#We are caught up at last!

[creekfiend]

something that drives me insane on a relatively regular basis as a body jewelry understander is talking to people who have sensitive skin who are like "oh well I just can't wear any earrings without my ears getting inflamed" and I say "well what have you tried" and they say "well I've tried sterling silver and I've tried gold..." and it's like. ok. I don't know how gold and sterling somehow got spun by the jewelry industry as being especially good for sensitive skin but whenever I'm like "well have you tried implant grade titanium" they're always like "no....... but I've tried sterling silver... and it didn't work ..." like. I don't know how this narrative about sterling silver somehow got so strong but when they put pins in your fucking legs when you snap your leg in half are those pins made of sterling silver or are they made of implant grade titanium or surgical steel????????? HELLO. HI. YOU MIGHT BENEFIT FROM TRYING IMPLANT GRADE TITANIUM I AM JUST SAYING

[nocek]

A little continuation in my Gabriella lives au that already happened here and here.

So my another little headcanon, besides that Miguel is awkwardly attempting here to sorta adopt Gwen and is trying to figure out how to convince her to go back to school, is the night routine.

So Miguel (who read too many parenting guides* to catch up quickly and not fuck up this precious child) strongly believes in leading by example. So since he wants Gabriella to have good sleeping habits after her nightly routine he also goes to sleep at sensible hour. But he can't sleep through whole night so when he wakes up at ungodly hour he does some light work not to wake up her.

Then he prepares breakfast and bento (he totally had to learn to cook, you can't convince me otherwise) and with time he started having a little fun with it and then it became kinda hobby. It helps him wind down so that after he sends Gabriella to school he is actually able to take an extra 1-2 hour nap.

(* as in parenting guides for child of Gabriella age, totally clueless what to do with a traumatized teenager but after the denial he probably will do the homework)

[citrusai]

taash said "they were doing it" and people ran with the interpretation of an npc that doesn't know solas or the history of the elvhenan even when bellara interjected and said, no, that's not right. that's not how it was for the elvhenan. they formed bonds before they had physical bodies. and people ran to doompost or create weird anti-solavellan shit even though mythal & solas refer to each other as old friends and when she releases him there is no tenderness or love in it. it is the act of unchaining a dog from his post, the stepping down of a general. but to each their own ig.

[w1f1n1ghtm4r3]

a bunch of bugs and one dog

[nat-20s]

Honestly I get why narratively speaking they had a Super Mega Tragic Separation for Donna and The Doctor because you KNOW that if they hadn't been every single Doctor would've dealt with trauma by disappearing on their current companions to go have a movie night with the bestie. They straight up would've:

[jubileedeeznuts-posting]

the people’s princess

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[quietwingsinthesky]

i really do think the desire to paint ten as unambiguously The Worst™️ when it comes to his relationship with martha is out of this desire to uncomplicate their relationship. to decouple them as friends and people who profoundly impacted each other’s lives. it’s just an easier narrative to swallow: that ten was Awful to her and then martha kicked him to the curb when she realized she was too good for him. easier, maybe, then dealing with the troubles of unrequited affection don’t have to be anyone’s fault, or that ten shut martha out in a lot of ways but let her in in others that he wouldn’t let any other companion near, or that they were still friends, they still wanted to see each other and be around each other, even though it was messy and sometimes hurt. you know?

[cephalofrog]

the contrast between these two dialogues kills me

[last-of-the-lot]

Wait no, sorry, I said I would let other people articulate things better but I got to say it lest I go insane.

These.

Three.

Shots.

Tell such a fucking story.

Where is this going?! I want to know so badly!! Pike's blood apparently is healing now, or at least blessed in some way, and while I am ecstatic that we got more Zerxus floating around I am deeply fascinated to know that Pike took what he said to heart and how that will affect her going forward.

What are the ripple effects going to be? Is she going to become her own power source like *spoilers* Zerxus was and arguably Jester is? Is this set up for a power boost? To skip over the Trickfoot clan coming into town and laying the ground work earlier? Set up for literal decades down the line in world and possibly a decade of real life?

I have seen some theories floating around that pike is a descendant on the Everlight, and I was inclined to believe it but now I'm almost all in. Also we are just getting more stuff with Pike, which is always a win but still.

Throwing the symbol, after everything she has gone through is not a condemnation. But it is a step, and at this point I am unsure as to what path that step leads down. But I do know that it is going to be one that I will be watching so closely.

( Also anyone who watched Downfall, you can not tell me you don't see it in that last shot. I can not be the only one. )

[keepthemacramesecret]

theres also a cool time/clocks motif going on w raffles which i am predictably haunted by but we cant get into that today

[the-crimson]

Ok I have thoughtsssss on the Dapper lore we just got.

I 100% believe the feds are coercing Dapper to mass produce these op health swap/regen potions for them - for a number of reasons.

First off, we need to go back to the convo Dapper had with Bad a week? Ago about keeping secrets. This was before Dapper started acting really weird and secretive. During that conversation, Dapper - to me - felt scared. At the time I assumed it was because they were afraid Bad would be upset at them for keeping secrets but now I think it was because Dapper was terrified of the secret he was keeping, that the Feds have commanded them to figure out a way of mass producing this Soul Vulture potion. It was only after Bad assured Dapper that he trusts them that Dapper started going all in on this mystery. She had gotten permission/reassurance from her dad that he believes in her and trusts her to do the right thing.

Now why would the federation ask an egg to do their dirty work? Easy. The eggs are so much more vulnerable that the players. The federation most likely created them so they probably have actual leverage or sway of some kind over the eggs but also think about what Dapper has to lose? Pomme, Ramon, Richas, all of their siblings in addition to threats to imprison or hurt Bad and Baghera. There is so much leverage the Feds have over Dapper it’d be easy to black mail him into compliance. Additionally, no one would expect the eggs to turn like this. The eggs are incredibly loyal and most hate the federation as much as their parents. It would be easy to get the egg to work for the feds without tipping off any of the islanders.

Even more damningly, Dapper is the most knowledgeable person on the island when it comes to mobs and has extensive knowledge of create machines. Dapper is the perfect person to learn how to mass produce the Soul Vulture’s corrupted form that produces the hearts necessary to make the potion in addition to building a create machine to mass produce the potion itself. Dapper has the perfect combination of knowledge that makes them the only person for this job.

On top of all of that, Dapper has Soul Vultures in the lab (thank you Minecraft subtitles XD). Soul Vultures are only found in the nether. We know the Feds have access to spawn eggs for nether mobs thanks to the mob Dapper asked for in the Zoo project and the only other way would be going into the nether yourself which we know thanks to Forever’s portal is incredibly dangerous and chaotic. I highly doubt Dapper was making solo trips into the nether this whole time trying to find the Soul Vulture without Bad finding out. It’s much more likely to me that the federation gave Dapper spawn eggs - or even the mobs themselves- so that Dapper could breed them and experiment on them.

Then on top of all of this, Dapper has been blatantly lying to Bad’s face because what else can she do? Dapper knows they aren’t fooling Bad but what are they supposed to do? They are being black mailed and can’t tell anyone without the feds threatening to take away everyone Dapper loves. Of course the only thing they can do is lie knowing Bad will see right through it and hope that Bad won’t interfere (or will and help Dapper get out of this) I thought the bald face lying was so odd but Dapper being black mailed makes everything make sense because at that point, lying was all Dapper could do even if there was no way anyone would believe them.

But there you have it. That’s all the evidence I can think of off the top of my head just from memory. Hopefully we’ll get a stream tomorrow but until then, I cry T-T

(I can’t remember if the Soul Vulture was the second spawn egg the feds gave Dapper/Bad for the zoo but if that is the case, then the feds gave Dapper the egg knowing what it could be used for and the black mail scheme unfolds the same)

[fidgetspringer]

I know, bud. But we're not going out in a hail storm.

[bumpscosity]

Actually all gravity falls shipping wars back when the show was airing were hilarious. i once saw two ppl arguing abt wether pinecest or stancest was better like guys i think its better if we just throw both of you into the bottomless pit forever

[amanedachi]

tennessine / rookie

Part of LoL Esports Elemental Series.

[sumbacky]

“i miss him” “i know... me too”