Regulus, as an influencer, has tried to keep his life as private as possible from his followers. He knows that most of them respect the limits he sets regarding the places he frequents and the information he shares about his loved ones. But another part of his followers simply didn't; the more people who found his social media and showed interest in what he had to say about the books he criticized, more people flooded his inboxes with questionable comments. Regulus learned to deal with them; most didn't even seem to pose a real threat, they were just people trying to get attention and hurt him. But there was one user who truly gave him goosebumps every time his phone notifications flashed with his name. @/deerchaser03 always had something to say, even if Regulus didn't post any updates about his daily life, and always in a chillingly accurate way. They had started like any other follower, with comments about his reviews of the books he read, then his clothes, food, or places he visited and posted on social media, later, there were direct messages asking about his day or what he was doing, as if they were close friends, until suddenly they would write something like "I didn't think you were one of those people who liked spicy food," when he visited a spicy restaurant that Sirius, his brother, kept talking about but had never posted a picture of, or "That blouse looks better with your black pants from two weeks ago," when he was planning to go out to dinner with a friend. And although Regulus could have blocked the user or told someone close to him, he simply kept watching to see how far @/deerchaser03 would go, because despite everything, it was just an account with no followers, only following Regulus, no profile picture, and its name was simply "P." Furthermore, Regulus didn't consider himself particularly important, he became famous for an overly honest review of the latest book, and from there his followers began to grow, he didn't see himself as someone people would act so obsessively towards simply for existing. But he started taking @/deerchaser03 seriously when one day Regulus posted a photo of the coffee shop he had visited four days prior, and that same day "P" made his first post on his own profile —it was the same coffee shop. Unlike Regulus's photo, which was just a panoramic view of the table where he was sitting with his drink, a book, and the café's decorative items reflected in the bright daylight from the window next to him, "P's" photo highlighted the coffee shop in general, some tables, and part of the window near his table. The real problem with "P's" photo was that you could see some of Regulus's belongings, and the photo's caption only included a date—the same day he'd gone to the coffee shop. Regulus isn't paranoid enough to think that @/deerchaser03 is following him or anything like that; besides, coincidences happen, but after "P's" post, more and more photos started appearing on his profile whenever Regulus posted a picture of any outing he took and "P's" photos always had two characteristics: first, the captions were from the same day Regulus visited the places; and second, there was always a glimpse of the belongings Regulus was carrying that day, or even a small part of Regulus himself was visible in the photos—never clear enough to know for sure it was him, but enough for Regulus to know it was him and that he was being followed that day. So, frightened, he went to his brother for advice or help. Instead of telling him to report the account and block it, his brother told him to keep an eye on it, but not to follow it, since Sirius had a friend who tracked social media accounts for some kind of private agency. A little over a week later, Regulus, who had stopped going out alone and stopped sharing anything about his private life on social media, met Sirius's best friend.
I used to get really mad about tme/tma bs until I realized that trans women thinking that trans men have male privilege is a problem that goes away when I switch browser tabs or better yet spend time with a trans femme irl
ohhhh to dance with Ram and have him nuzzle your cheek like that with his soft fluffy hair against your face
(yes i know this is not Ram it's Pete Brady from Strange Behavior. but in my dreams this is what Ram looks like when he takes off the helmet. the hair all just puffs out like a popping popcorn kernel. it's fuckin amazing)
having a hyperfixation is actually crazy cause you'll be doing anything but you're actually subconsciously larping as The Characterᵀᴹ doing it. and it's worse if you're hyperfixated on the stupidest most unheard of shit ever. like damn I bet pete brady from the 1981 horror film "strange behavior" plays with legos...
You know I'm a big believe of Whit mastermind theory and depending on how the trial goes he could still be the mastermind despite being the culprit but uhm...
Mf has like an 80 pourcent chance of being the culprit
My theory of Levi being the culprit kinda has went down the drain though i'm not really that upset about it because it was admitidely the most generic route.
I still do not buy for a second Eden is the culprit mainly because it contradicts a lot of her behaviors and also is only really based on one piece of evidence that could be explained by something else.
I think the most credible option to me right now, is Whit, especially because with how certain things are laid out for us we can actually make out a concrete motive for why Whit would do this.
I'm gonna write down what I think and explain why I believe Whit is most likely the culprit (also i'll deal with a couple of holes and explain why the theory still works alongside them) and also i'll use a couple of speculations made by other people as well
I think it's known by everyone that the way Whit's secret was revealed is extremely strange, for like two reasons.
One, it means that it's impossible for anyone (including Whit himself, we'll get into that later) to have known what Whit's secret was, or to confirm it with certainty in the trial. We only have Whit's word for it.
Second, Whit takes a very strange amount of time until saying what secret he has, like right after Hu denied to say which secret she has. Which is extremely weird because if his life was so uneventful wouldn't he have managed to pick out a secret as blatant as this.
I thought this would be meant as a red herring to put suspicions on Whit however with Levi revealing his secret and this loose thread still not being addressed, I think it has to be important to the case at hand.
Now, despite people pointing this out every analysis that tries to handle this kinda goes into a brick wall because it immediatly assumes that Whit is lying about the dead mother secret being his. However there's too much pointing towards Whit having the dead mom secret.
No, I think we're going about this the wrong way. It's not about us not knowing what Whit's secret was, it's that Whit had no idea what secret actually was his
In fact that's mentionned before trial on how Whit just didn't know WHAT his secret even was, and no one could really tell him what it was because Rose threw it away
But that's weird right ? You would think Whit would know that his dead mother would be the likely secret, you could argue he just didn't want to share with everyone but that still doesn't explain the strange amount of time until he revealed he had Rose's secret.
And if he didn't want to share that his mom was dead, why did he let everyone the opportunity to say if they had his secret and to spill the beans...
Unless things are more complicated than just Whit having a dead mom, after all if it was just that wouldn't he have known immediatly that was his secret ? After all Teruko had the same issue as well as she didn't know what her secret could actually even be.
You could argue that I put my back against the wall here. If Whit not knowing his secret was his motive as to why he commited the murder then why did he let a bunch of people the opportunity to air out a potentially incriminating secret. Wouldn't that mean he wasn't worried about it ?
However, you have to keep in mind Whit had no idea how bad the secrets were, the only secrets that was revealed was J's which in retrospect of other secrets seemed like a much lighter one.
You could argue "Well Whit had David's secret which was pretty bad" however despite how bad that secret was it was also very vague and since Whit didn't know how much about David it doesn't really mean much on how deep the secrets were.
Considering Whit's personality as well, it was possible he was in denial or some deeper reason as to why he wasn't thinking about it. "Bitter things need to go down the drain" and all that.
In fact Whit was one of the first ones to say they shouldn't reveal their secret before J's secret was immediatly revealed.
I also don't think Whit being in denial has to be rooted in logic either (especially with how inconcistent he seems to be about the secrets), the murder was commited right before the deadline and although there was planning behind it, it was still a last minute decision (aka not done immediatly during the day of the motive reveal). You could argue pressure got to him or he overthought it as it became increasingly clear how much deeper the secrets went and how much the people who set this game up knew about them (something Whit investigated himself).
I think the way Whit acted about the secrets is too contradictory to really use any of what he says as actual evidence against the secrets not being his motive basically.
Now, let's go into the other point and how it works with the potential motive, the speculation that Arei was waterboarded.
Yeah, this seems to hint heavily that this is what happened and Arei's actual cause of death would be by drowning instead of strangulation like expected.
But why not strangulation ?? Why do a technique that is much harder to kill Arei, unless they were trying to get something out of drowning her. I mean we don't technically know if it was actual waterboarding but considering how planned this murder was and how we do actually have pieces of clothing that would serve for waterboarding, it seems to be likely.
(I'm not exactly sure how it stuck together with the starch afterwards but considering how the playground's ventilation works it's possible it dried up quickly) (There's also Arei's missing glove if you don't believe Teruko and Hu's clothing where used for it)
There's also no reason to drown her instead of strangling her with the rope unless there was another justification for it. But the episode actively goes out of it's way to say that there probably wasn't an attempt at tricking people into thinking the murder happened during 7:30 PM.
Anyways, why would the culprit waterboard Arei then ??? Clearly this means they were trying to get information out of her...
Which makes 0 sense unless it was Whit who would at least have a small justification for it, aka him not knowing what his secret is. I do admit it is a bit blurry on what type of information Whit would've truly wanted or why he did this before just killing her. However out of anyone (that already isn't pretty much confirmed innocent) it would only make sense for it to be him.
Now onto other stuff unrelated to the secret thing, like how unhelpful Whit has been this trial to a suspicious degree. AKA :
-Trying to distract away from the letter framing Eden and then just throwing her under the bus immediatly when he's questioned about it.
-Refusing to reveal David's secret
-Coincidentally having an excuse for not seeing Arei's body swaying
Now all of these could be argued to be in character reasons, after all didn't he do something like that chapter 1 with Charles (kind of). However this is a new level of trial interferance that really isn't justifiable at a certain point.
You could argue "well wouldn't talking about the note and David's secret be useful to make them seem guilty"' and while that'd be right to an extent. However everytime Whit witholds something like with Eden and David, he seems to cave eventually so the only thing he has achieved in this trial so far is to stall for time. Which could potentially be intentional if he's the culprit.
Now that I've kinda covered the major points, here are a list of suspicious things, mostly things that Whit knew before I get to my final point (how this would fit the narrative this chapter).
(I do wanna say most of this things isn't technically necessary info that the culprit needed to know but it definitely helps).
Whit was present during Teruko and Hu changing, meaning he would have known about their old clothes and could have found out where to get them.
Whit was present during the fight in the cafeteria, which is when Arei demanded to have her rope thrown away leading to Mono-TV putting it in storage
(Eden was busy helping J and Arturo so only Teruko, Charles and Whit could've known this information by listening in)
Whit also is the reason David is in the relaxation room leading to his conversation with Arei although idk how much of that would even possibly be planned or how that would help him, still important to note though.
There is probably more I could say however I want to get to my last point, I do think Whit being the culprit fits this case more than anyone else.
I know the question of the tape is still unanswered, if Eden did take it wouldn't that mean she is the culprit ? Well I don't think so but overall I just don't think this one singular piece of evidence is enough to say Eden's the culprit especially if we look at the bigger picture.
I'm probably just repeating the same things people probably have heard already but Eden committing such a gruesome murder for pratically no motive at all (outside getting out but it would make the secret motive useless) just doesn't really make sense.
However it is true that from what the title of this chapter suggests "all that glitters (is not gold)", it would mean a character isn't as innocent/good as they seem.
But wouldn't that title make more sense with Whit ?
Eden and Whit both are seemingly the positive vibes character of the cast, both being seemingly "normal". However Whit's positivity is a lot more toxic than Eden's, cracking jokes at innapropriate time and seeming to not let himself show even negative emotions (contrary to Eden who has let herself be upset multiple times).
Narratively speaking, Whit being the culprit, would put Charles in a similar situation to Teruko perhaps deepening their bond further without having Teruko going through a regression arc (she was way closer to Eden than she was with Whit).
It would allow Eden's message to not be lost/contradicted while also going with the apparent theme of the chapter that things aren't as they seem.
And also "all that glitters is not gold" would be a very smart saying for Whit, the one who died his hair blond (would be a very fun double meaning)
Hello everyone, this is the eleventh chapter of the series I’m doing of Ikémen Vampire x teen reader which I hope you’ll all like and support. I will try to update as much as possible. I can’t promise it’ll be everyday, but I’ll try to whenever I have time. This fic also may not fully follow everything that happens in the game, though I’ve tried to include some parts from the game, but they might also happen at different points. Enjoy.
I don’t own Ikémen Vampire, only my own oc’s. All rights reserved for Cybird.
(Also, this chapter is more of a filler and foreshadowment for what will happen later on so I apologise for the short length.)
Themes: platonic, fluff, strange behaviour, thoughts of vampires, angst
It was during the evening when the interesting thing happened.
I walked into the living room, or lounge, and was met with a sight. All eleven of the men were sat around, doing their own thing. I was surprised to say the least.
It was the first time they had all gathered around together in harmony without looking murderous or teasing each other.
Leo and Comte were sat on the two seater sofa, Leo napping while Comte read a book, Seb was sat in an armchair writing in a small notebook, Arthur and Isaac were playing a round of chess (again) with Theo and Dazai as referees, Vince was stood painting on an easel, Napo and Jean were sat on a couple of dining chairs in tight discussion and Mozart was sat in a corner with a few sheets of paper.
I eloped beside Theo who gave me a disgruntled look while shifting slightly to the side to give me more room.
“Hey, Hondje. Wearing that rose again?”
I shrugged, concealing a small smile.
“Of course. So, who’s winning?” I questioned, watching the two British men play. “Arthur is,” Isaac said through gritted teeth. The mentioned author chuckled good-naturedly.
“Calm down, Newt, it’s only a game,” he spoke with a gleeful smirk.
“So, Toshiko-chan, whose is this ‘friend’ you spoke of?” Dazai questioned with a sly smile, gesturing to the flower decorating my hair. For some unknown reason, the room suddenly became very warm and my cheeks heated up.
I noticed Isaac and Arthur briefly stiffen as the blue haired man stared at me with a look I couldn’t decipher.
“Ma chérie, could you get me some water, please?”
I turned to see Comte staring at me with a gentle smile, but his gaze hardened as he looked past me at the two chess players, though he tried to hide it from my view.
I dutifully fulfilled his polite ask and entered the kitchen, grabbing a glass and filling it with fresh water, but my mind spun with thoughts. I couldn’t understand the undeniable tense silence that had followed Dazai’s teasing statement and the men’s reactions to it.
Not only that, but it was precisely after I had blushed in embarrassment and I was in close proximity to both Arthur and Isaac, baffling me further as none of the others seemed to be acting weird. Apart from Comte, that is, but he seemed more mad - or going that way - more than anything.
I could tell something was up, but decided not to press. For now.
The tension in the air dissolved completely as I stepped back into the room. The men continued to do their personal activities, once more not caring about what the others were doing and showing zero interest in how the two men had acted.
On the outside, at least. What they were thinking on the inside . . . I had no idea of.
I carefully gave Comte his glass of water and regained my spot beside the art dealer who hadn’t shifted from the position he was in before, though I felt as though he wasn’t entirely happy with Arthur and Isaac for some reason. Anyhow, I tried to brush it off and resume as normal.
Arth grinned playfully at me, instantly banishing any unflattering thoughts and allowing us to all carry on as usual, despite the tense undertone that continued to fill the room.
After all, what I was truly thinking was impossible despite the historical men being here when they should be dead - to put it bluntly.
Vampires didn’t exist.
Not now, not ever.
Did they?
My last post didn't get 5 notes so I didn't go back to the station still... had to go to hospital for testing anyway
first photo: east wing hallway near entrance. time/date stamp is wrong - camera was new, I was lazy as hell and never set the date
second photo: outpatient corridor that branches left from the hallway in the first photo. The hospital used to be structured differently so that this corridor overlooked the Sinia Central Station.
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"It was noon, but the courtyard might as well have been midnight. Concrete slabs, patchy grass gone stiff with frost, wheelchairs lined in a row like abandoned skeletons. Nurses cut through quickly, not lingering—the courtyard had always carried a smell of stale smoke and disinfectant that clung to the walls.
That was when he appeared. Thin, frail, shoulders set wrong under the hospital gown, walking as if each step didn’t belong to his body. A man with a stare that reached through everything, like he was searching for proof that any of this was solid. Patients watched from the benches, cigarettes paused mid-drag. One of them whispered [[[[[[[[ under his breath.}}##''''../////////////
The man moved toward the nearest surface—one of the brick pillars marking the courtyard edge. His hand trembled as he reached out. Fingers scraped along the rough wall, knuckles grazing the mortar. Then both hands pressed against it hard, as though he expected the brick to give way, or his own skin to split. The jolt ran through his shoulders, already broken things grinding together. His face didn’t change. He only breathed out once, a long, shallow sigh.
Someone—maybe an orderly—called out to him, but he didn’t answer. He turned instead toward the small patch of frozen grass, knelt, and pressed his palm flat into the frost. It burned, but he left it there. His body was shaking, his stare fixed far beyond the courtyard, at something no one else could see.
For a moment, the entire space went still. Nurses slowed at the doors, patients stopped muttering. It was like the courtyard itself leaned closer, waiting to see whether he’d collapse or rise.
When he finally stood again, frost clung to his palm. He wiped it absently against the gown, leaving a smear of white crystals that looked almost like ash. Then he walked back inside, silent, vanishing as abruptly as he had appeared."
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for those who aren't from this kinda place, local hospitals used to call these people "walk-ins" - patients who would arrive on foot off-hours without memory of how they got here
yo, why does every damn eastern euro half-abandoned med facility have those wierd-ass brick pillars arranged around the courtyards? i remember being like 5 in hospital and these older kids took me for a walk around the hospital, but i actually didnt go with them and stayed in the elevator cause it creeped me out. cue them being worried sick until they found me back in that elevator.
also, since when do medical staff let some barefoot schizo press hands into subzero ground without intervening?? whatever, sinia had her fair share of schizos a few years back
what if healing isn't about getting better?
Its about learning to set broken bones together like welded steel
