Hello! Another month goes by and another update that pushes my ratio of Updates to Posts way out of whack. First of all, sorry about that! I know how the progress always seems like no progress, but please believe me when I say I am truly doing the most I can... Which is what these updates are for! So!
New Tag: #tkdbe update : For these posts. It will be tagged eset explains and tkdbe update. This is so people who don't want updates but might like other info can filter the update tag, and so I can keep better track of them. Thumbs up.
Progress from Last Month's Update:
Input 80+ affinity chats. I have currently added 93/105 to my document, and I am preparing to account for the 20 new ones we may be getting soon.
Finished notes up to Chapter 19 of Episode 23, with plans to finish Episode 23 today (if possible)
Additionally, finished Season 2 Episode 1 notes entirely
Added all but 4 campus chats, and prepared to account for the 20 new ones we may be getting soon.
Restructured the document to account for the endless amount of pages and tabs and so on
Updated my internal doc timeline to account for notes up to Episode 22. Footnotes are not written yet, though
So, what is my plan for February? Honestly... probably not much. I have a ton going on so the likelihood of getting a huge swath of work done is Very Very Slim. It could still happen, but please do not count on it. My priority is still getting caught up with my notes before anything else.
Finally, I've found myself at a bit of a crossroad regarding information on this blog. It is heavily due to Season 2, and because of that I will put it under the cut! This blog will still remain a spoiler zone, but it just feels right to put this under a cut www
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Alright... so.... well. I don't actually know what to do in terms of Season 2's information yet. The reason I don't know what to do is very simple and very annoying.
I don't know if Season 2's world is the same as Season 1's world.
Which means I don't know if I should separate Season 2's information from Season 1's.
The very obvious elephant in the room is Dionysia. In Season 1, they didn't exist. In Season 2, they do! Which is both the best possible thing to ever happen to me personally but also the worst, because.... now what? They aren't defunct in Season 2, but they certainly were in Season 1. If they're different timelines and different worlds, information can't necessarily be shared and trusted between them. If it's the SAME world and there's something else going on (like memory erasure or so on), I don't want to separate all the information and then have to collect it all together and confuse myself and others.
Now, regardless of whether they're the same world or separate worlds, some things will remain the same. Anomaly IDs, for example, probably don't need separation, and if they DO end up differing for some reason, that's an incredibly easy thing to do. Honorifics also don't seem to differ based on the ones we've seen, so I am comfortable treating those as the Same.
New characters throw. A Wrench Into Some Things though.
Basically, the question I get to ask myself until we know more about Season 2's circumstances is, Do I separate the information based on season?
Practically, separating them will mean that anything learned in Season 2 will be treated as distinct from Season 1. My posts on Shion and Mio will be renamed to Shion Genkai - Season One and Mio Susuhara - Season Two or something along those lines, and they will remain 'side characters'. The pinned post will split Season One and Season Two into their own categories for ease of navigation, and Season 2 will have them as main characters. Etc, etc, etc.
Honestly, I was thinking of making a poll, but I truly believe it is easier and better if I just go ahead and separate them anyway. If they do end up being the exact same world it'll Suck For Me, but it will be overall less confusing as a means of delivering the information to others.
I think the only exceptions for this, as in the only posts I will keep both Season 1 and Season 2 information on, are ones I consider 'general' posts. The character lists (Classmates, Birthdays, etc), affinity chats, honorifics, anomaly information, and so on. Things I think are unlikely to be radically different between timelines. The other exception I am thinking of making is the Timeline... maybe.
I will be making a poll for this one, because I truly can't decide what is better. Should I split the two timelines up? Should I keep them together until it differs too much? Should I just never split them, ever? I currently lead towards the middle, where I keep them together until it differs too much to do so anymore. But I'm not actually sure!!
I probably won't make the poll until Episode 2 has dropped, because I presume we'll get a lot more information then, and it's useless to be like 'Aha! I'll do this!' and then have that all exploded in my face. Season 2's drop has been incredibly exciting to me in particular, but it also means a lot of my planned posts (Defunct Dorms, namely) are significantly more complicated than beforehand. Oh well... that's what I get for being slow (笑)
Anyway, if you read this far, thank you for the support shown in the face of so little actual posts... I promise I'm doing my best to get the information down in an accessible way. If you have any suggestions or questions or comments, please feel free to leave me an ask or message me. Both are fine!
Eat a snack! Get some water! Stretch! You deserve it! See you next month (probably!)
Been a while! Hello! Back with another general update! This one is kinda lengthy due to pictures and stuff, so it's under the read-more!
TL;DR: Defunct Dorms informational posts are delayed until after Ep 22's release in preparation for the lore we will most certainly get irt the three of them
Other outdated posts will be updated post-Episode 22 as well
Current progress on internal docs has been adding affinity stories, voice lines, chapter breaks, and more to the docs to draft posts more easily and ensure accuracy in my sourcing
There's a peek behind the scenes of my main document and how I go about this blog and my notes in general, if you're ever curious about any of that!
As always, if there's something you'd like me to cover Sooner rather than Later, please send an ask! I'll be updating my pinned to better reflect my current post priorities too, and limiting it to my top 3 posts in progress.
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The doc is. Big. It's beefy. So I have it organised in some respect.
The master-doc is split into multiple tabs in Google Docs, because none of my devices appreciates opening a google doc larger than 120 or so pages. Which means that, yes, those that are broken up into two different ones (Game Notes + Voice Lines) are well over 120 pages. Oops.
The notes themselves are broken up by episode with each getting a heading to easily jump to. There's a table of contents too, so if I can't access this tab (like on my phone), I can still jump to it!
They're also broken up by chapters, as seen here in my Ep 22 skeleton, and the other picture with my Ep 12 Ch 9 + 10 notes. They are. Very unprofessional, which is why this isn't a public document and is rather an internal reference.
This allows me to easily source information and re-check to make sure I wrote it down correctly. Super handy! Unfortunately, I didn't do this at first. Which means a lot of my progress has been.... doing that.
As you can see here, these don't all occur in Chapter 22. I'm slowly going through and both revising notes, deleting incorrect ones, and adding chapter breaks to everything. These notes that I'm revising are actually over a year old now (insane)!!
That takes up. Honestly the bulk of my time. Finding the info is fairly easy as is finding the chapter, but reensuring everything is correct and hasn't changed is harder than you'd think. Small lines get changed, which I need to stay aware of!
Other parts of this include affinity chats! I. Transcribe these by hand. I've been very fortunate to get a ton that I didn't already have (shoutout to my friends I love my friends) so I've been working on getting those added in. Some of them are harder than others (Edward Hart I'm Looking At You) so I haven't really been going in Order, just. Whichever would be less draining on my energy.
Voice-lines are self explanatory and are made doable solely by Danieyells's incredible work. I keep them in this doc to reference easier when post-drafting, so I don't have to have too many tabs open during the process.
There's still a lot of things I need to add or move around in this document, but if you ever wonder how I know something or why I know something, this is why! This is my TKDB Brain. And, if you're curious, the document currently sits at 134,665 words at the time of writing this post. Game Notes will be split into a third tab following episode 22's release (as I still have EP 19 - 21 to do notes on, and I already need to shift more of GN1's notes onto GN2, and GN2 is 118 pages. Yikes), so it'll only grow larger. Oops!
Anyway, the last thing I want to show is Some of my drafting process! Especially for this blog.
Generally, if I have an idea for a post that I consider Standardised (think Character Info or Dorm Info), I make a Template for it. This allows me to easily fill in the info for any character or piece of info that I may want to include in the post itself. It also allows me to delete whatever doesn't apply, or add special case uses.
I generally start by getting the information that I know off the top of my head down, and then going through my notes and adding more. When I'm initially writing the posts, if I don't know the exact source I either skip past it (seen here) or I jot down where I might be able to find it (especially voice lines and affinity chats).
Once I have all the information down, I go through and source all the information, not only so those reading posts can double check and ensure I haven't just made shit up, but so I can also go do that later down the line if there's contradiction or conflict. Similarly, it helps to see the general flow of a given thing. How early on was it mentioned? How recently? Etc!
As a side note, I generally try to make my citations be in ascending order (i.e. You wont see a jump from 1 to 48 at the Start of a post, hopefully) but this is. Increasingly more annoying as I edit posts, so I think we'll all have to get used to a post being like. Here's info (1) here's next info (472). Sorry in advance. It bothers me too.
Anyway, after I have everything written and the post more or less ready to submit to the blog, I have a very patient and kind friend who reads over them for me and gives feedback on them. If he gives the all clear, I post! Otherwise, I revise a little bit and then post.
A lot of this process is a labour of love for me. I don't have as much time or energy as I would like to dedicate to this project, so I apologise for how slow it is! I try to get things updated that are quick and easy (anomaly ID page is almost always up to date) but longer more involved revisions have a lot of steps behind the scenes that make it difficult.
I truly appreciate everyone who has helped me out so far on this journey, and I hope to get a lot of things going following Ep 22's release! I'm hoping to get my internal doc fully up to date by the end of the year (including Affinity Chats I have access to in some capacity), while also getting more posts out. Thank you all for your endless patience, and for reading all of this if you did!
I'd like to end this with another shoutout to Danie (who supplies a TON of helpful TKDB things) and my favourite grain of sand (who supplied so many affinity chats, proofreads my posts, and generally puts up w my bullshit irt tkdb and this blog in particular). And to everyone else who Also puts up w my insanity.
There's a ton of others in this fandom that do great work too, both artists and theorycrafters.
Okok I'm finished yapping now I promise. Thank you again for reading!!
Has the way to cure/break the MC/PC curse been found? I remember ed once said how to break the curse, but why MC/PC still have the curse…
Currently, the Known way to break the curse is to forget the eye of the Kyklos (as said by Ed in Episode 6, Chapter 31).
However, knowing how to break it doesn't necessarily mean it can be easily broken. Other mentioned attempts or suggestions have included:
- The Anomalous Dealer from Episode 4 (failed due to the anomaly being destroyed before it could be tested)
- Isoprophen X, developed by Yuri in Episode 7 (failed at curing our curse, but succeeded in improving our metabolism and blood circulation!)
- Haku, briefly considered by MC for an unrelated thing in Episode 9 (written off due to '[not being able to] get rid of curses unless the anomaly that did the deed’s right in front of him' and 'being a real simp for the rules and shit' (Chapter 16))
- Turning into a vampire, as offered by Ed in Episode 10, Chapter 19 (rejected due to MC not wanting to become non-human / a vampire)
- The god from Episode 12 (unknown on whether or not it would work due to the god not being powerful enough at the moment. Haru suggests praying to cure your curse when it's strong enough, though)
Since the curse cancels out the effect of Mesmer Matches (as seen in the Prologue and reiterated throughout the game), and since the curse is seemingly stronger than other curses (as seen in Episode 14, Chapter 29 with Oui, C'est Bon, where Jiro mentions it probably would've been killed by the Kyklos curse before it killed us), MC is in a Tough Position when it comes to a cure. It's surprisingly difficult to forget something that really, really, really does not want to be forgotten!
Every few months I make a post that basically says 'I'm not dead!' and this is. Exactly that.
No exciting updates! I finished my semester so I'm able to dedicate more time to this blog and my notes. This means I've been getting through the notes I'm behind on, yay!
I'll be going through my old posts soon and updating them, I hope, but that specific thing warranted a new update to me because I'm changing how I go about it.
Previously, whenever I updated a post I would just. Update it quietly. I have a 'Last Updated' part for a reason! But I realised that if you reblog a post and it gets edited, your reblog does not change, which is nice for most reasons and not so nice for me specifically. So!
Updates to posts will be reblogged with a 'changelog' from now on. This will be tagged as #tkdbe changelog.
What this means is that when I update a post, I'll mention the changes I made in a reblog, so that people can be aware of what has changed, when, and why.
As an example for this, I've put two examples of what a changelog would look like for my Shion Genkai post and my Anomaly ID list post under the cut. This is also an important reminder that I do make mistakes. I am grateful to everyone who has informed me of a mistake on a post, and I encourage everyone to continue doing that! I try to ensure my information is correct, but things slip through the cracks, unfortunately. If you've ever sent an ask about something and its been ignored or forgotten, send it again!
Thank you for reading this update! I sincerely apologise for how little I've done lately. I am still working on things in the background though, I swear! It's unfortunate that I always seem to have the time to do things when a new episode is about to drop though.... Such is life!
If you're reading this far, go drink some water! Or juice, or another liquid of your choice. Stretch a little, stand up and take a short walk around the room. Give your eyes a break from the screen. And congrats on making it to the end of the year! I'm proud of you!
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Shion Genkai Post Example
DATE: November 18th, 2025
CHANGES: Fixed kanji for Shion's name, which was discovered to be incorrect in both my notes and this post.
玄海 シオン changed to 幻海 シオン
NOTES: I'm not sure how this happened, and I'm deeply sorry for the mistake and for keeping it up so long without catching it. I'll do better at double checking things before I post in the future! My notes have also been updated to have the correct kanji. I reconfirmed Mio's kanji as correct, so that should be all good (unless I've made Another mistake).
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Anomaly ID List Example
DATE: December 20th, 2025
CHANGES: Switched the positions of 'The Executioner' and 'Takamine' on the post to retain ascending order. It should now read:
Death Sentence - B - Destroyed | A-37-608 - The Executioner (Type: Ghost Possession)
Black Magic Gig - B - Destroyed | A-533-844 - Takamine (Type: Malevolent Spirit)
Fixed incorrect anomaly ID for the Rinfone, which was incorrect in my notes and my post as well.
A-3817-1 changed to A-3912-1
NOTES: I genuinely don't know how THIS happened either. Shion's kanji was read the same (both are Genkai, just... a different 'Gen'. Typing Genkai will lead to both, which is probably how I put the wrong one in both places), but I just straight up got this one wrong somehow. I confirmed it was not a retroactive change like the Hundun: the episode has, to my current knowledge, always read A-3912-1 for the Rinfone. I am so sorry. I will be going back through at the end of this next episode and rechecking every anomaly ID I have listed to ensure the rest are accurate.
In order to see what the community is leaning towards for posts, I'll be making a series of polls to judge various things. If you have other suggestions too, please comment / DM me / Send an ask in!
Polls will be tagged #eset explains AND #polls for blocking ease.
Should Dorm Information include Side Characters?
Yes, but only if they're named (i.e. Yumiko)
Yes, if they're notable even without a name (i.e. Taiga's caretaker)
Though I believe this is rather obvious, this blog is not spoiler free. Updates will be made as soon as I am able to old posts if there is updated information. This includes chapters that have just released, if I am able to quickly add information to a post. Please be advised when looking through posts if you are not interested in spoilers, including but not limited to the anomaly ID page, the timeline, and subsequent posts relating to these things. I will reiterate: please block the #tkdbe tag if you DO NOT want spoilers.
I am adding the main tag to this post so that people who may not know of this blog already can block the tag properly (should one of the posts end up where I don't want it to through Tumblr's jank search system)!
I ran out of medication last month and had to ration, but I have it once again! Part of why I struggle to make posts is that I don't know what I should be prioritising which leads me to just work on Anything Sporadically rather than focus into one thing. And so I've been slowly making progress but it is, in fact, slow. So. I would like to ask those who follow this blog on what they wish to see more.
What should I focus on right now?
Character Posts (e.g. Biographies, Affinity Chats)
Story Posts (e.g. Clash Information, Detailed Anomaly Information)
Location Posts (e.g. Dorm Information, Institute Information)
Hi! I wanted to confirm something: Kaito said Romeo suddenly started following him around 6 months ago. It's around the same time Clash occurred, right? Could this be a part of the Clash lore?
Hello!
While it's certainly possible it's connected to the Clash, as the Clash would have occurred around half a year prior (give or take a few months), I believe the reason that Romeo started trailing Kaito is due to the fact that Kaito became indebted to the casino.
In Episode 4, Chapter 10, Ritsu mentions that the casino in Sinostra opened six months ago (when Taiga became captain), which aligns with Kaito's statement in Episode 9, Chapter 5 that it has been half a year.
We also know from multiple different episodes that Romeo wants Kaito's necklace, however he is specifically asking for it for collateral to pay his debts.
So basically, we don't know for sure that it isn't related to the Clash, but it is most likely just that Kaito wasn't in debt before the casino opened and then became indebted after.
