Oh, Will, We're Really In It Now

Oh, Will, we're really in it now

Himari illustration.

I redrew it because I didn't like how the old one looked (I keep redrawing everything please send hel

This took me two tries. I couldn't get over how the face looked off in the first redraw so I scrapped it all together.

I forgot the texture again.

zero: got some straight gas 🔥😛 this strain is called the Nonary Game😳 you’ll be calculating digital roots9️⃣➕🔢💯

me: yeah whatever. i dont feel shit

me after 9 minutes: dude i swear I saw ace open door 3

my buddy seven pacing: santa and june are lying to us

A Narrative Defense of Eden Culprit Theory

Hello everyone! 

As I’m sure many of you know, I, among others (notably @accirax, @1moreff-creator and @thebadjoe) believe Eden to be the culprit of the Chapter 2 murder case. I’ve seen a fair number of people say they aren’t convinced for one reason or another. While I fully understand people who don’t buy all the evidence/the insane contraptions we’ve come up with or people who are in denial, I was a little surprised at how many people I saw say that it would be bad writing for Eden to be the killer here. 

While others are fully entitled to their opinions on who the killer is, I want to address this claim. Personally, whenever I’m reading a fangan, I always believe that I shouldn’t consider any killer to be “bad writing” until I see how it’s actually written. After all, there can always be a key twist you’re not expecting to make it actually make sense. Plus, in Eden’s case, I actually fully believe that all the building blocks of a narratively successful killer are already put into place. So, in this post, I’m going to attempt to back up my claim that Eden being the second killer actually makes narrative sense, and it isn’t bad writing either.

Because fangan writing is subjective and what any given author believes is the right move varies, I’ll be doing my best to support my claims with similar content from the canon game trilogy (given that that’s a pretty standard baseline) and from what we’ve already seen of DRDT thus far. That should (hopefully) give us some fair perspective into the sorts of narrative decisions the creator would want to make.

I’ll be going through various points at which I think something could or could not be bad writing, so hopefully that’ll provide some much needed structure to this theory.

Topic 1: Motive

I want to say this early: I do not think Eden is secretly evil. I think that in the context of killing games, “good” people can end up being killers, and I think that’s where Eden’s headed. I understand why, if some people have only seen Eden killer theories in the context of her being evil, they don’t like it. I don't like it either. I think it completely misinterprets her character.

For now, though, I want to talk about what motive she does have. There’s the fact that Arturo is threatening her, obviously. If she feels there’s a genuine threat to her safety, it would be decently reasonable to decide that, if her priority is her life, she’d rather try to get away with a murder than let herself be taken out by Arturo. 

There’s another potential motive out there for Eden that might be enough to push her over the edge. That being, we know she cares a lot about her friends and relationships outside of the killing game too. 

A lot of people, I think, have seen the theory floating around that goes “Eden is trying to leave to get back to the girl she kissed.” I’ve also seen it mentioned that this could be problematic, given that it could be saying “being gay = becoming a killer,” but I think there are several reasons why that doesn’t hold up.

First of all, we have a lot of canonically LGBT cast members. Nico is nonbinary, Whit is bisexual, and in the most recent Q&A, other characters such as Ace, Veronika and Eden herself were also all confirmed to be LGBT+. Given that Eden isn’t the “token gay character,” I think it’s a lot safer to make her a killer without sending the message “if you’re gay you’re a killer.” 

Secondly, I think that there’s more to Eden’s motive than just whoever that girl is. I think the girl will likely be part of it and be relevant, given that it’s Eden’s motive secret. Because it’s the Chapter 2 motive, the motive secrets should play into things in general. But, it’s not like that girl is the only one from Eden’s past that she cares about, right? 

Eden cares about her family, as we see in the scene where she talks to Levi. We know that Eden cares about her friends, as we clearly see within the killing game. We know that Eden cares about this girl. I think it’s safe to say that, for gay reasons or not, Eden has a lot of people she’d fight to get back to.

Rather than using her motive secret as the only way of justifying the “Eden wants to return to her previous life” motive, why don’t we look at other secret Eden content?

I’m talking about the secret quotes. I assume most people have heard about them by now, but basically, if you go to the characters’ profile pages on the main tumblr account and inspect elements, each character has a secret quote that you can find. Eden’s secret quote is “You can’t go back, no matter how hard you try.”

We haven’t really seen much of Eden trying to go back yet. I guess you could say that when she makes breakfast with Levi, she talks a lot about trying to get the group back together and back to normal, and that isn’t unrelated. Still, I think it makes a lot of sense if Eden is someone who’s focused on the past. After all, Eden’s talent is clockmaking. To the extent her talent influenced her personality/character themes, it seems like time is an important thing with her. Trying to turn back the clock and return to her life before the killing game would make a lot of sense thematically. 

I suspect that Eden’s secret quote relates to the fact that she tries to go back to her previous life by escaping the killing game. “No matter how hard you try” definitely sounds like she goes to pretty extreme lengths, but she still fails in the end. That would be when she’s caught as the blackened and executed; she never gets to go back. It’s precedented for secret quotes to directly relate to how characters died; both Min’s “I wanted to save you” and Arei’s “Because that’s what friends do” tie into the way in which they arrived at their death. I could definitely see it being the same for Eden.

Interestingly, there’s another reason to consider that Eden might be extra-motivated to leave the killing game. That point is that Eden has been shown to be the main person fighting against the killing game. For example, she and Hu brainstormed ways to deal with the Chapter 2 motive. 

That doesn’t really tell us anything though, right? It’s just trying to manage the killing game from within. That’s not it, though. It’s actually a repeated thing that Eden is constantly looking for ways to obstruct the killing game.

Even the plan to bore out the killing game, the one Veronika tells us couldn’t work because she’d get too horribly bored, originally came from Eden. I fully believe that there’s a reason we’re being told every other scene that Eden is working towards ending the killing game is that Eden has extra incentive to want the killing game to end, and that’s to try to return to the life and loved ones she left behind.

I also think it’s worth mentioning that, in the canon games, every single second killer commits their crime due to previous attachments that go beyond the killing game. Mondo kills because of the promise he made to his now-dead brother Daiya, Peko kills because of her allegiance to Fuyuhiko, who wants Mahiru dead due to the death of his sister Natsumi, and Kirumi kills because she’s actually the Prime Minister and needs to get back to her duties. Hell, Ryoma is even Kirumi’s victim because he doesn’t have previous outside attachments, which makes him feel like a more understandable victim for her crime. If you throw in “Eden has a lot of meaningful relationships back home and, here in the killing game, she misses them so badly that she’d kill to go back,” I don’t think it feels out of place. 

This is pretty niche, but there’s also something I want to look at in relation to Xander and Min. Notably, the pinned comments by the official account in their bonus episodes. 

Xander’s is “Someone who wants to hold onto the past.” Min’s is “Someone who wants to move on from the past.” While this trend doesn’t have to keep up, I think it would be interesting if every killer/victim pair had one of each. Arei pretty clearly wants to move on from the past where her sisters and classmates ruthlessly bullied her. Eden wants to hold onto it, hoping to return, but she can’t go back, no matter how hard she tries. Just an interesting thing to point out.

But Eden’s motive isn’t the only thing stopping people from believing she’d be a reasonable killer, right? There are other things to consider, too.

Topic 2: Story Arc

To be clear here, “Story Arc” refers to how Eden fits into the larger narrative and story of DRDT. I’ll be talking about her individual story and growth later on in the section labeled “Character Arc.” 

For the most part, the larger narrative, at present, seems to be relating to Teruko and how she navigates her trust and relationships with everyone else. Eden is certainly a key factor in that, given that Teruko has basically acknowledged that outright. 

Teruko actively tries to avoid being friends with Eden, given the fact that she’s very nice and it’d be easy for Teruko to be friends with her. To Teruko, that means she’d be opening up the door to get hurt to easily when Eden inevitably dies and/or betrays her. Wouldn’t it only be proving Teruko right if Eden were to become a killer?

Yeah. It would. And that’s the point at the story we’re at. 

I don’t think it would make any sense for Teruko’s beliefs to be strongly challenged in Chapter 2. Like, at some point, I’m sure Teruko will figure out why it’s a problem to not trust anyone. After all, her secret quote is “It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust no one at all.” However, at this point in the story, things are going as she expects.

Think about it this way. Teruko believes that trusting people is opening yourself up for betrayal, and those who she gets close to will betray her and die. Let’s go through the people who have died so far, one by one, and see how they match up against that.

Xander: Was Teruko’s closest friend. Betrayed her by trying to kill her, then died. Check. Min: Was Teruko’s biggest supporter after she got stabbed. Betrayed her by actually being the killer, then died. Check. Arei: Previously shared Teruko’s worldview that being nice will just screw you over. Opened up and became friends. Had that friendship used against her to kill her. Check.

It definitely seems like, thus far, we’re validating Teruko’s worldview, basically as much as possible. No killer would validate her worldview more than Eden. That would make Arei an even closer parallel to Teruko (the person who she most tried to befriend was the one who tried to kill her in the end), and it would introduce another would-be friend as a killer.

Eden: Was Teruko’s biggest supporter after the first class trial. Betrayed her by being the second killer, then died. 

It looks an awful lot like Min’s, right?

In a more predictive sense, there’s also the popular theory that Charles will be one of the Chapter 3 victims. If that holds true, it’ll be another example in the same wavelength.

Charles: Was more like Teruko and didn’t trust people, avoiding them to stay safe. After rejoining the group and beginning to trust people, he died.

If that prediction is right, it’d mean that the trend continues past the point of the second victim to the point of a third victim, which would mean that the second killer would likely fit into the pattern.

But that’s a whole lot of my opinion, right? After all, maybe Levi or someone who isn’t particularly related to Teruko is the killer, so Teruko stays mostly the same, too. 

I do want to take a moment to acknowledge a bigger critique of this. It’s possible that some people might say that Eden killing here would be too repetitive in regards to Min and Xander. There are some key differences, though. 

Eden was Teruko’s friend after she started being mean and closed off to everyone. Min and Xander never really got the chance to react too much to Teruko’s antagonistic antics because they died before she was really pushing people away. That means it would carry more significance. Teruko has also spent more time with Eden, so their relationship is a little bit more developed. Eden is also someone that Teruko actively tried not to get close to before she killed, which wasn’t true of Xander or Min. 

Plus, I’d argue that it’s also supposed to feel a bit repetitive. This is what happens to Teruko, all the time. This is her life. It makes it feel more real and understandable how she reacts to Xander and Min if we as the audience begin to see and understand, oh, it really is like this every single time. 

Besides all of that, though, there are a few more thoughts that lead me to believe that someone closer to Teruko might be the killer this time around.

One of the biggest points in favor of this interpretation is the MonoCredits. 

MonoCredits are introduced in the scene where MonoTV asks Teruko to caulk the bathrooms. Then, she immediately uses one in the next scene where Charles is confronting her about her more antagonistic ways. At first glance, it seems like MonoCredits may have been introduced solely for that Charles interaction, and as a reason to plausibly get Teruko to help MonoTV out so that she could talk to it, too. However…

MonoTV gave Teruko two MonoCredits. That means she still has one. I wouldn’t blame you at all if you forgot this small detail– and that’s part of why I think the killer will be closer to Teruko. 

MonoCredits, and the fact that Teruko received two instead of one, are a pretty unimportant detail. I wouldn’t expect the creator to necessarily expect the audience to remember that Teruko still has one once we get to, like, the Chapter 4 daily life. I think that, because of that, Teruko will probably end up using this second one sometime soon, so that the audience will have that “oh yeah!” moment when it comes up, rather than an “oh… I kind of remember that…?” moment. 

There’s a very specific scenario in which I think Teruko might use it, too.

It’s pretty specific, but it’s already happened once, right? I think the most plausible situation for Teruko to use the second MonoCredit, if I’m right about it being this chapter, would be if she ends up in a similar situation before the execution again.

I can totally imagine Eden hugging Teruko and apologizing for betraying her trust, and Teruko, in the middle of freaking out, tells MonoTV she’s using a MonoCredit to get Eden away from her, which would then immediately launch into Eden being executed.

I think that could also be the right kind of push on Teruko’s character arc; her desire to get away from Eden led to Eden dying that much faster. It’d be something that could haunt Teruko a little bit and make her start thinking about how she pushes people away and what the potential failings of that are. 

The final reason I have is just, like… overall despair. Chapter 2 is usually a pretty emotionally devastating case for the cast. Taka loses Mondo and Chihiro meets a pretty tragic end; Peko dying launches Fuyuhiko into his grief → survivor arc while Hiyoko mourns Mahiru; Kirumi leaves the group feeling guilty about killing the Prime Minister, plus Ryoma’s death as a result of him loving no one and no one loving him is pretty sad. Chapter 2 is typically a chapter in the canon Danganronpa games where things get worse, not better. 

Then, Chapter 3 is used as a processing point where characters that aren’t in it for the long run are usually killed off, and Chapter 4 prompts the characters to start really moving towards the finale (Sakura’s death spurs people to want to fight and makes Byakuya realize why emotions are important, Gundham’s sacrifice sets the tone for Nagito’s insane Chapter 5 play and Gonta’s mercy kill in Chapter 4 directly leads into all the Kokichi “I’m the mastermind” stuff that happens in Chapter 5). 

I suspect DRDT will follow a roughly similar pattern. Because of that, it would make sense if the creator wants to pick a very emotionally devastating second killer, frequently due to the relationships that character has with the cast. Eden is the perfect pick for this position.

Eden has also gotten A LOT of focus this chapter. Getting focus doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to die right then. After all, Charles, for instance, got a lot of focus in Chapter 1, but he’s still alive. It’s difficult to tell when a character is getting content that impacts their character moving forward and when a character is getting focus because their story is about to end. 

In DRDT’s case specifically, though, the creator seems to heavily emphasize a character shortly before they die. Excluding Teruko, Xander was the most visible character in the Chapter 1 daily life. They focused on Min heavily during the Chapter 1 investigation to make sure that she got enough content in before her death. Between her fight with MonoTV, her heartfelt conversation with David, and the conversations she had post-death confronting David about his secret and defending Eden from Arturo, Arei got a lot of focus just before dying, too. 

Eden is one of the most heavily featured characters, and to me, it feels more like one being set up for immediate payoff rather than long-term. 

For example, David’s personality has shifted in a way that’s very interesting. People will want to see how his relationships with other characters are impacted and get to know the “real him” more before any potential death. Because of that, it makes sense that David’s heel turn is being set up for later, rather than being focus on him before he dies in Chapter 2. 

Eden, on the other hand, has shown us pretty much everything she can with this perspective. If she’s already spent two chapters being nice, happy and supportive, where does she go from there that’s narratively interesting and different? The only answer I can really come up with is “becoming less nice, happy, and/or supportive.” If that’s where her character is heading anyways, then doesn’t it make sense that being a killer could be a succinct way to do it? We already have enough people running around who don’t trust people, and it would feel odd to add Eden to that contingent. 

There’s one more story reason that Eden being the killer would make sense here. Check out the Chapter 2 title screen.

It’s pretty faint, but if you look after the “Glitters,” you can see faint text. It’s easier to see if you crank up the exposure.

You can tell what it is if you squint hard enough. Here’s me tracing it: 

“A Good Person.” 

The original chapter title is “All That Glitters,” which is pretty clearly a play on the saying “All that glitters is not gold” (RIP to anyone who just heard “all that glitters is gold in All Star by Smashmouth and didn’t question it. I was with you there). That seemingly applies a lot to this chapter, with appearances of success not being what they seem. It relates to the fact that J’s celebrity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and David’s persona was too good to be true. 

The good person interpretation is interesting, too. If you input “A Good Person” into “All That Glitters,” you get “A good person is not gold.” Now, there’ve been a lot of characters who’ve claimed to be or mentioned wanting to be good people over the course of this chapter. However, I think the person most at the center of that is Eden, who’s been called a good or kind person by a lot of people– at the very least, I know Teruko, Arei and Levi do this.

Eden being the killer would be another way to show that people can’t be infallibly good. Again, I don’t think Eden’s gonna pull a 180 and suddenly become evil, I just think she’ll show a little more nuance. Her being suddenly evil does about the same thing for me as her being undeniably good; it reduces her character down to one trait rather than making her a full human. I don’t want her to be a pure cinnamon roll, I want her to be herself. 

Given this chapter title, I honestly think it’d be weirder if Eden didn’t do something notably Not Good this chapter. There could be other options, too, but Eden being the killer seems by far the most likely to me.

Topic 3: Relationships

I want to talk about Eden’s relationships to others in the cast. I’ve already mentioned Teruko a good bit, so I’m not really going to keep going over that. There are two others that I want to touch on.

One, Eden and Hu are known to be friends. They wash dishes together every night, and they generally seem to rely on each other for companionship and mutual help with steering the group in a more positive direction. Hu is someone who hasn’t gotten that much character arc focus, so I think she’ll probably be a bit more of a spotlighted character in the next daily life. Hu has already lost a friend and trusted co-leader in David, but I think it’d be even more interesting for her if she loses both of those people at once. With David in full-on evil theater kid mode and Eden dead as the killer, Hu will be forced to grapple with the fact that both of the people she trusted to help her guide the group not only aren’t helping her anymore, but did so in a way that betrayed her and her trust. 

That’s very speculative, though. The main relationship I’m here to analyze is with Arei, the victim of the case in question.

Arei and Eden have a very complicated relationship. At first, they were pretty neutral. Then, after the cake scene, Arei appeared to be jealous of Eden and her friends for, y’know, having friends. Later, when Eden tries to invite Arei, Arei goes off on Eden and Eden runs out of the room crying. Finally, when Arturo threatens Eden into silence over his secret, Arei shows up and promises to defend Eden and do whatever it takes to assure her that her friendship is real.

This is pretty much the entirety of Arei’s character arc. Because we know that Arei is the second victim, I want to examine that in the context of the canon games’ storylines in Chapter 2.

Chapter 2 frequently deals with the concept of bullying. Kirumi’s kinda doing her own thing here, but if you look at Mondo/Chihiro and especially Peko/Mahiru (and all the lore behind that one), it’s pretty standard. Chihiro is someone who I’m pretty sure has been bullied, and Mondo fits the bully role well enough. SDR2 is the big one, though, with Mahiru being bullied by Natsumi, Sato killing Natsumi because of that, then Peko killing Sato under Fuyuhiko’s command in revenge, and THEN Peko killing Mahiru in the killing game as even more revenge. So, let’s look at bullying in DRDT Chapter 2.

The big and obvious one is Ace and Nico. Ace bullied Nico, and eventually they snapped and tried to kill him in revenge. That means that the creator, at least in this case, opted for a situation where the bullied kills the bully, rather than the other way around.

Arei also bullies Eden notably in Chapter 2, and now she’s dead. I’m not saying that it has to be the same thing, but I think it would be interesting to parallel Ace and Arei and Nico and Eden. Ace, with his fear of death, would have to process just how close he came to being a victim, seeing the same thing play out with Arei, who actually did die. Nico, who’s trying to dodge any actual blame for their crime, would see Eden get executed for doing roughly the same thing. 

That’s something to address, though. What does this all mean for Eden? After all, Eden and Arei were friends now. It seems uncharacteristic of her to kill Arei for any reason. If I’m going to focus in on Eden’s character relationships, I really have to address that part.

Well, my answer is pretty simple. Eden simply didn’t believe her relationship with Arei actually changed. This might seem like an unfair claim at first, but if you look into it, it’s actually quite supported by the game.

Arei certainly thought Eden didn’t believe Arei’s sudden change of heart. She even goes as far as to call Eden out for it in the moment.

That’s not a very good argument though, is it? It disregards everything that happens afterwards, what with Arei explaining more and Eden hugging her and saying that her promise means “more than she knows.” It’s possible Arei convinced Eden during that second segment, so there’s not really any reason to believe that Eden didn’t believe her anymore.

Except…

Charles gets cut off by Whit here and immediately shuts up, which is played off as a joke. It is a joke, but I’ve noticed the DRDT creator is very good at putting in jokes that actually convey important information moving forwards. 

The fact that the creator put in not one, but two references to Eden possibly not believing Arei makes me think there’s more to it than making a joke or moving dialogue along. Whit even phrases it as “you wanna do that later?” which might be a hint that we actually are going to come back to that point of conversation later. 

For the record, I do think it’s also possible that Eden sort of half-believed Arei. She might’ve been committed to a murder plan by that point or something, so even if she thought Arei was being genuine, it’s possible she intentionally tried to convince herself Arei wasn’t genuine. That gets more into character interpretation, though.

Topic 4: Character Arc

This is the biggest one, in my opinion. If Eden is going to die here, what does her story say? Ignoring the big plot beats, Eden should get to have her own character arc, and if this is its conclusion, I want to look at where it went.

In the prologue, Eden is noted to stay positive, but she seems to be the most scared of the killing game itself. Here’s her slide from the official Prologue Recap video: 

In Chapter 1, we honestly didn’t see too much of Eden. What we did see was mostly her being nice and friendly. It was also established that Arei picked on her. Here’s her slide from the Chapter 1 Recap video:

Notably, the creator paired all the characters up for Chapter 1. We already know Arei is going to be important to Eden’s story, whether she’s the killer or not. They did pair up Xander and Min though, so it’s not like it’s impossible that they paired a victim with their killer.

Anyways, that means that, going into Chapter 2, the things the creator wanted us to remember about Eden are that she’s nice, cheerful, and one of the people who defended Teruko. Through Arei’s slide, we’re also encouraged to remember that Arei picked on Eden specifically for baking. (Arei also manipulated Levi in that scene pretty heavily, but Eden is the one they want us to remember.)

Where does Eden’s character arc go from there? Well, I’d say that she basically doubles down. 

Eden basically spends the chapter trying really hard to prevent conflict and stay friends/befriend everyone. She blackmails Teruko for the sole purpose of actually getting to hang out with her, she washes dishes with Hu, she makes breakfast with Levi, and she invites Arei to clockmaking to make sure she isn’t left out again. 

That means that Eden’s story in Chapter 2 is that she’s trying to be the one to get everyone through this hard time.

Because of that, killing seems rather counterproductive. After all, Eden’s been trying to end the killing game on her own terms, right? 

However, it’s possible that the message the creator wants to send us is that the cast isn’t currently capable of being entirely positive and friendly. While David pretended that the point of revealing all their secrets was so that they could get along, that was a lie. Eden being the killer would fit the messaging: with this cast, in this killing game, friendships aren’t a possibility right now. 

Would it be a change in Eden for her to kill now? Yes, of course. That’s how it goes with killers beyond Chapter 1; something changes that prompts them to kill. Like I examined earlier, I believe the motive of getting back to her previous life, in combination with the constant fighting, Arturo's threats against her and her apparent inability to actually make a meaningful change in those around her, would be enough to get her to break and kill in this Chapter 2 position.

I’ve talked about motive, overall narrative, Eden’s relationships and her character arc. That’s pretty much everything, but there’s one more big point I feel I need to touch on.

Topic 5: Eden’s Breakdown

This is what I assume makes people have the biggest problem with Eden culprit theory from a writing standpoint. After all, this is a very emotional moment and feels very important for Eden’s character arc. If she’s the killer, it would all be a lie, and it would invalidate everything we learned about Eden from this moment.

Except, I don’t think that’s fully true. It’s very possible to have a killer have an emotional breakdown moment mid-trial that makes them seem more innocent, but actually very much relates to the fact that they did kill. 

Even if she is a killer, I still believe Eden is a good person. Because of that, I think that she is genuinely haunted by Arei’s death, as well as Min’s. In fact, we know she’s haunted by Min’s death, before any of this Arei trial stuff happened. 

Given the fact that Eden runs out of the room crying after this, I think it’s fair to say that Arei’s words stuck with Eden. Because of that, pairing it with Eden’s breakdown in the trial, we can conclude that Eden feels guilty for both Min’s death and Arei’s death. Because Min’s death wasn’t Eden’s fault, it’s easy to disregard both as her blaming herself for things out of her control. 

It could be genuine this time, though. If Eden is the killer, at least some of that speech has to be fake (ex. When I saw that note, I knew someone must’ve overheard our conversation). However, what’s really interesting to me is what happens after the main part of Eden’s breakdown.

David goes on a little rant about how the victim would have to be incredibly stupid to actually fall for the note– or they’d have to be Arei, who wanted to be friends so desperately that she’d believe anything “Eden” told her. Afterwards, Eden says this: 

This is Eden agreeing with David’s rant. The non-killer interpretation of this is that Eden is just repeating the same thing, saying that Arei died because of her and her weakness. But, if you look at it from a different perspective, the phrasing is… a little odd?

In her speech earlier, what Eden said boiled down to “I couldn’t defend myself, and because Arei was nice to me and tried to defend me, she died.” Then, David says, “Because Arei wanted to be your friend, she died.” That’s basically the same information and logic, right? 

But Eden asks it as a question. Even though she said “it’s all my fault” earlier, this time she asks, “it really is my fault, isn’t it?” That means that there was something Eden didn’t know in David’s rant.

This could be several things, but I think the most likely thing is that, in my opinion, this is the point at which Eden realized that Arei was genuine about wanting to be her friend. Before this, she still wasn’t sure that Arei was being real, and that allowed her to proceed forward with her plan, keeping it together. However, once David, who got to see Arei in her breakdown, confirms that, yeah, Arei did that because she genuinely wanted to be Eden’s friend, Eden realizes that it was her fault. 

Arei wanted to be her friend, but now she’s dead, and it’s all Eden’s fault.

Interestingly, immediately after that last line, Teruko starts talking, bringing us back to mystery-solving mode. However, if you look at Eden while Teruko’s talking, she’s sobbing. 

Most of the time when a character is shown to the side, they’re left in whatever pose they were last in. For example, look at MonoTV making the :| face back there despite it having no relevance to the current point of the trial. In fact, MonoTV has that face for the entirety of Chapter 2, Episode 10. The last time MonoTV talked was in Episode 9, where…

Yeah, same face. It doesn’t change from there. My point is that, switching Eden’s sprite from the face-on, holding her wrist sprite to the sobbing and wiping her tears sprite is a conscious decision. They want to make sure we know that Eden is sobbing after that interaction with David. While that could be prolonged guilt from generally feeling at fault for Arei’s death, I think it makes more sense if it’s her coping with the fact that Arei did want to be her friend, and she killed her. 

Conclusion

Well, that’s my defense of Eden culprit theory from a writing perspective. Hopefully it was fun to read, whether you agree with it or not. Again, my point here isn’t to shame anyone who disagrees or anything, it’s to provide reasoning for why Eden could be the culprit and to defend the creator’s decision if that is the truth of this case. I’d love to hear about any and all other killer theories as well in order to have the greatest chance of catching the real criminal.

DRDT Secret Swap AU: For Better and Worse

The following is an ask sent to me that, while numerically present in my inbox, is invisible and inaccessible, and thus, I was only able to read it through its corresponding notification email. Tumblr be a functional website challenge; level impossible.

What a great question! Up to this point, I’ve been more of an AU enjoyer than an AU creator (other than the BNHA thing), so this will be an exciting foray into the realm of possibility! The task of creating both the best and worst outcome also provides a lot to think about when it comes to characterization. I’m excited to get talking about this! But first, some rules.

(And the usual CW for DRDT spoilers, as well as mentions of murder, suicide, self harm, eating disorders, and implied homo/transphobia. You know, standard business for DRDT secret discussion.)

To keep things simple, I’m going to be assuming that the true owners of the secrets are as follows:

While I’m by no means asserting that this interpretation of whose secret is whose is 100% accurate, it’s what I see widely agreed upon by the fandom, and what I currently believe myself. Having to factor in a bunch of different permutations of secret distribution seemed terribly complicated, so I decided to avoid it. If anybody disagrees with where I’ve placed any of the secrets, please just consider it as another facet of the alternate universe.

Additionally, I’ve kept up the “rule” that no one is allowed to receive their own secret. I’m also assuming that everything is the same up until when MonoTV hands out the motives, such that Xander and Min are still dead. However, a different distribution of secrets could have changed the details of the Chapter 2 murder, so I kinda have to speak about it in hypotheticals. I was just talking about how I didn’t want to make things needlessly complicated, so I’m not throwing in a bunch of speculation about how the secrets may have factored into the AU killer’s motives when I can’t even say for certain who the canonical killer was.

I also decided to interpret the prompt as “what’s the best/worst overall shuffle” as opposed to “who is the best/worst recipient for each individual secret.” The latter seemed like it might repeat characters too many times, and “the ch2 secrets [getting] swapped in a different way” implied to me that each character was still limited to receiving one secret. Hopefully that’s what you were going for with your ask!

Okay, I think that’s it. Let’s get started with the best case scenario, given that I think that’ll be easier. I’ll go through the characters’ secrets in the order they’re listed in on the board, so that it’ll hopefully be easier to follow along.

The Good Timeline

Eden receives Levi’s secret

If someone was going to have remorse for the remorseless killer, I think it would be Eden. Even if the concept of someone killing in cold blood might frighten Eden, the pair is already off to a good start with the conversation they shared at the beginning of Chapter 2. Eden knows a bit more about Levi’s family situation (which may have been the cause of his callous killing) and how he is trying to be a good person, even if he feels like he might be failing. Compared to others in the cast, I feel like Eden might be more willing to hear Levi out.

Specifically, we know from canon that (under David’s encouragement, at least) Eden planned to share her secret– which was a pretty severe one already– in a closed environment with just her and the secret’s owner. Of course, we haven’t yet seen from canon how Levi would react to getting assigned this secret, so it’s possible he could flip out in a similar manner to how Arturo did when Eden confronted him. However, I think there’s a good chance that he would be more resigned or neutral, which might also give Eden hope that he isn’t a lost cause… again, under the assumption that he isn't. This secret does have a chance of backfiring, but I’m making the choice to have faith in Levi– much like I think Eden would if she saw his secret!

Nico receives David’s secret

Now this is kind of an unconventional one, but, hear me out.

I don’t know if there really is a “good option” for David’s secret in the sense that I think anyone who would choose to reveal the information to the group would be the type to do so in an accusatory, non-constructive way. Similarly, a lot of people who wouldn’t reveal the secret might face problems if it caused them to quietly simmer in their distrust. That suppression of emotions could lead to a big blow up in the future.

Because of that, you might be wondering why I didn’t assign this secret to one of my throwaway slots– namely, Xander, Min, or Rose. Well, it’s because I also wanted to consider what would happen if, even in this good universe, some number of students still needed to attend a Class Trial where the secrets are unknown. Certain secrets, if left unassigned, would lead to paranoia and distrust amongst the students. And, by throwing this secret away, this secret could basically never be confirmed as David’s other than by process of elimination or (highly unlikely) self-assignment. Therefore, all of the students would have to assume that anyone whose secret isn't known has a decent chance of believing that everyone exists to be manipulated. In my opinion, that would make productively discussing a murder really difficult.

So, I decided that the best course of action would be to give this secret to the person who would make the smallest deal out of it, and that turned out to be Nico. Nico already believes that socially interacting with other humans is a complicated and confusing process, the rules of which force you into expressing yourself in a specific, “acceptable” way. Basically, I think that Nico might already see a lot of conversation as manipulation, and themselves as the manipulee. The secret says that David is really good at interpreting those rules and acing the bullet points of “acceptable” conversation? No shit, he’s the Ultimate Inspirational Speaker.

I’m not trying to say that Nico is “dumb” enough to not realize that this secret is generally threatening, but I think that, if word of it were to come out, Nico would present it in a subdued enough manner that it wouldn’t make things worse than they need to be.

Hu receives Ace’s secret

Oh boy, this is a dangerous choice given Ace and Hu’s tumultuous relationship. Although, to be fair, I don’t remember exactly how established that rivalry was prior to the distribution of the canonical secrets. To the extent that they didn’t already hate each other to the point of no return, I chose this one because I think that Hu having the context of Ace’s secret might actually help to mend their relationship.

As I said up top, this AU is predicated on Hu having the “hopeless child” secret. Thus, in this AU, we can say for certain that Hu has a prior history of self harm/self destructive tendencies. If hopeless child Hu does turn out to be canon, it would support the theory that part of the reason why Hu won’t share the “harm yourself for fun” secret is because she knows that mental health is a sensitive subject, and doesn’t want to force someone to open up about it. Given that eating disorders are a form of self harm, we can rest assured that this isn’t a secret Hu would share, no matter how much David suggests that she does.

Given Hu’s history, she might be one of the people in this cast who could best understand Ace’s plight. With this additional context, his quest for power over something in his life might feel more sympathetic, and Hu might be able to muster more concern for him. And, I’m not gonna lie, part of this assignment was granted in the slim hope that the Ultimate Mom Friend Hu would be able to make a big grandma-style meal for Ace to enjoy. They could be an improbably wholesome duo if not for… The Circumstances.

Those circumstances won’t fade anytime soon in canon, but exploring hypotheticals like this are the whole reason why AUs exist!

J receives Eden’s secret

Compared to everyone else, Eden’s secret is a pretty nonthreatening one that, especially among this pretty queer cast, shouldn’t raise a whole lot of issues. The biggest problem I can see arising from it is if someone decided to out Eden, sort of like what happened to Nico. Therefore, I wanted to give Eden’s secret to someone who would be unlikely to share it without Eden giving the okay. And, J seemed to fit that description pretty well.

Obviously, some of J’s canon behavior was spurred on by the fact that Arturo non-consensually revealed her secret (which, spoilers, will not be happening in the blessed half of this AU). But, given J’s preference for privacy, I don’t think J would jump to sharing even a “harmless” secret. We directly saw that J only revealed Charles’ secret once he gave express permission for her to do so, which is what I would ideally want for Eden. Eden’s secret being given to a girl who would presumably be cool with her lesbianism is an added bonus to assuage her fears that (straight) girls who know she’s gay wouldn’t want to be her friend.

Unless, of course, J is also a girlkisser… then maybe the motive secrets could turn into a meet-cute…….. (/j)

Rose receives J’s secret

Finally, our first throwaway slot. After what J’s been through, I think she deserves to have her secret not be a topic of discussion at all– or at least not until all of them are listed out on the board.

There is also some logic behind which secret I gave to Rose as opposed to Xander or Min. We didn’t really see this in canon, but if Whit had let his secret go unclaimed, I could see some people being mad at Rose for inadvertently throwing away valuable information. This sentiment would only increase if Rose’s secret was something more relevant to the case at hand. Like, could you imagine how mad Teruko would have been if Rose had received the “murderer without remorse” secret? They could have had the answer to which person among them was a murderer without remorse, but Rose just carelessly threw it away because she was worried about people’s privacy?!

Therefore, I think the best case scenario for Rose is to receive one of the low-stakes secrets. In the case of J’s secret, it’s possible that someone like Arturo would be able to figure out that it was J’s secret without any confirmation from Rose as long as he had the information that someone in the cast was Mariabella’s daughter. No harm, no foul if Rose throws out the secret only for it to be instantly solvable anyway.

By giving J’s secret to Rose, J gets the blessing of privacy for as long as the secrets don’t become public knowledge, but Rose also doesn’t garner any backlash if they do, for one reason or another.

“Xander” receives Arei’s secret

Just to clarify, there isn’t any meaning behind which secret Xander vs Min got; they both just mean that the secret is un-confirmable.

Arei’s secret is a good one to bury because of how easily it can be misinterpreted. From the phrasing of the secret, nobody would know that Arei’s sisters abused her unless Arei told them herself, and without that context, Arei appears quite villainous. Hell, some people believe that learning of this secret was a reason why Levi would have chosen to kill Arei! If this information about Arei just isn’t out there to be known, then nobody could make that fatal oversight.

Also, Arei already knew what the vague contents of her secret would be, presumably without having seen the actual text. In Ace’s flashback, she quotes David’s secret from memory (because she read it), but when she unveils her own secret, she throws in the detail about reform school which isn’t at all present in the secret’s text. I think it was really important for Arei’s development that she had the agency to reveal her secret at her own pace. By making her secret inaccessible, it removes the possibility that someone else would reveal it before she’s emotionally ready.

Arturo receives Min’s secret

Look at me, pairing Arturo and Min together yet again. What is it about these two that causes me to keep coupling them…? Well, at least this time, they’re paired up because they, like, never talk in canon.

Arturo has proven himself to be a problem when it comes to revealing secrets. Even if he hadn’t been handed Miss Rosales’ dirty laundry, I would believe that he would air out the secrets of whichever nobody he learned about simply due to disrespect. Therefore, I think that giving Arturo a secret that really doesn’t matter is the best course of action. Whether he reveals it on the day the motives were distributed or the day of the Class Trial, most people probably wouldn’t make much of a fuss about an already-dead student’s secret, least of all Arturo. If he doesn’t care about what Min was up to, he wouldn’t stir up any drama by revealing or concealing information.

David receives Xander’s secret

Not gonna lie, I mostly gave this one to David as a form of damage control. I don’t know what he’s going to do with the secret he did canonically receive in the future– whether it belongs to Teruko or someone else, or whether he’s dying immediately or in it for the long haul– but giving David the silver bullet of “the killing game is all your fault” seems like way too much power to hand over. With a dead student’s secret, he doesn’t gain much by telling the truth or have much of a basis to execute a good lie.

The elephant in the room, of course, is that David received Xander’s secret, which is all about the tragically heroic backstory that probably led him to find comfort in David’s speeches in the first place. (And it does paint Xander in a decently positive light– “it wasn’t your fault” erases the possibility that Xander killed his family or whatever.) I imagine that, had David received this secret on the first day, basically a little buffering symbol would appear over his head and he would have to go lie down and stare at the piece of paper for a few hours. Or days.

By distracting David, we can hopefully avoid any of the decidedly negative side effects that him attempting to deduce and reveal everyone else’s secrets caused. While everyone else is growing as a person and whatnot, David can just be… looping the Literature Girl Insane MV in his head, or something. Is that really good for him? Probably not, but these are the heights you can reach when you set out to cause problems.

Arei receives Whit’s secret

Arei already didn’t reveal whose secret she had to anyone, as far as we know. So, if she had the secret belonging to Whit, arguably her closest friend at the start of Chapter 2, I really don’t think she would say anything. That’s good for Whit, because, similar to what I said about Arei herself, I think it’s better for him to have the ability to come forth with his secret when the time is right. Anything else and it might shake up his persona too suddenly and send him fight or flight mode.

I think the biggest potential flaw here is that we don’t know how Arei felt about her mom. Arei is willing to go confront other people about their secrets, so if Arei either really loved or really hated her mom, maybe that would lead her to go confront Whit about what his secret meant. And then, that could lead into him deflecting and looking shady.

That’s not really a huge liability to me, though, so I think this one will be fine.

Veronika receives Charles’ secret

Veronika is a weird case, because whether or not she reveals a secret seems to be based solely on entertainment value. In canon, we’ve seen that she hasn’t yet revealed the “hopeless child” secret because, for whatever reasons, she thinks that’ll make the killing game more interesting. But presumably, if she thought that revealing someone’s secret would make the game more interesting instead, she would have done that.

Because Charles doesn’t remember his brother’s death himself, I don’t think Veronika would see much value in holding it over his head, saving it for a dramatic reaction down the road, or whatever the hell she was trying to accomplish by not revealing Hu’s secret. Therefore, I think Veronika would find it most entertaining to see Charles’ reaction to learning about his amnesia, and tell him pretty quickly.

On the surface, that seems bad. However, I actually think that Charles learning about his secret is… for the best? If you assume that Charles is going to have to learn about this factoid someday, it’s probably better for him if he does it before a Class Trial is called, so that he can be in a more stable mental state. It’s also better for him to do it while he has Whit there to support him, and who knows what could happen between those two in future chapters? Much like Arturo’s assignment, we defuse Veronika’s chaotic power with this one, with the added benefit of potentially helping Charles on his journey to self-understanding.

Levi receives Arturo’s secret

Arturo’s secret was a hard one, because I think most people would react to it pretty negatively, especially with the confirmation that it belongs to Arturo of all people from the start. You could leave it with Eden as someone who seemingly didn’t judge, but given how poorly that situation played out in canon, it felt wrong to leave it in her hands.

Therefore, I gave it to someone who could potentially relate: Levi. He, too, came from a tense family background which he had to leave, and as such, he might better be able to put himself in Arturo’s shoes. While it is possible that Levi could resent Arturo for “ruining” a “good(?)” relationship with his sister (given how Levi struggled to coexist with his siblings), I don’t think it would irk Levi so much that he’d take drastic action against Arturo.

At the very least, we saw that Levi didn’t spill the beans about Arei’s similarly anti-sister secret. By that logic, he probably wouldn’t tell anyone about it, possibly including Arturo. In that case, we avoid Arturo blowing up on whoever was unlucky enough to have to break the news. And, even if Levi did tell Arturo, and Arturo decided to attack, I trust that even an injured Levi could defend himself far better than Eden could.

Ace receives Veronika’s secret

I just don’t think anything particularly bad would happen here. When I imagine Ace receiving this secret, I kinda just think of him going, “what the fuck?!”, and then putting the paper away. As someone who cares immensely about his own safety and image, I can definitely see this secret confusing Ace, but I don’t think to a point where it would really mess him up. It might make him think that Veronika is dangerous and weird, but… well, he already thought that.

Speaking of, especially with this information, Ace is too afraid of Veronika to try to bully her in the same way that he did with Nico. I don’t see any reason why Ace would benefit from revealing this secret, so it would likely remain hidden, which is probably for the best. Honestly, I don’t know if Veronika would care if this secret of hers got out, given that the main reason why people think this is hers is because of the similar sentiments that she already shared with Teruko in a public location. But, regardless, it takes away any ammo Ace might have by making his only target someone who he’s too afraid to take shots at.

Teruko receives Hu’s secret

Completing our little triad of sadness, this is the third instance of me giving a secret involving self harm to someone else who engages in self destructive practices– first Hu with Ace, then Ace with Veronika, and now Teruko with Hu. It obviously sucks that there are so many people in this cast who are struggling with this same issue, but I think it works out well to have them overlap. They’re probably the ones who best grasp the severity of each other’s problems, so they understand the gravity of sharing the information and would take steps to avoid doing that unnecessarily.

But, yeah, there wasn’t much of a reason beyond that for me to assign Teruko here. As a further extrapolation of the above point, though, if Teruko decided to ask Hu about her secret in the same way that she did with Rose, maybe Teruko could provide Hu some comfort about the situation and they could become friends.

Although, thinking about it more, that would actually have a decent chance of backfiring, as Hu might not appreciate having to take on the role of the helped as opposed to the helper, and Teruko might freak out if she felt herself letting her walls down around Hu. But that’s only if Teruko chose to talk to her about it, which is dubious in the first place. I don’t think Teruko would intentionally use this as any sort of weapon against Hu, which is the main criteria I was looking for.

Charles receives Rose’s secret

More unproblematic people being unproblematic. I don’t know if anything weird would happen as Charles’ upper-class upbringing came into contact with Rose’s cash-strapped past, but if it did, it would probably be a positive development for Charles. Y’know, like “realizing that it’s not only wealthy academics who can have talent” or “further learning to recognize his privilege and have sympathy for other people.” Much like what Charles canonically did with Eden’s secret, this one would probably go under the public radar until a Class Trial occurred, at which point Charles would reveal it. And, hey, that’s kind of like Rose’s secret’s canonical fate as well.

I also don’t think that we’d run into any trouble with Teruko possibly learning this one from the note that Charles passed her either, because… again, this was Teruko’s canonical secret, and nothing bad happened. Sometimes no reaction is the sweetest reaction of all.

Whit receives Nico’s secret

Yup, like you implied, Whit receiving Nico’s secret would probably be one of the best options for them. It’s not too much of a surprise. Whit seems to be a pretty securely out bi guy, so he would obviously support of Nico’s identity, and possibly even be someone Nico could look up to for being confident in who they are. On top of that, Whit greatly values privacy, and thus wouldn’t go around immediately shouting, “wow, Nico, it’s so awesome that you’re nonbinary!” He’d only do that if Nico wanted him to, after asking them first. I’m not even sure if Whit would contact Nico about it directly, but even if he didn’t, I feel like Whit would try to find ways to subtly encourage Nico so that they would feel safe coming out themselves. At least, that’s what my bias is telling me.

As a side note, I’m still playing with the rule that Arei sees whatever Whit’s secret is over his shoulder, which is actually what gave Nico’s secret the nod here over Eden’s. We saw that Ace, along with some others, were confused about what exactly the text of Nico’s secret meant. Meanwhile, if attached to Eden, her secret is pretty explicitly about her being sexually attracted to women, and therefore homosexual. I’m not at all calling Arei homophobic (in fact, the concept of doing so makes me very uncomfortable, so please don’t joke about it), but given that the two had been fighting beforehand, it’s possible that Arei would have tried to use the content of Eden’s secret against her somehow (but again, not in a homophobic way).

At the very least, Arei would know something about Eden that Eden might not want her to know, which is bad. I’m not sure if Arei would inherently understand Nico’s secret enough to gain anything of use from it, while Whit and his intuition would definitely understand what’s going on.

“Min” receives Teruko’s secret

Here we go; our other throwaway secret! Part of the appeal of leaving this one in the dark is because… well, we don’t know if it’s true. While the secret doesn’t explicitly state that its owner is the mastermind of the killing game, it’s definitely designed to make you think that’s the case. And, uh, I don’t know if Teruko is the mastermind or not. I recently wrote 1000 words about it, which is equal to one picture.

So, let’s explore both avenues. If Teruko isn’t the mastermind, then sharing this secret around is obviously bad. It would cause people to unwarrantedly distrust Teruko, and possibly even cause Teruko to distrust herself. That could impede the progress of Class Trials, if people don’t trust Teruko’s reasoning anymore, and the progress of deducing the actual mastermind. Therefore, by taking this secret out of circulation, we stop the misinformation from spreading.

Alternatively, if Teruko is the (evil) mastermind, then… aren’t I doing a disservice by not allowing the students to encounter this information? Well, yes, and no. I am preventing them from accessing the deus ex machina of David just outright saying, “oh, and by the way, Teruko is the mastermind!”; that much is true. But, by leaving that information out… aren’t I just leaving them in the same position that most killing game casts are in? They know that one of them is the mastermind, they just don’t know who. And, actually, they have a leg up on the other casts because the mastermind’s identity would still be a logically deducible fact that they could basically confirm if they all worked together. I don’t think it’s too much of a blow to the innocent students if we leave this one out, is what I’m saying.

So, that’s the good ending! A quick graphic to show how everything shook out:

(I swear, I didn’t mean to make it look like Whit was laughing at Nico’s identity. I just reused the sprites from my archetype analysis because I was too lazy to go get new ones…)

Now, on to the bad ending. This one was a lot harder to assign. Given that these secrets were meant to sow discord, there are only so many ways that things can play out well. There are lots of ways that things can play out poorly.

But, hopefully I’ve found the aggregate worst answer! Given that this is, you know… the one where things go horribly wrong, things may get pretty dark in this section, so proceed with caution. Nobody’s going to die or anything like that, but know that your faves may not be depicted in the most positive light in this section. Grab something comforting and put on some happy music, or lean hard into the angst, ‘cause we’re about to get started.

The Bad Timeline

Ace receives Levi’s secret

Look. I 100% agree that the whole Ace/Nico situation is a Major Yikes Situation /pos. However, I’m hopeful (in the sense of trying to craft the worst possible outcome) that we could still get a More or Less Yikes Situation even without the pair obtaining each others’ secrets.

Although Ace revealing that he was in possession of Nico’s secret closely preceded Nico’s death threat, that wasn’t actually what specifically led Nico to intimidate Ace. It was Ace’s comment that Nico was such a weakling that they could only solve their problems by getting people like David to help them, as well as the culmination of several days of Ace’s torment beginning in Chapter 1, which led them to do it. What I’m saying is, Ace and Nico were already rivals before the secrets even came out, so even without the direct connection to one another via the motive, it’s possible the high tensions would still cause similar events to unfold.

All that preamble hopefully helps to justify my choice to put Ace on Levi’s secret, because, my god, you can open a whole other can of worms with this one. Ace gaining the knowledge that Levi is a killer without remorse the day after Levi threatened to kill him would freak Ace out like nothing else. Being as loud as he is, I would think that Ace wouldn’t be able to stop himself from sharing this one with the class, starting a conflict right from the start.

While do I think the other students would believe Ace in the end– especially if he showed them the paper on which Levi’s name was printed– I also think that some people might doubt Ace’s words at first, thinking he’s overexaggerating as usual. However, that moment of being Boy Who Cried Wolf-ed by everyone else would also really fuck with Ace. He’s literally right, and has the paperwork to prove it, and yet people are still disinclined to believe him because they see him as a fool. It would draw an even deeper wedge between Ace and his classmates than we saw in canon.

Tying back around to the beginning, I think that this extra layer of powerlessness would just make Ace even more inclined to seek out a feeling of power elsewhere. So, I’m thinking that would still result in Ace bullying Nico, and, assuming he still keeps it up for long enough and calls Nico a weakling, we might be able to loop back around to Nico’s death threat anyway. Major Yikes Situation not averted!

Veronika receives David’s secret

Here’s a chaotic choice. Given how open-ended and accusatory David’s secret is, I definitely think it’s one that Veronika would have chosen not to reveal. However, just because she doesn’t want to reveal it doesn’t mean that the information won’t get out… in a way.

We’ve seen time and time again that Veronika is fascinated with morally questionable people, first with Arturo and later David himself once she knew about his secret. Therefore, if she knew about David’s secret from the start, I don’t think she would be able to stop herself from following him around and making some clever comments here and there. Can you imagine how concerning it would be to watch David try to give hope speeches and guide people while Veronika is peering over his shoulder and grinning at him, refusing to elaborate?

It would definitely be worrying, but I don’t think it would fully stop everyone from listening to him– but in this case, that’s a good thing! David’s tactics wound up causing more harm than good, so it was important for me to give his secret to someone who wouldn’t call him out immediately and stop him from enacting these bad policies. Veronika is a great choice for allowing that to happen, but also causing a lot of stress and doubt speculating as to what exactly Veronika could know about David that would make her act this way. Honestly, it might be the worst for David himself…

Levi receives Ace’s secret

This one isn’t that terrible on its own, but in the context of Ace also having Levi’s secret, I think it gets pretty hairy. I can’t really see any scenario where Levi knowing Ace’s greatest secret goes over well for them. If Ace blows up at Levi right out the gate, there’s a definite possibility that Levi can’t keep his cool and winds up firing off Ace’s secret in front of everyone else as retaliation. Betraying Ace’s trust like that (even if Ace was the one to mouth off first) would make their relationship even more unsalvageable.

Even if Levi did manage to keep his mouth shut, knowing Ace’s secret would just generally make it harder for Levi to talk to Ace when explaining himself or trying to make amends. Like I discussed with Hu in the good timeline, there’s a lot you can learn about Ace in the contents of his secret and the way it’s phrased. I feel like Levi would be able to pick up on some of that knowledge, but he would then find it even harder to interact with Ace without accidentally spilling the beans on some of that newfound understanding. This secret shuffle would make their relationship basically irreparable in my opinion, and the increased frustrations from both boys might make one of their tempers flare and lead them to do something inadvisable.

“Xander” receives Eden’s secret

First of all, giving “Xander” this one means there’s one less problematic person who could draw a relatively harmless secret, which is a pro in this scenario. Leaving this secret unconfirmed could also cause problems in a Class Trial. Given that this secret doesn’t include murder, blackmail, manipulation, etc, it’s a pretty nice secret to claim for yourself, even if it can basically only be claimed by one of the girls. This means that, even if Eden tried to be truthful about her secret, people might believe that she’s lying.

Furthermore, the DRDT cast seems to be a pretty queer group of people overall. 6/15 of the non-Edens are confirmed LGBTQ+ themselves (even if not all of them are out), and everyone has treated Nico and Whit’s identities with respect since learning about them. Canonically, I would say that Eden has nothing to worry about with regards to the other girls treating her differently for being a lesbian.

So, by making Eden’s secret far less accessible, it becomes less likely that she’ll ever get that moment of recognition and affirmation. Instead, as Eden’s secret remains hidden and irrelevant, it becomes easier for her to stick to what she knows is safe. An accepting environment was right there in front of her, but with the convenience of periphery, she might not ever see it.

Arturo receives J’s secret

Yeah, I agree with you on this one– J truly did roll a crit fail. I did consider giving J’s secret to someone else, as long as they would definitely publicly spill the beans, if it meant that Arturo could learn the content of J’s secret while receiving an additional bad secret as well. However, I couldn’t think of anyone who would be so guaranteed to tell everyone about J’s secret that I could be confident Arturo would hear of it, nor could I think of any particularly catastrophic secrets I’d rather give to Arturo. So, this one stays. J really is living in the worst timeline already– like if you cry every time.

Hu receives Arei’s secret

Hu was a tough nut to crack, because I think the ideal bad situation for her is that she gets a secret that’s problematic enough that it would cause major issues if news broke, but not so problematic that she wouldn’t be willing to share it as a part of David’s “let’s tell each other about our secrets” plan. Operating under the logic that the mention of self harm was the reason why she wasn’t willing to share the secret she got in canon, 3/15 options immediately disappear. More options vanish when you start eliminating not-super-problematic secrets like Xander's family, Charles’ brother, or Rose’s debt.

After some consideration, I landed on Arei’s being the best balance of thorny and not. It’s a secret that discusses a serious crime without incorporating murder, and there’s lots of room for public interpretation that could cause things to go really poorly for Arei if folks jump to conclusions. Given that Hu already didn’t super like Arei (I’m basing this off of her chastising Arei for bullying Eden), I could totally see her being willing to share this secret publicly in order to help everyone see that Arei is someone not to be trusted.

Making Arei’s secret publicly aired also removes the very important aspect of Arei’s agency that I wrote on in the good section. If Hu is sharing this secret, it’s probably pretty early in the chapter, which means that Arei might not be prepared whenever the news drops. The context of the secret sharing doesn’t involve Eden at all, so Arei might have a harder time putting two and two together about why she acts the way she does and how she wants to change. Not to mention, if Hu shares the secret in a way that directly agrees with David’s scheme, it automatically pits David against Arei, which means that he can’t offer her any help (to the extent that what he said helped her canonically). It’s just bad all around. But that’s why I’ve come to feel pretty confident in this choice.

Rose receives Min’s secret

Following up on Rose’s last entry, this is not one of the secrets that the rest of the students could either easily deduce or ignore. It would be very easy to assume that the owner of the poison secret was a murderer– possibly a mass murderer, and even one who didn't regret what they did. Even if poison wasn’t used in the Chapter 2 murder, people might suspect this person of being the killer, and/or it could throw suspicion on Charles as the only one (who we know of) who has a poisonous custom weapon.

Now, obviously, this secret did not cause much of a scene in the canonical Chapter 2 trial, but I think at least part of that is because it was Xander’s. Everyone knows that the person who has that secret can only be determined by process of elimination no matter who they ask. The same would be true if it were the secret Rose got, but people might grow upset that Rose threw away such a valuable piece of evidence. And, with Min incapable of claiming her secret, it might appear even more that someone was trying to hide something when nobody spoke up to claim it. It’s not much, but Rose made it difficult to come up with something bad.

Teruko receives Xander’s secret

Funnily enough, the logic behind me giving Xander’s secret to Teruko is quite similar to the logic behind me giving it to David. Much like how David would be taken out of commission by reading this secret, I think that Teruko would act the same– it would just be worse for her and the group as a whole.

Like I said for David, Xander’s secret paints him out as a tragic hero. He loved his family to pieces, and regrets their passing so much that he wishes he could have died with them. Even though it was textually not his fault, Xander still beats himself up every day for not being around to do the right thing and save people when it counted. …What does it mean that the guy with this secret was the one who felt he had to kill Teruko for the greater good?!

Reading Xander’s secret would only pull Teruko deeper into anger, self-hatred, and confusion. She was already pretty off kilter in this Chapter from trying to ignore her mixed emotions regarding Xander, and I think that having to relive her trauma and his betrayal any time someone brought up the mere concept of secrets would basically take her out of commission. I mean, check out how many times I was able to say the word secret in these three paragraphs alone. I don’t imagine Teruko would be able to fare much better in the hellish environment of this terrible swap, which might lead her to hole up in her room all day and grow increasingly bored and bitter.

Now, I’m not saying that Teruko needed to be up and at ‘em in the daily life because her running around and pressing knives to people’s throats was just so helpful. But at least, unlike David, she wasn’t actively making the situation worse. Her presence may have even made potential friends like Eden, Charles, or Rose feel better. At the very least, Teruko learned some key social context in the Chapter 2 daily life prior to the Trial, so removing Teruko from those interactions would make it much harder for her to fully grasp what was going on should she be forced to solve a murder once again.

Charles receives Whit’s secret

I agree with you here as well– Charles acquiring Whit’s secret is probably the worst case scenario for Whit. As one of two people who actually heard Whit talk about his mom in Chapter 1, Charles is one of the only people who would know that Whit doesn’t just “omit that truth” by not talking about his mom, he actively talks about her like she is alive. This would raise a very big question for Charles at a crucial point in their friendship. Charles has just come to start trusting this guy, so what do you mean he was lying about something so odd…?

There’s a chance that the reveal of this concealment of the truth would cause Charles to determine that he couldn’t trust Whit anymore, and it would drive them apart. But, I think that’s pretty unlikely. More likely is the option where Charles (who’s in a fragile state from his meltdown yesterday and only JUST started learning how to be a good friend) tries to question Whit about it, only for Whit to panic. I don’t really think that Whit would try to keep the ruse going, seeing as Charles literally has the answer right in front of him, but he still might be full of deflections, or try to avoid the subject with jokes. (“Huh? No, I totally said that my mom passed away a few years ago! You must’ve just not heard me– did you fling some detergent into your ears with that laundry machine?”)

I’m not sure if this distribution of secrets would fully split them up, but it would definitely cause a rift in their conversation and bonding that might stop Charles and Whit from growing as close as they did. And, all this isn’t even taking into account that–

Whit receives Charles’ secret

Did you ever notice that Whit and Charles’ secrets are both about a hidden dead relative? I didn’t put two and two together until now, but boy does it work out poorly for purposes of this AU.

Much like Levi with Ace’s secret, I don’t think this is an inherently bad draw for Whit, but it kinda sucks in this context. Whit gets placed into a really weird trolley problem: do you tell and comfort Charles about his dead brother when it’ll definitely segue into discussions of your own dead mom, or do you keep it hidden, not helping Charles and leaving yourself open to the possibility of him feeling betrayed later that you kept this secret from him? It’s these kinds of questions that Whit would be forced to ask himself in the moment that Charles first confronts him, and the time needed to process would only throw him off his game and make him appear more suspicious to Charles.

To be fair, a lot of this does depend on how deep in the lie Whit is. Is he usually pretty quick to admit that his mom is dead to anyone who digs deeper into the issue, or has he been lying about his mom’s status to everyone, his father included? If it’s more like the former, then maybe the two of them could actually come to bond over the tragedy of losing someone you care about. But, if it’s more like the latter, then this distribution of secrets could get in the way of one of the (seemingly) most stable and healthy relationships in the killing game.

Arei receives Arturo’s secret

At first, I actually considered giving Arturo’s secret to Arei in the good universe, because I thought that Arei could understand having complicated relationships with your sisters. But then I remembered something critically important. Arei herself is the younger sister. She wouldn’t relate to Arturo; she would relate to Felicity. And then, all hell would break loose.

Arei knows what it’s like to be a younger sister who, even if she never considered it herself, had other people try to pressure her into committing suicide. So, to have a younger sister lucky enough to actually have a big brother she cared about, only for him to leave her alone and cause her death? Arei would be furious. She would absolutely call him out for it immediately, and use all of the bullying tactics she learned to make his life a living hell.

Despite all that I wrote about what Hu would do with Arei’s secret, I don’t actually know if Hu would be more or less likely to share Arei’s secret if Arei was acting this way. Would Hu take it upon herself to join in shaming Arturo for his actions, or feel that Arei was being a hypocrite and want to share Arei’s own truth? Either way, with both of these secrets, I think that the option of Arei’s character growing at all (or becoming friends with Eden) any time soon is pretty much dead.

And then there’s Arturo himself. While we’ve seen that Arturo does genuinely seem remorseful and haunted by Felicity’s death, I doubt Arei would know or care. I also totally think that J would join Arei in absolutely demolishing the man. Having Arei’s offense be backed by the Julia Rosales might just break him. Whether it would be in a victim way or a killer way I’m not sure, but it would definitely be bad for funni beauty standards man. The good news is that it might stop Arei from dying…? Unless Arturo just decided to kill her. There really isn’t a lot of good news.

David receives Veronika’s secret

Alright, back to David and Veronika. This is the third time I’ve had two people just swap their secrets, I guess? And, it’s kinda for the same reasons again. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Since we’ve been through a lot since we last discussed this pair, let’s get a quick recap: Veronika knows that David is a manipulative bastard, but won’t tell anyone that yet because she thinks it’ll be more interesting if she keeps her mouth shut. Thus, everyone is kind of wary of David, and David is definitely wary of Veronika, but not so much that it stops David from doing his information-seeking “let’s all share our secrets” plan.

I think that learning this about Veronika would make David pretty confused, very concerned, and extra conscious of Veronika in a way that would be hard to conceal. He could probably guess from the way Veronika was acting that she had some kind of dirt on him, and therefore conclude that, if he ever tried to share her secret, she might just fire back at him. David does not want that. So, the two of them remain at an uneasy stalemate that would make everyone else increasingly troubled.

Furthermore, I think that Veronika’s secret is a good balance of an unexpected yet potentially relevant piece of information about a living student that David would want to seek more of, while also not being so grim that it would appeal to whatever morals David may have. (Don’t get me wrong, Veronika’s secret is very worrying and tragic, but at least the inclusion of “for fun” makes it less grim than Arturo’s or Hu’s, to me.) David would be inclined to continue on his quest of acquiring the most knowledge-as-power as possible, and Veronika would be thrilled to watch! Both of them would just be giving off… really weird vibes about it.

Nico receives Hu’s secret

(extra suicide TW just in case)

If I say anything offensive or incorrect in this section, I deeply apologize. I don’t mean to portray either of these characters, their issues, or people who relate to them or their issues in a bad light, and I definitely don’t mean to demonize mentally ill people. The reasoning behind why I think it would be bad for Nico to get Hu’s secret is complicated, and may be based on uninformed thoughts or unfounded projections. However, based on what I do “know,” I think it makes sense, so I’ll try to explain myself as best I can.

Basically, I think that receiving Hu’s secret would be bad for Nico because it might make Nico less likely to speak up for themselves when Hu talks over them. If I were Nico, I might be worried about reacting too strongly to what Hu is doing, and accidentally sending her back into the hopeless state of her childhood. Just interacting with Hu in general might lead someone (like David) to start questioning Nico about the secret they received, and cause the information to accidentally leak out. It would make Nico saying anything on how Hu was acting difficult.

Again, I am not trying to villainize Hu, or mandate that you have to walk on eggshells around suicidal people because they’re loose cannons or whatever. I just think that, especially for someone as uncomfortable with socialization with Nico, navigating the sensitive subject of past suicide attempts in this incredibly hostile bad AU environment might prevent them from speaking up for themselves when they’re feeling belittled. And, that would be bad for their personal development.

I wish we could move on to something happier to combat these bad vibes, but unfortunately, we still have a couple more to go.

“Min” receives Rose’s secret

Well, at least we can cool down a little bit with this one. Not a ton going on here; basically just that Rose’s secret is pretty lowkey and I could cause more damage with other secrets elsewhere. I don’t think it would cause a particular stir with either other students becoming paranoid or Rose’s characterization and growth. I suppose that, without the excuse of being able to explain her past, Rose probably wouldn’t have had that chance to vent to Teruko, which was probably a good experience for her? The conflict-avoidant Rose will be suffering enough with all the turmoil going on around her, methinks.

Eden receives Nico’s secret

Make no mistake, this is not a decision made to hurt Nico. It’s meant to hurt Eden. With her compassionate heart and non-judgmental attitude, Eden is a great draw for any secret-holder to have in order to not cause trouble. That’s why I thought that the best move here was to use the secret as an offensive weapon to lessen her impact, as well as preventing a more problematic secret from being absorbed into her positive vibes.

Eden’s greatest secret is that she’s a lesbian, and she fears that people will come to hate her or discriminate against her if they find out about her identity. Therefore, the worst thing to do to her is to affirm those fears by shoving the homophobia someone else suffered in her face. Learning that Nico was mocked for their identity would make Eden less confident in hers, and might dampen her spirit enough that some of the good effects of her optimism are negated. She might become more hesitant to discuss secrets and more fearful of her peers, knowing that one of them probably knows about her identity and could use it against her at any time. Little does she know, it’s actually in the morgue alongside the Ultimate Rebel.

But, the fact that is just further feeds into my idea from Xander’s section. If Eden has just been reminded of how cruel the world can be to LGBTQ+ people, she wouldn’t be jumping at the opportunity to reveal which secret was hers. This would 1) allow another troublemaker to perhaps successfully claim it as their own, 2) make Eden look suspicious as she tries to come up with a solid lie of her own, and 3) postpone or deny (if Eden dies on a short timeframe) Eden’s ability to feel comfortable in herself.

Also (not to say that David forcing Nico to share their secret was a good thing), if Nico’s secret never becomes available to the public, they might have to go through the rest of their time in the killing game getting misgendered. Diversity loss!

J receives Teruko’s secret

J could stay quiet for a lot of things, but I feel like if she knew who the mastermind was (assuming she doesn’t know that she herself is the mastermind), that’s something she wouldn’t stay quiet about. I think that J at least wanted to see Teruko as her friend, given that she approached Teruko on the day she tested out her universal remote and roped Teruko in as part of her plan to get away from Arturo. Teruko double-crossing J by “being the mastermind” would, I think, be enough of a betrayal that J would set out seeking answers. Publicly.

Teruko, having just seen Xander’s secret, is also in a terrible mood, meaning that her ability to defend herself against J’s accusations and keep a cool head would be lessened, and possibly devolve into a screaming match. This would send the students down the incorrect(?) path as to the mastermind’s identity, further encourage Teruko to distance herself from everyone else, and cause J to lose faith in one of the few people she liked just before Arturo starts to get on her ass. Needless to say, the group would be in shambles.

That was rough, but we’re finally done. Let’s take a look at how things shook out.

(Once again, I really didn’t mean to make it look like Whit was laughing at Charles’ dead brother? A little treat for everyone who believes Whit is evil, I suppose.)

Blech. Even though torturing characters can be fun sometimes, speculating about the worst case scenario isn’t usually the kind of energy that I like to bring to this blog. Hopefully I was able to deliver something satisfactorily devastating, though!

As a final note, assigning all these secrets to everyone did get me thinking a little about what would have happened in this chapter if the motive had gone as planned, and everyone had gotten their own secrets. While it obviously wouldn’t have been as good as the good universe, I do think that people learning of their own secrets is a lot better than many of the bad scenarios that could have been created with a shuffle. Charles and Teruko definitely would have been a bit thrown, but at least in Charles’ case, I don’t know if it would have resulted in murder.

In my opinion, I think it’s probably most likely that David or Nico would have killed? David obviously cares a lot about his career and the prospect of his secret being shared with the world, so he could have tried to ride his good social graces and fake “family history of depression” secret to a Class Trial clear. Nico also has a lot to worry about with their secret getting out, and, already facing pressure from Ace’s bullying, it’s possible they would have made the same decision to kill Ace if Ace’s harassment continued. I suppose this is a question I can ask back at ya, Gremlyn, if you feel inclined to answer! :D And, thank you for the ask. Even if it got a little bleak, I had fun with it.

Stay safe and happy out there, everyone, and make sure your deepest, darkest secret doesn’t get handed to your worst enemy. Or really, just try to avoid entering a killing game at all. Until next time~

wrecked, solitary, here

(redraw of art i did last year)