So, I Was Watching A Good Girl's Guide To Murder And I Got Some Comments To Make. I Have Wanted To Read

Well, seems like something that was just a theory before has come very close to truth...

Because of this major revelation, I wanted to take a deep dive into what we know about Donovan so far and how hints throughout past chapters could indeed indicate that he can read minds. While we still don't have concrete proof for this other than Melinda's word, I don't believe there's anything that discredits this idea, either. In fact, many things throughout the series support it.

First we have Loid's encounter with Donovan way back in chapter 38. I always found it strange that we never got insight into Donovan's thoughts throughout that whole exchange. We always get to know what characters are thinking, even without Anya's mind-reading support. It's not an uncommon storytelling mechanic in general after all, especially for manga. Yet, Endo chose not to give us any insight into what Donovan was thinking. I figured this was simply to avoid spoiling anything about what his exact plans and motives are for future stories (also why Anya was absent for this). But now it seems like this could have also been to hide the fact that he can read minds. If he can read minds, certain things he said during that exchange take on a more ominous meaning. For example, what he said below about how people can never truly understand each other.

It's been a headcanon of mine that the reason why Anya, and perhaps Donovan, were given mind-reading powers, stemmed from the desire for world peace...the idea being that if people could read each other's minds - in other words, always know what others are thinking and feeling, sympathy and understanding would abound.

We learn later on that Donovan had ideas like this even as a kid when he made a similar comment during his debate competition speech. He said that it's impossible to know the true intentions of others so people will forever doubt each other, thus war is inevitable.

We also have the little detail in today's chapter that Donovan did not have the scars on his head during Melinda's flashback (of course, he didn't have them as a kid in chapter 99 either).

Now this is totally my theory, but if we take Melinda's words as the truth, without any misunderstanding, then sometime in Donovan's adult life after he married and had a child, he was experimented on and was given mind-reading powers, perhaps by force but most likely by choice. Now that he has these powers, his laments about people not being able to understand each other are no longer true, at least not for him. Perhaps the experiments done on Anya were preliminary tests that he put together to perfect the mind-reading implementation science before actually doing it to himself. Again, totally just speculation, but not out of the question.

Then we have Demetrius...we learned in chapter 93 that Anya has trouble reading his mind.

If we put that together with Melinda's comment in today's new chapter, that Demetris also took note of Donovan being able to read minds...

...then perhaps Demetrius conditioned himself to think in ways that would make it difficult for his mind to be read, specifically to thwart the "alien" that's impersonating his father. I mentioned last time that I don't think Donovan is actually an alien, and that this description is the only explanation Melinda could come up with to explain his mind-reading powers. If this is true though, it really does make the Desmond dinner scene all the more telling...that throughout all those panels without dialogue, Donovan was absorbing the deepest inner thoughts of his family members (and again, no insight into his own thoughts, just like in chapter 38).

But if the "Donovan can read minds" theory holds true, then the most disturbing idea of all is that Donovan knows that Twilight is a spy. He knows that he's the target of Twilight's mission, and that Twilight seeks to thwart him. Not only that, but depending on what he's read of Damian and Melinda's minds, he knows that they're fond of Anya and Yor, respectively - people who are close to Twilight. Mind-reading powers in the hands of a child are one thing, but in the hands of a shrewd and power political figure...I'm both excited and anxious to find out what Donovan's next move will be!

14 dazai from last year i forgot to post 🤧

thoughts on beast!dazai

i have been thinking again recently about beast!dazai and that he was just a kid when he got to see the memories of the og!dazai, so it makes sense that he became so obsessed with saving oda.

just think about it, he was younger than 16, feeling lonely and he has these "vision" of someone that understands him and is by his side, someone he has a connection to and that genuinely enjoys his company and he too does enjoy being around oda (the only adult we have seen treat him like the kid he is)

oda is the closest person he has to a friend and all of it is an illusion of a future that isn't his to live and he knows the ending. oda dies and changes his life (the life of the og!zai) and there is no way to thank him, to show how important oda truly is to og!zai and him.

thanks to oda's words he knows he can find something akin to happiness, find something to appreciate and make life, even if it's just a little, worth

his only way of showing gratitud is trying to manipulate his reality to a universe where oda can live his life by his own principles, pursue his dream and find some kind of value in what he does and his life.

this decision is so full of love for his friend and that makes it so sad, because he abandons entirely the possibility of happiness to give him a life to live.

and the only thing he has to treasure are memories that aren't his. oda isn't his friend in the beast au and he makes it clear that he considers dazai his enemy

as much as he yearns for his frienship with oda, it isn't his, he will never be the other dazai. and that was his choice, because he was just a kid that wanted to do something good for someone that was important for him and abandoned a part of himself as the price.

how tf do people write fics?? like i really have the ideas in my head and then i pick up a pen or open the notes and it's all gone

Hanako as a representation of abuse

This is an extensive post of how abuse afflicted Yugi Amane and even Hanako's behavior well into afterlife. Of course, emotional abuse is directly related to physical abuse, so I'll be talking about them together for the most part.

1. Behavioural Signs in Yugi Amane

We don't know why or who is behind this, and I won't particularly talk about it since it's not the focus anyway. We know his abuse started somewhere during his first year and was repeated until his suicide, july of his 2nd year. According to Tsuchigomori, he was badly injured every single day, so that's at least around a year worth of constant physical abuse.

However, it's important to note that it's very likely that before the physical abuse, emotional abuse was already consistently taking place, with multiple signs- He's isolated, experiences social withdrawal and has no friends, skips classes & school activities and has poor academic performance that contrasts his actual capabilities.

His emotional development is poor; He has difficulties expressing and understanding his own feelings, very likely a factor in the degradation of his and Tsukasa's relationship where Tsukasa can't understand Amane and Amane can't understand Tsukasa either due to lack of proper communication, and something that carries well over into the afterlife as Hanako.

The physical abuse worsened his already messed up mental state, and everything ultimately drove him into depression. He engages in behavior that puts his own safety in jeopardy (Like when he was way too close to falling over the window, both of his feet were at the very edge of the window frame), and while his love towards space stayed the same, he was overtaken by feelings of helplessness.

Even a rock could travel from the Moon to Earth, which gave him hope. It's important to highlight the word "even". He claims that if 'even' a rock can go this far, so can he, suggesting very low self-esteem. It's an object that carried him through many hardships because of this hope, but everything got so bad said hope just made him feel worse. At some point he started experiencing active suicidal ideation, marked by him giving away his treasured possession to Tsuchigomori in order to rid himself of this "hope", and declaring that he decided he wouldn't "go anywhere", a clear metaphor for deciding he would give up on his future and take his own life. He decided he cannot go anywhere near farther than a rock.

2. Behavioural signs in Hanako

As we mostly see his ghost self, we have a clearer vision of Hanako than we have of Amane. We can easily see his horribly low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness. When we catch a glimpse of his perspective, we see how distorted his sense of self is.

He repeatedly claims that he isn't worth anything and that his existence itself is a punishment, and so refuses to disappear, considering that it would only be a release from the torment he deserves.

He hates himself down to his core, although this is a combined result of both depression via his experienced abuse and his PTSD of the murder-suicide. As Amane, he was capable of saying that it's fine if he's tormented this terribly, that even if there's no reason for it, he forgives it, massively contrasting Hanako who is incapable of forgiving himself, claiming that even if he had a super special reason for Tsukasa's murder, there's not a single justification that would warrant forgiveness. He's capable of forgiving anything that anyone does to him no matter how horrible, but not of forgiving himself.

As such, verbal abuse directed at him is taken positively by him, such as when Akane states that "reformed villains", refering to Hanako, make him sick, continuing to talk about how he can never take back what he did, essentially degrading him. He was given very harsh words that visibly hurt him, even implying that it triggered his PTSD for a moment, yet he could only claim that Akane is the type of person he likes most, as he was essentially validating and feeding into Hanako's already deeply negative view of himself.

This is also supported by his time in the Picture Perfect arc via his belief that he's undeserving of anything better for himself. Hanako said it himself in 71 that he wished he could've lived a normal life with Nene and Kou, and the Picture World reflected exactly that.

It's a world that was shaped exactly like he wanted, and that's exactly why he hated it. He knew what his reality was, and furthermore, he knows of his crimes and how he was the one who destroyed his own future, and so thinks he's undeserving of it.

He refuses to look at the stars for too long, because that reminds him of the hopes and dreams he gave up on in reality- He has no right to dare pick them up again, further highlighted by him refusing to go on the moon in the End of a Dream. His wish wasn't granted while alive, and now can't be granted after death.

In his helplessness, he is unable to reach for better circumstances for himself. After all, he's quick to adapt to whatever bad thing comes his way. "It's just how the world works", and he has to accept it.

However, we know how that doesn't apply to the people he cares about. He may have given up on everything, but he is unable to give up on the people he loves. No matter how much he suffers, no matter what he has to do, he wants the people he loves to find happiness.

No matter how much he tried to tell himself he isn't supposed to care, he desperately wants them to live the fulfilling lives he didn't have. And if he is the one that gives them the salvation they need, he finds the indulgence to want a small part of him to live through them, the indulgence to hate himself just a little bit less.

He actively attempts to hide his past from other people, being content with them only knowing basic information about it (that he's a murderer), mainly because he doesn't want to appear vulnerable or know how much of a horrible person (according to himself) he actually is.

When it comes to people he has a good relationship with like Nene, he's actually afraid of them finding out, and even months after promising he would tell Nene everything, he's still reluctant to do so due to overall difficulty with opening up- exposure to characters or topics that relate to his past more often than not results in reactions varying from heavy emotional distress, expressing aggression, anger, guilt and/or shame, to reliving traumatic events. Avoidance seems to be his main method of coping.

Hanako suffers from emotional dysregulation. He not only has high difficulties processing and expressing his feelings, but has difficulty picking up on others' emotions as well. For half a century he had been socially and emotionally neglected while also being incapable of ever maturing past the age of 13, much less healing from his past experiences. They rather worsened due to a supernatural lifestyle. When he first met Nene, he wasn't behaving appropriately at all due to this and their relationship went through many difficulties due to his lack of boundaries and poor emotional intelligence, and him communicating his true feelings is always a rare occasion.

Not only did he not take into account other people's feelings ("Yashiro will hate it, but it's ok, she'll move on someday and live her life", not taking into account and understanding others being possibly spiteful over his actions and direct their hate towards innocent parties), he doesn't even take into account his own ("Why? Good question. Why am I doing it?" and "Even though I was prepared to never see you again, I'm so happy to have you back. Weird, right? There must be something wrong with me"). However, due to Nene's influence, he seems to be a little more upfront with his feelings lately.

He's also incredibly self-reliant. Both events of Picture Perfect and the Severance were a result of Hanako doing everything by himself without consulting anyone. He decided by himself that he's the only one that should dirty his hands as he was already a sinner, that it's easier to dump everything on the one that's already guilty of similar crimes, because he didn't have any other solution in sight. It's important to note that he took the *entire* blame for the Severance- Even if all he did was feign ignorance to no. 6's actions.

Him being grounded in the miserable reality he finds himself in is both a strength (as he is quick to adapt to his conditions) and a major weakness- He'll only be able to see the most practical, yet unfortunate approaches.

In the Clock Keepers arc, he wanted to trust Kou when he said he would save Nene, but his attempt quickly turned to failure when he was not seeing any tries, let alone results. He was even upset at Kou when he considered that if he wanted the job done he should have just done it himself, knowing that his methods aren't ones someone would approve of. Methods that he doesn't approve of himself, but carried them out anyway in his despair.

In fact, Hanako did not break free from the shackles of abuse. He is a child that has been placed in a position of leadership filled with various responsibilities for fifty years. He is committed to his duties as a mystery after being promised salvation by 'God', believing that his sins would be forgiven, but he's essentially just being used.

He is, in present time, still repeatedly emotionally abused, manipulated and exploited to fulfill others' agenda. After all, control is at the heart of abuse, and his vulnerabilities will continue to just get taken advantage of as long as he's only capable of masking and avoiding them. However, Nene's influence upon him seems to make him capable of slightly improving himself, even if it's just very small steps at a time.

pretty mentally unstable momma

am i the only one that thinks about how similar teru and hanako are? i mean in the sibling™ area. it would be interesting for terus character to actually put him in a spot where he could sympathise with hanako, but also obviously draw out more their differences

i think...

I’ve seen people debate on how long the TBHK story has been happening, and when certain events should’ve happened, so I’ve decided to make my own (unofficial) TBHK timeline!!!

This is gonna be a timeline of the main story, so things that happened before Nene entered the picture wont be included (for now at least!) Let me know if I made any mistakes or if there’s any additional information that I didn’t include in this post, I simply re-read the whole manga for maybe like the 15th time?? and tried to gather any and all hints from dialogue and backgrounds/calendars.

I don’t have an exact date to when the main story began, but it must’ve been late spring or so, due to the warm weather. Nene talked about how she picked up “feminine” hobbies such as gardening, sewing and cooking after the guy she started liking in middle school said he’s into feminine girls. She seemingly confessed to him right after starting her 1st year in high school as she said it took her 3 years to master these newfound hobbies and confess her love. Nene stated that it’d happened a month ago so it’s probably May. typically in Japan the new school year starts around April 5th, and as Nene confessed right at the beginning of the new year she met Hanako around ~May 5th if it was exactly one month ago when she got rejected.

In their next appearance, Nene said it had been a week since the two met. So it should be around ~May 12th if I’m correct.

Within the next month, Nene gets to Meet characters like Kou, Tsuchigomori, Yako and the broadcasting club, and also gets to see Hanakos more vulnerable side for the first time!

It should be early June by now, the fact that we see Sousuke taking pictures of Morning glories, which bloom between early Summer and Fall, solidifies this for me.

After chapters 18-20, it gets a little blurry though. No specific dates are really mentioned, and Nene stops commenting on how longs it’s been since she met Hanako, so the best I can do is make hardcore guesses in between the next time we get a confirmed date, July 7th when Hanako took Nene and Kou to the Tanabata Star festival.

Between these chapters, we got a proper introduction to the broadcasting club, got to meet the clock keepers + learn about Nenes lifespan, and witness Mitsuba take on the role of a school mystery number 3.

Nene mentioned it’d been three days since she encountered Mitsuba in the hell of mirrors, and invited Kou to the summer festival the next day. Hanako decided to take them to the Tanabata star festival instead, (Insert image I couldn’t fit in) July 7th which I’m assuming would’ve been the very next day, in which case the Hell of mirrors arc took place at around July 2nd. That’d still leave a whole month between For the clock keepers and tea party arc, (insert ANOTHER image I couldn’t fit in) so I can’t exactly pin down any specific dates or even weeks..

It gets even messier after picture perfect! Mitsuba’s welcoming party likely happened around a week after being taken in by the broadcasting club, so it’s early to mid July at this point.

Interestingly enough, it seemed time moved slower in the painting Nene and Kou were stuck in, as all of a sudden Finals came up! From what I’ve understood, finals usually come at the middle or end of July, lasting 3 days.

I’m gonna be going off the average Japanese schools standards when it comes to dates, since we don’t know much about Kamone academy. So if we’re going off by the average estimate, The school sleepover should’ve happened at the beginning of August.

Being just around Obon.

Weirdly enough, despite Nene and Hanako spending a night with Sumire, by the time the severance happened barely any time had passed in the real world. (Insert another damn imagine I wasn’t able to squeeze in.)

Teru takes Nene and Akane on a little outing after summer vacation properly began, calling it his first real day off in a while. So this could’ve been very well been a day or two right after the severance.

The day after, Nene and Kou meet Sousukes mother, who’s visiting her sons grave for Obon, which should’ve been celebrated between August 13-16th, as the main story for TBHK is set in 2015.

I’m guessing the entirety of the severance/rescue arc happens during Obon, as it’d make sense why Aoi was able to be saved despite having “died” according to Hanako, and why the supernaturals were able to return to the near shore so quickly, as the near and far shores were so blurred.

The second trimester begins at the start of September, so there were still about 2 weeks in between the Fireworks party-Night life chapters before school started again!

This is the present, with the preparations for the festival beginning immediately and the event lasting 2 days, we should be in the first week of September at the moment, both in the old and new timeline.

So some key points are;

• It’s been ~5 Months since Nene met Hanako.

• Nene has MAX 7 Months left to live, probably closer to 1-4.

• Mitsuba is ~3 months old!

• maybe we get to see everyone in winter uniforms!! that’d be cute. Not really important I just thought that sounded fun.

Aaannd that’s a wrap for now. I don’t plan on updating the timeline unless new information about dates comes up or if there’s any inconsistencies that I made, but thank you for reading my first Tumblr post!!! I plan on making more ramblings and personal analogies on here, repost some art too or shitpost in general. Feel free to mention any errors I made or ask questions in my inbox, I’m going to BED!!!!

It is 2024 I am once again asking for a tsubasa reservoir chronicle anime remake

A manga coloring request from @vilandel ! I hope you like it, and I’m sorry it’s taken so long 🥺!