Bad Joe, Ultimate Crime Solver

Trying really hard to solve DRDT chapter 2 until the solution reveals itself

[accirax]

the way people are theorising a million ways it could possibly not be ace.... guys i think its over.... ace confessed already... the glove may still be missing and the scuffs may not be directly explained but teruko said that not everything has to be completely known (maybe it'll be like the note and be relevant in the future idk).... i already accepted that i have to see ace die next week dont feed my delusions drdt fandom /j

yeahhhhhh... i agree. i don't really think that there's any way to get out of Ace being the killer here-- not after that huge confession after the end of last episode, at least. i know that some people have been citing the fact that there wasn't a vote or execution last episode as "evidence" that Ace might not be the culprit, but ending the episode on a closing argument -> immediately starting the next episode on a vote is exactly what happened in Min's case.

i suspect that next episode (which is very likely both the episode of Ace's execution and the last of the chapter) may be a lot longer than Min's final episode due to whatever plan Teruko said that Veronika would see after the next person was murdered, but that it will kick off the post trial.

if someone else were to be the culprit at this point, i think it would basically have to be someone else who was blackmailing/otherwise coercing Ace to do it. otherwise, why the hell would he give up and confess? that would also open up other options of people who could have gotten their hands on the tape, but more importantly, the fitness band, which currently has no other substitute in terms of launching the ball over the rafters. however, we have no idea what could have caused someone else to have such power over Ace, which renders this idea very implausible.

you could also argue that Eden did it, but switching the target to her last minute would involve needing to either reveal someone else who saw the body before Teruko/Eden/Whit did or explain the see no evil concept, AND explain how the hell Eden would have gotten her hands on the fish. at the pace this trial has been running at, both of those things might take up an entire episode. possibly more than that if the answer was "she had an accomplice" (which I guess would probably be Ace, to explain his confession???) because then we would need to determine who that is and why. if there were that many changes to the murder coming up, i don't think that DRDTdev would make a closing argument for the Ace part. not for the sole sake of faking people out into thinking it's Ace, especially when the DRDT team was already working overtime to put the episodes out now.

so, y'know, i probably could have cut this ask off after "yeah i agree" and called it a day, but that's never been my style. but now, this post-- just like Ace's chances at being innocent-- is over.

[thebadjoe]

I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to share a few small thoughts on the matter.

You say all of that as if you've never read my theories. I've given a perfect explanation as to how Eden could've carried out the crime. Let's not simply disregard that, ya?

Besides, there's still plenty unexplained mysteries this chapter and I seriously doubt that the dev would just end it with Ace as the correct blackened.

Since this is a murder case, we were most likely supposed to be able to figure out this murder mystery before the trial. But here's the thing... Teruko claimed that aside from a broken neck and red marks on her wrists, there was nothing else noteworthy about her body.

So tell me, how the heck were we supposed to deduce that Ace did it and solve the murder? Short answer : we can't solve it without some kinda of information that would indicate some form of strangulation. It just doesn't make sense.

[accirax]

so, just so that everyone is on the same page, you made this response before this...

(a thumbnail that highly implies that someone will be dying next episode) or this...

(a tweet which confirms that the reason for any "unused" elements was due to burnout and that the next episode will be the last of the chapter) came out.

while this alone essentially mandates that only Ace can be the culprit at this point, i won't use this to rebut against you, because you didn't have this information at the point that you responded to me. however, even without it, i still disagree with your claim that "it doesn't make sense."

i have, in fact, read your theories, Joe. and while i don't agree that the explanation is "perfect," i agree that it is a strong, solid theory, with a lot of good explanations and points of intrigue. similarly, i believe that you are a smart and capable theorist. however, just because you made a good theory does not mean that you have the correct theory.

i've made an analogy similar to this before, but let's bring it back in honor of our favorite jockey: imagine that solving the Chapter 2 Trial is a horse race. before the race begins, you can bet on any one of the horses in the race due to their physical traits, the personalities of the riders, or just your gut instinct. before the race begins-- AKA, before Chapter 2 restarted-- it is not a dumb idea to bet on any of the horses. because any of them have a chance of winning! you might perceive some as the favorites to win, but because the race hasn't happened yet, any horse has a possibility to win. there's no losing in making a theory.

however, once the race kicks off, you have to start taking into account the actual reality of the race. if one horse gets spooked and veers off course, there is no longer a chance that that horse will win, no matter how promising they seemed pre-season.

you concocted a very compelling story of the race in which the Eden horse won. in some reality, it could very easily have been correct. however, in our reality, we've made it to the finish line, and Ace was the one to break that ribbon. just because your theory was a possibility doesn't mean that it's the possibility DRDTdev chose.

furthermore, i don't believe that your theories are as "perfect" as you claim them to be.

About David

in your theory, you say that because David must have seen the body (due to saying that he did so in bold and gold text), the only way for this to have been possible is for the conversation between David and Arei to have happened on an earlier day. however, i'm much more inclined to believe that David used a shiny yellow effect to promote his lie than that everything we've been told physically about the circumstances of both Arei and David's conversation and the morning of the Body Discovery Announcement are wrong.

your theory claims that Arei was killed on the night of Day 7 such that she wouldn't be alive at that day's lunch. this would mean that Arei bullying Eden, Arturo threatening Eden, Eden witnessing Ace almost dying, and Eden deciding to kill Arei would all happen within the same 24 hour window. for Eden, that's an insane emotional turnaround.

i think you're still claiming that Ace lied about the day on which he overheard the conversation so that people would think he's brave for going back to the Gym the day after Nico attempted to kill him in there? if so, when his back is up against the wall to the degree that Teruko has Closing Argument-ed his ass, why would he not at least try to tell the truth?

if the conversation that David and Arei had was a day earlier, don't you think that David would have been more likely to go looking for Arei on Day 7, on which, in your theory, she would already be dead? i find it much more likely that everyone would more or less ignore Arei on Day 7 when they all think she's just a mean bitch than that David would ignore Arei after she just made that huge promise with him.

those are just the first semi-flaws that i thought of, but the general gist of the idea is that you can't call David having seen the body before 8:00 AM on Day 8 "evidence" when him having seen the body at all is just something that you determined to be true to support your theory.

Eden Dressing Up As Arei

you say all of this as if you haven't read my theories. i've given a perfect explanation as to why there are too many holes to reasonably believe that anyone could have dressed up as Arei. let's not simply disregard that, ya?

anyways, if you're encouraging people to believe that DRDT is a work of fiction, so as long as there's plenty of evidence to suggest something, that means it's possible, then i would think that same logic should extend back you believing that Ace can be the culprit as well. there's an entire episode's worth of evidence that suggests that he committed the crime, including a literal confession. any "holes" in the crime would be explained away using that same "fiction" rationale.

The Turpentine

once again, i feel you're submitting hypotheticals that are personally convenient to you as "evidence" just because it's believable that it could have happened. to be clear, there's nothing wrong with that in the abstract-- sometimes solving a mystery might require a leap of faith, or putting together background details that might not otherwise seem linked.

however, i also hope that pointing this out can help you understand how "it is possible that Nico left the bottle of turpentine in the Dress-Up Room to frame Hu (and then lied about keeping it in their room), and then, through an incredible coincidence, Eden managed to find it on the same night that she would crucially need it for her murder plan" doesn't sound particularly convincing to most people. especially after we've already seen the "Trial Close" graphic.

Class Trial Pacing

this is another point on the level of assessing the Trial where it is now as opposed to where it could have gone back when we were still in hiatus land. for your theory to be the truth, here are some of the things that we would still have to go over and update for a new blackened:

Nico lying about leaving the turpentine in the Dressing Room

The timing of Arei and David talking in the Relaxation Room with Ace listening in -> Nico attacking Ace -> Arei and David leaving the second floor without seeing Ace getting attacked or running into Eden or Teruko -> finding Ace's body in the Gym -> everyone leaving the Gym and going down to the dorms (including Eden), also confirming that Levi is potentially awake -> Eden going back to the Dress-Up Room to grab the turpentine after passing on it the first time (and also Teruko didn't see it there either); or otherwise going there for no particular reason only to find that the turpentine is magically there -> She also puts the ball of clothes in the Relaxation Room somewhere in there. the entire "Ace in the Gym" segment happens after MonoTV declares it to be 10 PM, btw. (note the time stamps)

AKA, Arei and David must have been talking in the Relaxation Room before it closed, AKA, before 10:00 PM. Ace, therefore, under your theory, was attacked by Nico with the turpentine before 10:00 PM. however, unless Nico put the turpentine back in the Dress-Up Room, like, before attempting the actual kill on Ace (???), Eden must have taken the turpentine after 10:00 PM. however, she would have needed to put the clothes in the Relaxation Room before 10. so, she put the clothes in the Relaxation Room to starch them before she even knew that she would have turpentine??? why would she possibly be thinking about "ways to not scratch up the ground that much" when she was still missing the piece of "how i'm going to knock Arei out"???

sorry, got distracted on that one. anyways:

why Ace was lying about the timing of the conversation, and why he didn't bring it up until now

why David went along with this lie (probably to throw the Trial off the rails, but they still have to discuss that)

your entire alternative murder method

how starch can be used on plants and how Eden pulled that off

reminding everyone that Arei was quiet at breakfast

how Eden could have donned this disguise using skills she has never been hinted to have (makeup, hair, possibly vocal impressions)

Eden's alibi and the benefits of making it seem like Arei was alive during the afternoon

David's reasoning for hanging Arei's body and laying out the fish

there might be other stuff, but i'm getting kind of lost in the sauce. at any rate, these are all things that we would need to explain post closing argument and confession in order for this theory to be correct and make sense for the viewing audience who may have never heard this logic before.

according to this playlist, the average Class Trial length in THH was 99.6 minutes, or 1 hour and 39 minutes. (all calculations are made not including Trial 6.) the average Class Trial length in SDR2 was 159.4 minutes, or 2 hours and 39 minutes. the average Class Trial length in v3 was 190 minutes, or 3 hours and 10 minutes.

and, hell, let's compare to some other fangans. the average SDRA2 trial was 158 minutes, or 2 hours and 38 minutes (Chapter 3 is a outlier at 275 minutes by over 100 minutes). the average Redemptionronpa deadly life (including investigation and post-trial) was 77.2 minutes, or 1 hour and 17 minutes. DR: Blowback, though it only had two trials, comes in at an average of 141.5 minutes, or 2 hours and 21 minutes. DRDT Chapter 1 itself had a trial length of 99 minutes, or 1 hour and 39 minutes.

DRDT Chapter 2's Trial has already elapsed 233 minutes, or 3 hours and 53 minutes. this makes it longer than the average Class Trial from any of those 6 games, and, in fact, longer than EVERY non-Chapter 6 Class Trial from these games other than SDRA2 Case 3. therefore, it was unreasonable at this point to think that the Trial would continue on for long enough to go through all of the points that i listed above, even before DRDTdev's admission that next episode will be the last of the chapter.

Signs of Strangulation

But here's the thing... Teruko claimed that aside from a broken neck and red marks on her wrists, there was nothing else noteworthy about her body. So tell me, how the heck were we supposed to deduce that Ace did it and solve the murder? Short answer : we can't solve it without some kinda of information that would indicate some form of strangulation.

this is what Arturo said (before Teruko made her claims) upon Veronika's prompting.

from the way he phrases this, it makes it sound like he can't be sure if there's strangulation or not, because the broken neck supersedes that.

neither he nor Teruko ever directly says "there are no signs of strangulation." at least in this scene. if you were referring to another point in time, please provide a link or screenshot to what you meant.

i get what you're saying about wanting to see more evidence about the strangulation in order to pin Ace. however, i would say that "Ace strangled Arei and no marks were left behind because they were covered up by the hanging" and "Eden used the turpentine which Nico happened to leave behind (and did not tell us before the Trial began) and she happened to find" are about equal levels of "guessable before the Trial." your Eden theory, as you currently have it, doesn't really explain the situation any better, so i don't believe this argument holds much weight.

look, i get it's disappointing to be wrong. but at some point, you have to accept the reality of the situation, and realize that the train has veered too far off the tracks for even any perfectly plausible theories about Eden being the culprit to be correct at this point. i hope this mini-rebuttal communicated that point well.

please remember that, just because i disagree with you, i'm not looking down on your abilities or saying that you never had a leg to stand on. i just want to explain where i and many others are coming from, and give you an honest response regarding your critiques of what i said.

thank you for theorizing with us throughout this hiatus, badjoe, and i hope that whenever the next chapter comes out, we'll be able to discuss it together.(/gen)

see ya Friday! :)

[thebadjoe]

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...Of course I know that you've read my theories (well, almost all of them), I sometimes take a look at who liked my posts and whatnot and I recall seeing your name a couple times.

The reason why I brought up that counterpoint is because you sort of implied that Eden couldn't possibly be the culprit since we'd need to explain how "someone else" would discover the body first before the trio and how Eden could've gotten her hands on the fish (since it's impossible), which really surprised me.

Both of these points... I've given a very fair reasoning to explain how to solve eitheir of these problems in at least one of my theories that I've posted more than a year ago.

So forgive me if I may have sounded rude, but from my point of view, it pretty much seemed like you completly disregarded my whole theory whatsoever, to some extent. Whether you believe it or not, whether you believe there's flaws in here or not, it doesn't matter. What matters is that I've given fair and reasonable answers to these problems.

Of course, I can imagine that you were trying to find ways to explain that there's no time left to possibly explain all of this and make a turnabout this late into the chapter (which we sort of got a confirmation by the DRDT dev themselves, but that's besides the point), but the implications were still there.

Also, for your information, from what I recall, I never claimed that my theory was perfect nor did I claim that my theory was correct. I said that I've given a perfect explanation to my theory, which sounds like an exaggeration at first, but I said this mainly because my theory was able to stay connected between a vast amount of information given throughout this chapter while also giving this odd feeling that my theory was perfectly in sync with the whole chain of events. To me, it was more like puzzle pieces that would perfectly fit. But still, I suppose I could've worded it differently, so my bad.

I admit, there's still a few small flaws here and there (that can be easily brushed off under certain conditions), so my theory is not perfect by any means. So forgive me for sounding like a selfish asshole, but based on everything I've read thus far, my theory appears to make the most sense.

Speaking of theory making sense, why don't we talk about the turpentine issue first?

The Turpentine

So, from what I'm gathering, you're trying to say that I was following this belief :

"it is possible that Nico left the bottle of turpentine in the Dress-Up Room to frame Hu (and then lied about keeping it in their room), and then, through an incredible coincidence, Eden managed to find it on the same night that she would crucially need it for her murder plan"

Unfortunately for you, that is incorrect. It is true that I made a theory somewhat similar to this after episode 14 was released, when Nico confessed that they used the turpentine and attempted murder. However, ever since episode 15 aired, when Nico admitted that they kept the turpentine with them this whole time, ain't no way I was gonna stick to that coincidental turpentine theory. I may be crazy, but I'm not delusional!

Which is why I made another post after episode 15 aired to fix this major issue in particular, a post that I believe you did not have the chance to read it yet, based on what I'm seeing.

Here's the post that I'm referring to!

For those who don't wanna open another tab though, that's fine, I'll explain (copy paste) it to you all readers here.

To solve this major issue, we just gotta think outside the box and look back at the turpentine's properties. With the way they described the turpentine this whole chapter, it was heavily implied that this worked very similarly like chloroform, right?

So... what if the thing that Eden used to knock her out was actually chloroform?

Think about it. What are the two main ingredients that are usually found at home that can be used to make chloroform? Bleach and rubbing alcohol! It is a known scientific fact that mixing bleach and rubbing alcohol together makes chloroform. Feel free to look it up.

You can easily find bleach in the laundry room and find the rubbing alcohol in the infirmary, so there's nothing wrong on that end. And don't you dare say that it's far fetched eitheir because we have decisive evidence that the creator used this exact same method.

"If you heavily starch it with laundry starch[...]"

As far as I'm aware, there was not a single mention of laundry starch anywhere throughout this fangan, meaning that this is based on the idea that we should know that we'd find such item in the appropriate room, being the laundry room.

Meaning that if they used such method to explain the starch on the ball of clothes, then I can do exactly the same thing to explain how Eden could've crafted her own chloroform.

Therefore, I've just given you a perfect explanation to solve the inaccessible turpentine problem involving Eden as the culprit and this is an irrefutable fact.

Class trial pace

Since this is related to your misconception about what you believed I was theorizing till the end (turpentine), I may as well tackle this topic now.

Disregarding for a minute the fact that it was unfair to point out that there was not much time left to explain all of my solution especially since we got confirmation that this friday is the last episode of chapter (I'll get back to it later), I feel like I gotta make some corrections regarding your chain of events.

I don't just say this because of the turpentine misunderstanding, but rather because I wasn't sure if I understood correctly what you were saying regarding the timing of this whole murder scheme. So I may as well do the clarifications.

Ah! Actually... I suppose there was something that I totally forgot to bring it up across all posts to explain the timing as to when Nico would attempt to knock Ace out according to my theory, so my mistake on that end!

Anyways, for reference, I will be giving a rough pretend estimate of which time certain events are happening during the day of the attempted murder just to give ourselves a better picture of what went down according to my theory.

Day of the attempted murder of Ace

8:00 PM : Ace goes to the second floor and spends time in the gym to work out. 8:15 PM : David goes to the second floor and enters the relaxation room. 8:18 PM : Arei goes to the second floor and finds David in the relaxation room and they start talking. 8:19 PM : Ace overhears the conversation and decides to sneak in closer to listen more carefully. 8:25 PM : After the whole conversation is over, Ace returns to the gym. 8:28 PM : David and Arei return to the first floor and go to their separate ways. 9:25 PM : Ace is still in the gym, probably taking breaks everynow and then. 9:26 PM : Nico enters the second floor and proceeds to knock Ace unconscious inside the gym. 9:30 PM : They close the door of the gym and returns to the first floor. They need to gather the necessary materials to set up the murder mechanism. (For the sake of simplicity, we'll pretend that Nico brought all the materials in one go, but it can also work with multiple back and forths) 9:45 PM : Eden goes to the second floor and heads straight to the dress up room. 9:50 PM : Eden picks up the old uniforms and brings it to the relaxation room, each piece properly laid out so that one side is probably covered in starch. 9:55 PM : Eden is about to enter the gym (to grab the tape) but then she hears the sound of the elevator. She decides to hide in the dress-up room. 9:56 PM : Nico comes back to the second floor with the required materials for the murder mechanism and enters the gym. 9:57 PM : Eden is stuck waiting in the dress up room because she really needed that tape, but she cannot retrieve it without raising any suspicions as long as someone is in the gym, especially this late at night. 10:00 PM : Teruko notices that her spare uniforms are not in her dorm and needs to retrieve them in the dress-up room. 10:05 PM : Teruko enters the second floor and runs into Eden. 10:10 PM : Both Eden and Teruko finish their conversation and are about to go back to the first floor, up until they hear a loud noise. So as you can see, this order of events can totally work without any issues alongside everything else that happened according to my theory : Eden discreetly asking Arei to meet up in the playground next morning, Eden setting up the chloroform, Eden setting up the murder mechanism, the murder, hiding the body, the disguise trick and so on and so on.

But of course, that raises the following question : "How the hell were they supposed to explain all of it this late into the chapter?". Well, to be fair, I was just simply under the impression that we'd get an additional episode, or perhaps even another one on top of it, but alas, that's not gonna happen that way.

Anyways, to answer to some of your questions where the cast would require plenty explaining... (even though it doesn't matter in the long run)

why Ace was lying about the timing of the conversation, and why he didn't bring it up until now

To make himself look tough because of the "woah, he went to the gym even though he almost died?! woah!" vibes. That plan didn't work though because literally no one cares about him. And the reason why he didn't bring it up could've simply been because it didn't really seem that important to him anyways. He had no reason to suspect Arei wasn't alive on the next day. After all, what could telling it a different time matter as long as the blame can be pushed to David? As to why he didn't bring it up when he was being suspected? Easy, no one would really believe him, he's a main suspect, after all! (He probably forgot about it too, there's many possibilities)

why David went along with this lie (probably to throw the Trial off the rails, but they still have to discuss that)

You pretty much already explained it. It's just David being David.

how starch can be used on plants and how Eden pulled that off

Teruko asks MonoTV for confirmation. MonoTV gives simple answer. Then Teruko links it back to finding Eden this late at night in the dress-up room and makes the connection with the clothes that would be close by.

how Eden could have donned this disguise using skills she has never been hinted to have (makeup, hair, possibly vocal impressions)

The skills could've been an argument of sort, but Teruko could've reminded everyone that she had plenty time to pull that off. Also, there's no vocal impressions involved, you know that. Eden simply needed to visit the cafeteria during lunch time for a few minutes and stay quiet and then return to her dorm.

David's reasoning for hanging Arei's body and laying out the fish

Aside from David being David, his primary goal was to not get his darkest secret revealed to everyone else by hoping the group would solve the murder before they get to him. It was a flawed plan, but a plan nonetheless.

It was precisely because there was still so much explaining to do that I figured there should've been more than that. It is what it is.

One thing I'll say regarding your pacing topic however, I do find it rather unfair that you decided to compare the amount of time this current trial took with the trials of the dangans and fangans out there.

Like yeah, this trial is on the longer side of things, but it's also not a video game eitheir, so from my perspective, I thought that they wanted to show us as much screen time as possible. Which, don't get me wrong, they definitly did do that, but because it feels like there's still so many unexplained mysteries, I legitimately thought that there was something else around the corner.

I mean... think about it. Teruko literally suspected two people of potential culprit. Who wouldn't think that someone would try to convince her that we should now question Eden since it would be a fair trial. And it would've been fair, but that's not what happened.

Also, the scuffed marks on the ground were never explained in the trial eitheir... just saying...

So forgive me for seeming "demanding" when this whole chapter gave me the big impression that there would be a lot more to show about the murder mystery. But alas, we only got 26 minutes left roughly.

David and the disguise trick

your theory claims that Arei was killed on the night of Day 7 such that she wouldn't be alive at that day's lunch. this would mean that Arei bullying Eden, Arturo threatening Eden, Eden witnessing Ace almost dying, and Eden deciding to kill Arei would all happen within the same 24 hour window. for Eden, that's an insane emotional turnaround.

For your information, Eden decided on wanting to murder after she's been bullied by Arei, not after Ace almost dying. Eden having an insane emotional turnaround is definitly interesting, but I don't really see that as an issue whatsoever.

I mean, if Eden's indeed the culprit, then who knows what's actually behind her mind? Maybe she's trying to keep a positive attitude as much as possible, maybe she's just really manipulative, maybe the times where she is crying is mostly fake, who knows?

Just because it seems like it's a lot of emotional pressure doesn't mean that we shouldn't suspect her. She's one of the only two people who could've taken the tape, after all.

And to be fair, Ace also had an insane emotional turnaround. I mean, he literally confessed that he couldn't sleep, he couldn't stop thinking that he would die, especially since he's been nearly killed.

i think you're still claiming that Ace lied about the day on which he overheard the conversation so that people would think he's brave for going back to the Gym the day after Nico attempted to kill him in there? if so, when his back is up against the wall to the degree that Teruko has Closing Argument-ed his ass, why would he not at least try to tell the truth?

Two reasons. First one being that why the heck would anyone believe in his truth now that he's been cornered as the most likely culprit to their eyes? Second reason is because he didn't want to tell them after all. Ace gave up on trying to defend himself, not like he would know how to properly defend himself, after all. From his perspective, everyone hates him and no one is there to save him.

if the conversation that David and Arei had was a day earlier, don't you think that David would have been more likely to go looking for Arei on Day 7, on which, in your theory, she would already be dead? i find it much more likely that everyone would more or less ignore Arei on Day 7 when they all think she's just a mean bitch than that David would ignore Arei after she just made that huge promise with him.

I'm not sure which promise you're referring to as I don't recall Arei making any promises to David. David did promise to Arei that things will be better (episode 5), but... you know... that's just David being David.

But still, it is true that the real conversation between these two in the relax room ended on a good note. However, it was still a lot to take in for David. After all, he now knows that Arei knows his secret, which is probably something he wanted to avoid happening as much as possible, even if it's Arei. It's very possible that he really needed some time to think about it. Besides, David did say he was tired and not really in the mood to socialize when he met up with Charles, Whit and Teruko.

those are just the first semi-flaws that i thought of, but the general gist of the idea is that you can't call David having seen the body before 8:00 AM on Day 8 "evidence" when him having seen the body at all is just something that you determined to be true to support your theory.

Sure, but you do know that I didn't pull that reasoning out of nothing, right? I came up with such reasoning because there is a vast amount of oddities that could be easily explained if a very early death + disguise trick were at play here. Let me list them for you.

Teruko running into Eden in the dress up room this late at night.

Teruko oversleeping and being unable to know what happened between 8:00 AM and noon on Day 7.

Eden not found in the cafeteria during lunch time.

Arei not saying a single word during the lunch time scene.

Veronika pointing out that Teruko might be face blind.

David being the first person to point out that Arei is missing.

Multiple people claiming that the last time they saw Arei was at lunchtime across a few instances when that question was brought up.

Eden shouting : "Teruko, wait!" before she opens the door leading to the BDA.

Ace waiting until much later into the trial before revealing the conversation he overheard.

Hu wondering why we're keen on believing what Ace is saying (something among of those lines)

David claiming that he doesn't seem recall seeing Ace on the second floor on the evening of Day 7.

David claiming that Ace is a lying piece of shit. (Post transformation)

David admitting that he met with Arei in the evening of Day 7.

David refusing to reveal what they were talking about that evening.

David seeming surprised when Teruko brought up the fishes when trying to figure how David could've carried out the murder.

David claiming that he's the first person to find the body.

Nico and J claiming that he's lying because he couldn't have found the body shortly before Teruko, Eden and Whit triggered the BDA.

Eden starting to get really defensive when people were starting to figure out that it would be possibly for Eden to be the culprit. (Eden being quiet during the whole David found body first speech, Levi pointing out she's a very good candidate for faking the letter, Arturo pointing out that she's been closely involved with Arei)

That's eighteen oddities. Eighteen! You can go ahead and claim that most of these are just David lying all the way and that Ace was mostly telling the truth (disregarding the cut out conversation). You can claim that there's nothing strange or suspicious about Arei missing since David and Ace saw her again in the evening of Day 7 according to the majority of you.

But come on, surely you can see it too! Surely you can see how many of these oddities coincide very well with each other, almost as if this fangan is trying to tell us something. Why would all of that amount to nothing strange at all? That just doesn't make sense to me and it never will, even if I end up having the wrong culprit.

Even if this chapter is almost over, there is absolutely no denying that all of this is just very strange, even if you don't believe that it was an early death + disguise trick.

you say all of this as if you haven't read my theories. i've given a perfect explanation as to why there are too many holes to reasonably believe that anyone could have dressed up as Arei. let's not simply disregard that, ya?

Oh wow! An attempt at mocking me! How touching!

See, the thing is that I didn't really simply disregard it. I did read it a few times, I am very well aware of it. Which is precisely why I brought up the "this is a work of fiction" point.

It is true that you brought up decent points to debunk the disguise trick, but this is from a realism perspective. And I really don't think this is a fair way to judge it not only because it is a work of fiction, but also because we've been given instances where you absolutely cannot take realism at face value.

My best example for this is the turpentine's properties. Like I said before, it works exactly like chloroform. But from a real life perspective, it doesn't work that way, not at all. I'm not going to explain what it actually does, but I can guarantee that you will find out what I'm talking about if you look it up.

Which is precisely why I believe that we shouldn't limit ourselves too much with realism and be more open minded to crazy possibilities as long as there's plenty evidence suggesting it.

anyways, if you're encouraging people to believe that DRDT is a work of fiction, so as long as there's plenty of evidence to suggest something, that means it's possible, then i would think that same logic should extend back you believing that Ace can be the culprit as well. there's an entire episode's worth of evidence that suggests that he committed the crime, including a literal confession. any "holes" in the crime would be explained away using that same "fiction" rationale.

Ah! There it is! I was wondering when someone would bring up the "if this is fiction, then I can explain my issues with fiction too!" argument. I'm surprised no one else did until now. It is a pretty good point and I have actually nothing against it at all.

The fiction rationale is precisely why I decided to stop debating against others' theories. If I see them as possibilities within the realm of fiction, then it's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Nowadays, I mostly just debate when people claim that Eden couldn't have done it for x, y and z reasons when I've already provided answers to these reasons. These people eitheir don't know about my answers or they ignored them previously, willingly or not.

But that aside, even though there are certainly flaws with Ace as the culprit (even if it ends up being the correct answer) that can be reasoned with the fiction rationale (it's also because I'm too lazy to list all the issues with Ace as the culprit), it'd still be incredibly hard to explain Ace as the culprit with most of the oddities that I've mentioned previously.

Like, why go to such lengths to make it seem like that someone else (like Eden) did it when it'd turn out that there was "nothing strange" happening at all and that David was simply lying all the way? Seems pretty hard to believe, if you ask me.

Signs of strangulation

I guess I can see the confusion in this point that I made previously.

I wasn't really trying to imply that Teruko said : "There's a broken neck, red marks on her wrists and nothing else."

What I was trying to imply is that Teruko said something like : "There's a broken neck, red marks on her wrists." and nothing else, as in she didn't say anything else noteworthy about the dead body. My bad, I suppose.

Veronika : "That being said, do you see any signs of strangulation." Arturo : "Her neck is broken." from the way he phrases this, it makes it sound like he can't be sure if there's strangulation or not, because the broken neck supersedes that.

Doesn't really sound like that way to me, but to each their own.

From a murder mystery solving perspective, it just feels incredibly unfair to not mention a single tiny detail about that point regarding the neck. Like... if their intention was indeed that she's been knocked unconcious by strangulation, but not make it obvious, why not just go with Teruko thinking to herself : "I can't find anything else about the broken neck, I wonder if it's hiding something else."?

I'm pretty sure there could've been many ways to handle that type of clue, there's no doubt in my mind.

Even one of the quotes you posted seem to imply that there should be nothing else noteworthy about the neck.

Teruko : "I carefully checked her body. Like Arturo said, her neck was definitly broken, and I didn't find any abnormalities on her."

look, i get it's disappointing to be wrong. but at some point, you have to accept the reality of the situation[...]

Yet again, another misassumption. Sure, I was angry at first, but I couldn't give a damn about being wrong as long as the correct solution properly explained ALL the mysteries and oddities surrounding this chapter.

As it currently stands, the Ace!Culprit solution feels incomplete to me. There's still plenty to talk about. Not the gloves, of course (that's been debunked on twitter), but theres the scuffed marks on the ground which seemed like a pretty important evidence to bring to the trial and solve together.

There's also the oddities I've brought up previously that are very hard to explain with Ace as the culprit.

Something about all of this just feels wrong, I'm sorry, I just can't help it. That's how I see it. I know others are satisfied, but I'm not. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this fangan and this chapter especially, but it feels like there's missing pieces to the puzzle that the majority simply disregard them as nothing too valuable and that just doesn't really sit right with me.

thank you for theorizing with us throughout this hiatus, badjoe, and i hope that whenever the next chapter comes out, we'll be able to discuss it together.

...Sure thing, but...

Honestly... after everything I've been through, after seeing how the community has been behaving on eitheir side of the argument since episode 14-15... whether I'm right or wrong... I...

I think I'm just gonna silently watch DRDT-Dev's future content in private and keep it all to myself in the future. I don't feel like going through something like this ever again. But before I end this post, let me add one final thing.

So, we know for a fact that this friday (october 4th) is the last episode of chapter 2. We also know that the trial is practically over already due to that. It would certainly seem like Ace is the only solution to this, that Ace is indeed the culprit.

There is however... one way to tie it all with the solution that I've proposed regarding the Eden!Culprit theory without having to explain everything that I've theorised with such a short amount of time. There is only one way to make it work in that scenario.

Man, can't believe I'm saying this, but for everyone's sake, I sure hope that I'm wrong about this one.

And what is it that I'm referring to, you may ask?

I'm not telling you. You guys can figure it out, I'm sure.

Thank you for taking the time to read all of this (I hope).

[accirax]

the way people are theorising a million ways it could possibly not be ace.... guys i think its over.... ace confessed already... the glove may still be missing and the scuffs may not be directly explained but teruko said that not everything has to be completely known (maybe it'll be like the note and be relevant in the future idk).... i already accepted that i have to see ace die next week dont feed my delusions drdt fandom /j

yeahhhhhh... i agree. i don't really think that there's any way to get out of Ace being the killer here-- not after that huge confession after the end of last episode, at least. i know that some people have been citing the fact that there wasn't a vote or execution last episode as "evidence" that Ace might not be the culprit, but ending the episode on a closing argument -> immediately starting the next episode on a vote is exactly what happened in Min's case.

i suspect that next episode (which is very likely both the episode of Ace's execution and the last of the chapter) may be a lot longer than Min's final episode due to whatever plan Teruko said that Veronika would see after the next person was murdered, but that it will kick off the post trial.

if someone else were to be the culprit at this point, i think it would basically have to be someone else who was blackmailing/otherwise coercing Ace to do it. otherwise, why the hell would he give up and confess? that would also open up other options of people who could have gotten their hands on the tape, but more importantly, the fitness band, which currently has no other substitute in terms of launching the ball over the rafters. however, we have no idea what could have caused someone else to have such power over Ace, which renders this idea very implausible.

you could also argue that Eden did it, but switching the target to her last minute would involve needing to either reveal someone else who saw the body before Teruko/Eden/Whit did or explain the see no evil concept, AND explain how the hell Eden would have gotten her hands on the fish. at the pace this trial has been running at, both of those things might take up an entire episode. possibly more than that if the answer was "she had an accomplice" (which I guess would probably be Ace, to explain his confession???) because then we would need to determine who that is and why. if there were that many changes to the murder coming up, i don't think that DRDTdev would make a closing argument for the Ace part. not for the sole sake of faking people out into thinking it's Ace, especially when the DRDT team was already working overtime to put the episodes out now.

so, y'know, i probably could have cut this ask off after "yeah i agree" and called it a day, but that's never been my style. but now, this post-- just like Ace's chances at being innocent-- is over.

[thebadjoe]

I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to share a few small thoughts on the matter.

You say all of that as if you've never read my theories. I've given a perfect explanation as to how Eden could've carried out the crime. Let's not simply disregard that, ya?

Besides, there's still plenty unexplained mysteries this chapter and I seriously doubt that the dev would just end it with Ace as the correct blackened.

Since this is a murder case, we were most likely supposed to be able to figure out this murder mystery before the trial. But here's the thing... Teruko claimed that aside from a broken neck and red marks on her wrists, there was nothing else noteworthy about her body.

So tell me, how the heck were we supposed to deduce that Ace did it and solve the murder? Short answer : we can't solve it without some kinda of information that would indicate some form of strangulation. It just doesn't make sense.

[thebadjoe]

I'm not sure if you're taking asks, but I read your theory about Ace not being the culprit, and I noticed that both Ace and David said "I... I killed Arei" in the exact same way and with the colored text.

Now, I personally think this might just be a simple parallel (and that I might be over analysis something minor), but I wanted to hear your thoughts on this. Maybe Ace truly has given up, and decided to go along everyone's idea that he's the culprit? David did this earlier in the trial... maybe Ace is also doing the same?

I don't know what to think.

Sure! I'll take the asks! (I don't get that many anyways since I'm not really the popular type, haha!)

I'll be honest, it was definitly something that I caught on when I rewatched it a second time. I didn't want to bring it up in one of my latest argumentative posts simply because I didn't want people to argue that this is far fetched and stuff like that.

But then again... I suppose I shouldn't really care about what others think of me. So no... you're right! I think that this is a very good parallel and reference, so good catch! I don't think you're overthinking this eitheir especially since I thought about it too.

This could very well be one of the tells to show that Ace is truly lying about his confession, just like how David made a fake confession. I seriously believe that Ace has given up because he doesn't know what to do. He has nothing left to defend himself. Not only that, but there's no one else who wants to help him out. Most of them hates Ace.

So he must've figured : "Welp, screw this, I'm fucked! I may as well bring everyone else down with me!"

Thank you for the ask! And don't forget : the murder case is not over until the chapter is over.

[thebadjoe]

GUYS, HOLD ON JUST A MINUTE!!! (EPISODE 15)

Hey! It's me again, the selfish theorist.

I have a very important announcement to make regarding the murder case of drdt chapter 2.

You guys can go ahead and think I'm coping all you want, I don't care. You can turn away just like bef... actually.. no. You should stay here. In fact, everyone that's been watching chapter 2 episode 15 should pay very close attention to what I'm about to say.

Because... you see... I just made a massive discovery!

I've been rewatching the episode a few times, not the whole thing over and over, of course, but like bits here and there. And then... I stumbled upon something incredibly revealing.

Ladies and gentleman, there is a massive contradiction with someone's statement in that episode compared to what we know about the murder case.

Let me explain. Early in the episode, they were discussing about how Ace knocked Arei unconscious. He couldn't have gotten the turpentine, so he needed to use something else.

So one of them suggested that he strangled her to unconsciousness, which sounds fair, right? Well, about that...

In case you guys have forgotten, other than a broken neck and red marks on her wrists, there was nothing else noteworthy about Arei's corpse. Charles couldn't have known about that because he never investigated the dead body for obvious reasons.

And in case you're doubting me, go ahead and rewatch episode 8, the investigation. It's clearly stated that there's nothing else on Arei. They couldn't have missed it out eitheir because both Teruko and Arturo checked the body.

Oh... this is all coming together... You thought that you defeated me with this shocking and dramatic episode, drdt dev, well think again!!!

I. remain. undaunted!

And now, I can say with pure and absolute confidence...

*slams an imaginary desk and points finger at the general direction*

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ACE IS NOT THE CULPRIT!

[thebadjoe]

BADJOE'S LAST REMAINING MYSTERY FOR THE CASE OF DRDT CH.2

Hi, it's me again.

Yes, I watched episode 15 and I'm not going to share my thoughts on the matter. Because honestly, the only thing I'm gonna talk about is the latest hole in my Eden!Culprit theory and I wanted to solve it as soon as possible.

So yeah, spoilers warning for drdt ch.2, as usual, but most importantly... if the first thing you ever wanna say out of your mouth upon reading this so far is something among the lines of : "bro is coping still!", then respectfully, turn around and take your sorry butt out of here! I don't need you.

I'm only here to talk about solving the newest problem to my theory because of episode 15 under the assumption that Eden is the culprit and nothing else. Got it? Good! Let's go!

Now, for the sake of understanding the problem, let's just all forget about Ace's suspicions for a few minutes and focus on Eden. I recommend reading part 5, part 6 and part 7 if you don't know anything about my theories. I don't think you'll need it to understand the main problem, at least, but it's always good to understand the context behind my solution, ya know?

Moving on, I'm sure most of you still around are wondering what kind of mystery to solve I'm referring to, right? Well, it's very simple. According to part 6, because it was confirmed that Nico took the turpentine first, I made the theory that they dropped the turpentine by the dress up room, close by Hu's clothes to further pin the blame on Hu for their murder attempt. That way, Eden, who originally went there to grab the clothes, managed to stumble on the turpentine by coincidence, which was very good for her.

However, as of episode 15, that idea is completely shut down by Nico's statement.

Nico kept the turpentine with them, which means that it's literally impossible for Eden to have gotten her hands on Rose's custom weapon whatsoever.

That sounds really bad for my theory, right? Yeah... absolutely. And if I'm being honest, despite being really confident in this solution I proposed to solve the murder mystery, this idea I had for the turpentine... I still had a few doubts about it.

For starters, the murder looked like it was extremely planned out. Eden is too weak to subdue Arei, so she needed something to knock her out easily without resorting to force. So she needed to come up with something that she can use for it.

But according to my idea, that made it seem like Eden was still trying to figure out how to knock her out and she just happened to run into the perfect tool for it by mere chance and coincidence.

That... just doesn't sound right, doesn't it? Like if she seriously planned on doing the murder, I don't think running into the turpentine by chance is an acceptable answer, definitly not anymore with this episode, that's for sure.

Ha ha! Sorry about that... I suppose I still am a selfish asshole and still don't second guess my doubts over and over, huh?

But thanks to that episode, I know without a doubt that for Eden to be able to knock Arei unconscious, she needed something else than the turpentine. That much is a fact.

And how can you possibly solve that problem? There's literally nothing else that could be used as a means to knock her out as easily as the turpentine. There's no other way!

...are you sure about that?

The solution

This line will help solve the turpentine problem!

Okay... what does the laundry starch have to do with knocking Arei out?

It has nothing to do with knocking Arei unconscious, but this line in particular gives off massive implications. Let me explain.

Up until this episode, a lot of us were under the impression that the starch on the ball of clothes came from the relaxation room. The reason why is because of the water misting automated system during nighttime. MonoTV mentioned a special formula, which according to some searches, starch is a really great ingredient for such formula.

Because we were given this information and clue by dialogue text, it seemed to make the most logical sense to deduce that the starch only came from the relax room.

But then Teruko just outright states that the culprit could've taken the laundry starch in the laundry room to explain the ball of clothes. This pretty much confirms that we are allowed to come up with a resource/item that may come from a certain location of the killing game as long as it's realistic without having it spelled out to us in dialogue.

Thanks to that giant hint, we now have an easy way to explain how Eden managed to knock her unconscious.

You're bluffing!

Let's see about that! Really, we just gotta think about the turpentine's properties. With the way they described the turpentine this whole chapter, it was heavily implied that this worked very similarly like chloroform, right?

So... what if the thing that Eden used to knock her out was actually chloroform?

Think about it. What are the two main ingredients that are usually found at home that can be used to make chloroform? Bleach and rubbing alcohol! It is a known scientific fact that mixing bleach and rubbing alcohol together makes chloroform. Feel free to look it up.

Fuck.... I should've seen it coming a long time ago. In fact... I'm pretty sure there were a few people on tumblr who made that suggestion a long time ago and I don't recall if I rejected it because there were no visual/text proof of it? If I truly did that, I want to seriously apologize to these people for my wrong assumption. (If you are one of these people, please, let me know)

Where could Eden possibly have gotten her hands on bleach and rubbing alcohol?

Come on! It should be obvious by now! We have a laundry room and an infirmary. Meaning that the bleach came from the laundry room while the rubbing alcohol came from the infirmary. And don't you dare say that it's far-fetched! We have evidence that this can work because of Teruko's line and the implication behind it, you can't refute that!

Therefore, Eden created her own chloroform by mixing the bleach from the laundry room and the rubbing alcohol from the infirmary. You could even say that it was partly the reason why Eden wanted to have a conversation with Arturo in the infirmary, although that's just a moot point. Eden could've gotten the rubbing alcohol alongside the bleach anytime late at night.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Eden knocked Arei out! It is literally the only way for her to be able to subdue her victim, there's no other way around it.

And with this, my solution once again explains all the mys-

Hold on! What about Eden's stalker? According to her, Ace was the most likely person who stalked her! Do you have a way to explain who the stalker was?

It's easy! The so called stalker was none other than Nico!

What? That doesn't make sense! Why would Nico stalk her?!

I said "so called stalker", not stalker. Nico had no reason to stalk her, they were planning on murdering Ace while Eden felt like she was being followed at some point this late at night.

Let me give you a recap on what I believe happened during the evening/night of the attempted murder according to my theory. (Okay, this part, you might need to read the theories if you want to understand better)

Nico found Ace somewhere on the second floor and knocked him unconscious with the turpentine.

Nico dragged Ace's body inside the gym and closed the door.

Nico went back to the first floor to gather the right equipments in the storage room alongside Hu's wires.

Meanwhile, Eden goes to the second floor and heads straight to the dress up room.

Eden gathers Hu's and Teruko's clothes and brings them to the relaxation room before it becomes locked as it was a very important step to her murder scheme.

As she finishes that, she's about to head to the gym because the remaining tool she needed to complete the murder was the grippy tape.

All of a sudden, she hears the sounds of the elevator, she knows that someone is approaching, so she quickly hides inside the dress up room.

At that time, Nico arrives on the second floor with all the required tools for it and heads straight to the gym, where their unconscious victim is.

Eden still waits inside the dress up room up until Teruko runs into her, making her utter the line "I know you've been following me!".

The rest is history.

And that would perfectly explain the stalker/being followed situation. It by no means damage my culprit theory whatsoever!

Hold it right there! One of the people who helped with the production of DRDT (I think?) posted a tweet confirming a very simple reason as to why Arei's glove was gone that morning!

Oh, you mean this?

I'll admit, it does sounds very bad for my theory on paper, but... I think there's a hidden implication behind it.

You... can't be serious!

Here's my interpretation of the message : Arei's glove was not present because she didn't bring it with her in the morning. We wanted to properly show the tape marks on her wrists.

Which means that it's not an issue with the disguise trick if she enters the-

Gen said that there was no ulterior intent with their absence!

Right, because of this, it's practically there to say that there's no other reason why her glove was gone, right? Therefore, I can't explain it with the disguise trick, right? I'm sorry, but I don't buy it for a second.

I seriously think that the hidden implication behind it is that there's no need to come up with a theory as to why the glove is gone. It has nothing to do with the culprit taking it nor messing with it. In fact, the way it's typed, it almost makes it sound like if they were really wanted to, they could've kept the glove on her corpse, but they wanted to show the red marks more than anything else and removing it seemed most helpful. Therefore, there was no other reason behind it.

Which, in other words, for the sake of solving this murder mystery, Arei's missing glove is completly irrelevant to the case.

Doesn't that just destroy your disguise trick though?

Not exactly. The message roughly implies that the glove disappearing is irrelevant. Which means that my theory can still work because there was absolutely no need for Eden to take Arei's glove that she would've been wearing... there were plenty spares of Arei's glove in her dorm!

There's a certain someone that was having a debate with me more than a year ago about how it didn't make sense for Eden to take Arei's current glove to complete her disguise as there should've been plenty spares.

Well, guess what? It looks like you were right, after all! :)

Aside from the make up kit and the wig, everything else that was needed to completle the disguise trick was available in Arei's dorm, including her glove!

Because of this, it easily explains why Eden never returned her gloves in the morning of day 4 (gotta read part 6 and part 7 to understand).

When Eden went back to the 2nd floor in the morning of day 4 because her main bda plan failed, she needed to make a few fixes. But while she was there, why didn't she bring back her glove too? Arei usually wears it, after all! Now that we know that the sole intent of the "missing" glove was to show the red marks on her wrists, then that means that Eden had absolutely no need to bring the glove back to the body, she didn't have it on her the previous morning anyways.

This, once again, makes perfect sense, just like my previous posts.

Ah! While we're at it, I may as well share something that I realised that I should definitly bring up. It's regarding the taped up wrists. According to my theory, Eden killed her in the morning of day 3 and removed her tape on the same day too. So, people were arguing that her red marks shouldn't be lasting this long. It should've been a sign that this was recent.

I figured that it might've been an oversight on the creator's end, however... I have my doubts and I want to avoid making that very same mistake again. I will not second guess my doubts.

Fortunately for me, I have a perfectly reasonable way to explain it. When Eden murdered Arei in the morning of day 3, she didn't remove her taped up wrists, she left those there. Otherwise, people would've been able to tell more accurately when was the time of death.

David then found the corpse in the evening of day 3, dragged her to the playground, hung her by the swing set and placed those fishes on the ground. Her wrists were still taped up.

Because Eden's plan for the perfect alibi failed, she paid a visit to the second floor in the morning of day 4 and found out what happened. Among many fixes that she did, she also removed the tape on the victim's wrists to further fake out the time of death.

And with this, I believe that I actually, finally, solved all the mysteries surrounding this murder case while using Eden as the culprit for this case. Aside from the "it should be very hard and risky to pull of the disguise trick" argument (to which I respond with the "it works because it's fiction" card), there should no longer be any holes in my theory.

For any of you who bothered reading all of this because you're in denial, want to laugh at me for whatever reason, still believe that ace is innocent or want to see if I still got it or if I'm full of shit, let me just tell you all this...

The murder case is not over until the chapter is over.

That's all! Thanks for reading!

[thebadjoe]

BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY FINALE

Hello! It's me again, the pretend-detective-that-will-prove-once-and-for-all-that-my-solution-is-the-closest-to-the-truth.

Oooo boy, we're getting very close to the end with chapter 2, eh? Man... episode 14... that was quite the episode!

I got a lot to talk about, so I'll try not to waste too much time this time around. And of course, this is MAJOR SPOILERS WARNING OF DANGANRONPA DESPAIR TIME CHAPTER 2.

Let's talk!

As you can see in the title, this is pretty much the last time I'll be talking about my theory for good. The reason as to why should be obvious. We're getting really close to the end of the chapter as well as getting close to having the truth revealed by the series itself.

So in other words, this is my very last attempt at solving the murder mystery. So since this is most likely my last time (until there's another murder mystery I want to solve), I better go out with a bang, right? :D

For those who read part 5, it's mostly similar as part 5, but I added a few more things to support my theory. The main difference will be things that I really have to fix.

Anyways... this latest episode revealed a lot of things. A lot of these things are affected by my theory too. I will split those in three categories : The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The Good

Then MonoTV explains that broken and missing things take longer to replace and...

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen. It is now confirmed 100% that the tape was truly missing since the murder attempt. We could even say that because of this on top of how the narrative is going with this episode, there is no other form of grippy tape inside this killing game aside from the one that came from the pull up bar.

Phew! I'm so glad it's finally cleared up, even though it should've been so obvious! (Well, the clue of when the tape was missing was subtle, but you get what I mean, right?)

It was honestly blowing my mind when people were claiming crazy things about the tape... such as "Well, it's a design error by the dev! There's supposed to be a tape there, they just forgot about it!"

So, I'm actually glad and happy that I was absolutely right on that matter, especially since I was the first person who vocally pointed out the missing tape ever since... episode 9, I believe?

It's possible that there were a few people who noticed it before me or around the same time as me, but I don't recall seeing anyone else posting about it. Nonetheless, for those like me who discovered the moment of the missing tape a long time ago? Honestly, kudos to y'all! Amazing job!

Another thing that's also considered good for me is something regarding the attempted murder that I deduced correctly.

"Ace had woken up and was struggling"

I deduced that at some point during the attempted murder, Ace woke up. The reason why I firmly believed that was the case is because of this picture!

If you take a closer look, you can see that there's blood on Ace's fingers. Since those are not finger injuries nor would Nico have a reason to stain Ace's fingers with blood, then the only logical conclusions would be that he got blood on his fingers because he touched his neck wounds, therefore, he woke up at some point during the murder attempt.

Another W for me, let's go! Hurray! Speaking of W... another good thing for my theory happened. In regards to Eden being innocent because the BDA triggered when Teruko, Eden and Whit saw the body at the same time.

YES! FUCKIN YES!!! THANK YOU DAVID! THANK YOU FOR SAYING THOSE WORDS THAT I WANTED TO HEAR SO BAD! I LOVE YOU, BUT ONLY AS LONG DISTANCE FRIENDS!

You guys have no idea how much it heavily supports my theory thanks to what he just said. It was also something that I deduced for a very long time too! There's of course a lot to talk about on this matter, which I will discuss another time.

But for now, let me savor what I consider to be the biggest W of my crime solving theory of this murder case. Things are looking really good for me.

But of course, I have other problems that crossed my way in exchange, so let me show you what I mean.

The Bad

Let's start with the elephant in the room. Nico is sole person responsible for the attempted murder of Ace.

Before I forget, here's my theory post as reference so that you can have a fair idea of what's been debunked.

Anyways, this truth shatters a good chunk of my theory post, especially regarding the attempted murder itself. Because... according to my theory, I thought that the person responsible for the attempted murder was the same culprit as whoever killed Arei. Thinking it was Eden who did the attempted murder on Ace.

But this theory of mine on that matter has sadly been completely denied. Eden did not attempt murder on Ace, that much is a fact that I can't ignore.

But that's not all. It's practically confirmed that the wire found in the gym was indeed Hu's custom weapon.

This shut downs my idea that Eden must've gathered some kind of wire inside a grandfather clock.

I'm well aware that I was kinda pushing it with this idea (even though there were a conversation supporting this idea), but mannnnn.... IMAGINE HOW FRIGGIN SICK IT WOULD'VE BEEN IF THAT WAS ACTUALLY WHAT HAPPENED?! IT WOULD'VE BEEN SUCH A 1000 IQ MOVE ON MY END!!!

Haha! Sorry! I got the hype get the best of me there! I mean, to be fair... I was under the assumption that Eden's must've done the deed and that she must've gathered that wire some other way. You can't fault me for being this creative!

But at the very least, from this narrative, we can deduce that the DRDT Dev may not try to pull a move where we need to imagine something that could've existed somewhere, they probably never intend to make us go for something far-fetched unless there's enough clues to suggest it. I think that will be something very important to remember whenever we get to watch chapter 3 in a future time.

Moving on!

Nico is the person responsible for stealing the turpentine.

This may not seem much at first, but it's actually very bad for my theory. Reason why is that to have my Eden!Culprit theory work, I need a way for Eden to subdue Arei in some shape or form.

The best way to do it would be by knocking her out with the turpentine, but unfortunately for me, Eden initially didn't have access to the turpentine. Nico did. This means that I lost my prime way for Eden to subdue Arei.

Eden obviously can't overpower Arei for obvious reasons... on top of having no signs of struggle on Eden and Arei's body like bruises and such.

So because of it, I need to figure out a way for Eden to be able subdue Arei without having to steal the turpentine as it was Nico who stole it initially. I'll discuss more about it later.

There is also another problem with my theory, not something the episode directly showed, but it's still very noteworthy. Since Eden is not the culprit behind the attempted murder of Ace, my plan of having Arei locked up and hidden in the relaxation room no longer works anymore. Therefore, I currently don't have a way to explain the purpose of the ball of clothes since my whole murder attempt theory is crushed.

So these are the bads, one of them being a lot more problematic than the others. Anyways, I don't even think that's the worst of it all. The worst comes with...

The Ugly

"It's you two, isn't it?"

I'm happy that we finally got Teruko to actually accuse someone... but NOT LIKE THIS!!!

God friggin dammit!

I get it though. I understand why the creator did that. It gives a lot more suspense and a much better reveal at the end of it all, but aaaaggghhh! This is literally the worst case scenario!

Instead of having people try to figure out why this one person is the culprit and how they did it, we now have the community practically split in two to decide which one between Ace or Eden is the culprit of the murder case.

Ugh.... what a pain in the ass! I can't believe you've done this, DRDT dev! Not giving us the final answer until the very end. I will admit though... that was very unexpected and a very cool twist. That makes it much different from what we're used to see in the dangans and fangans! So yeah... well played, dev! But you should know by now... you're not fooling me with this. I know very well what the heck happened behind this murder case! I remain undaunted.

So are you saying that...

Yes... I still believe that Eden is the culprit behind the murder case of Arei. Ace has nothing to do with the murder of Arei and there's absolutely no one else but these two suspects who could've possibly commited murder.

I'm sorry to say this to the people who believe that a third party is responsible for the murder, but that's just impossible. Only these two could've taken the tape and they had absolutely no reason to give it to someone else. Nor did they get it stolen.

Otherwise, why would they not reveal it at all? It wouldn't make sense no matter how you put it. Not only that, but it would be so unsatisfying of a plot twist especially considering that with all the clues we've been given so far, only the people in the gym at a specific time could've taken it, which still comes down to Ace and Eden.

It's also practically confirmed that there's no other source of grippy tape. I understand that you guys are trying to do this because there's a lot of issues with solving the case if eitheir Ace or Eden is the culprit, but instead of going for an unrealistic scenario of who else could've done it, you guys need to figure out how eitheir of these two suspects managed to pull it off despite these problems!

And that's exactly why I'm still dead set on accusing Eden. Because despite all these problems I've encountered since the beginning of it all, I figured out a lot of ways to solve these issues and it's going to be the same thing here. These new problems I have encountered... I will solve them... all of them!

Therefore, being open-minded is crucial in solving this murder case, a complex one at that!

Alright, with these news out of the way, it's finally time for me to solve this murder case! Although, unlike the giant recap that I did on part 5, I'm not going to do that. I will begin by discussing with you all the biggest mystery of this entire murder case.

The Biggest Mystery?!

What are you talking about? Are you referring to the fishes? The broken lights? The ball of clothes? Their murder motive?

Nope! There is something that's been brought up very few times at the very beginning of the trial and never again... even though there's something seriously strange about it.

(I'm sure there's other moments where this was brought up, but I couldn't find them.)

But yeah... there are two suspiciously strange things about this (that people simply brushed it off as nothing wrong happened) and I seriously think we need to look into this.

During lunchtime of the day before the BDA, Arei was seen in the cafeteria, but didn't utter a single word.

Aside from the "conversation between Arei and David in the relaxation room", no one saw Arei from lunchtime up until the BDA.

Let's face it... Arei, who's usually a loudmouth, didn't say a single thing at lunch? That's just incredibly weird! It doesn't make sense! You guys know very well that she would, at the very least, say something mean or troll someone at least slightly.

But even weirder than that is the fact that no one else saw her since lunchtime! There is absolutely no way that Arei would've spent the rest of the day eitheir hiding herself in her dorm or just simply avoiding contact on anyone. That is just so out of character!

Well... maybe Arei was deeply concerned by David's actual secret and was being secluded up until it was the right time to visit David. I mean, David and Ace clearly saw her that evening, so it's fine, right?

Yeah, I don't think so. Let's say she was deeply concerned by David's secret since lunch, why didn't she try to contact David much sooner than that? Doesn't quite make sense now, doesn't it?

Oh! I know! She was spending time with Eden because they're friends now, right?

I'm sorry, but that's not gonna work eitheir. Let's say Eden was the culprit in that scenario... why would Eden lie about not seeing her since lunch?

Well... suspicions would've been thrown at her, that's why.

And why would that be the case? Remember that during that day, Eden spent time with Hu from the evening up until the night time. And since we're under the assumption that the murder occured in the morning of day 4 (the day of the BDA) and that she spent time with Hu as said earlier, her supposed time spent with Arei in the afternoon would be irrelevant to the murder case!

Besides, wouldn't someone at least have noticed that the two of them were spending time together in the afternoon?

And even if we were to presume that Ace is the killer there, it's the exact same thing! Eden would have absolutely no reason to lie about spending time with Arei if that were the case.

Well, maybe Ace intimidated Arei and stayed quiet this whole time because of it!

...really? We all know very well that there's no way Ace would be able to intimidate Arei, of all people!

Then maybe-

I'll stop you there! Let's face it, there's no normal reasons to explain why Arei didn't talk at lunch nor why she was missing for a considerable amount of time. Besides, if it was something irrevelant or completly mundane about what was happening with Arei, what would be the point of doing all of that? Why make it seem like it was a mystery if "nothing special" happened.

I'm sorry, but it just simply doesn't make sense. Especially if the fact that she was missing was brought up multiple times. There is no way that this is unimportant, no matter how you look at it!

This is also one of the reasons why I firmly believe that Ace is not the culprit. It is impossible to give a reasonable answer to this mystery if you go for the Ace!Culprit route.

It's unsolvable! You can't solve it even with Eden as the culprit!

No! That's wrong!

For those who read part 5, I'm sure you know already what the answer to that is. As for everyone else, there is a very interesting and logical way to solve this mystery.

But before I reveal it, let me first bring back a topic from earlier that I wanted to talk about.

David Chiem...

Okay... so what? He's clearly lying about it, as stated by Nico and J!

And why would you assume that he's lying? Is it because he's a lying and manipulative asshole? Is it because you don't believe in anything he says? Is it because you don't understand him? Well... to be fair... he's rather complex and a bit hard to understand his gameplan, however...

Doesn't that statement feel too important to simply disregard it? I'm not just saying this because his quote is in gold and bolded text, but also because of the timing and what he said earlier.

Also... shortly after that, after he asked Teruko, Whit and Eden if they saw the body at the same time and that Teruko answered with "What are you getting at?", here's how he behaves...

Isn't it peculiar? Like... doesn't it feel like there's a sense of emergency behind his defense and reaction? It's almost like... he's been waiting for the right moment to reveal that piece of information. Whether he wants to help or just want to make Teruko despair for the sake of exposing Eden as the culprit, it doesn't matter. He wanted to reveal that information.

His statement that he saw the body first is clearly wrong because he couldn't have seen the body in the morning, he had an alibi at 7:30 AM and it's physically impossible for David to instantly search the playground, find the body, do nothing and go back without being seen by eitheir Teruko, Whit or Eden.

Well, of course, he's lying about seeing the body in the morning. It's literally impossible.

Huh? But why are you insisting that-

David is the first person to find the body, but he discovered it at an earlier time. It doesn't make sense for anyone else to have found the body first. Otherwise, they wouldn't have hidden this piece of information at all, there's no reason to. But if we're talking about David however... it's whole different story. I also have plenty ways to support the idea that he found the body much earlier.

This is after Ace tells the group what he witnessed and after David gets his secret exposed and decides to reveal himself.

Ace claimed that he witnessed David and Arei having a conversation about David's secret during the evening, the day after the attempted murder.

David claims that he's a lying piece of shit and an unreliable witness.

Ace couldn't possibly have lied about the secret he heard from the conversation since that was indeed David's secret. So what else could David be referring to when he claimed that Ace is lying?

Lying about where he heard the conversation wouldn't make sense eitheir, it wouldn't really change much. And we already know for a fact that David visited the relaxation room that day.

Therefore, by process of elimination, the logical deduction would be that Ace lied about when he heard that conversation. Also, doesn't that weirdly coincide with the reveal that he found the body first?

So if you match his body discovery information with the logical possibility that Ace lied about when he heard the conversation with also David's confession that he did indeed meet with Arei that evening without revealing what the conversation was about, we get this amazing solution : David didn't have a conversation with Arei in the evening of the day 3. He had a conversation with her in the evening of day 2 instead, the day of the attempted murder on Ace. David found Arei's corpse in the relaxation room in the evening of day 3.

I know I had many people who used to believe that this can't be true and that David is lying about his claim that Ace's a liar and all that... but quite frankly... can you still make that claim after watching episode 13 AND 14?

In episode 13, we learn from David's memory flashback that there was more to David and Arei's conversation than what Ace let on, which already gives a sign that Ace is hiding something.

And in episode 14, there's of course the reveal that David was the first person to find the body. Let's be real here everyone. I seriously doubt that this is a mere coincidence after all this time.

Anyways, now that I've explained my point regarding David, it is time to connect the dots!

Connecting the dots...

Going back to the biggest mystery...

As I said before, I stated that there's a way to solve this mystery with Eden as the culprit. There's also a very good reason why I brought up the idea that David must've found the body at a much earlier time.

Let's think back on the mysteries regarding Arei.

She did not talk at lunch and she was never seen again since then.

We've already established that it wouldn't make sense for her to stay silent and not be seen again for a long period of time. So what would be the most logical way to explain that discrepancy?

Something wrong happened to Arei that day. If you think back on my idea regarding David, he found Arei's body in the evening of day 3. Then, if you combine that with the fact that Arei was mysteriously missing since lunchtime, we can then deduce that Arei was actually dead for quite some time. It would make sense to deduce that Arei must've been dead during the whole time she was missing.

But Ace witnessed the conversation betwee-

Nope! Remember, I made the deduction that Ace lied about when he witnessed the conversation. He most likely witnessed the conversation happening in the evening of day 2. Therefore, Arei was alive during the evening of day 2.

(FYI, by day 2, I mean the day of the attempted murder while day 3 refers to the day after the attempted murder. Day 4 is the day of the BDA)

Okay, but what does that have to do with Eden being the only culprit that can explain the mystery behind it all?

Don't worry, I'm getting there.

So with the idea that Arei was already at least dead after lunch, it changes a lot of things, but it still doesn't answer the other oddity regarding Arei... Why was she being silent during lunch time?

Before I propose the crazy (and repeated) idea, let me share a fact with you all. During lunch time, Eden was nowhere to be seen in the cafeteria.

Combine everything I've shown you and then we get this beautiful conclusion : Arei was silent during lunch time because that was not Arei. It was Eden disguised as Arei. Arei was already dead during lunch time.

I'm sure you have a lot of questions or things to object to this, but let me first state that it would perfectly explain a lot of things. Not only would it solve perfectly that big mystery I've just shown, but it would also explain why David claimed that he was the first person to find the body. It would also explain this little goofy event in the morning of day 3.

To give a small recap, Teruko wakes up at 8:00 AM, but still feels sleepy. So she's like "5 more minutes."

Then, we get a black screen saying "4 hours later", so she ends up waking up at around noon instead. Funny 5 more minutes turns into oversleeping for hours instead joke, that one! (Let's face it, it's relatable)

Anyways, this little scene right there could be an extremely subtle way to indicate that Arei actually died in the morning of day 3 and they made us unable to witness her death thanks to Teruko oversleeping. It also helps with camouflaging the possibility that Eden was taking the time to set up her disguise trick.

But if you have issues with the disguise trick, I've already explained it many times in part 5 with clues and hints found throughout the series on top of reminding everyone that this is a work of fiction, so as long as there's plenty evidence to suggest it, then it can be possible.

So for that to work, Eden needed to kill Arei in the morning of day 3. So first, she would need to sneakily knock her out with turpentine as it is the only way to-

HAH! YOU IDIOT! IT CAN'T WORK!! IT WAS NICO WHO HAD THE TURPENTINE! HOW COULD EDEN POSSIBLY GET HER HANDS ON IT?! YOUR THEORY STINKS!

Ah, right... the turpentine! Nico stole it from Rose...

That's no problem! Eden got her hands on the turpentine anyways!

WHAT?!?!

Turpentine, where are you?!

You're not possibly suggesting that there was a second turpentine, RIGHT?!?!

Of course not! I'm not that crazy! Come on now! Do you really think I'd make such a claim even though I made the claim that there doesn't exist any other source of grippy tape aside from what we've seen thus far? The same applies with the turpentine.

It is true that the fact that Nico had their hands on the turpentine first is truly troublesome... but then I learned some more facts about the case and realised that there is indeed a way for Eden to get her hands on the turpentine.

That's impossible! Nico had their hands on it!

Nico may have gotten their hands on the turpentine first, but did they actually keep it forever?

Think about it. What else do we know about the attempted murder that we know is true and confirmed by Nico themselves? Nico stole Hu's custom weapon : the wires.

And what was the reason for stealing the wires? To pin the murder on Hu. They were trying to get away with murder, after all.

Now, if we follow that logic, there is also another way to further pin the blame on Hu. Nico could've dropped the turpentine in the dress room, close by Hu's old uniform. It's also possible that they used some of Hu's clothes to knock Ace unconscious with the turpentine.

That way, if the crime actually succeeded, then there would be much more than Hu's wires to pin her as the culprit. But alas, as we all know, Nico's murder attempt failed. So whatever happened to the turpentine in that scenario?

Nico most likely didn't run back to the dress room to grab it back, that's for sure. Which means that in that scenario, from the time Nico knocked Ace unconscious up until Teruko runs into Eden in the dressing room, Eden had an opportunity to grab the turpentine that Nico might've purposefully dropped in that room.

But how could she possibly know that there was turpentine in here?

That's the thing. I don't think she knew that she'd find the turpentine here... well... unless she saw Nico knocking Ace out and has been quietly sneaking since then.

Why would she even bother going there this late at night to somehow stumble on the turpentine if she didn't know that she'd find it here to begin with? That makes no sense.

You're right, it wouldn't make sense. If anything, that was simply an incredible coincidence that she managed to find turpentine, something that she would clearly need to succeed in her murder plan.

I don't get it! If finding the turpentine was mere coincidence, then what was the point of Eden visiting the dress room this late at night?

Initially, before episode 14 was released, I thought for sure that she was there because she orchestrated both crimes on top of locking Arei inside the relaxation room during nighttime. However, both of these ideas are denied.

So by eliminating the impossible, only one truth remains : Eden needed to place Hu's and Teruko's old clothes inside the relaxation room before 10 pm so that they can get covered in sticky starch next morning.

It is a known fact that the "ball of clothes" is covered in starch. We also know that the only source of information we have that could potentially have a source of starch is from the enriched formula of the water misting of that plants for the relaxation room. We also know for a fact that Eden was indeed in the dressing room past 10 pm on day 2.

I highly doubt that she went there late at night only for the sake of being nice and retrieving Teruko's spare uniforms. Therefore, the only way to explain her suspicious presence in that room is if we were to believe that she's the person responsible for the "ball of clothes".

There is no other logical or reasonable way to explain it. This is the only conclusion I could arrive at. Therefore, it has to be the truth!

Alright then... what was Eden trying to do with these starched clothes then? What was her plan?

At the time I'm currently typing this... I do not know.

WHHHHHAAAT?! YOU DON'T KNOW?!?!

That's right... I don't know yet. I have a few ideas, but I don't like them just yet. So by the time I keep working on this post, I'll figure out a proper solution, I promise.

What are you saying?! Are you seriously trying to solve this problem as you are writing your theory post?!

...That's right... I'm still working on it as I'm typing this. But pay no mind to it, the solution will come to me eventually, I'm pretty sure!

...You are out of your mind, you know that?

Yeah... I know. For now, let's just say that having the clothes in that room so that they get starched was very essential in her plan for unknown reasons. At the very least, I found a reasonable way to explain how she get her hands on the turpentine.

For that matter, I know there were people asking me why Eden would even bother grabbing the tape. The answer is fairly simple. It was very convenient for her to get her hands on the tape as it would be necessary in her murder scheme.

In fact, she probably wanted to get her hands on the tape earlier than that, but Nico was already occupying the gym. She must've heard the sounds of Nico setting up something inside the gym (since the walls aren't soundproof) and must've waited inside the dressing room for some time... until the gym was clear. But of course, instead of that, Teruko runs into Eden.

So with that, I believe that I explained every mysteries regarding the attempted murder. Eden was indeed on the second floor on the night of day 2 for a suspiciously specific reason that I've already explained.

So... while I'm trying to figure out the most logical purpose of this ball of clothes, I'd like to give more points that further supports the idea that Eden is indeed the culprit.

Take that, Eden!

Let's start with one of my favorite observations in episode 14.

Ah... that scene was very touching, wasn't it? For a moment there, I almost believed Eden... up until someone in the youtube comments pointed out something really interesting about this scene. Doesn't this remind you of something? ....no? Let me help you out!

Hmm? What does that have to do with anything?

A lot of things, actually. Like... the pictures I've shown you from episode 3, Eden claims that relationships aren't transactional, that she didn't do something good so that Teruko would return the favor. Eden also claims that she wants her to be her friend, but not because Teruko feels obligated to.

Then, in episode 14, Eden asks Teruko to help her, because friends help each other. She also says that Teruko is her friend.

I know most of you will say that Eden was being desperate and in big need of help, maybe there is a tiny bit of truth to it. However, I just find it rather strange because as far as I'm aware, from the beginning of chapter 2 up until the trial, Teruko never showed any signs of wanting to be friends with Eden. So why would she now claim that Teruko's her friend and then ask for help when initially, Eden didn't do something good simply just so that Teruko would do something good in return?

In a subtle way, they're kinda like opposites to each other, the scene between episode 3 and episode 14, I mean.

To further prove my point, I'd also like to point out that during these two scenes, they both played the exact same background music. Coincidence? I think not!

Another point I'd like to talk about is something I've already brought up in the past, but it's still very important to remember it...

This happened in the morning of day 4, before the BDA was triggered. She said this a little bit after Whit made a silly comment about Arei hanging around the playground.

You could brush it off as simply Eden being not ready to seeing the corpse of Arei in here, since all the other rooms were explored on that floor, but of course, I don't believe that one bit.

Whit's comment made Eden panic considerably because for a few seconds there, she really thought that her murder plan was about to be ruined because she thought that Whit was the first person to find the body of Arei.

If Whit was the first person to find the body, then the BDA wouldn't trigger which would be dangerous for Eden. As I stated before, someone else discovered the body first and it was David Chiem.

Also, that reminds me. Timing wise, it was impossible for Eden to bring the fishes from relax room to the playground. It was also impossible for Eden to hang the body by the swing set, she's most likely too weak for that. Meaning that Eden never brought those fishes nor did she hang her by the playground. That was never in her plan to do that. She hid the body behind the curtains of the relaxation room.

Therefore, the only person who could've transported the fishes as well as hanging Arei's corpse is the first person who found the body. David is responsible for those two actions during the evening of day 3. He did it for his own selfish reasons, of course!

But wait... if David hung the body during the evening of day 3, how do you explain the body swinging during the morning of day 4?

Ah, that! It's something I've already brought up in part 6, but I'll explain it a little.

There was a reason why she put so much efforts into disguising the time of death by putting on a disguise and building a solid fake alibi from 7pm to 10pm. Eden's main goal was to have the BDA triggered during the evening of day 3, not the morning of day 4. She was hoping that someone would run into Arei's corpse that evening, which that person would go gather help to trigger the BDA.

If that actually went according to plan, Eden's alibi would've been perfect. !!! Come to think of it... the letter would make a lot more sense with this idea in mind.

Since she had nothing to do with the fishes, the initial plan was to bait the people into thinking that eitheir Arturo or someone who may have overheard the conversation would be the one who tried to lure Arei to the playground.

Except that compared to what we've seen in part 1 of chapter 2, the letter was actually supposed to properly display 7:30 PM rather than just 7:30. It was part of her grand scheme to further solidify her alibi.

(There's a missing corner, as you can see, which is very convenient to where PM could be written)

Wait, hold on... if that was the case, then Arei wouldn't be having a meeting in the playground in the morning, but rather the evening! That doesn't work! You said it yourself that she was murdered in the morning of day 3!

Hah! That's not a problem! Eden didn't need to lure Arei with a letter. She simply needed to call her out vocally. Hell, she didn't even have to be calling her out in the morning of day 3 eitheir.

She could've knocked to Arei's door right after the exchange between Ace, Levi, Teruko and herself after the attempted murder. It could be something as simple as : "Um... Arei? There's something really important I need to tell you, but I don't wanna say it here because the others might hear it since the dorms are so close to each other. Besides, it's getting really late. Can we meet up in the playground early in the morning?"

But of course, since the BDA didn't trigger in the evening of day 3, there were a few change of plans. She needed to go back to the second floor in the morning of day 4 to find out what's going on.

While she's heading there that morning, she figured that she should bring back Arei's monopad. Arei's monopad was essential in pulling off the disguise trick as she needed to gain access to her dorm to wear her spare uniform. Initially, Eden arrived to the second floor possibly a little bit before 8:00 AM, thinking that the corpse would still be hidden inside the relaxation room.

But it turns out that Arei's body was actually hanging by the swingset, in the playground. And there's fishes for some reason? (Just saying this based on the culprit's perspective)

Eden figured that it would be way too risky to mess with the crime scene even more than what she was originally going to do.

And what was she doing here in the morning of day 4?

It's simple! Eden put the Arei's monopad back inside the victim's pockets and she retrieved the letter and tore the bottom right corner of it, removing the PM on that letter. She then tore the rest of the letter and threw it in the trash bin. It's also possible that the reason why she tore the rest of the letter is to disguise the fact that the killer purposefully removed a corner of the letter.

Wouldn't it be more beneficial for Eden to not tear up the pm part since she had an airtight alibi at the time?

Not really, no. Since everyone else would be discovering the corpse at around 8 am in the morning rather than last evening as intended, there's no telling how the group would actually attempt to solve the trial.

It's possible that if the PM part was still there, they might believe that the time might be fake, especially since the body would be found next morning. In fact, if they presume that the murder happened in the morning of day 4, they would suspect anyone who had an alibi last evening because of that part of the letter. That's also practically what happened earlier in episode 12.

Levi : Is it possible that the killer tried to confuse us all on the time of the murder to create a false alibi? In that case, we should be suspicious of the people who do have an alibi in the evening but not in the morning?

Teruko : That's another assumption that would lead us astray. Forget that thought.

Levi : Why?

Teruko : We're only guessing that the killer created a false alibi to their benefit. But it's still entirely possible that it was just coincidence that we mistook the murder as taking place at a different time. The killer might not have cared as much as we do. [...]

Charles : Are you not simply dismissing the idea that the killer intentionally falsified the time of the murder?

Teruko : I'm not dismissing it. But it's far more dangerous to dramatically narrow down our suspect pool based on speculative evidence, especially when we barely understand the murder at this moment in time. In other words, we can't consider Levi's idea as evidence unless we have proof.

And there you have it. If the PM part remained on that letter and they realised that the murder could've happened in the morning of day 4, then that whole letter would've been proof enough that the killer purposefully faked the time of the murder, even if the murder didn't happen in the morning of day 4.

Anyways, if touching Arei's pockets wasn't enough to keep the body swinging, it's also possible that Eden accidently ran into the hanging body on her way in or out because she was still in a little bit of a hurry as she didn't want anyone to catch her in the act.

Hmmm... interesting... how very interesting...

What now?

Well, the idea (that I recently came up with) that the letter always displayed "PM" and that she tore up that part of the letter because her plan didn't fully work as intended... it just gave me another amazing idea.

People have been wondering for quite some time what could be the decisive evidence to pinpoint that someone is truly the blackened... I think I finally figured out what the evidence is.

Well, out with it already! Show us what will prove once and for all that Eden is the culprit!

Gladly! I used to think for a long time that the roll of grippy tape would be the ever so decisive evidence for it, since it was practically a smoking gun type of evidence. But alas... you saw what happened in episode 14, so...

HERE'S THE DECISIVE EVIDENCE : THE TORN UP CORNER OF THE LETTER CONTAINING "PM"

Think about it. We know for a fact that Arei's body was swinging in the morning of day 4 and according to my theory, only Eden could be the logical explanation behind this event happening.

Therefore, Eden most likely visited the second floor in the morning of day 4. Since her original plan was to have the BDA trigger in the evening of day 3 but it failed, she needed to remove the part of the letter that mentioned "PM".

Now, here's the fun part : what could Eden possibly have done with it afterwards? She couldn't really dispose of it in the trash bin, that's where the rest of the letter was. Eden still needed that letter to build up her narrative to make her seem the least suspicious.

She couldn't hide it anywhere else on the second floor. She didn't want to risk having someone stumbling upon a piece of paper that just happens to perfectly match the rest of the letter.

She couldn't really dispose of it anywhere on the first floor eitheir. While it might've been a logical way to get rid of that evidence, it would've been incredibly risky. By the time Eden did her finishing touches on the second floor, it should've been 8:00 AM by then, if not really close to it.

Every participant was supposed to meet up in the movie screening room for the secrets reveal, Eden couldn't risk doing something slightly suspicious when she should be heading straight for the movie screening room. She couldn't have gotten rid of it during and after the investigation eitheir, there were witnesses close by.

So by process of elimination, there is only one remaining place that Eden could've make the corner of the letter disappear. She hid the torn up corner of the letter in one of her little bags on her belt!!! It's still there as we speak!

How's that for a decisive evidence, eh? :D Take that, Eden Tobisa!

Yeah, yeah, whatever! That's cool and all, but at the end of the day, all of it doesn't really matter if you can't manage to explain what was the point of the starchy ball of clothes! If you can't explain it, then your theory just crumbles!

...heh! :D

Y-you can't be serious... there's no way you managed to-

It took me roughly a day of thinking about it, but you BETCHA that I managed to solve the issue with the ball of clothes! I have a very good idea on what Eden might've done with this piece of evidence during the murder of Arei.

The sticky situation of the ball of clothes

As I mentioned before, I used to think that the clothes were used as a way to protect Arei from the water misting if Eden were to lock her up inside the relax room. But of course, that no longer works because of the actual truth behind the murder attempt.

Yet, Eden clearly placed those clothes for a night inside the relaxation room, so surely it must've been really important to do that, right?

The answer to that is YES. It was a very necessary step in the murder scheme. In fact, I'm willing to bet that without it, her plan wouldn't have worked.

It's just some starchy clothes. Why would it be that important?

Well, as we already know, there's no way Eden could pull off the murder mechanism as shown in episode 13 (aka the drop hanging murder idea) as it would require a good amount of strength that she doesn't seem to have.

So, for her be able to murder Arei, she would instead need to use a murder mechanism that doesn't require a lot of strength. And not too long ago, I finally realised that using the starchy clothes would be incredibly helpful in pulling off that kind of murder without much troubles. Let me elaborate.

Do you guys remember my murder mechanism in part 5? If not, that's alright, let me give you all a reminder.

(Yeah, I recently added those pink lines as compared to my previous picture, just bear with me.)

Here's the order of how that murder went according to my theory

(The pink line is the longer rope and the green line is the shorter rope)

While waiting for the body to be available, she threw the longer rope above the rafters by using the roll of tape as anchor.

She then uses one end of the long rope by tying it to the filled water jugs, by the handles.

She tapes up the bars of the carousel and then keeps some remaining tape for later.

She then ties up the other end of the long rope to the carousel

She drags the victim's body out of the relax room and brings it close to the seesaw.

She places the victim's arms through the gap between the pillars of the seesaw and the tapes her wrists together.

She ties one end of the shorter rope to the victim's neck while placing the other end of that rope very close to the carousel.

She then spins the carousel on one side, let's say counterclock wise. By spinning it, the long rope would get pulled which would pull the water jugs upwards.

She keeps spinning up until the water jugs are high enough. Once it's high enough, she keeps the carousel from moving.

She ties the end of the shorter rope (the one that was close to her already) to the bars of the carousel.

She then spins the carousel clockwise, making the water jugs fall at a rapid while the shorter rope is quickly getting pulled.

The shorter rope keeps getting quickly pull up until it can no longer pull... up until it reaches the victim's neck, which would serve as a brute stopper.

SNAP! Her neck breaks and the handles of the water jugs also break from the sudden stop.

By using this method, it explains the purpose of the taped wrists as well as the scuffed marks on the ground, which happened to be in proximity of the victim's legs. Because of the sudden pull of the neck, the rest of the body would follow, the legs would be what would move the most since it's not restrained, thus creating those marks.

By keeping her arms locked up by the seesaw, it ensures that her whole body wouldn't follow along of the rope pull, which would instead result in a rather funny ragdoll moment, which would probably not kill the victim if her arms weren't restrained.

It sounded really good on paper. Like I seriously thought that I finally figured it out, I thought that it made so much sense. Unfortunately... there are some issues with it.

Ha ha! Your method is flawed! I'm looking forward to these issues!

...very well. For starters, this might cause bruises on Arei's body with this murder method, especially around the arms and shoulders. The only thing that was really restrained were her wrists, so anything else would be violently moving.

But the reason why it could bruise the arms and shoulders especially is because her head and the rope are in the way of her arms. Her head could potentially hit her shoulders and arms... or it could be the other way around too. This becomes a discrepancy since we know for a fact that apart from her broken neck, there is nothing else noticeable about her body.

Next up, the distance between the scuffed marks and the seesaw is fairly long... most likely longer than Arei's height as well. I was aware of this issue in the past, but I simply brushed it off as "it works because it's a work of fiction."

But the more I look into it, the more I feel like it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to prove that the marks were caused by the movements of the legs. We also have to keep in mind that the rest of the body would surely move, so why would nothing above her legs leave no scuffed marks? That doesn't quite make sense. If the marks were way closer to the seesaw, it'd be a whole different story, but alas... that's not what happened.

And finally, it is very doubtful that the legs' movements from the killing blow would be causing all these marks we've seen back in episode 8.

As we can see from this picture, there's a lot of traces on the left side, a faint trace in the middle and a few traces on the right side. I don't think there's a valid reason I can come up that would explain why one leg would be leaving more marks than the other. On top of that, it wouldn't explain why there's a faint mark in the middle and gaps between the others.

Unless I were to presume that her legs did a few skips somehow, but I honestly think that's a stretch at this point. But that's not all, from the way the victim's body would be positioned according to my theory, it would actually be physically impossible for her legs to leave marks in such manner.

As you can see in the picture, the dragging of those marks are going up and down rather than left and right. If we follow the logic of how the victim's body would be positioned according to me, then the legs should be making those marks sideways, not what we're currently seeing.

Dang, those are pretty big flaws. Are you sure that your murder method is correct?

I used to think it was back then, but not anymore. At least very least, the idea of the pulley mechanism sounds right while the body setup and positioning is entirely wrong.

But honestly, my idea mainly didn't work because I forgot to factor in a really important element to this equation : the friction! That's right! To make sure my murder method works, I need to find some way to add friction so that the body wouldn't move as much. And how do you make that happen? With the help of starched clothes, of course!

Huh?! What do you mean by that?

This line is very important because we also know for a fact that the turf in the playground uses the same exact materials as the one in the relaxation room. Meaning that a wet turf in the playground would get sticky too.

I can't believe I let this go unnoticed after such a long time, but the stickiness of both the wet turf and the starched clothes played a major role in all of this.

Here's what I believe the culprit did with the starched clothes : Eden placed the starched clothes under Arei's body and above the turf. Basically, the starched clothes in that scenario would serve as a double sided velcro of sorts.

Would the victim's body really stick to the clothes?

Hard to say, but based on my deductions, it has to, right? We don't quite know how sticky it is, but it must've been sticky enough so that it would add friction, at the very least. I don't think it'd make her completly restrained, but rather her movements would be drastically reduced, I'd imagine.

But hold on! Wouldn't only one side of the clothes have starch on it?

Most likely, yes, but the clothes would probably be wet still. So the double sided velcro idea could still work.

I don't think so! MonoTV clearly stated that at 8:00 AM, the turf in the relax room is completly dry so it's safe to walk on it. If the turf dries up by then, so does the clothes!

Hmm... maybe, maybe not. It's true that the ground would be dry, but it's hard to say that the same would happen with the clothes. But if it is truly how it was intended, then that's no problem! Eden just needed to dip one side of the clothes into the pond and they would be wet again.

Okay, but was there enough clothes to cover the whole body?

Hard to say, probably not, if I'm being honest. But I don't think the culprit intended to lay out these clothes so that it would cover the whole body. No, I think Eden mainly wanted to place the starched clothes under the victim's head and the victim's legs.

The head and legs are pretty much what would be moving the most from sudden violent pull of the short rope attached to the neck, so putting the velcro there would be most effective. They might still move somewhat, but definitly not as much as without the adhesive. In fact, I believe that having the velcro effect under Arei's head would make it even easier to ensure that the rope pull delivers a killing blow.

You forgot something : THE ARMS!!! What about the arms?! Wouldn't they just be flailing around everywhere?!

Oh, that? Well, the wrists were clearly taped up and then-

Then what, her arms are restrained under the seesaw again? You already said that it doesn't work!

Heh, of course not! That's not what the culprit did at all! Arei's body was not placed next to the seesaw for the murder. I've already established previously that there's major problems with it. It wouldn't make sense. Therefore, she must've been placed somewhere else.

There is only one specific place that would perfectly explain the scuffed marks on ground. The area where there's scuffed marks? That's exactly where the victim's body was positioned! Arei died on this specific spot!

W-whaaaaat?!?! That makes no sense! How does that even explain how her arms were restrained from moving anywhere?

Don't worry, I'm getting there! :)

So... when we take into consideration the position of the scuffed marks, there's really nothing close by that can be used to restrain her arms, right? And placing her arms above her head like I did in my year old theory wouldn't quite work eitheir. We'd still have the same issues as what I pointed out already.

So from there, we can deduce that the victim's arms must've been positioned somewhere differently than my previous idea in my older theory. And I believe I found the perfect position to place those arms of hers.

The culprit placed Arei's arms behind her back and then taped her wrists. That way, since her back would be facing the turf, it should keep her arms mostly steady. They might move, but her back should be moving along as well. Her wrists were bound because there was still a risk that her arms would free up from her back since their movements wouldn't be as restrained.

That's ridiculous! There's no way that can be right!

...heh! :D Are you sure about that? Let me give you a reminder of how I briefly described the scuffed marks on the ground. There's a lot of traces on the left side, a faint trace in the middle and a few traces on the right side. If we combine everything I've deduced so far, we get this!

Be mindful that even though I just showed you how the victim's body would be positioned, the body part themselves isn't what fully caused those marks, it was mostly caused by the starched clothes' stickiness below the legs and head.

That would certainly help explain those odd shape and patterns on the ground. As for the wrists area, it could eitheir be caused by her hands or the taped up wrists.

But yeah, as shown in this picture, her head would be moving a bit, but not too much since that's where the culprit needed to make sure remained stable. Her wrists wouldn't be moving too much in this scenario since they would be stuck under her back. As for the legs, even though there would be adhesive below, there would still be a fair amount of movement since her legs have more freedom of movement than her head or wrists.

Just to remind everyone, by movement, I'm referring to the drag caused by the rope making a violent pull on Arei's neck.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! This is my final solution to this complex, yet incredibly fun murder case! I don't know if you've noticed, but everything I've said in this post, it would match up perfectly with a heck load of clues and information that we've been provided in this fangan.

So with that said, I only have one more thing to say : The only one who could've commited this crime is you, Eden Tobisa, Ultimate Clockmaker!

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Thank you everyone for reading this till the end! There's probably a few things I unintentionally left out, so I'll try to add up anything missing if that's the case. But otherwise, I think that was most of it. If there's anything you don't understand or feel like there's something that may not work, feel free to ask me anything!

And don't forget : because it's a work of fiction, as long as there's enough provided information, then it can be possible!

[thebadjoe]

Hey guys! Sorry for doing this kinda reblog on my own post this late, but I just made another realisation regarding something in particular with the murder case of chapter 2. (Spoilers ahead, ofc)

Regarding the body swinging in the morning of day 4, I explained it in such a way that Eden eitheir ran into the body accidently for being in a hurry or whatever, or maybe it was a slight body movement (for putting in the monopad in her pocket).

But I actually think there's a more logical reason behind it.

Eden purposefully swung the body.

Huh?! But I thought she wanted people to think that the murder occured at 7:30 pm!

That's what I initially thought... up until I worked on this post. If you recall, I made another important discovery. It's the possibility that Eden purposefully wanted someone to find the body and alert the others at 7:30 pm.

However, because this plan failed, she needed to go back to the second floor next morning to make some adjustments, one of them was ripping part the corner of the note that mentioned pm.

But of course, by doing so, there was also the risk of people thinking that the murder occured shortly before 8:00 am on the day of the secrets reveal since people wouldn't be able to tell if the supposed meeting was at 7:30 am or pm.

However, it's actually not a big deal for Eden if people deduced that the crime occured that morning because a lot of people wouldn't have an alibi at the time.

Therefore, what better way to give the suggestion that the crime occured last minute before the secrets reveal (7:30 am on day 4) by simply having Eden purposefully push the dead body that was hanging by the swingset?

[accirax]

hey! i was wondering about eden’s emotional cg scenes with teruko at the end of ep14; if eden does happen to be the culprit, how would it affect her characterisation? personally, i can’t help but see it in a negative light, one which dampens her impact on arei, teruko and others with her ‘rational optimism’ and general kindness. if eden believed arei wanted to be friends with her, and was willing to reciprocate it, would eden really kill her in cold blood?? if her tears at the end of ep14 were genuine, would it go against her ultimately being the blackened?

tl:dr: how would you justify eden’s last moments at the end of ep14, if she were the culprit? it felt truly genuine to me, but i can’t help but notice her suspicious behaviour and inconsistencies in regards to the ch2 murder :(

(sorry, i’ve never done an ask before!! apologies if this is worded poorly.)

Can Eden Still Be the Culprit (Again)?

Haha, it figures that, even if I didn't choose to cover it in my Episode 14 Dissection, I'd still wind up analyzing what was going on in that scene anyways. Glad you're curious to hear my thoughts! (And don't worry, you phrased everything perfectly!)

The truth is, I didn't initially go over it because I wanted to post my thoughts on the day after the episode aired I, too, am somewhat confused as to how Eden could say all of that and still potentially be the blackened. However, as someone who still believes that Eden could be the blackened, it's probably a good idea if I figure out for myself what the hell this scene means in the context of DRDT at large if votes for Eden are close at hand. And potentially preempt some of the backlash that might arise if they are.

Just know that I, too, think that some of my points might be a bit of a stretch sometimes. We cool? Cool. Let's get analyzing.

SPOILERS for DRDT through Chapter 12 Episode 14, as well as Chapter 2 of THH and Chapter 1 of SDR2, and a WARNING that we will (obviously) be discussing Eden!culprit throughout this post.

For Eden's words and actions to make sense under the preconception that she is the killer, I think there are only three major roads you can take.

NUMBER ONE: EDEN IS A LYING, MANIPULATIVE, SCUMBAGGY PIECE OF SHIT

This option... is not great. Everybody agrees that it is not great. I hesitate to use the word "bad," because I think that people are way too hasty to call things "bad writing" (especially before they've even happened), but... I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty bad.

Basically, what it says on the tin. Just like David, Eden has actually been a liar and a manipulator the whole time. She doesn't actually believe anything she said about optimism or the power of friendship, and was 100% using that attitude the whole time to get everybody's guards down. A character like that would have no problem saying whatever the hell she needed to say in order to get others to pity and therefore not vote for her.

I don't like this one because it fully invalidates everything that we've seen from Eden so far. For someone like David-- or, say, Nagito-- even in the midst of their big heel turn, there are parts of their previous characterization that are still salvageable. Teruko caught David being a hater on literally Day 1, and it was easy to read into his outbursts of anger and insane nosiness to expect that his personality wasn't really as bright as his stars. Similarly, even if Hajime got along with Nagito, he was still sort of a creepy and off-putting guy, and everything about his love of hope stayed as strong as ever. For Eden to suddenly turn to the dark side would truly come out of nowhere. Other than... I don't know, liking to bake?, I don't think there are any aspects of Eden's former characterization that would remain. Not that her character would remain in the story for much longer, but, whatever.

I'm going to discount this option because I have faith in DRDTdev's writing, and I don't think he would suddenly want to abandon the Eden character he's been strongly developing over the past two chapters. Again, I refuse to call anything bad writing until the Chapter at least, if not the story as a whole, is wrapped up, but there's a reason why everyone's first instinct is to hate this idea.

NUMBER TWO: EDEN IS THE BLACKENED BUT DOESN'T KNOW IT

Basically, Eden is able to be so genuine because she either forgot or didn't know that she was the one to kill Arei, but we'll still be able to convict her in the end because all of the evidence points to her. How would this work? Well, sorastar6 came up with a theory that Eden might have killed Arei but blocked it out of her memory. It could also be something where, like, someone else put her up to it and she accidentally let go of the rope or whatever to kill Arei without realizing it. (That idea is loosely based off of a-student-out-of-time's theory of David manipulating Hu to kill J-dressed-as-Arei-- hopefully if they read this, they won't mind me using their theory as a logistical basis off of which to accuse Eden 😅)

However, I don't think either of these cases are particularly likely either. The murder method is so complicated and clearly premeditated that it would be really hard to trick someone into operating it without realizing it at all. And, if Eden killing Arei traumatized her so much that she lost multiple hours of memory then you'd think she'd just... not do it. I respect the hard work and creativity of both of these theorists, but I'll be passing on this option as well.

NUMBER THREE: EDEN FEELS REALLY, REALLY GUILTY ABOUT IT

Okay, so I maybe-sorta-lied: there are probably other ways that you could interpret Eden's emotional reactions to talking about Arei's death other than specifically her being guilty. However, given that guilt was already the justification I reached for the first Eden mini-breakdown in my Episode 13 Dissection, it may not come as a surprise that I'm staying on theme.

Before, I summarized that what Eden was saying to Levi was basically what she wanted to say or already said to herself. She knows that killing Arei was "wrong," so even though she thought it was the right thing to do, she wants to always remember Arei and acknowledge her faults as a form of penance. Also importantly, one facet of why Eden might be breaking down now is because (under the theory) she only learned that Arei truly wanted to change and be her friend in the Trial when David told her. It makes her feel extra guilty now knowing that she killed someone who wasn't just her bully, but someone who wanted to be better than that.

We're going to keep that rationale in mind as we now look through everything that Eden has to say at the end of Episode 14. The only thing of note that I will have to concede is that, even if Eden isn't a liar or a manipulator overall, any time she says anything along the lines of "I'm innocent!" or "I didn't kill Arei!", it has to be a boldface lie. Sorry, I don't like it either, but there's no way around it (outside of something like option 2). I otherwise want to claim that Eden is straight-up lying as little as possible, but this was kind of a gimme. But hey, that's why I have my doubts that any of this will turn out to be true as well.

Since this is its own post and not part of the Episode 14 Dissection, it means that I get 30 images to use on just this subject, hooray!

This is certainly a softball to start this defense off on. Eden can just be confused/upset that her efforts to evade being the blackened aren't working all of a sudden.

Similarly, this is just her rephrasing/challenging everyone's thoughts. Perhaps I should have cut out some of these beginning statements, but I'm always one for being thorough.

Don't worry, this is the last of these three. I will note, though, something that I actually only noticed on this watch-through. I was aware that Teruko and David both had shots that only showed their mouths and torsos with their eyes obscured in this episode, but apparently, Eden has one too. Of course, this could go either way: these shots could be reserved for the "major players" of this chapter-- the protagonist, killer, and someone who's clearly getting extra focus-- or, it could be more of a protag/antag/support thing. Or maybe DRDTdev just decided to start using this for highly emotional scenes.

Well, given that I'm trying to throw Eden under the bus in this post, it's clearly the first of the three. Don't listen to any clowns (<- me) who might tell you otherwise. (/j)

"Hold myself together" isn't as innocent-coded as it might seem on the surface. It seems pretty clear to me that Eden feels genuine sadness over Arei's passing no matter her role in Arei's death. However, being the blackened and having to keep a secret throughout the Trial might make coping with those emotions even more difficult. Fully breaking down in grief would be bad enough as an innocent, but as a blackened, it would basically be game over. Arei's death is the cause of her discomposure, which can still be equally true if she was the one to kill Arei.

This is quite possibly the line that I have the hardest time justifying in the context of Eden being guilty. I could obviously just say that she's lying here, but as I said at the start, I want to call what Eden says lies as minimally as possible. So, what are our other options?

Nico said earlier this episode that attempting to kill Ace was "the worst choice that [they'd] made in [their] life," so it could be fitting for both of our killers this chapter to feel the same way. After seeing what it was like to kill Arei and have everyone suspect you, Eden decides that whatever her motive for killing was wasn't worth it in the end. However, now that she's in this situation, she still has to stick with her initial plan (unless she wants to just die on the spot) because she can't go back, no matter how hard she tries--

For DRDT to enter its third chapter with the cast at their most hostile and downtrodden but also only having one killer who did so accidentally and two killers who deeply regretted it would be very interesting indeed.

Alternatively (or perhaps in combination), this could also be Eden being somewhat of a pessimist. If you're a blackened, you're generally hoping/expecting that everyone other than you will die. However, only one person's death is actually guaranteed-- your victim's. (Or two people's deaths if you kill two people, but that's not important to this case.) In theory, Eden choosing to kill Arei in particular doesn't really matter, because if she won the Class Trial, Arei would die anyways. However, now that Teruko has accused Eden, reality might be setting in for Eden as her dreams of being the one to escape flit away. In that case, she may be regretting her choice to victimize Arei-- if she's going to die for her attempt, she might at least wish that Arei got to live over some others.

I think the first option is probably the best from a thematic perspective, although both options certainly have their counterarguments.

Eden's (stellar) read on the "Why?" line definitely implies that she's frustrated, which could go either way. It's equally possible that she could be mad that people are suspecting her when she's innocent, or that she's upset that everyone is suddenly hounding her when she thought she was putting up a good front.

As for her leading question, if Eden is the killer, we've already seen her subtly mine for information at least once before. The conclusion of her last breakdown was her trying to ask David what really happened between him and Arei in the Relaxation Room. Now, asking this question might be intended to either shore up arguments she hopes to defend herself against, or force other people to "concede" that there are no reasons why Eden would have killed Arei. A bit of a dangerous gambit, but it's arguably more dangerous to have to come up with justifications about unknown arguments on the spot, especially when emotionally struggling.

Not gonna lie, though, the fact that she immediately followed up "why do you think I killed her" with "I cared about her!" also slants towards an innocent read. If you really were the culprit, I feel like you would start trying to argue against some of the solid evidence that people just presented (such as Levi bringing up the information required to write that note) with evidence of your own. Instead, Eden shoots straight for the emotional defense, even though no one was arguing that Eden never cared about Arei leading into this speech. (Arturo brings up her connection to Arei, but he never directly says it was because she didn't care.) It could speak to the fact that she was fully unprepared to be accused (because she didn't do it and had no idea about the tape).

However, Eden has always been a very emotional person, and it's possible that a big part of her intended defense was to say that she cared about Arei. Another interpretation is that Eden brought this up now because it's something she's insecure about. It sort of goes back to my idea that Eden is still desperately trying to cling to the idea that she's a "good person" despite her choice to kill. If that's true, the way that Eden is perceived as the killer might be very important to her. Like, obviously surviving the Trial itself is the most important thing, but Eden doesn't want anyone to misinterpret her as a monster on her path to the finish line.

I already explained why this line was sus as hell to me:

This distinction-- between "Arei was my friend" and "Arei could have been my friend"-- could be very telling down the line. Eden pauses mid-tear-filled rant to distinguish that Arei is not her friend, not because she's dead, but because they hadn't reached that point yet. Arei is not Eden's friend in death. What can that possibly mean other than that Eden killed Arei?

This is one of the lines that makes me most think that she is the blackened in this monologue. Because, seriously, why would she not have just said "Arei was my friend!" if there wasn't any doubt in her mind?

Alright, I think that about now is a good time for me to drop the thesis I've developed whilst reflecting on Eden's behavior and how to put all of the pieces together. Should I have said it earlier? Maybe, but where's the drama in that?

Basically, for starters, I don't think that Eden fully believed that Arei genuinely wanted to be her friend. As I've said before, Arei saving Eden from Arturo happened mere hours after Arei denounced her entire personality. It's super believable that Eden might think that Arei was just using her usual manipulative tricks to make Eden look like the fool again. However, despite all that, I don't think that Eden hated Arei, either. They were just in the exact same state that they were in before-- Arei as the bully and Eden as her target-- which Eden had never hated Arei for before. Eden wanted to help her and wanted to be friends with her, as she says in this screenshot, but that doesn't mean it could actually happen. Tragically, Eden determined that Arei wouldn't be able to change while being trapped in this killing game.

After that, Eden decides that she needs to kill to escape the school. The exact motives of which have puzzled Eden!culprit theorists for months, with current speculations still being that it may either have to do with her secret, the girl she kissed, or her family, who she told Levi she couldn't imagine living without. We've got time to cook on that in the post-Trial, if Eden is the killer. However, I also don't think that we should discount how scary the killing game has become.

Let's run through the events of Day 6 again, because it's a truly terrible day for Eden:

Eden wakes up in the morning and goes to rouse Teruko, who she has to blackmail in order to even get her to consider attending breakfast with the others. She tries to convince Teruko about the value of optimism, but Teruko only tells her that her worldview makes Teruko even less inclined to be her friend. Speaking of lack of friendship, Eden's chances at a peaceful breakfast-- which she had been hoping to use to bring everyone together-- are dashed when there are three separate shouting matches going on in the Dining Hall. Eden tries to assign her associates to break up the fights, but it goes terribly-- all she does is get Arturo and J mad at her, while Veronika only makes the situation between Ace and Nico worse.

After David's plan causes Charles (who has been making some of the most progress so far) to recall his traumatic past, Eden tries to invite Teruko and Arei to a fun event to brighten everyone's moods and right her wrongs of the past. Except that, when she does, Arei rejects her offer outright and brings up some of her biggest insecurities, causing Eden to run out of the room crying. Neither Teruko, who Eden has been trying super hard to befriend, nor David, who has (theoretically) been acting in the name of harmony and cooperation, run after her to offer her any comfort.

Despite David's lack of support, though, she still decides to support him by following his idea to let Arturo know about his secret. Trying to do so nearly costs her her life. She's just one unarmed 5'2" clockmaker against a clearly agitated 6'3" surgeon with a scalpel, and she's only saved by the bully who just said that Eden "utterly disgust[ed] her in every way." Arei now claims that she'd do anything for Eden, but is that just another setup through which Arei can make fun of her trusting nature in the future...? Eden wants to hope, but it's hard to do so when the person who just saved you was the one who told you you shouldn't.

Anyways, even despite a long afternoon of Nico being outed and a long night of being stalked by probably-Arturo, Eden is still trying to help Teruko pick up her clothes when she runs into Teruko in the Dress-Up Room. But since nothing can go right for Eden today, it's then when she and Teruko hear a loud noise, and they stumble upon Ace's body in the Gym-- the second murder attempt Eden has seen today. Nico is standing over Ace, really making it look like they killed him. Gosh, if only someone had been able to talk to the two of them this morning in a productive way, instead of making things worse. Thankfully, Ace is still alive, but less thankfully, he's now a convert to killing and wants to eliminate Nico. The day ends with Ace saying that this place is worse than death and Levi-- who Eden had just been praising for being kind and reliable-- giving up on his former friend.

Are you starting to see why Eden started planning murder and picked up the tape when she did?

Looking at it through that perspective, I don't even know if Eden needs a reason outside of the killing game to want to be the blackened and escape. If we can accept that Ace's motive would be to escape the situation in which he almost died, it feels like we should be able to acknowledge that Eden could be motivated by the exact same thing.

Obviously, it's harder to believe that Eden would kill than Ace, because Eden generally cares about everybody and Ace (other than Levi, once) didn't really like anyone. However, I, at least, don't think it would be totally narratively unsatisfying for Eden's reason for killing to be that her bandwidth for caring for others was overloaded, and with no one supporting her (and at least one party actively attacking her), her fears of the killing game got the better of her, if only just for a moment.

Getting back on track, Eden's terrible awful no good very bad day has inspired her to kill, but who does she take down as her victim? Well, as we've established before, if Eden wins, everyone will die anyways, so it's not like she's really "sparing anyone's life" by not killing them here. She's already made her peace with everyone as she knows them dying. And after that, despite the care she still has for Arei, she chooses Arei as her victim because of what Arei told her after Arturo attacked Eden. But, I'll reiterate, Eden doesn't hate Arei. Instead, Eden chooses Arei because she thinks Arei is the victim that will make her look the least suspicious.

Just because Eden doesn't believe that Arei really wanted to be her friend doesn't mean that other people won't. In fact, I think that Arturo would definitely believe that the two of them had turned over a new leaf. In this situation, Eden is aware that her best path to innocence is to play up her kindhearted personality in order to lead people to believe that she would never hurt a fly. Therefore, she decides to leave the note behind so that people will hear about the story of Arturo attacking her. In my Episode 14 dissection, I was spinning my wheels trying to figure out why Eden would possibly want anyone to find that note. However, this option would create a reason why Eden would want others to read the note. The mere fact that Arei decided to come to the Playground would serve as evidence that Arei really did care about Eden, and therefore make Eden seem more innocent. Maybe she overstepped a bit on revealing so much about Arturo's secret in the note, but given that everyone seems to believe that the killer overhearing the conversation was possible anyways, it's not a huge deal.

However, there is a contradiction here that you may have picked up on. Why would Eden count on using a note to draw Arei out to the Playground if she didn't believe that Arei would actually listen to her? I raise you a new idea: who says that note was actually real?

For those who believe that Eden isn't the killer, the thought that someone falsified writing that note isn't anything revolutionary. However, if other culprits could plant that note as a fake, who's to say that Eden didn't do the same?

I believe it was demodraws606 who recently raised the question of why Eden would even bother writing a note to Arei when she could have just gone up and knocked on her door. (Apologies, I tried to find the post in which they said that but I couldn't track it down 😔) That excellent question set off the domino chain that made me think... well, maybe she did.

Eden works through the night (14 hour shifts, baby) setting up the pieces of her murder contraption in the Playground and writing a fake note that she "sent" to Arei. However, instead of sending that note to Arei, she goes to Arei's room herself and knocks on her door at, like, 7 AM or something. Eden doesn't necessarily believe that Arei will answer, but, if she doesn't-- that's not the worst thing in the world, right? It's not like she's particularly pressed about the secrets deadline, and she left herself with enough time to put away her murder scheme if necessary. Unfortunate, but assuming that she lives another day, she can try again some other time. However, instead, Arei opens the door (because, unbeknownst to Arei, she really did want to be friends with Eden), sealing her fate.

This also opens the opportunity for the scene of knocking Arei out to be in the doorway of Arei's room, instead of in the Playground. I always wondered how the scuffs on the floor would be so contained to one area near the entrance to the Playground. Like, the whole rope setup must have been at least somewhat set up by the time Arei entered the Playground, right? If Arei saw that, why wouldn't she start running away? And, in the case of Eden as the culprit specifically, would she really be able to subdue Arei in such a small area? If Arei was knocked out in her room, we wouldn't be able to see any evidence of that happening, because no one searched her room. That also leaves open the opportunity for Eden to have tossed any items she used to knock out Arei into Arei's room, where no one would be able to find them. And, hell, let's rope the glove into this, too! If Arei was never even intending to get dressed up to the level of leaving her room, maybe she hadn't yet put on her glove when Eden taped her wrists! It's weak reasoning, but it's a reasoning, at least!

(Also, if you're wondering how the scuffs on the ground could have gotten there if Arei wasn't subdued in the Playground, there's a theory that was recently posted that the ground was actually scuffed up after the jugs broke and the turf became wet, and it was the killer walking through a puddle that messed up the ground. Once again I cannot find this post. Why am I suffering so bad on this.)

After that, yada yada, ropes and carousel, Arei dies, investigation, Class Trial.

Eden is trying her best to just lay low and survive the Class Trial, but a wrench is thrown her way when David reveals to her that, after she left the Playground, Arei confessed to David and Teruko that she actually wanted to change. This goes against everything that Eden thought. Part of her reason for murder was that no one was willing to work with her, and now she learns that she just killed the one person who actually was? That's terrible! It can't be! David, please tell me the rest of that story!!!

At this point, you might wonder why, if Eden feels horribly guilty about killing Arei and unsure of her former conviction that the best thing she could do would be to get out of here alive, she wouldn't just confess to the crime already. Beyond her desire to survive herself, I think it could be because she wants Arei's death to have meaning.

If Eden gives up, it means that she killed Arei for no reason. She made the huge, irreversible decision to kill Arei, and then decided to throw it away when things got tough. But she won't let herself brush away the deaths she caused just because it was inconvenient for her.

She won't let her emotions take precedence over the harm that she caused.

She has to acknowledge that Arei's death was her fault.

Which means that, just like Min did, she has to fight like a proper blackened would if she wants to prove that she cared about enough Arei to believe that her life had meaning.

And that's why Eden is so insistent that she didn't kill Arei because she hated her. She isn't someone who believed that Arei was fully incapable of change, and she still cared about Arei a lot. And so, she'll honor Arei's legacy by taking to heart what Arei said to her.

Those are my general thoughts on how to justify Eden's breakdown at the end of the episode-- although, obviously, we still have more to go. That awkward middle placement strikes again, huh? But, I do think it has its benefits, which is why I'm keeping it here. We get to balance some buildup before the point with the lens of seeing some of the dialogue after the point. Let's wrap up the rest of this a bit quicker, shall we?

Since we're a while from the start, let me just issue a refresher that this post is assuming that every time Eden says "I didn't kill Arei" she is just lying. Yes, it assumes that Eden is willing to lie in a Class Trial, but I think that any 18 year old would be capable of pulling that off if their life was at stake, no matter how sweet they may seem.

This could also be another instance of Eden assessing the situation via asking a question.

This line would be tying back to the assumption that Eden's main plan for getting away with the crime (other than possibly framing Nico with the murder method) was to pull the emotional defense that others wouldn't believe that she killed. The tears could still absolutely be borne of genuine fear, but the choice to reach for help from Teruko could be her planned fallback if things got dicey. If she is the killer, then the evidence should stack against her, meaning that "belief" is her best way out of receiving votes. This is her hail mary.

"This trial has been cruel to me" is 100% right if she is the blackened who got jumpscared by knowing that Arei cared. After she initially acted against her instincts to kill for the sake of her life, she then has to face consequences that she didn't even think were possible, all while keeping a straight face. For whoever the killer is, can you imagine how stressful it must have been to have David extend the Trial for so much longer with his nonsense? (Mondo with Byakuya vibes in Ch2, honestly. The THH parallels never rest.)

Again, we're saying "I didn't kill her" is a lie, while "I just wanted to help her" was the truth. Something more along the lines of "I just wanted to help Arei, but she seemingly rejected my every effort, so I killed her but without the knowledge that my help was actually getting through to her" is what we're aiming for here.

I decided to combine these two together because I didn't have much to say about the first one on its own. One interesting thing to note here is what thebadjoe pointed out: Eden says that friends are supposed to help each other out, yet in Chapter 2 Episode 3, she was the one telling Teruko that relationships aren't transactional. What changed between now and then?

Well, this is much more in keeping with Arei's "that's what friends do" philosophy, which could either be a further indication that she was taking Arei's words to heart (for better or for worse) or that she's just desperate enough that she needs to count on Teruko in this moment if she wants to survive (again, whether genuinely innocent or guilty). It could mean nothing, but it could also be an indication of Eden's more manipulative side, if she's making an emotional argument that goes against her own philosophy just because she knows it'll strike a chord with Teruko.

(Of course, you can basically counterbalance this "inconsistency" with the one that one post (yet ANOTHER post I cannot fucking re-find) pointed out with Ace saying "I would never commit a murder of my own" with him previously saying that he was "about to commit a murder of his own" on Nico. They can't both be the killer unless something really weird is going on, so at least one of these "inconsistencies" has to mean nothing.)

Also, while I wouldn't go so far as to say that Eden is faking her tears over Arei (because that's clearly not true) there's also room for Eden to be crying here because she feels bad about manipulating Teruko, but as established before, still feels like she has to go through with it. Her acting doesn't have to be impeccable if the crying is covering up the crying she would already be doing.

'Cause sometimes, the breaks you take in between sniffles can conceal the breaks you would be taking as you struggle to lie to Teruko's face! Hypothetically.

"Please trust me, Teruko. You're my only hope."

In this hypothetical, I think we have to assume that Eden is just genuinely surprised that the super-smart Teruko wasn't able to see through her act. It might come as a shock that the same Teruko who said that Eden's kindness made her want to stay farther away would now see Eden's pleading as a sign to protect her. (Another judgment of character that Eden made incorrectly.)

And now, for the other hardest part to justify...

With the combination of the soft music (the same music that plays during the "kindness isn't weakness" scene, mind you) and the bokeh lights and the line deliveries and everything, this does feel like pretty convincing evidence that Eden is not the killer. But, if we're talking about the world in which she is, I do think that she still feels genuinely relieved here. The hug isn't directly manipulative, it's just thanking Teruko for giving her another shot at life.

Furthermore, it's a confirmation that, in Teruko's eyes, Eden still isn't a "bad person"-- at least not yet. Eden needs to continue believing that she's a good person with good ideas if she wants to have any hopes of fighting back against the cold and cruel world she was telling Teruko about. If she's become just as cold and cruel as the rest of them, then there's no way for her to be optimistic or kind, and therefore, no way to escape the grief that's haunting her. Eden has yet to learn that a good person is not gold, so that's the only world that she sees.

And, that's Eden's last line of the episode! Before we wrap up, though, I do want to talk about how Eden being the culprit would affect the story as a whole, as you touched upon that in your ask. Mainly, I want to talk about the big problem that many people have with Eden being the killer: what would happen to Teruko if it's proven that one of her closest allies is the killer again? We don't want a repeat of Chapter 1, but how do you avoid that after that hug?

As is my M.O., I'm here to argue that there are two ways you can make the situation different: by making it better or making it worse. In terms of making it better, I think that thefandomenchantress argued for it well in this post. If Eden's gotten her most desperate moment out of the way now, she might have room to be a bit more accepting in her final moments, and be able to reassure Teruko that just because she killed doesn't mean nobody is worthy of trust. In fact, Eden is so sad now because she didn't have enough trust in Arei, and look where that landed her! We could end Eden off on at least being happy that she and Arei were both able to change in the ways that the other wanted for them (Arei becoming more helpful and Eden becoming more responsible) and her being happy that at least the other students get to live.

On the other hand, you could make it worse. Venus-is-thinking and I have discussed together before how different Min and Eden's situations are, because while Min only really tried getting close to Teruko after her crime was already committed, Eden has been trying to become Teruko's friend for ages, before the idea to murder even crossed her mind. This death would be even more personal, as it can more so be argued that Teruko's lack of trust is part of what drove Eden to kill, whereas with Min, it was just that Teruko initially trusting Min opened her more up to hurt. You might argue that this would just cause Teruko to pull away even more harshly (which is still bad), but that's not necessarily the case. Maybe her breakdown this time drives her to get in people's faces so that they'll die even faster and she can rip the bandage off. Along those lines, maybe she'd even try to get closer to those she least trusts right now (like David) because clearly, her curse will cause those who she spends the most time with to die. The circumstances around Teruko have changed, which means that we can't expect the same sort of pressure to necessarily yield the same result.

As for your concerns about Eden's impact on Arei and genuine-seeming emotions, hopefully my main dissertation answers how I'd explain that ^_^

If you're wondering how I feel... well, despite everything that I wrote, I'm honestly kinda thinking that it's Ace at this point. Don't get me wrong, I think that the Eden read is still out there, but given how seemingly little time we have until the culprit is revealed, there may not be enough time to unpack anything close to this before the gavel comes down. Everyone keeps posting their polls about who people think is the killer, and I keep flip-flopping on whether I choose Eden or Ace as my answer. I wouldn't be surprised if either of them did it, except that--

Well, let's be honest. At this point, I'm going to be flabbergasted by whoever the culprit is, just because it's them.

Thank you for the ask, and see you on Friday!

[thebadjoe]

I adore the amount of thought you’ve put into DRDT, and all the posts you’ve written about it, so I’m very curious. What’s your favorite character? What do you like most about the series? Do you have a favorite scene? Feel free to answer all or none of them, I would just like to hear (or, read) your thoughts!

Since I asked you a few questions previously, I may as well return the favor. Hmm...

What's my favorite character? It's hard to say. It may not seem like it, but I actually love each DRDT character nearly equally, especially as the episodes keep on going. If I had to make a choice though, it would be a three way tie between Teruko, David and Charles. Eh?! I can only choose one? Sorry, no can do!

What do I like the most about the series?

My selfish and my sleuth side of me would answer this question like so : The murder case of chapter 2 is what I like the most about the series. So many mysteries, so many possibilities, possibilities narrowing down as the show goes on, so many probable connections, the details... What's not to love about a great murder case?

However, on a more standard side of me, I'd answer this question like so : I actually really like the humor in it. There's so many funny moments throughout this whole show, it's actually wild. Like it's so funny that you sometimes forget that this is a killing game. It may come as a shock, but I actually enjoy the humor more than the drama. Don't get me wrong, the drama in it is actually nuts, but I have a thing for good humor.

Do I have a favorite scene?

I think I do, actually!

It's the end of chapter 2 episode 2, I just enjoyed that scene so much!

Thanks for the ask!

[thebadjoe]

BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY FINALE

Hello! It's me again, the pretend-detective-that-will-prove-once-and-for-all-that-my-solution-is-the-closest-to-the-truth.

Oooo boy, we're getting very close to the end with chapter 2, eh? Man... episode 14... that was quite the episode!

I got a lot to talk about, so I'll try not to waste too much time this time around. And of course, this is MAJOR SPOILERS WARNING OF DANGANRONPA DESPAIR TIME CHAPTER 2.

Let's talk!

As you can see in the title, this is pretty much the last time I'll be talking about my theory for good. The reason as to why should be obvious. We're getting really close to the end of the chapter as well as getting close to having the truth revealed by the series itself.

So in other words, this is my very last attempt at solving the murder mystery. So since this is most likely my last time (until there's another murder mystery I want to solve), I better go out with a bang, right? :D

For those who read part 5, it's mostly similar as part 5, but I added a few more things to support my theory. The main difference will be things that I really have to fix.

Anyways... this latest episode revealed a lot of things. A lot of these things are affected by my theory too. I will split those in three categories : The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The Good

Then MonoTV explains that broken and missing things take longer to replace and...

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen. It is now confirmed 100% that the tape was truly missing since the murder attempt. We could even say that because of this on top of how the narrative is going with this episode, there is no other form of grippy tape inside this killing game aside from the one that came from the pull up bar.

Phew! I'm so glad it's finally cleared up, even though it should've been so obvious! (Well, the clue of when the tape was missing was subtle, but you get what I mean, right?)

It was honestly blowing my mind when people were claiming crazy things about the tape... such as "Well, it's a design error by the dev! There's supposed to be a tape there, they just forgot about it!"

So, I'm actually glad and happy that I was absolutely right on that matter, especially since I was the first person who vocally pointed out the missing tape ever since... episode 9, I believe?

It's possible that there were a few people who noticed it before me or around the same time as me, but I don't recall seeing anyone else posting about it. Nonetheless, for those like me who discovered the moment of the missing tape a long time ago? Honestly, kudos to y'all! Amazing job!

Another thing that's also considered good for me is something regarding the attempted murder that I deduced correctly.

"Ace had woken up and was struggling"

I deduced that at some point during the attempted murder, Ace woke up. The reason why I firmly believed that was the case is because of this picture!

If you take a closer look, you can see that there's blood on Ace's fingers. Since those are not finger injuries nor would Nico have a reason to stain Ace's fingers with blood, then the only logical conclusions would be that he got blood on his fingers because he touched his neck wounds, therefore, he woke up at some point during the murder attempt.

Another W for me, let's go! Hurray! Speaking of W... another good thing for my theory happened. In regards to Eden being innocent because the BDA triggered when Teruko, Eden and Whit saw the body at the same time.

YES! FUCKIN YES!!! THANK YOU DAVID! THANK YOU FOR SAYING THOSE WORDS THAT I WANTED TO HEAR SO BAD! I LOVE YOU, BUT ONLY AS LONG DISTANCE FRIENDS!

You guys have no idea how much it heavily supports my theory thanks to what he just said. It was also something that I deduced for a very long time too! There's of course a lot to talk about on this matter, which I will discuss another time.

But for now, let me savor what I consider to be the biggest W of my crime solving theory of this murder case. Things are looking really good for me.

But of course, I have other problems that crossed my way in exchange, so let me show you what I mean.

The Bad

Let's start with the elephant in the room. Nico is sole person responsible for the attempted murder of Ace.

Before I forget, here's my theory post as reference so that you can have a fair idea of what's been debunked.

Anyways, this truth shatters a good chunk of my theory post, especially regarding the attempted murder itself. Because... according to my theory, I thought that the person responsible for the attempted murder was the same culprit as whoever killed Arei. Thinking it was Eden who did the attempted murder on Ace.

But this theory of mine on that matter has sadly been completely denied. Eden did not attempt murder on Ace, that much is a fact that I can't ignore.

But that's not all. It's practically confirmed that the wire found in the gym was indeed Hu's custom weapon.

This shut downs my idea that Eden must've gathered some kind of wire inside a grandfather clock.

I'm well aware that I was kinda pushing it with this idea (even though there were a conversation supporting this idea), but mannnnn.... IMAGINE HOW FRIGGIN SICK IT WOULD'VE BEEN IF THAT WAS ACTUALLY WHAT HAPPENED?! IT WOULD'VE BEEN SUCH A 1000 IQ MOVE ON MY END!!!

Haha! Sorry! I got the hype get the best of me there! I mean, to be fair... I was under the assumption that Eden's must've done the deed and that she must've gathered that wire some other way. You can't fault me for being this creative!

But at the very least, from this narrative, we can deduce that the DRDT Dev may not try to pull a move where we need to imagine something that could've existed somewhere, they probably never intend to make us go for something far-fetched unless there's enough clues to suggest it. I think that will be something very important to remember whenever we get to watch chapter 3 in a future time.

Moving on!

Nico is the person responsible for stealing the turpentine.

This may not seem much at first, but it's actually very bad for my theory. Reason why is that to have my Eden!Culprit theory work, I need a way for Eden to subdue Arei in some shape or form.

The best way to do it would be by knocking her out with the turpentine, but unfortunately for me, Eden initially didn't have access to the turpentine. Nico did. This means that I lost my prime way for Eden to subdue Arei.

Eden obviously can't overpower Arei for obvious reasons... on top of having no signs of struggle on Eden and Arei's body like bruises and such.

So because of it, I need to figure out a way for Eden to be able subdue Arei without having to steal the turpentine as it was Nico who stole it initially. I'll discuss more about it later.

There is also another problem with my theory, not something the episode directly showed, but it's still very noteworthy. Since Eden is not the culprit behind the attempted murder of Ace, my plan of having Arei locked up and hidden in the relaxation room no longer works anymore. Therefore, I currently don't have a way to explain the purpose of the ball of clothes since my whole murder attempt theory is crushed.

So these are the bads, one of them being a lot more problematic than the others. Anyways, I don't even think that's the worst of it all. The worst comes with...

The Ugly

"It's you two, isn't it?"

I'm happy that we finally got Teruko to actually accuse someone... but NOT LIKE THIS!!!

God friggin dammit!

I get it though. I understand why the creator did that. It gives a lot more suspense and a much better reveal at the end of it all, but aaaaggghhh! This is literally the worst case scenario!

Instead of having people try to figure out why this one person is the culprit and how they did it, we now have the community practically split in two to decide which one between Ace or Eden is the culprit of the murder case.

Ugh.... what a pain in the ass! I can't believe you've done this, DRDT dev! Not giving us the final answer until the very end. I will admit though... that was very unexpected and a very cool twist. That makes it much different from what we're used to see in the dangans and fangans! So yeah... well played, dev! But you should know by now... you're not fooling me with this. I know very well what the heck happened behind this murder case! I remain undaunted.

So are you saying that...

Yes... I still believe that Eden is the culprit behind the murder case of Arei. Ace has nothing to do with the murder of Arei and there's absolutely no one else but these two suspects who could've possibly commited murder.

I'm sorry to say this to the people who believe that a third party is responsible for the murder, but that's just impossible. Only these two could've taken the tape and they had absolutely no reason to give it to someone else. Nor did they get it stolen.

Otherwise, why would they not reveal it at all? It wouldn't make sense no matter how you put it. Not only that, but it would be so unsatisfying of a plot twist especially considering that with all the clues we've been given so far, only the people in the gym at a specific time could've taken it, which still comes down to Ace and Eden.

It's also practically confirmed that there's no other source of grippy tape. I understand that you guys are trying to do this because there's a lot of issues with solving the case if eitheir Ace or Eden is the culprit, but instead of going for an unrealistic scenario of who else could've done it, you guys need to figure out how eitheir of these two suspects managed to pull it off despite these problems!

And that's exactly why I'm still dead set on accusing Eden. Because despite all these problems I've encountered since the beginning of it all, I figured out a lot of ways to solve these issues and it's going to be the same thing here. These new problems I have encountered... I will solve them... all of them!

Therefore, being open-minded is crucial in solving this murder case, a complex one at that!

Alright, with these news out of the way, it's finally time for me to solve this murder case! Although, unlike the giant recap that I did on part 5, I'm not going to do that. I will begin by discussing with you all the biggest mystery of this entire murder case.

The Biggest Mystery?!

What are you talking about? Are you referring to the fishes? The broken lights? The ball of clothes? Their murder motive?

Nope! There is something that's been brought up very few times at the very beginning of the trial and never again... even though there's something seriously strange about it.

(I'm sure there's other moments where this was brought up, but I couldn't find them.)

But yeah... there are two suspiciously strange things about this (that people simply brushed it off as nothing wrong happened) and I seriously think we need to look into this.

During lunchtime of the day before the BDA, Arei was seen in the cafeteria, but didn't utter a single word.

Aside from the "conversation between Arei and David in the relaxation room", no one saw Arei from lunchtime up until the BDA.

Let's face it... Arei, who's usually a loudmouth, didn't say a single thing at lunch? That's just incredibly weird! It doesn't make sense! You guys know very well that she would, at the very least, say something mean or troll someone at least slightly.

But even weirder than that is the fact that no one else saw her since lunchtime! There is absolutely no way that Arei would've spent the rest of the day eitheir hiding herself in her dorm or just simply avoiding contact on anyone. That is just so out of character!

Well... maybe Arei was deeply concerned by David's actual secret and was being secluded up until it was the right time to visit David. I mean, David and Ace clearly saw her that evening, so it's fine, right?

Yeah, I don't think so. Let's say she was deeply concerned by David's secret since lunch, why didn't she try to contact David much sooner than that? Doesn't quite make sense now, doesn't it?

Oh! I know! She was spending time with Eden because they're friends now, right?

I'm sorry, but that's not gonna work eitheir. Let's say Eden was the culprit in that scenario... why would Eden lie about not seeing her since lunch?

Well... suspicions would've been thrown at her, that's why.

And why would that be the case? Remember that during that day, Eden spent time with Hu from the evening up until the night time. And since we're under the assumption that the murder occured in the morning of day 4 (the day of the BDA) and that she spent time with Hu as said earlier, her supposed time spent with Arei in the afternoon would be irrelevant to the murder case!

Besides, wouldn't someone at least have noticed that the two of them were spending time together in the afternoon?

And even if we were to presume that Ace is the killer there, it's the exact same thing! Eden would have absolutely no reason to lie about spending time with Arei if that were the case.

Well, maybe Ace intimidated Arei and stayed quiet this whole time because of it!

...really? We all know very well that there's no way Ace would be able to intimidate Arei, of all people!

Then maybe-

I'll stop you there! Let's face it, there's no normal reasons to explain why Arei didn't talk at lunch nor why she was missing for a considerable amount of time. Besides, if it was something irrevelant or completly mundane about what was happening with Arei, what would be the point of doing all of that? Why make it seem like it was a mystery if "nothing special" happened.

I'm sorry, but it just simply doesn't make sense. Especially if the fact that she was missing was brought up multiple times. There is no way that this is unimportant, no matter how you look at it!

This is also one of the reasons why I firmly believe that Ace is not the culprit. It is impossible to give a reasonable answer to this mystery if you go for the Ace!Culprit route.

It's unsolvable! You can't solve it even with Eden as the culprit!

No! That's wrong!

For those who read part 5, I'm sure you know already what the answer to that is. As for everyone else, there is a very interesting and logical way to solve this mystery.

But before I reveal it, let me first bring back a topic from earlier that I wanted to talk about.

David Chiem...

Okay... so what? He's clearly lying about it, as stated by Nico and J!

And why would you assume that he's lying? Is it because he's a lying and manipulative asshole? Is it because you don't believe in anything he says? Is it because you don't understand him? Well... to be fair... he's rather complex and a bit hard to understand his gameplan, however...

Doesn't that statement feel too important to simply disregard it? I'm not just saying this because his quote is in gold and bolded text, but also because of the timing and what he said earlier.

Also... shortly after that, after he asked Teruko, Whit and Eden if they saw the body at the same time and that Teruko answered with "What are you getting at?", here's how he behaves...

Isn't it peculiar? Like... doesn't it feel like there's a sense of emergency behind his defense and reaction? It's almost like... he's been waiting for the right moment to reveal that piece of information. Whether he wants to help or just want to make Teruko despair for the sake of exposing Eden as the culprit, it doesn't matter. He wanted to reveal that information.

His statement that he saw the body first is clearly wrong because he couldn't have seen the body in the morning, he had an alibi at 7:30 AM and it's physically impossible for David to instantly search the playground, find the body, do nothing and go back without being seen by eitheir Teruko, Whit or Eden.

Well, of course, he's lying about seeing the body in the morning. It's literally impossible.

Huh? But why are you insisting that-

David is the first person to find the body, but he discovered it at an earlier time. It doesn't make sense for anyone else to have found the body first. Otherwise, they wouldn't have hidden this piece of information at all, there's no reason to. But if we're talking about David however... it's whole different story. I also have plenty ways to support the idea that he found the body much earlier.

This is after Ace tells the group what he witnessed and after David gets his secret exposed and decides to reveal himself.

Ace claimed that he witnessed David and Arei having a conversation about David's secret during the evening, the day after the attempted murder.

David claims that he's a lying piece of shit and an unreliable witness.

Ace couldn't possibly have lied about the secret he heard from the conversation since that was indeed David's secret. So what else could David be referring to when he claimed that Ace is lying?

Lying about where he heard the conversation wouldn't make sense eitheir, it wouldn't really change much. And we already know for a fact that David visited the relaxation room that day.

Therefore, by process of elimination, the logical deduction would be that Ace lied about when he heard that conversation. Also, doesn't that weirdly coincide with the reveal that he found the body first?

So if you match his body discovery information with the logical possibility that Ace lied about when he heard the conversation with also David's confession that he did indeed meet with Arei that evening without revealing what the conversation was about, we get this amazing solution : David didn't have a conversation with Arei in the evening of the day 3. He had a conversation with her in the evening of day 2 instead, the day of the attempted murder on Ace. David found Arei's corpse in the relaxation room in the evening of day 3.

I know I had many people who used to believe that this can't be true and that David is lying about his claim that Ace's a liar and all that... but quite frankly... can you still make that claim after watching episode 13 AND 14?

In episode 13, we learn from David's memory flashback that there was more to David and Arei's conversation than what Ace let on, which already gives a sign that Ace is hiding something.

And in episode 14, there's of course the reveal that David was the first person to find the body. Let's be real here everyone. I seriously doubt that this is a mere coincidence after all this time.

Anyways, now that I've explained my point regarding David, it is time to connect the dots!

Connecting the dots...

Going back to the biggest mystery...

As I said before, I stated that there's a way to solve this mystery with Eden as the culprit. There's also a very good reason why I brought up the idea that David must've found the body at a much earlier time.

Let's think back on the mysteries regarding Arei.

She did not talk at lunch and she was never seen again since then.

We've already established that it wouldn't make sense for her to stay silent and not be seen again for a long period of time. So what would be the most logical way to explain that discrepancy?

Something wrong happened to Arei that day. If you think back on my idea regarding David, he found Arei's body in the evening of day 3. Then, if you combine that with the fact that Arei was mysteriously missing since lunchtime, we can then deduce that Arei was actually dead for quite some time. It would make sense to deduce that Arei must've been dead during the whole time she was missing.

But Ace witnessed the conversation betwee-

Nope! Remember, I made the deduction that Ace lied about when he witnessed the conversation. He most likely witnessed the conversation happening in the evening of day 2. Therefore, Arei was alive during the evening of day 2.

(FYI, by day 2, I mean the day of the attempted murder while day 3 refers to the day after the attempted murder. Day 4 is the day of the BDA)

Okay, but what does that have to do with Eden being the only culprit that can explain the mystery behind it all?

Don't worry, I'm getting there.

So with the idea that Arei was already at least dead after lunch, it changes a lot of things, but it still doesn't answer the other oddity regarding Arei... Why was she being silent during lunch time?

Before I propose the crazy (and repeated) idea, let me share a fact with you all. During lunch time, Eden was nowhere to be seen in the cafeteria.

Combine everything I've shown you and then we get this beautiful conclusion : Arei was silent during lunch time because that was not Arei. It was Eden disguised as Arei. Arei was already dead during lunch time.

I'm sure you have a lot of questions or things to object to this, but let me first state that it would perfectly explain a lot of things. Not only would it solve perfectly that big mystery I've just shown, but it would also explain why David claimed that he was the first person to find the body. It would also explain this little goofy event in the morning of day 3.

To give a small recap, Teruko wakes up at 8:00 AM, but still feels sleepy. So she's like "5 more minutes."

Then, we get a black screen saying "4 hours later", so she ends up waking up at around noon instead. Funny 5 more minutes turns into oversleeping for hours instead joke, that one! (Let's face it, it's relatable)

Anyways, this little scene right there could be an extremely subtle way to indicate that Arei actually died in the morning of day 3 and they made us unable to witness her death thanks to Teruko oversleeping. It also helps with camouflaging the possibility that Eden was taking the time to set up her disguise trick.

But if you have issues with the disguise trick, I've already explained it many times in part 5 with clues and hints found throughout the series on top of reminding everyone that this is a work of fiction, so as long as there's plenty evidence to suggest it, then it can be possible.

So for that to work, Eden needed to kill Arei in the morning of day 3. So first, she would need to sneakily knock her out with turpentine as it is the only way to-

HAH! YOU IDIOT! IT CAN'T WORK!! IT WAS NICO WHO HAD THE TURPENTINE! HOW COULD EDEN POSSIBLY GET HER HANDS ON IT?! YOUR THEORY STINKS!

Ah, right... the turpentine! Nico stole it from Rose...

That's no problem! Eden got her hands on the turpentine anyways!

WHAT?!?!

Turpentine, where are you?!

You're not possibly suggesting that there was a second turpentine, RIGHT?!?!

Of course not! I'm not that crazy! Come on now! Do you really think I'd make such a claim even though I made the claim that there doesn't exist any other source of grippy tape aside from what we've seen thus far? The same applies with the turpentine.

It is true that the fact that Nico had their hands on the turpentine first is truly troublesome... but then I learned some more facts about the case and realised that there is indeed a way for Eden to get her hands on the turpentine.

That's impossible! Nico had their hands on it!

Nico may have gotten their hands on the turpentine first, but did they actually keep it forever?

Think about it. What else do we know about the attempted murder that we know is true and confirmed by Nico themselves? Nico stole Hu's custom weapon : the wires.

And what was the reason for stealing the wires? To pin the murder on Hu. They were trying to get away with murder, after all.

Now, if we follow that logic, there is also another way to further pin the blame on Hu. Nico could've dropped the turpentine in the dress room, close by Hu's old uniform. It's also possible that they used some of Hu's clothes to knock Ace unconscious with the turpentine.

That way, if the crime actually succeeded, then there would be much more than Hu's wires to pin her as the culprit. But alas, as we all know, Nico's murder attempt failed. So whatever happened to the turpentine in that scenario?

Nico most likely didn't run back to the dress room to grab it back, that's for sure. Which means that in that scenario, from the time Nico knocked Ace unconscious up until Teruko runs into Eden in the dressing room, Eden had an opportunity to grab the turpentine that Nico might've purposefully dropped in that room.

But how could she possibly know that there was turpentine in here?

That's the thing. I don't think she knew that she'd find the turpentine here... well... unless she saw Nico knocking Ace out and has been quietly sneaking since then.

Why would she even bother going there this late at night to somehow stumble on the turpentine if she didn't know that she'd find it here to begin with? That makes no sense.

You're right, it wouldn't make sense. If anything, that was simply an incredible coincidence that she managed to find turpentine, something that she would clearly need to succeed in her murder plan.

I don't get it! If finding the turpentine was mere coincidence, then what was the point of Eden visiting the dress room this late at night?

Initially, before episode 14 was released, I thought for sure that she was there because she orchestrated both crimes on top of locking Arei inside the relaxation room during nighttime. However, both of these ideas are denied.

So by eliminating the impossible, only one truth remains : Eden needed to place Hu's and Teruko's old clothes inside the relaxation room before 10 pm so that they can get covered in sticky starch next morning.

It is a known fact that the "ball of clothes" is covered in starch. We also know that the only source of information we have that could potentially have a source of starch is from the enriched formula of the water misting of that plants for the relaxation room. We also know for a fact that Eden was indeed in the dressing room past 10 pm on day 2.

I highly doubt that she went there late at night only for the sake of being nice and retrieving Teruko's spare uniforms. Therefore, the only way to explain her suspicious presence in that room is if we were to believe that she's the person responsible for the "ball of clothes".

There is no other logical or reasonable way to explain it. This is the only conclusion I could arrive at. Therefore, it has to be the truth!

Alright then... what was Eden trying to do with these starched clothes then? What was her plan?

At the time I'm currently typing this... I do not know.

WHHHHHAAAT?! YOU DON'T KNOW?!?!

That's right... I don't know yet. I have a few ideas, but I don't like them just yet. So by the time I keep working on this post, I'll figure out a proper solution, I promise.

What are you saying?! Are you seriously trying to solve this problem as you are writing your theory post?!

...That's right... I'm still working on it as I'm typing this. But pay no mind to it, the solution will come to me eventually, I'm pretty sure!

...You are out of your mind, you know that?

Yeah... I know. For now, let's just say that having the clothes in that room so that they get starched was very essential in her plan for unknown reasons. At the very least, I found a reasonable way to explain how she get her hands on the turpentine.

For that matter, I know there were people asking me why Eden would even bother grabbing the tape. The answer is fairly simple. It was very convenient for her to get her hands on the tape as it would be necessary in her murder scheme.

In fact, she probably wanted to get her hands on the tape earlier than that, but Nico was already occupying the gym. She must've heard the sounds of Nico setting up something inside the gym (since the walls aren't soundproof) and must've waited inside the dressing room for some time... until the gym was clear. But of course, instead of that, Teruko runs into Eden.

So with that, I believe that I explained every mysteries regarding the attempted murder. Eden was indeed on the second floor on the night of day 2 for a suspiciously specific reason that I've already explained.

So... while I'm trying to figure out the most logical purpose of this ball of clothes, I'd like to give more points that further supports the idea that Eden is indeed the culprit.

Take that, Eden!

Let's start with one of my favorite observations in episode 14.

Ah... that scene was very touching, wasn't it? For a moment there, I almost believed Eden... up until someone in the youtube comments pointed out something really interesting about this scene. Doesn't this remind you of something? ....no? Let me help you out!

Hmm? What does that have to do with anything?

A lot of things, actually. Like... the pictures I've shown you from episode 3, Eden claims that relationships aren't transactional, that she didn't do something good so that Teruko would return the favor. Eden also claims that she wants her to be her friend, but not because Teruko feels obligated to.

Then, in episode 14, Eden asks Teruko to help her, because friends help each other. She also says that Teruko is her friend.

I know most of you will say that Eden was being desperate and in big need of help, maybe there is a tiny bit of truth to it. However, I just find it rather strange because as far as I'm aware, from the beginning of chapter 2 up until the trial, Teruko never showed any signs of wanting to be friends with Eden. So why would she now claim that Teruko's her friend and then ask for help when initially, Eden didn't do something good simply just so that Teruko would do something good in return?

In a subtle way, they're kinda like opposites to each other, the scene between episode 3 and episode 14, I mean.

To further prove my point, I'd also like to point out that during these two scenes, they both played the exact same background music. Coincidence? I think not!

Another point I'd like to talk about is something I've already brought up in the past, but it's still very important to remember it...

This happened in the morning of day 4, before the BDA was triggered. She said this a little bit after Whit made a silly comment about Arei hanging around the playground.

You could brush it off as simply Eden being not ready to seeing the corpse of Arei in here, since all the other rooms were explored on that floor, but of course, I don't believe that one bit.

Whit's comment made Eden panic considerably because for a few seconds there, she really thought that her murder plan was about to be ruined because she thought that Whit was the first person to find the body of Arei.

If Whit was the first person to find the body, then the BDA wouldn't trigger which would be dangerous for Eden. As I stated before, someone else discovered the body first and it was David Chiem.

Also, that reminds me. Timing wise, it was impossible for Eden to bring the fishes from relax room to the playground. It was also impossible for Eden to hang the body by the swing set, she's most likely too weak for that. Meaning that Eden never brought those fishes nor did she hang her by the playground. That was never in her plan to do that. She hid the body behind the curtains of the relaxation room.

Therefore, the only person who could've transported the fishes as well as hanging Arei's corpse is the first person who found the body. David is responsible for those two actions during the evening of day 3. He did it for his own selfish reasons, of course!

But wait... if David hung the body during the evening of day 3, how do you explain the body swinging during the morning of day 4?

Ah, that! It's something I've already brought up in part 6, but I'll explain it a little.

There was a reason why she put so much efforts into disguising the time of death by putting on a disguise and building a solid fake alibi from 7pm to 10pm. Eden's main goal was to have the BDA triggered during the evening of day 3, not the morning of day 4. She was hoping that someone would run into Arei's corpse that evening, which that person would go gather help to trigger the BDA.

If that actually went according to plan, Eden's alibi would've been perfect. !!! Come to think of it... the letter would make a lot more sense with this idea in mind.

Since she had nothing to do with the fishes, the initial plan was to bait the people into thinking that eitheir Arturo or someone who may have overheard the conversation would be the one who tried to lure Arei to the playground.

Except that compared to what we've seen in part 1 of chapter 2, the letter was actually supposed to properly display 7:30 PM rather than just 7:30. It was part of her grand scheme to further solidify her alibi.

(There's a missing corner, as you can see, which is very convenient to where PM could be written)

Wait, hold on... if that was the case, then Arei wouldn't be having a meeting in the playground in the morning, but rather the evening! That doesn't work! You said it yourself that she was murdered in the morning of day 3!

Hah! That's not a problem! Eden didn't need to lure Arei with a letter. She simply needed to call her out vocally. Hell, she didn't even have to be calling her out in the morning of day 3 eitheir.

She could've knocked to Arei's door right after the exchange between Ace, Levi, Teruko and herself after the attempted murder. It could be something as simple as : "Um... Arei? There's something really important I need to tell you, but I don't wanna say it here because the others might hear it since the dorms are so close to each other. Besides, it's getting really late. Can we meet up in the playground early in the morning?"

But of course, since the BDA didn't trigger in the evening of day 3, there were a few change of plans. She needed to go back to the second floor in the morning of day 4 to find out what's going on.

While she's heading there that morning, she figured that she should bring back Arei's monopad. Arei's monopad was essential in pulling off the disguise trick as she needed to gain access to her dorm to wear her spare uniform. Initially, Eden arrived to the second floor possibly a little bit before 8:00 AM, thinking that the corpse would still be hidden inside the relaxation room.

But it turns out that Arei's body was actually hanging by the swingset, in the playground. And there's fishes for some reason? (Just saying this based on the culprit's perspective)

Eden figured that it would be way too risky to mess with the crime scene even more than what she was originally going to do.

And what was she doing here in the morning of day 4?

It's simple! Eden put the Arei's monopad back inside the victim's pockets and she retrieved the letter and tore the bottom right corner of it, removing the PM on that letter. She then tore the rest of the letter and threw it in the trash bin. It's also possible that the reason why she tore the rest of the letter is to disguise the fact that the killer purposefully removed a corner of the letter.

Wouldn't it be more beneficial for Eden to not tear up the pm part since she had an airtight alibi at the time?

Not really, no. Since everyone else would be discovering the corpse at around 8 am in the morning rather than last evening as intended, there's no telling how the group would actually attempt to solve the trial.

It's possible that if the PM part was still there, they might believe that the time might be fake, especially since the body would be found next morning. In fact, if they presume that the murder happened in the morning of day 4, they would suspect anyone who had an alibi last evening because of that part of the letter. That's also practically what happened earlier in episode 12.

Levi : Is it possible that the killer tried to confuse us all on the time of the murder to create a false alibi? In that case, we should be suspicious of the people who do have an alibi in the evening but not in the morning?

Teruko : That's another assumption that would lead us astray. Forget that thought.

Levi : Why?

Teruko : We're only guessing that the killer created a false alibi to their benefit. But it's still entirely possible that it was just coincidence that we mistook the murder as taking place at a different time. The killer might not have cared as much as we do. [...]

Charles : Are you not simply dismissing the idea that the killer intentionally falsified the time of the murder?

Teruko : I'm not dismissing it. But it's far more dangerous to dramatically narrow down our suspect pool based on speculative evidence, especially when we barely understand the murder at this moment in time. In other words, we can't consider Levi's idea as evidence unless we have proof.

And there you have it. If the PM part remained on that letter and they realised that the murder could've happened in the morning of day 4, then that whole letter would've been proof enough that the killer purposefully faked the time of the murder, even if the murder didn't happen in the morning of day 4.

Anyways, if touching Arei's pockets wasn't enough to keep the body swinging, it's also possible that Eden accidently ran into the hanging body on her way in or out because she was still in a little bit of a hurry as she didn't want anyone to catch her in the act.

Hmmm... interesting... how very interesting...

What now?

Well, the idea (that I recently came up with) that the letter always displayed "PM" and that she tore up that part of the letter because her plan didn't fully work as intended... it just gave me another amazing idea.

People have been wondering for quite some time what could be the decisive evidence to pinpoint that someone is truly the blackened... I think I finally figured out what the evidence is.

Well, out with it already! Show us what will prove once and for all that Eden is the culprit!

Gladly! I used to think for a long time that the roll of grippy tape would be the ever so decisive evidence for it, since it was practically a smoking gun type of evidence. But alas... you saw what happened in episode 14, so...

HERE'S THE DECISIVE EVIDENCE : THE TORN UP CORNER OF THE LETTER CONTAINING "PM"

Think about it. We know for a fact that Arei's body was swinging in the morning of day 4 and according to my theory, only Eden could be the logical explanation behind this event happening.

Therefore, Eden most likely visited the second floor in the morning of day 4. Since her original plan was to have the BDA trigger in the evening of day 3 but it failed, she needed to remove the part of the letter that mentioned "PM".

Now, here's the fun part : what could Eden possibly have done with it afterwards? She couldn't really dispose of it in the trash bin, that's where the rest of the letter was. Eden still needed that letter to build up her narrative to make her seem the least suspicious.

She couldn't hide it anywhere else on the second floor. She didn't want to risk having someone stumbling upon a piece of paper that just happens to perfectly match the rest of the letter.

She couldn't really dispose of it anywhere on the first floor eitheir. While it might've been a logical way to get rid of that evidence, it would've been incredibly risky. By the time Eden did her finishing touches on the second floor, it should've been 8:00 AM by then, if not really close to it.

Every participant was supposed to meet up in the movie screening room for the secrets reveal, Eden couldn't risk doing something slightly suspicious when she should be heading straight for the movie screening room. She couldn't have gotten rid of it during and after the investigation eitheir, there were witnesses close by.

So by process of elimination, there is only one remaining place that Eden could've make the corner of the letter disappear. She hid the torn up corner of the letter in one of her little bags on her belt!!! It's still there as we speak!

How's that for a decisive evidence, eh? :D Take that, Eden Tobisa!

Yeah, yeah, whatever! That's cool and all, but at the end of the day, all of it doesn't really matter if you can't manage to explain what was the point of the starchy ball of clothes! If you can't explain it, then your theory just crumbles!

...heh! :D

Y-you can't be serious... there's no way you managed to-

It took me roughly a day of thinking about it, but you BETCHA that I managed to solve the issue with the ball of clothes! I have a very good idea on what Eden might've done with this piece of evidence during the murder of Arei.

The sticky situation of the ball of clothes

As I mentioned before, I used to think that the clothes were used as a way to protect Arei from the water misting if Eden were to lock her up inside the relax room. But of course, that no longer works because of the actual truth behind the murder attempt.

Yet, Eden clearly placed those clothes for a night inside the relaxation room, so surely it must've been really important to do that, right?

The answer to that is YES. It was a very necessary step in the murder scheme. In fact, I'm willing to bet that without it, her plan wouldn't have worked.

It's just some starchy clothes. Why would it be that important?

Well, as we already know, there's no way Eden could pull off the murder mechanism as shown in episode 13 (aka the drop hanging murder idea) as it would require a good amount of strength that she doesn't seem to have.

So, for her be able to murder Arei, she would instead need to use a murder mechanism that doesn't require a lot of strength. And not too long ago, I finally realised that using the starchy clothes would be incredibly helpful in pulling off that kind of murder without much troubles. Let me elaborate.

Do you guys remember my murder mechanism in part 5? If not, that's alright, let me give you all a reminder.

(Yeah, I recently added those pink lines as compared to my previous picture, just bear with me.)

Here's the order of how that murder went according to my theory

(The pink line is the longer rope and the green line is the shorter rope)

While waiting for the body to be available, she threw the longer rope above the rafters by using the roll of tape as anchor.

She then uses one end of the long rope by tying it to the filled water jugs, by the handles.

She tapes up the bars of the carousel and then keeps some remaining tape for later.

She then ties up the other end of the long rope to the carousel

She drags the victim's body out of the relax room and brings it close to the seesaw.

She places the victim's arms through the gap between the pillars of the seesaw and the tapes her wrists together.

She ties one end of the shorter rope to the victim's neck while placing the other end of that rope very close to the carousel.

She then spins the carousel on one side, let's say counterclock wise. By spinning it, the long rope would get pulled which would pull the water jugs upwards.

She keeps spinning up until the water jugs are high enough. Once it's high enough, she keeps the carousel from moving.

She ties the end of the shorter rope (the one that was close to her already) to the bars of the carousel.

She then spins the carousel clockwise, making the water jugs fall at a rapid while the shorter rope is quickly getting pulled.

The shorter rope keeps getting quickly pull up until it can no longer pull... up until it reaches the victim's neck, which would serve as a brute stopper.

SNAP! Her neck breaks and the handles of the water jugs also break from the sudden stop.

By using this method, it explains the purpose of the taped wrists as well as the scuffed marks on the ground, which happened to be in proximity of the victim's legs. Because of the sudden pull of the neck, the rest of the body would follow, the legs would be what would move the most since it's not restrained, thus creating those marks.

By keeping her arms locked up by the seesaw, it ensures that her whole body wouldn't follow along of the rope pull, which would instead result in a rather funny ragdoll moment, which would probably not kill the victim if her arms weren't restrained.

It sounded really good on paper. Like I seriously thought that I finally figured it out, I thought that it made so much sense. Unfortunately... there are some issues with it.

Ha ha! Your method is flawed! I'm looking forward to these issues!

...very well. For starters, this might cause bruises on Arei's body with this murder method, especially around the arms and shoulders. The only thing that was really restrained were her wrists, so anything else would be violently moving.

But the reason why it could bruise the arms and shoulders especially is because her head and the rope are in the way of her arms. Her head could potentially hit her shoulders and arms... or it could be the other way around too. This becomes a discrepancy since we know for a fact that apart from her broken neck, there is nothing else noticeable about her body.

Next up, the distance between the scuffed marks and the seesaw is fairly long... most likely longer than Arei's height as well. I was aware of this issue in the past, but I simply brushed it off as "it works because it's a work of fiction."

But the more I look into it, the more I feel like it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to prove that the marks were caused by the movements of the legs. We also have to keep in mind that the rest of the body would surely move, so why would nothing above her legs leave no scuffed marks? That doesn't quite make sense. If the marks were way closer to the seesaw, it'd be a whole different story, but alas... that's not what happened.

And finally, it is very doubtful that the legs' movements from the killing blow would be causing all these marks we've seen back in episode 8.

As we can see from this picture, there's a lot of traces on the left side, a faint trace in the middle and a few traces on the right side. I don't think there's a valid reason I can come up that would explain why one leg would be leaving more marks than the other. On top of that, it wouldn't explain why there's a faint mark in the middle and gaps between the others.

Unless I were to presume that her legs did a few skips somehow, but I honestly think that's a stretch at this point. But that's not all, from the way the victim's body would be positioned according to my theory, it would actually be physically impossible for her legs to leave marks in such manner.

As you can see in the picture, the dragging of those marks are going up and down rather than left and right. If we follow the logic of how the victim's body would be positioned according to me, then the legs should be making those marks sideways, not what we're currently seeing.

Dang, those are pretty big flaws. Are you sure that your murder method is correct?

I used to think it was back then, but not anymore. At least very least, the idea of the pulley mechanism sounds right while the body setup and positioning is entirely wrong.

But honestly, my idea mainly didn't work because I forgot to factor in a really important element to this equation : the friction! That's right! To make sure my murder method works, I need to find some way to add friction so that the body wouldn't move as much. And how do you make that happen? With the help of starched clothes, of course!

Huh?! What do you mean by that?

This line is very important because we also know for a fact that the turf in the playground uses the same exact materials as the one in the relaxation room. Meaning that a wet turf in the playground would get sticky too.

I can't believe I let this go unnoticed after such a long time, but the stickiness of both the wet turf and the starched clothes played a major role in all of this.

Here's what I believe the culprit did with the starched clothes : Eden placed the starched clothes under Arei's body and above the turf. Basically, the starched clothes in that scenario would serve as a double sided velcro of sorts.

Would the victim's body really stick to the clothes?

Hard to say, but based on my deductions, it has to, right? We don't quite know how sticky it is, but it must've been sticky enough so that it would add friction, at the very least. I don't think it'd make her completly restrained, but rather her movements would be drastically reduced, I'd imagine.

But hold on! Wouldn't only one side of the clothes have starch on it?

Most likely, yes, but the clothes would probably be wet still. So the double sided velcro idea could still work.

I don't think so! MonoTV clearly stated that at 8:00 AM, the turf in the relax room is completly dry so it's safe to walk on it. If the turf dries up by then, so does the clothes!

Hmm... maybe, maybe not. It's true that the ground would be dry, but it's hard to say that the same would happen with the clothes. But if it is truly how it was intended, then that's no problem! Eden just needed to dip one side of the clothes into the pond and they would be wet again.

Okay, but was there enough clothes to cover the whole body?

Hard to say, probably not, if I'm being honest. But I don't think the culprit intended to lay out these clothes so that it would cover the whole body. No, I think Eden mainly wanted to place the starched clothes under the victim's head and the victim's legs.

The head and legs are pretty much what would be moving the most from sudden violent pull of the short rope attached to the neck, so putting the velcro there would be most effective. They might still move somewhat, but definitly not as much as without the adhesive. In fact, I believe that having the velcro effect under Arei's head would make it even easier to ensure that the rope pull delivers a killing blow.

You forgot something : THE ARMS!!! What about the arms?! Wouldn't they just be flailing around everywhere?!

Oh, that? Well, the wrists were clearly taped up and then-

Then what, her arms are restrained under the seesaw again? You already said that it doesn't work!

Heh, of course not! That's not what the culprit did at all! Arei's body was not placed next to the seesaw for the murder. I've already established previously that there's major problems with it. It wouldn't make sense. Therefore, she must've been placed somewhere else.

There is only one specific place that would perfectly explain the scuffed marks on ground. The area where there's scuffed marks? That's exactly where the victim's body was positioned! Arei died on this specific spot!

W-whaaaaat?!?! That makes no sense! How does that even explain how her arms were restrained from moving anywhere?

Don't worry, I'm getting there! :)

So... when we take into consideration the position of the scuffed marks, there's really nothing close by that can be used to restrain her arms, right? And placing her arms above her head like I did in my year old theory wouldn't quite work eitheir. We'd still have the same issues as what I pointed out already.

So from there, we can deduce that the victim's arms must've been positioned somewhere differently than my previous idea in my older theory. And I believe I found the perfect position to place those arms of hers.

The culprit placed Arei's arms behind her back and then taped her wrists. That way, since her back would be facing the turf, it should keep her arms mostly steady. They might move, but her back should be moving along as well. Her wrists were bound because there was still a risk that her arms would free up from her back since their movements wouldn't be as restrained.

That's ridiculous! There's no way that can be right!

...heh! :D Are you sure about that? Let me give you a reminder of how I briefly described the scuffed marks on the ground. There's a lot of traces on the left side, a faint trace in the middle and a few traces on the right side. If we combine everything I've deduced so far, we get this!

Be mindful that even though I just showed you how the victim's body would be positioned, the body part themselves isn't what fully caused those marks, it was mostly caused by the starched clothes' stickiness below the legs and head.

That would certainly help explain those odd shape and patterns on the ground. As for the wrists area, it could eitheir be caused by her hands or the taped up wrists.

But yeah, as shown in this picture, her head would be moving a bit, but not too much since that's where the culprit needed to make sure remained stable. Her wrists wouldn't be moving too much in this scenario since they would be stuck under her back. As for the legs, even though there would be adhesive below, there would still be a fair amount of movement since her legs have more freedom of movement than her head or wrists.

Just to remind everyone, by movement, I'm referring to the drag caused by the rope making a violent pull on Arei's neck.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! This is my final solution to this complex, yet incredibly fun murder case! I don't know if you've noticed, but everything I've said in this post, it would match up perfectly with a heck load of clues and information that we've been provided in this fangan.

So with that said, I only have one more thing to say : The only one who could've commited this crime is you, Eden Tobisa, Ultimate Clockmaker!

--------------------------------------------------------

Thank you everyone for reading this till the end! There's probably a few things I unintentionally left out, so I'll try to add up anything missing if that's the case. But otherwise, I think that was most of it. If there's anything you don't understand or feel like there's something that may not work, feel free to ask me anything!

And don't forget : because it's a work of fiction, as long as there's enough provided information, then it can be possible!

[thebadjoe]

I’m incredibly curious to know your thoughts after last episode. Nico seemingly being the lone Ace culprit, David admitting (truthful or not) to having seen Arei’s body, and whatever was going on with Eden at the end of last episode are all pretty relevant to your theory. Whatcha thinking?

Woot! Someone asked me a question! Hi hi! :D

I'll try not to spoil it too much because I'm currently working on another theory post to explain all of it. But I'll give a few general thoughts anyways. (DRDT CH2 SPOILERS AHEAD, ALTHOUGH I PROLLY DON'T NEED TO DO THAT BUT WANNA DO IT ANYWAYS)

You're right, a lot of what's been revealed this episode has been incredibly relevant to my theory, both positively and negatively.

I was honestly surprised by the culprit reveal. I honestly didn't think that Teruko would choose two suspects rather than only one, the seemingly obvious one (in my eyes). That was an interesting plot twist of sorts, for sure.

But realisticly, I suppose that it makes sense that she would narrow down to two suspects mainly because even though Teruko knows that the tape disappeared within a certain timeframe, she was way too distracted to notice who took the tape and exactly when.

The one thing I don't understand though is people going out of their way to claim that it was actually a third party who commited the crime and took the tape from them (somehow?). I honestly doubt that such kind of final twist would ever happen, especially being this late into the chapter.

I believe that, as it stands, we are supposed to try and solve the murder mystery once and for all between these two suspects in mind : Ace or Eden.

I get it though, sometimes, you just really don't want eitheir of them to get executed, but still, we can't ignore the painful truth and we gotta push through no matter what.

That aside, I was really happy with nearly all the reveals. Not only we got closer to the truth of the case, but we also learned a lot more about some characters. The one that caught my attention the most, surprisingly, was Rose. I didn't realise until this episode how incredibly rough it must've been for her. Poor woman. I'm really looking forward to see her development in the future.

And of course, that goes without saying, but the cutscene with Eden towards the end was just simply amazing! I really enjoyed the voice acting there alongside the repeat of that one song. We also got a lot of character growth out of Teruko, which is always a W in my book.

Oh, sorry! I've been rambling more about my thoughts on the episode by itself rather than explaining what it does to my theory, haha! But yeah, like I said before, I'm not gonna spill the beans on that matter just yet. All of you will find out soon enough in my next theory post... sometimes this week, for sure! (I'll try to push for monday, we'll see!)

I'll say at least one thing though, as a tiny reward for reading all of that. This crime solving theory of mine is starting to look a whole lot better as the chapter 2 goes on. :)

Thanks for reading, y'all. Also thanks for the question, @venus-is-thinking!

[1moreff-creator]

DRDT Chapter 2 Episode 14: First Impressions

Episode 14!!! If Ep 11 really was the 70% mark (apparently the dev said that but don’t quote me on it, I saw it in a YT comment), then it only goes up to Ep 16. In the first trial, the culprit was revealed in Ep 10, then Ep 11 was their final defense as the class unraveled all the remaining mysteries, and Ep 12 was mostly post-trial. If the pattern repeats, this might be the episode we get our culprit reveal!!! And it seems likely, with the forty minute mark. So excited!!!

Also fine if it doesn’t happen if course, but we’ll see!

Spoilers for CH2 EP14. CW: Hanging, murder, Eden!Culprit and Ace!Culprit discussion, blood and wires.

Nico! Nico! Explain the blood on the wires and my life is yours!!! I’m still surprised Teruko got “hanging” out of that crime scene to be honest.

Ace is so funny. He’s technically right that people should ask the victim and not just the killer, but he has nothing to offer.

“That’s why she didn’t ask you.” J really is becoming the voice of reason huh?

“It’s hard to remember the evidence.” (Paraphrased). Eden.

[Teruko lists the evidence] And… she omitted the tape. Yeah, the trial would get pretty derailed if Rose noticed the oddity there right away.

Wow, immediately Rebuttal Showdown let’s go! Really cool Hu animation. I wonder if she’ll end up being the Ace attacker or not? She could still just be defending Nico because.

“That’s why I have to interrogate Nico.” I love the voice acting, the chillest Rebuttal Showdown ever so far xD

[Sword Reveal] Fan?… Oh, because the fan being broken implies a hanging, right? That’s where she’s going with this?

“Lost their temper at Ace” is not how I will put attempted murder, Hu, but you do you.

[Cut] Oh, the fan was used as a pulley??? Fucking how???

“The fan being broken would suggest a hanging.” (Paraphrased) Oh I was kinda right with my start of RS guess.

“Isn’t that wire Hu’s custom weapon?” Woo, Whit with the brain cell!

“Nico stole from Rose, so they stole from [Hu]” (Paraphrased) Yeah! Teruko and I think alike!

[Hu triple dots] Was the wire stolen? I’m almost second guessing it with how reluctant she is to say that.

{Hindsight between keys: Man I went back and forth a lot this episode huh}

[Veronika talks about Nico planning for the trial] Even though that kinda contradicts what Nico said earlier (I guess maybe they lied, makes sense in retrospect), yeah she’s right (assuming they aren’t wrong about Nico trying to frame Hu). Is she trying to help her newfound bestie, Hu?

“Did they even want to learn to paint?” Poor Rose T_T Also Nico please say something.

“If something was bothering you, you could have talked about it with someone you trusted!” You know, Eden tried to do that with Teruko, and Teruko shot her down. I wonder if that’ll come into play…

“I don’t trust anyone here.” :O Well that’s a reveal.

Woo new Hu sprite! She is breaking down! But bestie please I don’t think you can fix them!

“Hu, I—“ Nico looks so done lmao.

“You trust me, right?” They just say they didn’t. Man, she is not beating the savior complex allegations with this one, huh?

Bro please let Nico talk.

“Are you a billionaire? Because that’s rich!” Ace you are not as clever as you think you are. xD

“Murder is murder…” Indeed, J the voice of reason.

“Why can’t either Ace or Nico simply tell us what happened?” You know we’re fucked when Arturo’s the voice of reason. Although I imagine Ace will shout at him that he doesn’t remember because he was unconscious.

[Ace shouts at Arturo] Got the reason wrong, but the shouting was there.

“Don’t throw two birds and a stone in a glass house, asshole.” Mixing two idiots there, big guy.

“They put some sort of cloth on my mouth…” Ah, there’s the unconsciousness shouting. By the way, full confirmation turpentine is just chloroform in this universe, nice.

[Charles lays down the law on Hu] Thank you, resident brain cell holder! How did they even get out of the first trial without you?

“I was going to!” Yo new Nico sprite is crazy!!! They’re going in!

“I was going to…” Oh, they’re trying to remain calm. That’s pretty cool of them!

“If you say what you think happened, I’ll help.” (Paraphrased) Yeah I was wondering how the dev was gonna write this without it being a twenty minute Nico monologue, this tracks.

Yo “fake” Closing Argument is crazy.

THE FUCKING LIGHT!!!! HOW THE FUCK DID IT NOT OCCUR TO ANY OF THE FIFTEEN PEOPLE THAT TRIED TO SOLVE THIS!!! I guess cause nothing pointed to it but y’know.

“How would that have worked?” Broom to move the fan? I came up with that in my original theory on this thing, though I think that was for the very first method which was clinically insane.

[Broom reveal] Ah, close but not quite. That’s actually quite smart! I’m surprised no one thought of that either.

[Releasing wire] …Am I stupid or does this not work? What would the wire get caught on?

{Yeah I still don’t think I get it? Like if the wire was moving from above the fan to around the broom, there’s nothing stopping it from going from around the broom to above the fan, so Ace would just fall. Did it get caught on the tape somehow? But how would Nico be able to put it around the broom then? Also how does the fan break? The wire would exert force from above and the side, not below, which is what the image makes it look like. I don’t think I understood this I’m so sorry.}

Oh, Ace woke up before the murder attempt was over! Good job badjoe for calling that!

Also are we far enough in to confirm Nico did this by themselves? I don’t have anything against those that believed otherwise, but I personally like it better this way. I imagine the theories aren’t 100% dead, as always, but y’know.

“And then I… Y’know…” THAT’S WHY THE BLOOD ON THE WIRES DOESN’T MAKE FUCKING SENSE!!! Man, as much as I love the EP 6 CG, it was not clear at all that they were that close, especially when the loose wire seemed closer to the entrance. {Looking back, yeah, I’m just not good at perspective on these rooms. The wires were closer to Ace than it looked}.

… Well there’s the small bit on the end of the loose wire that I’m still not sure how it got there, but close enough!

{Yeah it’s not. Believe it or not, I don’t even think the canon method fully explains the fucking blood.

How the fuck was Nico using this exactly? I imagine the small bit of blood on the end is from the noose (which funnily enough, I kinda called there would be a noose, just got where Ace’s neck would be wrong), so then the middle is the part they used as a garrote. But… then where did the blood on the wire on the fan come from? Where they using both simultaneously?

Am I losing my fucking mind? How is it possible I still don’t understand the evidence even after All That? Has my brain simply rotted? And don’t even get me started on everything that wasn’t brought up! What the hell even is this case?

Then again, it’s midnight when I’m writing these hindsight observations, so I don’t think I’m operating at full brain capacity}

“What an interesting murder plan.” Veronika I love you.

“I tried to kill Ace and pin the murder on Hu. What else should I say?” I love you too Nico.

“And after all’s said and done, you can’t even say something as simple as “sorry”?” … Is Nico about to secret quote us?

“I tried to kill you because I don’t like you. Even now, there’s still no use to try and pretend that I like you. If I say “sorry,” you’re still going to hate me. So what else should I say?” Okay crisis averted. Still, this is a really interesting perspective, and I love it a lot. It calls back to Nico not understanding niceties like “please pass the salt,” which, relatable. If they’re not sorry, and Ace won’t get anything out of it, why lie? Very fun.

“D-Do you even regret what you did?” Poor Rose she’s taking this so badly T_T She still doesn’t have an answer as if Nico ever wanted to paint or not.

“I’m not Levi; of course I feel bad about something like that! I’m not heartless!” Yikes on calling Levi heartless, but interesting line for character analysis I guess.

“That was the worst choice that I’ve made in my life.” Wow, really cool new sprite and a lot of Nico info, this is awesome for us Nico enjoyers! (I call myself a Nico enjoyer like I don’t love every single character in the cast lol).

“My teachers, my classmates, my father…” Holy shit this is depressing.

“I’m not the victim here.” Damn, Nico. Just loving all this.

“So I don’t see the point in acting sorry.” Holy shit the sprites and the writing are on point today! {I’m sorry if my commentary’s not exactly thrilling, sometimes I’m just too invested to do anything but stare in awe.}

Rose: “I don’t know how to feel anymore” Sibling can you please give her a fucking answer damn.

“What does this have to do with the case? Everything.” Are we… doing “the pulley was used because they weren’t strong enough to murder otherwise” or…? I don’t know where else this would go.

“Coincidence? Hardly.” Does… Does Teruko already have Eden clocked (heh) as the murderer? No, right? It’s the strength thing probs.

“…They specifically intended for this murder case to be similar to Nico’s murder.” Wait does she actually think it’s Ace or Eden what?

[Non-stop, Bound Wrists] … I have nothing. Nico didn’t bind Ace’s wrists. What is happening.

[Bullet fired] Okay, slight nitpick that I’m pretty sure bothers me and no one else. I get that it’s hard to come up with phrases to shoot bullets at, but “there’s no evidence of that” or some variation is the thing that gets shot in, like, 90% of these Non-Stops Debates. Again, not really important, just wanted to point out a pet peeve of mine.

“One of the pieces of evidence was taken directly from the crime scene…” Oh now we’re bringing up the tape! Teruko didn’t identify it in the spinny thing so I was wondering if she was going to make the connection on her own, but I guess I should have never doubted the Queen.

“I finally figured out what this tape is…” Okay that makes sense. But has she actually clocked (heh x2) that Eden or Ace must have taken it? She’s acting real chill about it.

“It’s the tape from the gym.” (Paraphrased) Woo! It feels super satisfying to finally read those words in a trial setting. Another exceedingly common badjoe W, as they’re who pointed out the tape’s disappearance to me.

“That time Rose and I went to the gym together…” Oh so she knows knows.

“But didn’t MonoTV clean up the gym?” Yeah that would be convenient for you huh. There’s still a chance Ace is the culprit and she’s trying to defend him, but it’s looking rough.

{Actually in retrospect yeah what the fuck?}

“…I attempted to restore the gym to its original condition.” Which would include the tape being there. It might be over chat.

“… why didn’t you recognize it earlier, Rose?” She didn’t look at the crime scene queen. But it was in the trash. Geez Rose is just gonna feel awful after this trial, I’m really interested to see where her character will go.

“Wooow!” Fucking David jumpscare-

Yo why’s David of all people being a hater you wanted them to lose the trial.

[David blames Arturo for Arei’s death] Considering Felicity, low blow. I hate David so much (/affectionate).

“I can’t even recall what day that happened.” Oh so she’s breaking down breaking down.

[Rose speech] The Rose angst is insane this episode, I’m loving every second. In addition, there might be a line here that could point to Rose!MM. But to keep the habit, I’m not elaborating on that (on this post).

“Rose. You are helpful.” Let me ignore the Terurose agenda for a moment and point out that Teruko’s still being way too chill about this if she’s about to call out Eden. Is she putting on a front? She mentioned hurting when Eden talked to her in the kitchen, so she probably does care, but isn’t letting herself show it? Oof if true.

“That I could be dismissive […] without consequences.” Oh we might be starting the “Teruko learns to trust a bit again” arc sooner than I expected. Cool! Also she’s not about to secret quote us right? {She wasn’t}.

“Thank you, Rose.” Okay I am no longer ignoring the Terurose agenda this ship is about to pop off I feel and I love that.

“…that tells me exactly who the murderer could be.” It might be Edenover.

Select Two People! But she said after Ace ran out, right? Is she gonna point at Ace and Eden, or herself and Eden?

Nope, Ace and Eden. Well, those are the two I landed on!

“It’s you two, right?” [Voice Line] You make it sound like Ace!Accomplice or Eden!Accomplice are even like remotely possible, and I find that funny.

“What’s your reasoning?” Veronika I love you but she’s spent the last ten minutes explaining her reasoning.

By the way, while Teruko’s repeating more or less the same lockdown logic I must have explained in at least three or four different posts (honestly kinda surreal ngl), it’s gonna be really funny if the only reason the class can confidently rule out Teruko as a suspect is because her handwriting sucks too much which is honestly the best argument for her innocence besides protag privilege :v

“I’m the least suspicious because I’ve been helping” is the second best argument lol.

“But to be frank, most of you are incapable of [acting logically]” Tell ‘em Teruko!

I’ll refrain from pointing bv out every suspicious Eden line because I always feel like I’m leaning too much on confirmation bias for it, but let’s be clear, I’m seeing them.

Hu: “Eden isn’t the killer! Don’t accuse her!” Bro.

“I do have evidence!” BDA?

Called it! If we’re bringing it up this early, though… I’m assuming it’s not so simple.

“You all are moving way too fucking fast.” I feel the same way Ace. {For the first time in the trial}.

“Hold on.” Wait is David gonna be the one to bring in the possible workaround(s)? Why the- I thought you wanted to lose? What the fuck is he even doing anymore???

“Oh my my my. That’s an issue.” You saw the body didn’t you.

“Because I’m actually the first person to see the body.” Well, there goes the “See No Evil” idea, which I kinda liked. Unless he’s just lying, which would honestly make more sense; he’d be trying to lead the trial astray again.

Okay but this is adorable.

“… at least one innocent person.” David, it’s- it’s at least two. How are this bad at math.

Nico: “Do you expect everyone to believe such an obvious lie?” This really is the Nico episode, huh? But it does make sense for them to push Ace as the culprit, I guess.

“He’s lying? Really?” Poor Levi’s got no fucking clue what’s going on.

“… he just conveniently avoided [the BDA group]” oh right they searched the whole floor before going to the playground David’s story is practically impossible.

Alright who’s gonna make the “What’s your source?” “I made it the fuck up!” meme with J/Nico and David?

“The only person who I need to believe me is Teruko.”

…

?????????????????????????????

(I feel like I write that exact sequence of characters every episode)

Are you just trying to go for a Teruvid angle to counteract the Terurose earlier? (/silly but really what the fuck-)

[David explains about Teruko’s skepticism] Yeah I guess. But, just so we’re clear: David still thinks the culprit is Ace and is just doing this to make them lose the trial right? Because otherwise what the actual fuck.

“AllI want is for Teruko to distrust others.” Motherfucker what-

[David’s whole Thing] You know, I really thought, I really fucking thought after Ep13, that we would get a break of a few episodes of David Bullshit, but no! What in the ever loving fuck is he even doing anymore???? No theories at this point, it is almost 11 PM where I am I do not have the brainpower to deal with this son of a bitch.

Levi: “Now that I think about it, Eden is in a good position to be Arei’s killer after all.” I feel a scrum debate forming.

“…why would I help it piece [the note] back together…?” I was right to avoid the bias. This line could be perfectly innocent, but the moment I read it, my mind said “she’s saying this too confidently, she had it planned, it’s Edenover.”

“Why… Levi, why?” While I do think Levi!Accomplice just 100% died of it wasn’t dead already, this line does read very funny with the context of that theory.

[Eden Breakdown] Man, {even after how much I’ve been sussing Eden in this and every other episode}, it sure does look like Ace is the culprit huh? Like, this scene is so beautiful and incredible it might just sway me to Ace!Culprit. The CGs are amazing, the music and the voice acting is terribly moving, the dialogue’s fantastic, holy fucking shit. I almost want to cry that was so fantastic. I— I wish I had more words, but that just left me speechless.

-

General Thoughts:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!

(/positive)

I don’t think I could have asked for more, this is just fucking perfect. Nico’s whole thing was great, the Rose angst was unexpected but wholly welcome, the tape reveal was revealed, David… Chiem, and the Eden CG stuff. Just absolutely fantastic all around.

…Slightly miffed the blood on the wires is still somehow not 100% consistent with the described method but WHATEVER it WORKS i do NOT wanna look at those fucking things again.

Theory Updates

Yeah it’s Ace.

Okay that’s dramatic lol. Eden!Culprit is not 100% dead, but off the top of my head, I can’t actually think of anything the characters can use to clear Ace rn. The only reason I believed Eden!Culprit over Ace!Culprit is that I didn’t think Teruko and even Eden could have missed Ace grabbing the tape upon waking up, especially with the sprite disappearing when Eden was on the ground, but… uh… apparently Teruko doesn’t trust herself so much.

With that glaring issue fixed, I actually think Ace!Culprit is significantly more solid than Eden!Culprit. No workaround needed for the BDA, no weird “are they even strong enough to do this” questions, and while the fish paradox Exists, Ace might have thought that putting fish there would make people think of Nico. Which, given the killer also somehow expected the class to figure out the similarities to Nico’s method when only a grand total of four people saw it, one of them being Nico themselves; yeah, I’d think he might be stupid enough for that.

EDIT: Also forgot to mention, Ace waking up before the murder attempt was over solves the issue of him figuring it all out. He actually straight up saw the method, he’d know how to replicate it.

And those Teruko-Eden CGs, man… I always had to really suspend my disbelief on some of Eden’s lines, even with venus’ narrative defense, but… come on. I’ve said this before; I have my limits.

All that added to the fact that Teruko seems to really want to start her “begin to trust again” arc, the fact David pushed for Eden!Culprit… it’s looking Ace!Culprit.

To be clear, there’s still things like Eden’s “Teruko, wait—!” that work better under Eden!Culprit, but I feel those are comparable to other potentially small foreshadowing moments such as Ace being weirdly fixated on the carousel. Eden!Culprit is, again, not fully dead, as other than strength, BDA and fish (all of which have workarounds), there’s not much concrete evidence clearing her. But at this point, I… don’t know. I’ve always felt kinda bad reading scenes like the kitchen talk with Teruko with as much suspicion as I did, but these final CGs, hmm…

Maybe my perspective will change with a clearer mind in the morning, but these are “first impressions” for a reason. They’re not meant to be very cohesive.

And if I’m wrong and it is Eden, well then I’ll have been wrong for a week or two instead of a year, so. Who cares at this point.

Speaking of getting things wrong, the Nico thing. I got Nico!SoloAceAttacker (is that the right notation?) right, and the really obvious stuff like using the stool to reach the fan. I’m also gonna give myself half points for guessing the broom was used to move the wire on the fan all the way back in my first post, but other than that, I did not cook. In my defense, a lot of the evidence (Nico’s missing cloak, the missing tape on the pull-up bar unless it’s somehow the roll, the isolated weights and toppled weight rack, and who knows what else) ended up not mattering in the slightest, which threw me off. Also, I call bullshit on this explaining the blood on the wires, that splatter pattern still doesn’t make sense with what was described. I guess my life isn’t Nico’s after all.

On the other hand, I’m a bit more confident on the remaining aspects of the Arei murder theory now that I believe the culprit is strong enough to pull it all off without issue, but we’ll have to see on that. My guess for culprit ended up changing for now, but the reasoning for arriving at them (tape) was solid, so we’ll see how that pans out.

All in all, immaculate episode. Chef’s kiss. Perfection. Holy shit. See you again soon!

[1moreff-creator]

Here's a fun one!

Do you think that the vast majority of the drdt community will be very surprised by the very possible reveal of something major spoilerish in the upcoming episode 14?

I mean what recent episode hasn’t sent the entire community in a tailspin for one reason or another? Be it David officially simping for Xander outside of LGI or the whole Levi speech + Arei conversation + Eden CG of EP 13, there’s always something or other that catches us all off guard.

If you mean something more specific that’s already being theorized about (Tape Thing, Culprit reveal, Nico not being the sole Ace attacker if that’s true, etc.), it’s an interesting one. I feel like a solid half or more of DRDT Tumblr is at least aware of these theories/observations, even if they don’t believe them/don’t think they’re important, so presumably people here aren’t going to all be 100% surprised by them.

However, I do believe most of the more casual audience, especially over on YT, will be completely blindsided by something like the tape or any culprit. Lots of people who touch significantly more grass than us residents of Tumblr (/affectionate) were (as I understand) surprised by things like “Charles will bring up time of death”, which was practically common consensus over in the more theory-focused side of the fandom, so anything bigger is bound to blow a few minds. At least, that’s what I imagine. Thanks for the ask!

[accirax]

DRDT CHAPTER 2 THEORIES MASTERLIST

Below is a compilation of various creators' interpretations of how DRDT's Chapter 2 murder was carried out. If you have a theory that you would like to be added to the list, please link it in the comments section! I would love to add any and all theories you may have. Also, here's a google docs version that may have further entries beyond the reblog.

TERUKO

Nothing yet!

CHARLES

Nothing yet!

ACE

Nothing yet!

AREI

Nothing yet!

ROSE

Nothing yet!

HU

DRDT Murder Theory Crafting by @gleamingtempest

Hu and Nico culprit+accomplice Theory (Also Eden was tricked into helping) by @demodraws0606

EDEN

BAD JOE’S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY PART 6 by @thebadjoe

Ep 13 Revision: Trying to Solve the DRDT CH2 Murder by @1moreff-creator

A Narrative Defense of Eden Culprit Theory by @venus-is-thinking

LEVI

Nothing yet!

ARTURO

Nothing yet!

DAVID

Nothing yet!

VERONIKA

Nothing yet!

J

Nothing yet!

WHIT

Nothing yet!

NICO

Nothing yet!

[demodraws0606]

The issues of Eden being the culprit

Look, just ignore the fact that I conceaded the fact that Eden being the culprit made sense not a long while ago (and that I also made a post about it). In all honesty the only reason why I accepted the theory was mainly because at the time, Eden was the one who had the most evidence stacked against her + the idea of her doing this with an accompliced solved most of the issues I had.

Now however with any thoughts of accomplices throughouly gutted mainly because I really just don't think Whit is involved in the murder anymore (even if he's overwhelmingly suspicious for no fucking reason). The idea of Levi helping has also pretty much gone out of the window now, so that would mean Eden couldn't rlly have gotten the help of anybody (and I don't want to entertain ideas that Arei might have allowed Eden to do it cause it makes no sense with Arei's characterization).

With all of that, now multiple holes that I've been willing to ignore kinda seem obvious with how the case is taking shape. So I'm gonna list all the reasons why I think that, right now, Eden being the culprit seems kind of unlikely.

-She would have no knowledge and reason to replicate the murder method used against Ace

Teruko has made it obvious now that the murder of Ace and Arei are connected in their method. Meaning there has to be a link between those two murder and who commited them. However, how would Eden have known exactly how the murder of Ace was commited, the murder mechanism was undone when Teruko and Eden both walked in. Even if you use the argument that "well Teruko noticed so maybe Eden did !" that would still leave the question as to why Eden would even try and commit a murder that's similar to the way Ace was almost murdered.

-She doesn't have the ability to get the water required for the murder

This one is the most obvious, unless she has someone who helped her, Eden couldn't have gotten the water. This was fine when Eden could potentially have someon working with her however with Arei's revealed talk with David alongside Levi's behavior last episode, I heavily doubt any of them helped Eden. Meaning Eden couldn't have gotten the water.

-The murderer would have no reason to try and circumvant the BDA rule

This one is something I don't hear a lot of people talk about but it's really important. We know that anyone who has witnessed the murder happen does not count for the BDA announcement. Meaning that unless Whit or Eden circumvented that rule, they are ruled innocent by default.

Obviously the wording is vague enough that you could argue the culprit tried to avoid that rule from applying but why ? We already from a lot of signs that the murder was sloppy and almost done last minute, why would the murderer think of such a niche rule. I'd argue this argument of trying to avoid the BDA rule would only work if another culprit was caught because someone was declared innocent by that rule.

-The wording of the note is simply too weird for it to make sense that it was Eden writing it

This is probably the least convincing argument but I still wanted to put this out there.

I understood at first the idea that Eden wrote the note and then just pretended that it wasn't really her handwriting, however isn't it weird how strange the note is worded (ignoring the mispelling).

Why would Eden do this, why couldn't she have just asked Arei to meet her at the playground ? I mean since they were friends now, why would she need lie so much to get Arei's attention ?

Eden could've lied about being threatened but I'd argue it definitely wouldn't be written out like this.

Unless if the culprit isn't Eden and therefore wanted to make 100 pourcent they get Arei's attention by putting everything they overheard into the note. Considering how sloppily the note seems to be written it also would make sense it just sounds like a rehearsed version of what the culprit overheard.

-She couldn't have gotten the Turpentine that was probably used to knock out Arei

This one is the most damning, we know for a fact Arei had to have been knocked out. The floor of the playground is extremely prone to scrapes and marks that any type of resistance would've been made obvious. Obviously I don't think Arei did this willingly because otherwise she wouldn't have had her wrist bound by tape (and also it just makes 0 sense with her character) so this means she had to have been knocked unconcious.

However, Eden had no way to get the turpentine, the attempted murderer of Ace was the one who had it and unless somone wants to try and make the argument that Eden tried to kill Ace, this means that Eden couldn't have gotten a hold of it.

[thebadjoe]

Hello dear theorist! It is I, Bad Joe, Pretender of a Great Detective!

I do not know if you've read my theories or not in the past, but I am a firm believer that Eden is indeed the culprit.

So of course, any sort of posts that involves people supporting the Eden!Culprit possibility or finding ways to make it seem like it's unlikely always catch my attention. Yours is no exception on that matter.

And so, I've been reading all your points and... I couldn't help but have a slight grin to my face. Let me give you my thoughts on that matter!

The main thing you have to take into consideration is that rather than claiming that it's impossible because of these problems that you've encountered, you should reverse your way of thinking.

Knowing that Eden is the most likely culprit because she's the best candidate for taking the tape, we should ask ourselves this question : If Eden is indeed the culprit, then what can we possibly deduce from these obstacles that would help solve the mystery?

She doesn't have the ability to get the water required for the murder

I'm actually not going to start in order. I'd like to tackle this point first. To make it more clear, I'd like to remind everyone that by water required, it refers to the "fish" water in the relaxation room, because of the fishes.

That's the current idea based on Teruko's first idea on how the murder happened in episode 13. And so far... I agree on one specific matter.

There is absolutely no way for Eden to grab the fishes by herself at the only possible time frame between during the evening of DAY 3 (when Teruko, Whit and Charles encounter David in the kitchen) and nighttime.

It is cold hard fact because Nico claimed they fed the fishes during the evening of DAY 3 and they didn't notice any missing fishes. (Unless they lied about it, but nevermind that)

But what does this mean for the murder case if Eden's indeed the culprit, but didn't grab the fishes? While I'm at it, let me make another claim.

As of now, this is incredibly unlikely for Eden to be working together with an accomplice. Therefore, she worked alone on this murder scheme.

Then if she worked alone and never grabbed the fishes, then what the hell is up with those fishes?!

By eliminating the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth. Here's my idea : Someone else grabbed the fishes during the evening of DAY 3. The person responsible for taking those fishes did not work with the culprit. They did it for their own reasons.

W-WHAT?!

Confusing, I know, but that's the only way to explain how that was remotely possible to begin with if Eden never touched those fishes.

It may seem incredibly confusing at first (especially if you never read my theories), but trust me, I have proper answers that would fit this idea perfectly.

I will not elaborate in here however as there is just so much to talk about especially since the more I go on, the more questions you're gonna be asking if I don't elaborate enough and I don't want to turn this into another large post.

If you are interested to find out, here is the most important theory post I've made (It's a ridiculously long post, so you've been warned) and then there's this fresh post I've made that solves some problems I encountered with episode 12 and 13 (not related with this point, but figured you might be curious).

Anyways... my point is that as strange as it may seem, there is a way to explain how those fishes got there without having Eden being the person responsible for it.

The murderer would have no reason to try and circumvant the BDA rule

I'm not gonna lie, this point confuses me a bit.

.....oh! Of course! My bad! I was still under my theory beliefs, so it took me a while to understand what you were referring to.

In other words, you're saying that because it happened "last minute" before the BDA and that Teruko, Whit and Eden were the first three people who ran into the corpse, the BDA wouldn't trigger unless the culprit somehow figured out a loophole with the BDA rule, which seems incredibly unlikely because it was made "last minute".

Therefore, she must be innocent, right? Well... I do recall seeing some people finding ways to circumvant it, although I don't quite fully recall how it worked. But I believe one of said examples was that the culprit closed their eyes or averted their eyes away from the murder happening as they let go of the mechanism.

It is a way to explain it for sure, as silly as it may sound, but quite frankly, I don't believe that's what happened. So on that point you made, I agree wholeheartedly!

...what? You thought I was going to disagree with it? Hell nah! I think that's a very valid point... if you were to presume that the murder happened in the morning of DAY 4.

....what do you mean?

Well, your whole premise is that the murder must've happened in the morning of DAY 4, right? After all, that's what the majority of the playerbase happened. But we must not forget one thing : because Eden is the best candidate to take the tape and that it was used in the playground, she must be the culprit.

But of course, if we believe that the murder happened in the morning of DAY 4 while believing that Eden is the culprit, then we have ourselves a contradiction!

So how do we solve this problem if Eden is indeed the culprit? Well... unless there was a third party who happened to sneak by and discover the body of Arei without Eden noticing (which seems impossibly unlikely), then we're left with only one option.

The murder of Arei Nageishi did NOT happen in the morning of DAY 4. It happened at a different time.

HUUUUH?!?!? Then how do you explain the body swinging during the BDA?!

Easy! Someone (eitheir the culprit or anyone else) visited the crime scene and messed with the body somehow, which resulted in the body swinging.

WHAT IN THE FU- YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR MIND!!!

Eh, I guess I am. :D

But hey, just like before, most of it is explained in part 5 and part 6 of my theory posts. I have logical reasoning behind it, I swear! Moving on!

The wording of the note is simply too weird for it to make sense that it was Eden writing it

I've got to admit, the wording behind this note is very strange indeed. It makes me wonder if that was just simply Eden trying way too hard at making a fake note to make it seems like it was someone else who wrote it.

Not the best explanation, but an explanation nonetheless.

There is one thing I will definitly agree with you on that matter though.

Why would Eden do this, why couldn't she have just asked Arei to meet her at the playground ? I mean since they were friends now, why would she need lie so much to get Arei's attention ?

I agree with you on that matter because I believe that Eden did not lure Arei with a letter. She simply lured her by calling out Arei's name, since she's friends with her now.

Then what about the letter? What was the whole point of it?

Well, let's not forget about my previous counterpoint because according to my deductions, Eden must've killed Arei at a different time than the morning of DAY 4.

So since she was killed at an earlier time than the morning of DAY 4, then perhaps the note served a different purpose. It was eitheir something meant as a backup plan or the culprit needed it to tell a specific narrative that would make her seem the least suspicious in that trial.

The narrative part would definitly make sense since that's what led to Arturo's secret reveal and Eden telling her side of the story which would temporarily give suspicious towards Arturo while Eden would get away scot free!

I'm not gonna go into details there, but what matters is that I found a way to solve this problem of yours.

She would have no knowledge and reason to replicate the murder method used against Ace

She couldn't have gotten the Turpentine that was probably used to knock out Arei

...As you may have noticed, I stuck both of these points together. And no, that's not an editor's mistake on my end. I purposefully put these two points together because both of these issue can be answered with a single answer.

Once again, we need to go under the assumption that Eden is indeed the culprit. So how do we solve the issue of Eden not knowing how the mechanism of the murder attempt on Ace worked and how could she get her hands on the turpentine if someone else did it.

Well, both of these points have something in common : they are supposedly done by someone else. So how do we make the impossible possible?

Well, we simply need to turn the side of the chessboard! Here's my idea!

Eden is the person responsible for the attempted murder of Ace as well as being responsible for the murder of Arei.

That's ridiculous!

No, that's wrong! It's logical deduction! By making her responsible for the attempted murder of Ace, it easily explains how Eden was able to use the turpentine to knock out Arei as well. It also explains how she was able to pull off a murder somewhat similar to the attempted murder.

Also, I don't mean to be a broken record, but she's the most likely candidate for taking the roll of tape before Teruko's distracted eyes.

This is my solution to this whole murder case!

Of course, if some of you are unaware of my theory, it will seem incredibly overwhelming and confusing. But trust me, I'm not doing this only because I'm trying to make something as crazy as possible. I'm doing this because this was the most logical conclusion I arrived at when looking at every bits of information available with this murder case.

In case you missed it again. Here's part 5 and part 6 of my theory.

You had previous versions?

Hah! Don't worry about them. Those are practically outdated versions! :)

Thanks for reading!

[demodraws0606]

It seems I have lured the pray within my own trap as I have read this post and I have a few tricks up my sleeve

So I'm gonna go point for point trying to explain my issues with these counterarguments

"Someone else grabbed the fishes during the evening of DAY 3. The person responsible for taking those fishes did not work with the culprit. They did it for their own reasons"

This argument is one way to avoid the issue of Eden not being able to have the fish, however it wasn't just the fish that was taken, it was the water.

We know that the containers full of water were used as part of the mechanism for the murder and the fish ended up on the ground because they broke from gravity. I can prove that by certainty because of the damage we see on the containers.

This damage proves that these jugs were in some way used in the mechanism of this murder. Meaning the water had to have been necessary for the murder of Eden because otherwise if it wasn't then it would make these jugs completely useless and they wouldn't be there in the first place.

Someone (eitheir the culprit or anyone else) visited the crime scene and messed with the body somehow, which resulted in the body swinging.

This argument would explain the BDA announcement and it would work with your theory that she wasn't actually killed in the morning, however how likely is that truly ?

This means the person who both has tampered with the body (leading to Arei swinging) and had the fishes are one in the same unless you're trying to argue there are two people who ended up getting accidentally involved.

Let's make a list of people who both couldn't have gotten the fishes and had an alibi during the morning (because they couldn't have tampered with the scene if they were present during the morning). I'm not counting any theories about someone lying about alibies because I'm going under the logic of Eden being the culprit :

-Hu, Nico, Veronika, J, David, Teruko, Whit, Charles, Arturo

This means the only people who could have tampered with the crime scene are Rose, Levi and Ace. However none of them, with the exclusion maybe Ace have any motive to try and skew the trial. Levi has been honest so far and seems to genuinely want to move the trial forward and Rose just simply has no motivation and it goes against her entire behavior in this chapter. The only person then would be Ace, which while this isn't a huge blow to your theory it heavily restricts it as there needs to be actual good reasons to why Ace would ever try and tamper with the crime scene (other than potentially trying to frame Nico which he has done so completely unsucessfully)

Eden is the person responsible for the attempted murder of Ace as well as being responsible for the murder of Arei.

This truly would mark the end for my counterarguments right ? I mean if she commited the murder of Ace then truly that would mean she would have access the turpentine...

HOWEVER, you have made a grave mistake as you have tied yourself in a knot of contradictions and farfetched ideas. You need to explain...

...how could Eden have gotten hold of Hu's secret weapon !

The only way Eden could have gotten a hold of Hu's secret weapon is if Eden ended up stealing it from her but how would that even be possible ? Hu would certainly not be hanging around with her secret weapon lying around and there's not any practical reason to use it outside of murder.

You would assume there would be an account of Eden going in Hu's room for whatever reason, however the only thing we know is that they hung out together. There is no evidence that Eden could have ever gotten Hu's secret weapon, therefore she couldn't have tried to murder Ace !

"...she's the most likely candidate for taking the roll of tape before Teruko's distracted eyes"

Ah yes, the most persistant of evidence against Eden. But what about the tape ?! Well there's one easy answer for why Eden took the tape.

The culprit told her to do so, not because Eden was aware of a murder happening but simply because the culprit made it seem like they were just gonna use it for something else.

If you're going to argue "well there's nothing proving that!", there's nothing proving that Eden could've gotten hold of Hu's weapon.

In fact I have an interesting piece of evidence that shakes the whole foundation of Eden taking the tape, it doesn't make her "innocent" but it gives a new perspective as to why Eden was possibly asked to take the tape (and also it makes things more complicated).

There was already some grippy tape stolen by the person who attempted to kill Ace.

I already hear the argument "well Eden could have just went back to take the tape she seemed to have forgotten" while that's correct, I think there's something more logical that could be argued.

The culprit didn't want to go back to the crime scene as they didn't want to look suspicious. I mean if Eden was the culprit why would she even try and steal in broad daylight, couldn't she have waited until the room was empty ?

Unless she was thinking that she was doing nothing malicious at all.

"But why isn't Eden talking about it, this clearly makes her suspicious !!" Well, Eden didn't want to talk about the note did she ? Clearly she seems to avoid talking about things that make her seem suspicious, and considering everything that happened it's possible that she may have even forgotten how taking the tape ended up being involved in the murder. In fact, so far none of the cast have really mentioned the tape being the grippy tape from the gym, Eden has no reason to mention it or remember it.

That's all I have to say.

[thebadjoe]

Hmm... I suppose I should've seen this coming. I figured I should help you out since you thought it was impossible due to the first problems you brought up and hoped it'd give you some ray of hope, but alas, it didn't.

You brought up even more arguments to try to fully shut down the idea that Eden is the culprit.

I could reply to all of them right there and then, but I don't feel like it. I'm actually more lazy than it seems. Besides... there is no point.

Because all of your points are practically answered within my theory post.

BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY PART 5

...It's been a while, hasn't it? I spent time working on a different project and I suppose I needed a break. I'm here to give you an update

I'd recommend reading it, even though it's rather long. But otherwise, you do you and believe that Eden is no longer the culprit.

[demodraws0606]

Well the thing is I've read this post before in the past and I simply don't think this disproves any of my points.

It seems you mostly seem to move the goal post on what could be considered evidence.

In your master-post you notice that Eden getting Hu's weapon is not possible therefore you move the goal post and try to go for the fact that clocks have wires, therefore leading to Eden possibly having used that instead of Hu's secret weapon.

However there is no proof that those cables would be sharp enough to hurt Ace's neck and we have no evidence that type of wire even existing in the first place.

You assume in your theory that the starch on the ball of clothing is from the relaxation room however there are no stains on the ball of clothing.

In fact the fact that the ball of clothes is sticky, probably means that it was the turpentine that stuck the clothes together. A substance that is clear and wouldn't leave any obvious noticable stains.

Your theory requires too much made up evidence to really hold together. You often have to go through insane complicated hoops to make any of it makes sense (like Eden disguising herself as Arei).

It both simply does not make sense from what we know of Eden and it also just doesn't work with how the case has been presented thus far.

[thebadjoe]

*sigh!*

Originally, I was gonna let it go, but since you claim that my post(s) doesn't disprove any of those points...

I suppose I'll have to elaborate yet again because I probably didn't make myself clear in my theory post (and I also forgot to refer to my newest part of the theory on the latest reblog I did even though I sent a link of it in the other reblog).

This argument is one way to avoid the issue of Eden not being able to have the fish, however it wasn't just the fish that was taken, it was the water.

(Screenshot of my theory post part 5)

I suppose I could've elaborated more on that, but basically, why are we instantly assuming that the culprit must've gotten the water from the relaxation room? Is it because that's what Teruko claimed in episode 13?

Have you guys not considered that perhaps the jugs were already filled with water to begin with or if they were empty jugs initially, they could've easily filled those with the water from the sink?

I mean... there's no way the jugs came from the second floor originally, so they must've gotten those jugs somewhere on the first floor before going to the second floor.

So really, not a problem at all there.

In response to my claim that it's possible that instead of a murder happening in the morning of DAY 4, someone decided to enter the crime scene to mess with the body for some reason...

-----------------------------------------------------------

This argument would explain the BDA announcement and it would work with your theory that she wasn't actually killed in the morning, however how likely is that truly ? This means the person who both has tampered with the body (leading to Arei swinging) and had the fishes are one in the same unless you're trying to argue there are two people who ended up getting accidentally involved.

This time, it's kinda hard to crop multiple parts of my theory part 5 and 6 to answer it, so let me put it all into words.

Maybe it's because you didn't read part 6 of my theory post, but why are you presuming that what I had in mind was that the person who placed the fishes is the very same person responsible for making the body swing in the morning?

That was not my intent at all. Here's what I believe happened and if this raises you more questions than before, then I'd suggest reading part 6 of my theory and a bit of part 5 (Act 25 and 26). David is the first witness to discover the corpse of Arei. So far, we know that he's the latest known person that was on the second floor on the evening of DAY 3. David was being hella cryptic when it came to what the conversation was about, so it's possible that he actually found her corpse.

For various reasons beyond only what I claimed in part 5 (it might be bound for modifications), he decided to bring the body and some fishes (to hint towards what he thought the time of death was around the evening) back to the playground (before the relax room becomes locked) since the rest of the evidence was located here.

Eden's original intent of murdering Arei so early was to set up the perfect alibi and wait for someone to find the corpse and call out for help, which would trigger the BDA in the evening of DAY 3.

But because David is being a David, it didn't go according to plan. So Eden went to the second floor in the early morning of DAY 4, shortly before 8:00 AM.

After some light investigation, she discovers that the body moved back to the playground (already hanged by David) and messed with Arei's body slightly by putting back her monopad into her pockets.

Eden is the person responsible for messing with the body in the morning of DAY 4, who's also not the person responsible for taking out the fishes.

In a sense, you could say that it was two people getting involved, but only one of them was accidental while the other person was the culprit anyways.

And of course, you know that I'm not gonna claim that it was David who messed with the body in the morning since David has an airtight alibi at the time.

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...how could Eden have gotten hold of Hu's secret weapon ! The only way Eden could have gotten a hold of Hu's secret weapon is if Eden ended up stealing it from her but how would that even be possible ?

When did I ever state that Eden must've gotten her hands on Hu's wires? Why are we presuming that this is indeed Hu's wires even though we have nothing to back up that claim aside that it was shown in the list on weapons?

Also...

I think I made my point here. Whether you believe it or not and think that I'm "reaching for way too far", then that's your opinion. What matters is that I have a solution for it and it's not baseless by any means.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Ah yes, the most persistant of evidence against Eden. But what about the tape ?! Well there's one easy answer for why Eden took the tape. The culprit told her to do so, not because Eden was aware of a murder happening but simply because the culprit made it seem like they were just gonna use it for something else. If you're going to argue "well there's nothing proving that!", there's nothing proving that Eden could've gotten hold of Hu's weapon.

Oh, well look at that. The last point doesn't really matter anymore now that I've pointed out that Eden could've found another way to get sturdy enough wires, eh?

Don't worry, I'm not going to shred your theory to smithereens. You can do whatever you want with it, it's not really on my mind. As weird as it may be, it's still a theory of yours and I'm not gonna try to deny it whatsoever.

Yap all you want about it, but you can't deny that it makes a whole lot more sense to believe that Eden took the tape because she was plotting a murder.

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*Imagine those are pictures of the pull up bars before and after the attempted murder.* There was already some grippy tape stolen by the person who attempted to kill Ace.

*Clears throat*

Alright then...

If you don't get what I mean by that, then let me show it to you in pictures.

This is when Teruko makes her first time exploration to the gym.

And this is right after the failed attempted murder. Whatever do you mean when you say that there was already stolen tape? As far as I can see, the roll of tape must've come from the pull up bar since there's no other way to explain how it got there.

You can presume that those are two different tapes for whatever reason you want to imagine, but no matter what you come up with, since we have nothing else that proves where else there could be tape, the roll of tape originally coming from the pull up bar is the most logical conclusion, that is an undeniable fact.

So there you have it. All of these points that you claimed that my theory doesn't disprove it in any way whatsoever? Well... I pretty much proved you wrong there. Whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, it doesn't matter. I've proven to you that my theory (with some hint of part 6) does indeed answer to these points of yours.

While I'm at it, let me properly respond to your latest reblog as well! (We're not done!)

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In your master-post you notice that Eden getting Hu's weapon is not possible therefore you move the goal post and try to go for the fact that clocks have wires, therefore leading to Eden possibly having used that instead of Hu's secret weapon. However there is no proof that those cables would be sharp enough to hurt Ace's neck and we have no evidence that type of wire even existing in the first place.

It's odd that you bring it up even though you previously claimed that Eden couldn't have gotten her hands on Hu's weapon, but let's disregard it.

You say that there's no proof that they're sharp, but it's not really a matter of how sharp they are, but rather how sturdy and thin they are. It's funny you say something like this though because the exact same thing could be said about Hu's wires.

I may have no evidence that Eden owns a grandfather clock in her dorm, but we have enough information to be able to come up with such conclusion, as subtle as it may be.

-----------------------------------------------------------

You assume in your theory that the starch on the ball of clothing is from the relaxation room however there are no stains on the ball of clothing. In fact the fact that the ball of clothes is sticky, probably means that it was the turpentine that stuck the clothes together. A substance that is clear and wouldn't leave any obvious noticable stains.

Time to go for a different screencap. Google time!

See the pattern here? :)

As for the "lack of stains", I'm going to use my Rule of Fiction card.

Because it is a work of fiction, as unlikely as it may seem, as long as there's plenty information and clues pointing towards it, then it CAN be possible.

Besides, it's still possible that the creator eitheir intended for it to have stains, but didn't add the details on said clothes (unless they were hidden) or they could've gone for a route where it doesn't leave any stains whatsoever, but it retains the stickiness properties.

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Your theory requires too much made up evidence to really hold together. You often have to go through insane complicated hoops to make any of it makes sense

Too much made up evidence? From my point of view, I don't have that many made up evidence. The majority of it are based on clues and information we've been given during the whole fangan.

There's only like 2 "made up" evidence that I can think of and those are Eden having a grandfather clock in her dorm and using the cables inside and a wall mounted switch to turn on and off the fans inside the fitness room.

And even then, both of these are based on logical deductions.

And there you have it.

I don't know if you'll keep trying to make some more counter arguments out of it (somehow), but just know that unless you try to argue about a very specific point (that I'm not gonna reveal nor am I inviting you to try and guess), I won't be responding to them anymore.

We both got stuff to do, right? Thanks for taking the time to read. Edit : Okay, maybe that was poorly worded, but basically, I don't want this to turn into an endless debate. I've already done that last year.

[demodraws0606]

The issues of Eden being the culprit

Look, just ignore the fact that I conceaded the fact that Eden being the culprit made sense not a long while ago (and that I also made a post about it). In all honesty the only reason why I accepted the theory was mainly because at the time, Eden was the one who had the most evidence stacked against her + the idea of her doing this with an accompliced solved most of the issues I had.

Now however with any thoughts of accomplices throughouly gutted mainly because I really just don't think Whit is involved in the murder anymore (even if he's overwhelmingly suspicious for no fucking reason). The idea of Levi helping has also pretty much gone out of the window now, so that would mean Eden couldn't rlly have gotten the help of anybody (and I don't want to entertain ideas that Arei might have allowed Eden to do it cause it makes no sense with Arei's characterization).

With all of that, now multiple holes that I've been willing to ignore kinda seem obvious with how the case is taking shape. So I'm gonna list all the reasons why I think that, right now, Eden being the culprit seems kind of unlikely.

-She would have no knowledge and reason to replicate the murder method used against Ace

Teruko has made it obvious now that the murder of Ace and Arei are connected in their method. Meaning there has to be a link between those two murder and who commited them. However, how would Eden have known exactly how the murder of Ace was commited, the murder mechanism was undone when Teruko and Eden both walked in. Even if you use the argument that "well Teruko noticed so maybe Eden did !" that would still leave the question as to why Eden would even try and commit a murder that's similar to the way Ace was almost murdered.

-She doesn't have the ability to get the water required for the murder

This one is the most obvious, unless she has someone who helped her, Eden couldn't have gotten the water. This was fine when Eden could potentially have someon working with her however with Arei's revealed talk with David alongside Levi's behavior last episode, I heavily doubt any of them helped Eden. Meaning Eden couldn't have gotten the water.

-The murderer would have no reason to try and circumvant the BDA rule

This one is something I don't hear a lot of people talk about but it's really important. We know that anyone who has witnessed the murder happen does not count for the BDA announcement. Meaning that unless Whit or Eden circumvented that rule, they are ruled innocent by default.

Obviously the wording is vague enough that you could argue the culprit tried to avoid that rule from applying but why ? We already from a lot of signs that the murder was sloppy and almost done last minute, why would the murderer think of such a niche rule. I'd argue this argument of trying to avoid the BDA rule would only work if another culprit was caught because someone was declared innocent by that rule.

-The wording of the note is simply too weird for it to make sense that it was Eden writing it

This is probably the least convincing argument but I still wanted to put this out there.

I understood at first the idea that Eden wrote the note and then just pretended that it wasn't really her handwriting, however isn't it weird how strange the note is worded (ignoring the mispelling).

Why would Eden do this, why couldn't she have just asked Arei to meet her at the playground ? I mean since they were friends now, why would she need lie so much to get Arei's attention ?

Eden could've lied about being threatened but I'd argue it definitely wouldn't be written out like this.

Unless if the culprit isn't Eden and therefore wanted to make 100 pourcent they get Arei's attention by putting everything they overheard into the note. Considering how sloppily the note seems to be written it also would make sense it just sounds like a rehearsed version of what the culprit overheard.

-She couldn't have gotten the Turpentine that was probably used to knock out Arei

This one is the most damning, we know for a fact Arei had to have been knocked out. The floor of the playground is extremely prone to scrapes and marks that any type of resistance would've been made obvious. Obviously I don't think Arei did this willingly because otherwise she wouldn't have had her wrist bound by tape (and also it just makes 0 sense with her character) so this means she had to have been knocked unconcious.

However, Eden had no way to get the turpentine, the attempted murderer of Ace was the one who had it and unless somone wants to try and make the argument that Eden tried to kill Ace, this means that Eden couldn't have gotten a hold of it.

[thebadjoe]

Hello dear theorist! It is I, Bad Joe, Pretender of a Great Detective!

I do not know if you've read my theories or not in the past, but I am a firm believer that Eden is indeed the culprit.

So of course, any sort of posts that involves people supporting the Eden!Culprit possibility or finding ways to make it seem like it's unlikely always catch my attention. Yours is no exception on that matter.

And so, I've been reading all your points and... I couldn't help but have a slight grin to my face. Let me give you my thoughts on that matter!

The main thing you have to take into consideration is that rather than claiming that it's impossible because of these problems that you've encountered, you should reverse your way of thinking.

Knowing that Eden is the most likely culprit because she's the best candidate for taking the tape, we should ask ourselves this question : If Eden is indeed the culprit, then what can we possibly deduce from these obstacles that would help solve the mystery?

She doesn't have the ability to get the water required for the murder

I'm actually not going to start in order. I'd like to tackle this point first. To make it more clear, I'd like to remind everyone that by water required, it refers to the "fish" water in the relaxation room, because of the fishes.

That's the current idea based on Teruko's first idea on how the murder happened in episode 13. And so far... I agree on one specific matter.

There is absolutely no way for Eden to grab the fishes by herself at the only possible time frame between during the evening of DAY 3 (when Teruko, Whit and Charles encounter David in the kitchen) and nighttime.

It is cold hard fact because Nico claimed they fed the fishes during the evening of DAY 3 and they didn't notice any missing fishes. (Unless they lied about it, but nevermind that)

But what does this mean for the murder case if Eden's indeed the culprit, but didn't grab the fishes? While I'm at it, let me make another claim.

As of now, this is incredibly unlikely for Eden to be working together with an accomplice. Therefore, she worked alone on this murder scheme.

Then if she worked alone and never grabbed the fishes, then what the hell is up with those fishes?!

By eliminating the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth. Here's my idea : Someone else grabbed the fishes during the evening of DAY 3. The person responsible for taking those fishes did not work with the culprit. They did it for their own reasons.

W-WHAT?!

Confusing, I know, but that's the only way to explain how that was remotely possible to begin with if Eden never touched those fishes.

It may seem incredibly confusing at first (especially if you never read my theories), but trust me, I have proper answers that would fit this idea perfectly.

I will not elaborate in here however as there is just so much to talk about especially since the more I go on, the more questions you're gonna be asking if I don't elaborate enough and I don't want to turn this into another large post.

If you are interested to find out, here is the most important theory post I've made (It's a ridiculously long post, so you've been warned) and then there's this fresh post I've made that solves some problems I encountered with episode 12 and 13 (not related with this point, but figured you might be curious).

Anyways... my point is that as strange as it may seem, there is a way to explain how those fishes got there without having Eden being the person responsible for it.

The murderer would have no reason to try and circumvant the BDA rule

I'm not gonna lie, this point confuses me a bit.

.....oh! Of course! My bad! I was still under my theory beliefs, so it took me a while to understand what you were referring to.

In other words, you're saying that because it happened "last minute" before the BDA and that Teruko, Whit and Eden were the first three people who ran into the corpse, the BDA wouldn't trigger unless the culprit somehow figured out a loophole with the BDA rule, which seems incredibly unlikely because it was made "last minute".

Therefore, she must be innocent, right? Well... I do recall seeing some people finding ways to circumvant it, although I don't quite fully recall how it worked. But I believe one of said examples was that the culprit closed their eyes or averted their eyes away from the murder happening as they let go of the mechanism.

It is a way to explain it for sure, as silly as it may sound, but quite frankly, I don't believe that's what happened. So on that point you made, I agree wholeheartedly!

...what? You thought I was going to disagree with it? Hell nah! I think that's a very valid point... if you were to presume that the murder happened in the morning of DAY 4.

....what do you mean?

Well, your whole premise is that the murder must've happened in the morning of DAY 4, right? After all, that's what the majority of the playerbase happened. But we must not forget one thing : because Eden is the best candidate to take the tape and that it was used in the playground, she must be the culprit.

But of course, if we believe that the murder happened in the morning of DAY 4 while believing that Eden is the culprit, then we have ourselves a contradiction!

So how do we solve this problem if Eden is indeed the culprit? Well... unless there was a third party who happened to sneak by and discover the body of Arei without Eden noticing (which seems impossibly unlikely), then we're left with only one option.

The murder of Arei Nageishi did NOT happen in the morning of DAY 4. It happened at a different time.

HUUUUH?!?!? Then how do you explain the body swinging during the BDA?!

Easy! Someone (eitheir the culprit or anyone else) visited the crime scene and messed with the body somehow, which resulted in the body swinging.

WHAT IN THE FU- YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR MIND!!!

Eh, I guess I am. :D

But hey, just like before, most of it is explained in part 5 and part 6 of my theory posts. I have logical reasoning behind it, I swear! Moving on!

The wording of the note is simply too weird for it to make sense that it was Eden writing it

I've got to admit, the wording behind this note is very strange indeed. It makes me wonder if that was just simply Eden trying way too hard at making a fake note to make it seems like it was someone else who wrote it.

Not the best explanation, but an explanation nonetheless.

There is one thing I will definitly agree with you on that matter though.

Why would Eden do this, why couldn't she have just asked Arei to meet her at the playground ? I mean since they were friends now, why would she need lie so much to get Arei's attention ?

I agree with you on that matter because I believe that Eden did not lure Arei with a letter. She simply lured her by calling out Arei's name, since she's friends with her now.

Then what about the letter? What was the whole point of it?

Well, let's not forget about my previous counterpoint because according to my deductions, Eden must've killed Arei at a different time than the morning of DAY 4.

So since she was killed at an earlier time than the morning of DAY 4, then perhaps the note served a different purpose. It was eitheir something meant as a backup plan or the culprit needed it to tell a specific narrative that would make her seem the least suspicious in that trial.

The narrative part would definitly make sense since that's what led to Arturo's secret reveal and Eden telling her side of the story which would temporarily give suspicious towards Arturo while Eden would get away scot free!

I'm not gonna go into details there, but what matters is that I found a way to solve this problem of yours.

She would have no knowledge and reason to replicate the murder method used against Ace

She couldn't have gotten the Turpentine that was probably used to knock out Arei

...As you may have noticed, I stuck both of these points together. And no, that's not an editor's mistake on my end. I purposefully put these two points together because both of these issue can be answered with a single answer.

Once again, we need to go under the assumption that Eden is indeed the culprit. So how do we solve the issue of Eden not knowing how the mechanism of the murder attempt on Ace worked and how could she get her hands on the turpentine if someone else did it.

Well, both of these points have something in common : they are supposedly done by someone else. So how do we make the impossible possible?

Well, we simply need to turn the side of the chessboard! Here's my idea!

Eden is the person responsible for the attempted murder of Ace as well as being responsible for the murder of Arei.

That's ridiculous!

No, that's wrong! It's logical deduction! By making her responsible for the attempted murder of Ace, it easily explains how Eden was able to use the turpentine to knock out Arei as well. It also explains how she was able to pull off a murder somewhat similar to the attempted murder.

Also, I don't mean to be a broken record, but she's the most likely candidate for taking the roll of tape before Teruko's distracted eyes.

This is my solution to this whole murder case!

Of course, if some of you are unaware of my theory, it will seem incredibly overwhelming and confusing. But trust me, I'm not doing this only because I'm trying to make something as crazy as possible. I'm doing this because this was the most logical conclusion I arrived at when looking at every bits of information available with this murder case.

In case you missed it again. Here's part 5 and part 6 of my theory.

You had previous versions?

Hah! Don't worry about them. Those are practically outdated versions! :)

Thanks for reading!

[demodraws0606]

It seems I have lured the pray within my own trap as I have read this post and I have a few tricks up my sleeve

So I'm gonna go point for point trying to explain my issues with these counterarguments

"Someone else grabbed the fishes during the evening of DAY 3. The person responsible for taking those fishes did not work with the culprit. They did it for their own reasons"

This argument is one way to avoid the issue of Eden not being able to have the fish, however it wasn't just the fish that was taken, it was the water.

We know that the containers full of water were used as part of the mechanism for the murder and the fish ended up on the ground because they broke from gravity. I can prove that by certainty because of the damage we see on the containers.

This damage proves that these jugs were in some way used in the mechanism of this murder. Meaning the water had to have been necessary for the murder of Eden because otherwise if it wasn't then it would make these jugs completely useless and they wouldn't be there in the first place.

Someone (eitheir the culprit or anyone else) visited the crime scene and messed with the body somehow, which resulted in the body swinging.

This argument would explain the BDA announcement and it would work with your theory that she wasn't actually killed in the morning, however how likely is that truly ?

This means the person who both has tampered with the body (leading to Arei swinging) and had the fishes are one in the same unless you're trying to argue there are two people who ended up getting accidentally involved.

Let's make a list of people who both couldn't have gotten the fishes and had an alibi during the morning (because they couldn't have tampered with the scene if they were present during the morning). I'm not counting any theories about someone lying about alibies because I'm going under the logic of Eden being the culprit :

-Hu, Nico, Veronika, J, David, Teruko, Whit, Charles, Arturo

This means the only people who could have tampered with the crime scene are Rose, Levi and Ace. However none of them, with the exclusion maybe Ace have any motive to try and skew the trial. Levi has been honest so far and seems to genuinely want to move the trial forward and Rose just simply has no motivation and it goes against her entire behavior in this chapter. The only person then would be Ace, which while this isn't a huge blow to your theory it heavily restricts it as there needs to be actual good reasons to why Ace would ever try and tamper with the crime scene (other than potentially trying to frame Nico which he has done so completely unsucessfully)

Eden is the person responsible for the attempted murder of Ace as well as being responsible for the murder of Arei.

This truly would mark the end for my counterarguments right ? I mean if she commited the murder of Ace then truly that would mean she would have access the turpentine...

HOWEVER, you have made a grave mistake as you have tied yourself in a knot of contradictions and farfetched ideas. You need to explain...

...how could Eden have gotten hold of Hu's secret weapon !

The only way Eden could have gotten a hold of Hu's secret weapon is if Eden ended up stealing it from her but how would that even be possible ? Hu would certainly not be hanging around with her secret weapon lying around and there's not any practical reason to use it outside of murder.

You would assume there would be an account of Eden going in Hu's room for whatever reason, however the only thing we know is that they hung out together. There is no evidence that Eden could have ever gotten Hu's secret weapon, therefore she couldn't have tried to murder Ace !

"...she's the most likely candidate for taking the roll of tape before Teruko's distracted eyes"

Ah yes, the most persistant of evidence against Eden. But what about the tape ?! Well there's one easy answer for why Eden took the tape.

The culprit told her to do so, not because Eden was aware of a murder happening but simply because the culprit made it seem like they were just gonna use it for something else.

If you're going to argue "well there's nothing proving that!", there's nothing proving that Eden could've gotten hold of Hu's weapon.

In fact I have an interesting piece of evidence that shakes the whole foundation of Eden taking the tape, it doesn't make her "innocent" but it gives a new perspective as to why Eden was possibly asked to take the tape (and also it makes things more complicated).

There was already some grippy tape stolen by the person who attempted to kill Ace.

I already hear the argument "well Eden could have just went back to take the tape she seemed to have forgotten" while that's correct, I think there's something more logical that could be argued.

The culprit didn't want to go back to the crime scene as they didn't want to look suspicious. I mean if Eden was the culprit why would she even try and steal in broad daylight, couldn't she have waited until the room was empty ?

Unless she was thinking that she was doing nothing malicious at all.

"But why isn't Eden talking about it, this clearly makes her suspicious !!" Well, Eden didn't want to talk about the note did she ? Clearly she seems to avoid talking about things that make her seem suspicious, and considering everything that happened it's possible that she may have even forgotten how taking the tape ended up being involved in the murder. In fact, so far none of the cast have really mentioned the tape being the grippy tape from the gym, Eden has no reason to mention it or remember it.

That's all I have to say.

[thebadjoe]

Hmm... I suppose I should've seen this coming. I figured I should help you out since you thought it was impossible due to the first problems you brought up and hoped it'd give you some ray of hope, but alas, it didn't.

You brought up even more arguments to try to fully shut down the idea that Eden is the culprit.

I could reply to all of them right there and then, but I don't feel like it. I'm actually more lazy than it seems. Besides... there is no point.

Because all of your points are practically answered within my theory post.

BAD JOE'S DRDT CH.2 CRIME SOLVING THEORY PART 5

...It's been a while, hasn't it? I spent time working on a different project and I suppose I needed a break. I'm here to give you an update

I'd recommend reading it, even though it's rather long. But otherwise, you do you and believe that Eden is no longer the culprit.

[accirax]

with many people speculating that the identity of the culprit will finally come to light next episode and many theories running abound, i'd like to make a masterlist of all of the theories people have written out guessing who the culprit will be. that includes the main murder of Arei, the attempt on Ace, and any theories synthesizing the two. i think it would be fun to read up on before the episode, and fun to look back at once all is said and done :D

so, if you've made a theory speculating about the murder, please leave a comment on this post (preferably with a link to the theory)! i'll only be adding the theories of those who comment on the post, just so that i don't accidentally make anyone feel excluded/highlight someone's post that doesn't want to be shouted out.

all i ask is that you only submit whatever the most current version of your theory per character/combination of characters. for instance, if you wrote a theory based on the evidence from part 1, but wrote a new version taking into account what happened in episode 12 or 13, i'm only going to add the newer one. if you only have a version from part 1, though, that's fine!

(also, for all theoretical theorists out there, a reminder that i made an episode guide that breaks down all the episodes into easier-to-find sections. i just updated it for 2-13!)

[demodraws0606]

The issues of Eden being the culprit

Look, just ignore the fact that I conceaded the fact that Eden being the culprit made sense not a long while ago (and that I also made a post about it). In all honesty the only reason why I accepted the theory was mainly because at the time, Eden was the one who had the most evidence stacked against her + the idea of her doing this with an accompliced solved most of the issues I had.

Now however with any thoughts of accomplices throughouly gutted mainly because I really just don't think Whit is involved in the murder anymore (even if he's overwhelmingly suspicious for no fucking reason). The idea of Levi helping has also pretty much gone out of the window now, so that would mean Eden couldn't rlly have gotten the help of anybody (and I don't want to entertain ideas that Arei might have allowed Eden to do it cause it makes no sense with Arei's characterization).

With all of that, now multiple holes that I've been willing to ignore kinda seem obvious with how the case is taking shape. So I'm gonna list all the reasons why I think that, right now, Eden being the culprit seems kind of unlikely.

-She would have no knowledge and reason to replicate the murder method used against Ace

Teruko has made it obvious now that the murder of Ace and Arei are connected in their method. Meaning there has to be a link between those two murder and who commited them. However, how would Eden have known exactly how the murder of Ace was commited, the murder mechanism was undone when Teruko and Eden both walked in. Even if you use the argument that "well Teruko noticed so maybe Eden did !" that would still leave the question as to why Eden would even try and commit a murder that's similar to the way Ace was almost murdered.

-She doesn't have the ability to get the water required for the murder

This one is the most obvious, unless she has someone who helped her, Eden couldn't have gotten the water. This was fine when Eden could potentially have someon working with her however with Arei's revealed talk with David alongside Levi's behavior last episode, I heavily doubt any of them helped Eden. Meaning Eden couldn't have gotten the water.

-The murderer would have no reason to try and circumvant the BDA rule

This one is something I don't hear a lot of people talk about but it's really important. We know that anyone who has witnessed the murder happen does not count for the BDA announcement. Meaning that unless Whit or Eden circumvented that rule, they are ruled innocent by default.

Obviously the wording is vague enough that you could argue the culprit tried to avoid that rule from applying but why ? We already from a lot of signs that the murder was sloppy and almost done last minute, why would the murderer think of such a niche rule. I'd argue this argument of trying to avoid the BDA rule would only work if another culprit was caught because someone was declared innocent by that rule.

-The wording of the note is simply too weird for it to make sense that it was Eden writing it

This is probably the least convincing argument but I still wanted to put this out there.

I understood at first the idea that Eden wrote the note and then just pretended that it wasn't really her handwriting, however isn't it weird how strange the note is worded (ignoring the mispelling).

Why would Eden do this, why couldn't she have just asked Arei to meet her at the playground ? I mean since they were friends now, why would she need lie so much to get Arei's attention ?

Eden could've lied about being threatened but I'd argue it definitely wouldn't be written out like this.

Unless if the culprit isn't Eden and therefore wanted to make 100 pourcent they get Arei's attention by putting everything they overheard into the note. Considering how sloppily the note seems to be written it also would make sense it just sounds like a rehearsed version of what the culprit overheard.

-She couldn't have gotten the Turpentine that was probably used to knock out Arei

This one is the most damning, we know for a fact Arei had to have been knocked out. The floor of the playground is extremely prone to scrapes and marks that any type of resistance would've been made obvious. Obviously I don't think Arei did this willingly because otherwise she wouldn't have had her wrist bound by tape (and also it just makes 0 sense with her character) so this means she had to have been knocked unconcious.

However, Eden had no way to get the turpentine, the attempted murderer of Ace was the one who had it and unless somone wants to try and make the argument that Eden tried to kill Ace, this means that Eden couldn't have gotten a hold of it.

[thebadjoe]

Hello dear theorist! It is I, Bad Joe, Pretender of a Great Detective!

I do not know if you've read my theories or not in the past, but I am a firm believer that Eden is indeed the culprit.

So of course, any sort of posts that involves people supporting the Eden!Culprit possibility or finding ways to make it seem like it's unlikely always catch my attention. Yours is no exception on that matter.

And so, I've been reading all your points and... I couldn't help but have a slight grin to my face. Let me give you my thoughts on that matter!

The main thing you have to take into consideration is that rather than claiming that it's impossible because of these problems that you've encountered, you should reverse your way of thinking.

Knowing that Eden is the most likely culprit because she's the best candidate for taking the tape, we should ask ourselves this question : If Eden is indeed the culprit, then what can we possibly deduce from these obstacles that would help solve the mystery?

She doesn't have the ability to get the water required for the murder

I'm actually not going to start in order. I'd like to tackle this point first. To make it more clear, I'd like to remind everyone that by water required, it refers to the "fish" water in the relaxation room, because of the fishes.

That's the current idea based on Teruko's first idea on how the murder happened in episode 13. And so far... I agree on one specific matter.

There is absolutely no way for Eden to grab the fishes by herself at the only possible time frame between during the evening of DAY 3 (when Teruko, Whit and Charles encounter David in the kitchen) and nighttime.

It is cold hard fact because Nico claimed they fed the fishes during the evening of DAY 3 and they didn't notice any missing fishes. (Unless they lied about it, but nevermind that)

But what does this mean for the murder case if Eden's indeed the culprit, but didn't grab the fishes? While I'm at it, let me make another claim.

As of now, this is incredibly unlikely for Eden to be working together with an accomplice. Therefore, she worked alone on this murder scheme.

Then if she worked alone and never grabbed the fishes, then what the hell is up with those fishes?!

By eliminating the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth. Here's my idea : Someone else grabbed the fishes during the evening of DAY 3. The person responsible for taking those fishes did not work with the culprit. They did it for their own reasons.

W-WHAT?!

Confusing, I know, but that's the only way to explain how that was remotely possible to begin with if Eden never touched those fishes.

It may seem incredibly confusing at first (especially if you never read my theories), but trust me, I have proper answers that would fit this idea perfectly.

I will not elaborate in here however as there is just so much to talk about especially since the more I go on, the more questions you're gonna be asking if I don't elaborate enough and I don't want to turn this into another large post.

If you are interested to find out, here is the most important theory post I've made (It's a ridiculously long post, so you've been warned) and then there's this fresh post I've made that solves some problems I encountered with episode 12 and 13 (not related with this point, but figured you might be curious).

Anyways... my point is that as strange as it may seem, there is a way to explain how those fishes got there without having Eden being the person responsible for it.

The murderer would have no reason to try and circumvant the BDA rule

I'm not gonna lie, this point confuses me a bit.

.....oh! Of course! My bad! I was still under my theory beliefs, so it took me a while to understand what you were referring to.

In other words, you're saying that because it happened "last minute" before the BDA and that Teruko, Whit and Eden were the first three people who ran into the corpse, the BDA wouldn't trigger unless the culprit somehow figured out a loophole with the BDA rule, which seems incredibly unlikely because it was made "last minute".

Therefore, she must be innocent, right? Well... I do recall seeing some people finding ways to circumvant it, although I don't quite fully recall how it worked. But I believe one of said examples was that the culprit closed their eyes or averted their eyes away from the murder happening as they let go of the mechanism.

It is a way to explain it for sure, as silly as it may sound, but quite frankly, I don't believe that's what happened. So on that point you made, I agree wholeheartedly!

...what? You thought I was going to disagree with it? Hell nah! I think that's a very valid point... if you were to presume that the murder happened in the morning of DAY 4.

....what do you mean?

Well, your whole premise is that the murder must've happened in the morning of DAY 4, right? After all, that's what the majority of the playerbase happened. But we must not forget one thing : because Eden is the best candidate to take the tape and that it was used in the playground, she must be the culprit.

But of course, if we believe that the murder happened in the morning of DAY 4 while believing that Eden is the culprit, then we have ourselves a contradiction!

So how do we solve this problem if Eden is indeed the culprit? Well... unless there was a third party who happened to sneak by and discover the body of Arei without Eden noticing (which seems impossibly unlikely), then we're left with only one option.

The murder of Arei Nageishi did NOT happen in the morning of DAY 4. It happened at a different time.

HUUUUH?!?!? Then how do you explain the body swinging during the BDA?!

Easy! Someone (eitheir the culprit or anyone else) visited the crime scene and messed with the body somehow, which resulted in the body swinging.

WHAT IN THE FU- YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR MIND!!!

Eh, I guess I am. :D

But hey, just like before, most of it is explained in part 5 and part 6 of my theory posts. I have logical reasoning behind it, I swear! Moving on!

The wording of the note is simply too weird for it to make sense that it was Eden writing it

I've got to admit, the wording behind this note is very strange indeed. It makes me wonder if that was just simply Eden trying way too hard at making a fake note to make it seems like it was someone else who wrote it.

Not the best explanation, but an explanation nonetheless.

There is one thing I will definitly agree with you on that matter though.

Why would Eden do this, why couldn't she have just asked Arei to meet her at the playground ? I mean since they were friends now, why would she need lie so much to get Arei's attention ?

I agree with you on that matter because I believe that Eden did not lure Arei with a letter. She simply lured her by calling out Arei's name, since she's friends with her now.

Then what about the letter? What was the whole point of it?

Well, let's not forget about my previous counterpoint because according to my deductions, Eden must've killed Arei at a different time than the morning of DAY 4.

So since she was killed at an earlier time than the morning of DAY 4, then perhaps the note served a different purpose. It was eitheir something meant as a backup plan or the culprit needed it to tell a specific narrative that would make her seem the least suspicious in that trial.

The narrative part would definitly make sense since that's what led to Arturo's secret reveal and Eden telling her side of the story which would temporarily give suspicious towards Arturo while Eden would get away scot free!

I'm not gonna go into details there, but what matters is that I found a way to solve this problem of yours.

She would have no knowledge and reason to replicate the murder method used against Ace

She couldn't have gotten the Turpentine that was probably used to knock out Arei

...As you may have noticed, I stuck both of these points together. And no, that's not an editor's mistake on my end. I purposefully put these two points together because both of these issue can be answered with a single answer.

Once again, we need to go under the assumption that Eden is indeed the culprit. So how do we solve the issue of Eden not knowing how the mechanism of the murder attempt on Ace worked and how could she get her hands on the turpentine if someone else did it.

Well, both of these points have something in common : they are supposedly done by someone else. So how do we make the impossible possible?

Well, we simply need to turn the side of the chessboard! Here's my idea!

Eden is the person responsible for the attempted murder of Ace as well as being responsible for the murder of Arei.

That's ridiculous!

No, that's wrong! It's logical deduction! By making her responsible for the attempted murder of Ace, it easily explains how Eden was able to use the turpentine to knock out Arei as well. It also explains how she was able to pull off a murder somewhat similar to the attempted murder.

Also, I don't mean to be a broken record, but she's the most likely candidate for taking the roll of tape before Teruko's distracted eyes.

This is my solution to this whole murder case!

Of course, if some of you are unaware of my theory, it will seem incredibly overwhelming and confusing. But trust me, I'm not doing this only because I'm trying to make something as crazy as possible. I'm doing this because this was the most logical conclusion I arrived at when looking at every bits of information available with this murder case.

In case you missed it again. Here's part 5 and part 6 of my theory.

You had previous versions?

Hah! Don't worry about them. Those are practically outdated versions! :)

Thanks for reading!