idea that doing something so simple as changing your hair manipulates the way others perceive you. Going for a different style or even just framing your face differently can make you seem like a whole different person.

Snake: incredible… to think someone could do all that with only a haircut

Ace: changing… your hair…?

Clover: big deal. I change my hair all the time and I’m still me

Santa: imagine a version of me with white hair and a version of me, in a different timeline, who dyed his hair black

Now that Project: Eden’s Garden is cancelled, my old theory posts are getting traction again, and reading back on them, I kinda like some of my theories better than the actual story plan lmao. In this post, I want to react to the planned story and make rewrite ideas for how I would’ve handled the later plot points I’m not so satisfied with (mostly chapters 4 and 5, get ready for basically fanfic).

Chapter 2

Okay I totally called Ulysses and Jean dying next, but my prediction swapped the killer and victim lol. I do like the idea of Jean having this dark side and being a much worse person than he makes himself out to be, and I feel like it was foreshadowed already. The planned execution for him sounded great and totally on-brand for the series. I remember the team saying it was gonna be extra disturbing with gross noises? Maybe a bone saw? Not too sure. I hope we get the details of the murder mystery when they do the comprehensive lore drop.

The economy motive sounds like it would’ve been a lot of fun, and I really regret that we were so close to seeing Wenona become important. She had that main character vibe from the start and I was excited to see her development. Getting confirmation that she would’ve been a major support character makes me extra sad we didn’t get to see her do that and her dynamic with Damon.

Chapter 3

I do really like this concept, as much as it hurts. One good thing about the game getting cancelled is that Kai and Toshiko will never die! Yay! I think it would probably have been a really interesting mystery based on what we know, too. From what I understand, maybe mixed with my own theories, Kai doesn’t die right away and stumbles to a different location. Then, after he dies, Tozu and Mara mess with the crime scene and possibly move him back and bash his head again but worse to conceal the original injury?

I think it’s sweet that they try to help her out and certainly something we’ve never seen before. I do have issue with the idea that Toshiko wouldn’t have understood the gravity of what she’s done. She’s 14, not 5, she knows what homicide is. I also would prefer if she had a bit more premeditation than just killing Kai because she realized she could in the moment. I don’t think she’d do something so reckless considering she knows she has to get away with the murder and has already witnessed the team successfully solve two convoluted and planned-out mysteries. I would change it so that Toshiko planned out a death trap mechanism ahead of time and simply waited for someone to randomly trigger it. That way, she wouldn’t have to even be there and wouldn’t have as much guilt on her hands. Plus, of course, extra tragic that she’d end up killing the main character’s love interest by chance.

I hear there were two ideas for the execution, one merciful one where she freezes to death or something and one where Diana covers Damon’s eyes. I’m reminded of Mikan’s execution where people theorize that all that weird stuff was her hallucinating from a lethal injection. Maybe they could’ve done something where it looks chill but is a euphemism for something worse? Another idea I have is having Toshiko walk around in the ice world and come upon a Sleeping Beauty ice coffin. She lays down in it and gets ready to freeze to death beautifully, but then a guillotine drops out of nowhere and decapitates her. This would ironically mirror the way she killed Kai, and it would make the viewers think about what would really be more merciful. You could argue that freezing is merciful because it’s nonviolent, but at the same time, it’s very slow and painful. On the other hand, the decapitation is simple and instant yet very gory to look at. The people watching might ask themselves if they wanted the end that’s actually nicer for Toshiko, or if they wanted to see the option that just makes them feel more comfortable.

I also think the choice to kill Kai so early is really interesting and adds to the pain. You can’t save all the major players for the last couple chapters. That’s too obvious. Damon is left with the knowledge that he could’ve saved him if he was selfish and used his perk from the start.

Oh and another thing. I think Toshiko not having anything behind her fan is such a letdown. Give her braces cmonnnn!!! It would make it extra sad during her breakdown when she starts crying and she’s just a kid who’s been insecure about her braces this whole time, especially if they have like little pink and red rubber bands or something.

Chapter 4

Ok this is a whole mess and everyone knows it, even the team themselves from what I hear. They probably would’ve totally rewritten all this if they got this far. I want to try and come up with a way to make the scenario make sense without messing with the death order.

Daily life would include Mark confessing to Jett and getting rejected, but this wouldn’t be directly related to the case. In fact, it would be a sort of reverse-psychology red herring. This event would happen in a gossipy way where everyone finds out about it fast, and they’d all rush to ask Jett wtf happened or go console Mark. The soap opera romance drama would be resolved, and Jett and Mark both seem fine by the end of it. Then, Tozu introduces the next motive.

Case 4 is around the time of the game when all the most trigger-happy participants are already dead, and everyone left is scared and tired, just trying to ride it out. It’s not unusual for mainline DR to deal with this by stirring things up with some crazy or totally unfair mechanics. I’m thinking despair disease and the funhouse in SDR2, forbidden actions is DR3, the entire very first case in V3, and maybe the VR world. Sensing that everyone’s become too friendly and pacifistic, the people behind the game might devise a motive that’s secretly targeted to screw a specific person over, just to get the ball rolling again. After all, they basically did that to Eva.

Tozu tells everyone that as a prize for making it this far, the game organizers will reward everyone with gifts catered to their wants. Damon receives a bunch of prize checks with big sums as well as random recognition awards and luxury formal clothing. Being cynical, he quickly realizes this is the next motive and asks around. Wenona’s been receiving insider trading tips and offers to acquire smaller companies, while Diana has been getting contracts to work for huge Hollywood productions, collaborate with brands, and all sorts of expensive cosmetic supplies. They all realize that their most enticing prizes are useless inside the academy, so Damon figures the motive must be to get someone to try and escape so they can redeem their checks or contracts. He thinks this is an idiotic motive that no sane person would ever fall for, especially without knowing for sure if any of this stuff is even real, which he doesn’t think it is. All the current survivors agree that it’s all very suspicious and probably a bunch of hogwash.

What Damon doesn’t know is that Mark had been struggling with addiction before coming to the academy, and his gifts have included all the drugs he could ever want. He initially resists temptation, but the stress of the killing game, his worsening mental health, and the fresh pain of rejection cause him to cave in.

One day, Tozu suddenly tells everyone that their gifts have been taken away, and if someone kills, their prizes will be returned with plenty extra. Damon goes wow this motive really is the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard. Cassidy cracks a joke lamenting that now she only has four fancy gaming monitors in her room instead of seven. How will she survive? Mark quietly panics because not only is he actively addicted to multiple substances that he can no longer get, he realizes he’ll soon start experiencing dangerous, maybe even deadly withdrawal symptoms. Plus, if he’s going to die either way…

The next day, Ingrid is found dead, seemingly by suicide. There’s a gunshot wound in her temple, and one of Desmond’s handguns (that he got rid of) is on the floor under her limp arm. There’s a note next to her in her own handwriting about how she deeply regrets not being able to protect anyone, especially Toshiko, blaming herself for not keeping a better eye on her. She also starts going into her personal life, talking about how she feels like she always owes something to her family no matter how successful she becomes, and how although she loves her girlfriend, she’s afraid their relationship would never actually work out.

Now I hope THH fans would see a buff woman dead by suicide in chapter 4 and go hmmm wait a minute, I’ve played these games before.

That night, Mark asked Ingrid if they could meet to talk about something that’s been bothering him. He said he felt the most comfortable around her since she was so understanding, and he didn’t think anyone else would really understand. Now, don’t get me wrong. Ingrid is actually deeply suspicious. She’s seen three killings already. But she figures he had more success with his talent than he’d ever wanted, so the motive wouldn’t mean much to him, and if he tried to attack her, she could probably stop him. She agrees.

He sits down with her, but then goes quiet and says his problems are too difficult to talk about out loud. She days why don’t you write them down, and he asks if she could do the same so he wouldn’t feel weird. She agrees, and they both write letters. After Ingrid reads Mark’s, he kills her.

I’m not gonna come up with full murder mysteries, but maybe they can figure out it wasn’t a suicide because the blood splatters won’t be at the expected angle. They could also find the ashes of Mark’s note after he burned it and a needle that he accidentally didn’t dispose of properly somewhere else in the school.

As for the execution, which I don’t think they had planned at all (?), idk would having him overdose be too fucked up? Just letting him do it himself would be unique but also too similar to my idea for Toshiko in that there’d be two chill executions in a row. A better idea is he could be put in the audience of a festival where a mannequin wearing his stage persona’s mask is doing a set. Then, the crowd, also mannequins, starts moving around more and more excitedly and violently in larger numbers until he’s crushed. The other executions are related to the person’s talent, and being forced to listen to his own music in the middle of a big crowd would probably be despairing for him. What do we think about “Confession to a Crush” as the title?

Something I didn’t feel good about for ch 4 and 5 is how it felt like there were too many accidents, suicides, or meaningless deaths, so I’m hoping my rewrite makes it more satisfying by letting the characters end up in their situation due to their own decisions. But at the same time I am continuing the mainline DR trend of the musician character being screwed over and doomed lol. For ch4 specifically, I felt like the writers did not really know what to do with Ingrid, so I tried to work with her character flaws a little more. Not to be too woke, but I’m noticing a pattern where people will add a big butch woman to their cast for character design diversity but then struggle to give her a personality half as deep as the lean/conventional body type characters. Does anyone else see this? Anyway

My version of this chapter doesn’t result in Jett literally losing his helmet, but I feel like it would be understandable if he just decided to stop wearing it and be honest about his real backstory after seeing what happened to his broski who felt like he couldn’t be open about his darkest secrets.

Chapter 5

Ok this is the one where I reread my theory and was like wow I was cooking, this seems way more satisfying than the official outline. This’ll be based off that lol.

Desmond and Eloise form an alliance of trust, having already known each other from before the death game. They regularly meet up after lights out to talk about what’s been going on and try to strategize.

This whole time, Desmond has been doing everything he could to stop the murders, but has been growing increasingly hopeless. The last killing was committed using a gun that was only there because of his talent, after all, and maybe it wouldn’t have been accesible if he’d handled the weapon situation differently. At this point, Desmond feels like the other students don’t really care about taking action and just stand by as things unfold around them, hoping to not get caught up in the next case.

Eloise has been growing more paranoid than ever. There may have been a brief moment when she found herself opening up to everyone else, but not anymore. In fact, if Desmond asked her to meet for the first time now, she would’ve surely said no, but since they’ve been hanging out for a while now and nothing’s happened, she’s sure she can trust him if no one else.

One night, they bump into someone in the dark hallway. In surprise, they start to fight the other person, who pulls something metal out of their pocket. Eloise panics and stabs them, after which they fall to the floor. Dragging the person into the courtyard with its fake moonlight, they realize she’s just killed Tozu, who was trying to call Mara for backup. They’re not sure how to respond to this. Desmond suggests they hide the body as best they can for now, but fears the organizers probably have them on camera.

The next day they both receive a message from Mara. She says the organizers deliberated long and hard about how to handle this. Under normal circumstances, messing with the game host would result in their immediate execution, but considering exactly what went down, how late it is in the game, and what Tozu did in chapter 3, the organizers have decided to give them a chance and treat Tozu’s murder as they would the murder of a student.

Eloise is shaken, but tells Desmond that the students probably wouldn’t even notice Tozu was missing for a good while and there’s no way they’d go looking for him, so as long as they keep the body hidden well enough, they’ll be fine. She suggests cutting him into tiny pieces or dissolving him in chemicals, but they’re both too squeamish to actually try it. Desmond is sure the body would be found eventually, even by accident, so he starts to hatch a plan.

Damon and friends enjoy their much needed peace and quiet for a few days, but get suspicious when they haven’t heard anything from Tozu in a week. They start to feel concerned. Diana suggests they should try to get to the bottom of his disappearance just to put everyone’s minds at ease, suspecting that there’s a perfectly normal reason for his absence. Grace says why look a gift horse in the mouth, and Wenona is suspicious that this might be part of some weird trap. Diana convinces Jett to come investigate with her, and Grace goes too out of concern. They end up finding Tozu’s body.

During the investigation and trial, it’s initially totally unclear who killed Tozu, especially since he was dead for so long already, but the puzzle pieces slowly begin implicating Desmond. Eloise is petrified, but framing himself was his intention all along. Given the choice between her survival and everyone else’s, he decides that she deserves to get out of here, especially since she’s the one who’s done the most to end the game at this point.

The trial nearly closes with him favored as the culprit, but Damon notices something that doesn’t make sense, stopping everyone from ending the trial. After talking about it, they realize Eloise was the one who delivered the stab. Both of them, who had been playing dumb this whole time, suddenly start trying to confess that it was them, but Damon proves it was Eloise.

If we’re sticking to talent-themed executions hm. Ok the scene opens to Eloise standing on a decorated stage opposite a fencer robot modeled after the black swan. Obviously Swan Lake is playing. They start fighting. Then, after the music swells, the floor of the stage falls away to reveal that they’re standing on a balance beam over a deadly drop, and the camera zooms out to show the stage is actually a little set being held up by a giant construction crane. Eloise starts gaining an advantage over the robot, and pushes forward with determination, but then it suddenly retracts its epee into its arm and rumbles a little. Eloise catches herself and squares up. The robot’s midsection flies open as a comically large boxing glove springs out, knocking her off the beam. The fall kills her. Let’s call it “Duck Duck Swan” <- sometimes I have to remind myself that mainline DR execution titles aren’t particularly creative or witty, at least until V3. I mean one of them is called “Deep Fried Teruteru” idk why I feel pressure to come up with good names

Yeah Desmond is totally losing it atp. He’s pissed. During the prologue he was on my survivor list so I can totally just let him live this time, but I did say I was gonna stick to the canon deaths. Desmond decided one way or another, he refuses to keep playing this game. Having been ready to die anyway, he pulls out a gun and fires a shot at Mara. She dodges it and pulls her own gun out. All the other students have nowhere to run, so they just duck behind the podiums and hide. A shootout ensues while the typical execution theme plays, and at the end, they both end up dead.

Two executions in a row! Whoa. Maybe this is a little Kiibo killing Tsumugi inspired. I always thought it was a bit of a shame that the only time we see a student die for breaking the rules is Mukuro so early in the series (and her death was rigged anyway), so I thought it’d be interesting to have the gun woman actually be a real threat. Desloise have died, but they both got more done than anyone else did, which sets the stage for the finale.

Chapter 6

Tbh guys mastermind Cassidy didn’t exactly surprise me, but it also concerned me a little that they could just swap her in since Eva was originally written to be the mastermind. To me that indicates that her individual character wasn’t strong enough from the start. SabrinaTwyla said she wasn’t sold on the writing and hoped for a redeemable Cassidy, and she’s like the authority.

When I did my theories, I thought Cassidy would be the random crazy character like Genocider/Togami, Nagito, or Kokichi who fuck stuff up but aren’t on the villains’ side. All these characters have been red herrings for the real villain, so I think it’d be fun to make one who is doing it for evil. If I were to write Cassidy, I wouldn’t make her the mastermind like Junko, but maybe a traitor planted in the game by the cult who organized it. (I think this is canon actually?) she was indoctrinated into extremism at a vulnerable time in her life. Cassidy wouldn’t be the one who actually organized the whole game and is controlling things, just a traitor they added in to influence the others.

On that note, I don’t really understand why Damon has to die from a narrative perspective or why things play out the way they do. He find the traitor perk in ch3 and just coasts through the next few chapters with it ig, but then people stop dying and he’s screwed. People are asking why he wouldn’t just kill Cassidy. I think there’s a cool opportunity here for two different endings, one where Damon decides to kill Cassidy once he realizes she’s the traitor and save himself, and one where he decides to forgive her and sacrifice himself. Apparently, though, Damon’s death was supposed to help figure out who the mastermind was somehow. Dude idk maybe she has a pager that beeps when people blow themselves up lol.

I don’t know how I’d rewrite the last chapter because idk what was supposed to happen in it, but overall I think I’d make Cassidy progressively get more unnerving, untrustworthy, and downright scary over the course of the game. Maybe she’d face the reality of the job she agreed to do and realize that the further she went, the more she actually wants it to end. She would do a good job of playing a normal character for a while, then the mask would start to crack, and eventually she wouldn’t even care to hide her true face anymore. The others might think she’s just losing it because of trauma, but then her identity is revealed.

Maybe I will take an actual crack at rewriting ch6 if the comprehensive lore actually says what was supposed to happen. Sorry for not having much to say about it.

anyways what are some songs u associate with the au and/or different characters in the au 🙏

Not to be lame but I didn’t really think about songs. I’ve been poring over this ask for a long time and I regrettably might just have to throw the towel in. I’m not a big character playlist person, especially for non-original stuff, and I’m not much of fan of the stereotypical character playlist genre of music.

No matter how many layers of AU you put on the ladybug universe, I still associate it with whatever mainstream pop is huge among grade school girls at the moment. This might be because of the side of the fandom that you’d see more on other social medias who’s on average younger and they keep making posts like omg Marinette is so swiftie-coded or kpop-coded lmao.

In The Mermaid’s Curse, during the Avi chapters where he and Circe discuss history, Avi quotes the opening to The Tales of the Heike. He then says he doesn’t get what it means but memorized it because he thought it sounded cool.

After finishing the story, this moment stuck out to me for a few reasons.

1) Tomoshige clearly didn’t get it either. This man spent centuries trying to revive the glory of a clan whose story is always told prefaced by “the warning that all things are impermanent”. The most important detail about the Heike in pop culture is that they rose, but then they fell. Being cursed with immortality made that lesson harder to swallow for Tomoshige as he thought he had plenty of time ahead of him, but his lifespan wasn’t infinite either. He couldn’t accept that the Heike were defeated nor that his time with Sato was long over.

2) As a rather verbose writer, you’d think Avi wouldn’t have a hard time comprehending some figurative language. I think he may have understood exactly what the words on the page were supposed to mean, just didn’t agree with their message to the point where he acts like he didn’t get it. In his glory ending, we see that immortality is actually a great time of adventure and success for Avi, and he wishes he could extend his 800 years for another round. Considering that the sentiment that “all good things must come to an end” literally didn’t apply to him, it checks out that he’d scratch his head at The Tales of the Heike. It’s interesting that he was so confident things would turn out that way so far in advance.

I’m putting a break because spoilers for everything

Yumeko secretly works for Paranormal Affairs and has been assigned to the case

There will be a meta puzzle involving screen brightness

Also I saw the new official art of the first game and, spoilers under the cut

Introducing my bug!Nath and cat!Alix AU! I’ve been seeing a lot of Nateybugs on my feed lately and decided it’s finally time to realize the concept of my own that’s been floating around in my head for a while. Why haven’t I made it until now? Um. It took this many years of art experience to be able to draw the hairstyle I had in mind. Lmao

This AU is very canon complaint, and the idea is pretty much a Scarabella and Kitty Noire situation where they’re temporary stand-ins in the main universe, but there’s also a timeline where they’re the permanent holders.

Nath has zero confidence in his ability to pull this off and is convinced he’ll be defeated immediately. I got the idea that he could wear the miraculous as cuff links instead of earrings as a failsafe. Him internalizing this notion of being “fake ladybug” causes his transformation to look like a harlequin ladybird. Once he actually gets into a fight, he realizes it’s not as bad as he thought. Over time, he starts developing some leadership skills.

Alix, on the other hand, is way overconfident. She considers Bunnyx to be the superhero with the hardest job, and imagines that using the cat will be a walk in the park in comparison. She’s excited for a chance to try out actual combat without considering that she has little to no experience due to spending every fight sitting on her ass in the burrow, and she weighs like three apples.

I think in canon, Alix doesn’t really have a lot of overt character flaws, and the ones she does have are often completely overlooked by fans, so I wanna dial it up to ten for this AU. I headcanon her as being kind of narcissistic and having an inflated ego, but it’s not easy to prove her wrong. She thinks that her work as Bunnyx is literally keeping the world spinning? Well yeah I guess it is. Her grades are at the top of her class. She’s focusing in STEM, and she’s good at art, and she’s athletic, and she skates, and she’s popular, and everyone thinks she dresses cool. This is what being a pink haired anime girl does to a person. Being Bastet is the first thing she’s actually. Bad at. At least at first, but getting to live the failgirl experience makes her start to rethink some stuff.

Another motivation for making this AU is that there is like. No Alix and Nath content out there and 95% of the stuff claiming to be it is actually Marcaniel fanfiction where Alix shows up briefly to be the cool wingwoman and that’s it. I’m crying misogyny. Even in canon we got a nice two milliseconds of implications of their relationship. More please!

I’m putting this image in again because I spent a reallllly long time rendering it. Design notes:

I wanted Crimson’s hair to be kind of a stereotypical shonen anime boy hairstyle but also have the shape of a ladybug shell

The back of his little coat is also shell shaped and the lapel is influenced by Rooster Bold

You can’t see it but his shoes are platforms. But you already knew that

I used the “skinny optical illusion” black lines on the side of his suit like how Caprikid has

Bastet’s suit is pretty techwear-inspired and born of my wish that her canon designs were cooler. I think all the people who liked Canigirl’s design were playing a prank on me

She has metal elbow pads because techwear + skater + …she’ll need them. They balance out the metallic parts of her design, but I drew them in a pose where you can’t really see them

I tried to play with textures. For example, Bastet’s belt is like a seatbelt-ish texture and Crimson’s boots are like PVC

I gave Bastet that vest inspired by the weird little vest Alix is wearing in her normal outfit but I still don’t understand the vision behind that. I need an essay from the character designer who made her explaining every choice

Also obviously her mask is inspired by the ancient Egyptian kohl eyeliner style and I put a little ankh charm on her collar for the aesthetics and as protection because she’ll need that too.

When I draw lips I usually draw the top one in solid black and the bottom as one line, and I usually color over the top one, but I decided to leave hers

I am finally continuing this all the way from April! The first post has been getting some attention lately so I’m doing another one. Link to pt. one ⬇️

Also, naturally, spoilers for chapters 0 and 1 of p:eg as well as the canon DR games. When I try to look up this art album on Google my own post is the top result which is cool but also unhelpful to me lol

Toshiko: a wish

I’m gonna start off strong with my most insane crackpot theory. Hear me out. What if there are two “Toshiko”s and they’re twins.

“What are you talking about?” Ok. Most of the other imitation pieces include more than one depiction of the character at once since that’s kind of the point of the series, but this one has a much more literal feel to it than the others, like Damon looking at his child self, Winona being a bunch of spooky swam monsters, and Grace clones being her own friends. Here we see two Toshikos, one in a yukata (?) and one in casual summer clothes, looking at a sparkler. The casual Toshiko’s mouth is blurred out with liquified lines sweeping back and forth. The traditional one is wearing a face mask with her “two flamingoes” logo on it.

None of the other characters have more than one of their animal symbol on them save for Cassidy, who has a spider web pattern on her leggings but no actual spider. Toshiko’s logo is two flamingoes facing each other. This makes sense to symbolize a matchmaker, but what if it means something else? What if it represents how there are literally two of her? I realize this sounds far fetched, but I can come up with some more support for it.

People theorizing about her mysterious mouth and why it’s always covered have pointed out that other characters can surely see behind her fan in group scenes, and it’s only hidden from us, the audience. Plus, Ingrid has probably seen her going to bed and first thing in the morning. If Toshiko is a twin, what if she’s hiding something that distinguishes her from the other one? Maybe one twin has a unique mole or tooth gap that the other doesn’t. Especially if it’s a tooth difference, she could easily hide it from the other characters by covering and closing her mouth, even if they catch a glance of her face. Perhaps at some point we’ll see under the fan, then see her again later but notice something different. This theory leads me to predict she, or one of them, is going to be a victim, and this will come to light when investigating the body. (BuT shE’S a ChilD thEY wOnT kIlL hEr. lol. lmao even. I think they would). Imagine Toshiko 1 tries to poison Ingrid, but Ingrid decides to gift the food to Toshiko 2 as a treat and 1 accidentally kills 2. What if.

Another point I’m going to bring up is the Fregoli Delusion poster again. It seems like a big fat Chekhov’s gun to me so let’s try to figure out what that’s about. The Fregoli Delusion is that multiple people around you are actually one person in disguise. If my theory is true and there are two Toshikos, what if this is poking fun at that and trying to say you’re delusional for thinking Toshiko is two people?

Discarding everything I just said, assuming my theory is insane and wrong, the poster could also be poking fun at people who think there’s a traitor assisting the masterminds (a position Toshiko is a high suspect for among fan theorists). The drama masks on the poster look like Tozu’s mask.

“I am a wish” could mean that Toshiko sees herself as performing a role, maybe one that’s expected of her by other people but one she may not want to play. She could think that her true inner self is just her own wish, but she’s forced to be a certain way on the outside.

I don’t know if flamingoes necessarily have an archetypal symbolical meaning, but there are some things we can associate them with. They’re flock birds, which goes along with Toshiko’s talent as a matchmaker and her social demeanor. They’re seen as sort of flamboyant and whimsical. They’re also famous for their unique pink color from eating shrimp. This might be a stretch, but flamingoes reflect the environment they live in and what they consume, so perhaps Toshiko is meant to be a reflection of the culture she grew up in. She reflects what she consumes when it comes to romantic media and advice since she’s just a kid without much experience.

Ingrid: an obligation

Her echo art is one of the most unnerving! I had no idea what to think at first. Haha what a sweet and cheerful character!

Starting off with analysis of the art itself, the imitation art shows her covered in hands. We know that Ingrid has the expectations of her family business on her shoulders, and that’s the most obvious interpretation for what her obligation could mean. We can interpret these hands as belonging to her family members and ancestors guiding or forcing her in a specific direction. BUT. The imitation art is all just the one character right? You’ll notice these arms all look like they belong to the same person. I think they represent Ingrid putting a lot of pressure on herself under the guise of obligation to others. The echo art reinforces this. Ingrid in this image looks like she’s being suffocated by her own two hands, no other arms reaching out, just two.

Predictions for game events? Maybe Ingrid will get into trouble by being self-sacrificing and putting other people above herself. “I am an obligation”. She may prioritize taking care of everyone as we’ve seen her do so far, but at the cost of neglecting her own best interests. She may also fail to ask for help in a situation where she really should have due to her own perfectionism, then have it come back to bite her by leaving her alone in a dangerous position. Conversely, if she puts so much pressure on herself over the family business, she may feel obliged to escape, using it as an excuse to cope with her own wants. It sure would be a twist if the kind and helpful character ended up being a killer, but it could also be a situation like SDR2 ch4 where she does something “for the greater good”. Speaking of DR, I feel like surely between Ingrid and Jean, one of them’s gotta survive, right? For the ch4 buff people death trope subversion, cmon right? Watch they’re both gonna die, just not in ch4.

Ingrid is represented by a lion, an animal with a classic archetypal symbolic meaning. Lions are supposed to represent strength, courage, and pride. Ingrid is obviously very strong and protective of those around her. Pride could potentially be a flaw of hers if I’m interpreting these artworks accurately. Maybe she holds herself to too high of a standard and expects too much of herself. Lions in real life live in groups and rely on each other, but are often portrayed as being independent, especially when used to signify royal power.

Jean: a secret

I didn’t really know what to do with this image tf. I’m just gonna start spitballing. All the guys here look like different people, but are actually just Jean with different clothes, hair, and facial hair styles, and they’re all scared of the canon design Jean who’s in the shadow silhouette. The composition paired with Jean’s talent gives this scene mutiny vibes.

My first reaction to this image was that the men are Jean’s crew before realizing that they’re him. I thought he might be a harsh and tyrannical captain while acting cool around other people, but I don’t know about that after figuring out that everyone is him. Maybe “I am a secret” suggests that Jean actually doesn’t even have a crew at all and works alone. Perhaps he’s enthusiastically trying to recruit his new friends to form one because he’s alone otherwise, but is trying to hide it. Him pointing a gun and threatening other versions of himself could be like him telling himself to keep quiet about the truth to maintain his image. He might be “a secret” because he doesn’t let anyone know him very closely or work with him.

Another possibility is that he’s a sham in some way. This could be as extreme as him having a secret different ultimate talent/be an impostor, but it could also be him lying about his maritime adventures. I’ve talked before about how p:eg plays with the concept of ultimate titles, how they’re awarded, and who deserves them. Maybe Jean earned his title through a single isolated event or something, but is pretending to be a seasoned captain with many tales of experience to make himself feel more valid.

As a character who has shown strong leadership among the cast, I feel like Jean’s raising a death flag. Killers like to take out people who they see as having too much power over the group (cough chapter one cough), but someone who can easily manipulate trust can become a covert killer as well. I said I hope either Ingrid or Jean survives, but going entirely on vibes in feeling Ingrid is more likely to make it. I can see Jean being an earlier game death, even as early as next chapter since he’s already had some decent screentime. I have no doubts that we’ll learn some secrets about him before that happens, though.

Jean’s animal is very interesting since it’s the only one that’s not exactly real. His tattoo looks like the type of dragon you’d see in western fairy tales. In eastern stories, dragons are usually associated with bodies of water and weather, which would make sense for a ship captain who has to navigate the ocean and fight storms. Western dragons, though, don’t have this association and are seen as majestic and powerful, yet dangerous monsters. Going back to the idea of Jean being fraudulent in some way; if he is, that would go quite well with him being symbolized by a fantasy animal. Dragons may be powerful, but at the end of the day, they only exist in stories.

Wenona: a foe

With what we know about her backstory, you’d think Wenona’s biggest enemies would be business rivals and gold digging fake friends, but here she’s represented as her own worst enemy (I’m sensing a theme in today’s pieces). Wenona is represented as some sort of siren-like water monster. Idk if it’s referencing a specific mythology, but many cultures have evil trickster mermaid myths. As a CEO, Wenona had to do some underhanded stuff to gain power, like her story about false advertising, so she might think of herself as a dangerous or immoral person. She may have screwed people over or sacrificed safety/quality for profit as big agriculture companies are known to do. Maybe deep down she feels guilt for things she’s done for the sake of business or ways she may have betrayed people in order to form a monopoly. Her success as an entrepreneur may have isolated her from the people who used to be there for her.

Predictions? I think if Wenona dies, it’ll probably be pretty late into the game, like ch4 or 5. She has a lot of room for development, and I think she could have some really interesting dynamics with other characters like Damon and Cassidy, who I also think are unlikely to die too soon. Maybe I just think this because she’s Togami-coded, but in ch0 she struck me as a potential major player, although she hasn’t done much yet except be generally logical in trials. I could even see her being an investigation partner for Damon in a future case.

Not to make this about Ulynona buttt Ulysses is the character she’s closest to and most open with, and I predicted he would be an early death. Maybe him dying would catalyze her arc. Something about his case might make her decide to follow her moral compass and start helping everyone more openly. Or the opposite! Maybe she’ll go Togami mode and start sabotaging investigations or being extremely selfish, who knows!

Wenona is symbolized by a bear, an animal known for being powerful and dangerous, but also well respected. They’re also a classic example of American wildlife and have a symbolic significance in many Native American cultures. Bears are strong and independent leaders, but also quiet and wise. This all lines up perfectly with Wenona, but like Ingrid, it may also hint at a sense of loneliness. Wenona acts like she’s better than average people, pushing them away, and makes a big deal out of keeping a low profile. Despite what she says, she may be afraid of being vulnerable and actually getting close to people.