#and not general lack of ability

[hellsing-shitposts-r-us]

Apologies if someone has already done this but I saw @deltash0ck 's Seras and Alucard post and I had to

[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.

[arolesbianism]

Been working on some first run Chou sprites for funsies, here’s a handful of the ones I’ve done so far

[firestorm-fox]

there’s no way he’s letting anyone else get credit for the flying ruins in Glyphic Canyon

[daniablazin]

Matching bfs/husbands

[darcyolsson]

people actually genuinely shipping eric bogosian and assad zaman is so revolutionary to me I think all rpf should be between a 71 year old man and some theatre twink. quit it with the 20 year olds from youtube and boybands. only this from now on

[holyshit]

.

[shurup-overt]

the terukane development still blows off my mind because what do you mean akane considers himself telling teru to go away while he's on a date with aoi an ooc thing. I grew up in a time when "hearing sorry from you is creepy" was legit his most normal and calmest response

ashamed to admit but I'm still there. my mind is still there. and then I watch in pure horror how akane caresses teru's back

[blueskittlesart]

what fun lore questions would you like to be asked

you’re talking to someone who has written essays about location subtitles and character walking speeds. last night i briefly went on a tangent about the road design of hyrule and how it informs the story. the difference here is that no one in real life is willing to listen to me talk at length about the lore implications of map design. on tumblr you can ask me anything and i have the freedom to become an unskippable cutscene with no shame

[deityofhearts]

what they don’t tell you is that trying to find a cute button up shirt that is not white is very difficult

[fiapple]

i'm getting towards the end of the skypeia arc, & i'd like to say just how much i adore the way the female strawhats have been treated.

just... every aspect of how the way their characters have been previously contextualized influences the story-line is treated with a masterful amount of consideration. we're given so many layers to both of them that enrich not only their characters specifically, but the arc, and the one piece world as a whole. without nami & robin having their specific skills, and their specific values, without those being built upon, the story would have come to a halt.

you could not have skypeia without nami & robin being who they are as individuals. not just because they never would've gotten there without nami, but also because the way these women think is itself foundational to the machinations of the arc as a whole.

to be totally upfront, if you think any other strawhats were more central to the skypeia arc than nami & robin were you are full-on fucking lying to yourself.

[npdkondraki]

gears is so important to me. what if you were Nice and Well-Behaved and the exact opposite of everything people would ever assume of you and the only thing it got you was an empty life with no family or real friends. what if you had your chance at a happy family and you were forced to leave them. what if the only man who has ever loved you has only ever loved the shell of who you "are", the "living" husk of everything you were told to become. what if every delusion of being hated and being chased and people wanting you dead was true and you knew it. and you couldnt do anything. because then youre proving them right. what if you felt everything and could express nothing, not in any truly meaningful way. what if you had to kill the one person you loved the most and then say you felt nothing. what if you had to say you didnt do it. what if you had to be the one to find your husbands corpse. what if you had to, again and again and again, witness the causes of your direct actions befall everyone around you. what if you became your husk and they thanked you for it. what then bitch

[da-janela-lateral]

At this point I don't think Teruki's parents are exceptionally horrible individuals (long-term psychological consequences still happen in cases in which the abuse isn't considered particularly severe + everyone is capable of harm, even "good" people), but they weren't the best, without a doubt.

Okay, they got too busy with their jobs and had to move overseas to progress on their career. External circunstances. Things that happen. They left their son behind, but that could always be justified by hectic schedules of ever-moving businesspeople. How else could he have a stable routine to focus on his future? They're just busy. Teruki hasn't seen them in long but that's not their fault, right?

They cared for Teruki, didn't they? His parents made sure that there was someone home to watch him whenever they were far away. It was inevitable that there would be times he would be with himself, though. But that's not bad! It only became a problem once those strange espers tried to take hold of him on the street. And even then, they were so weak he could barely give them the title of a psychic. It wasn't an issue that it happened more and more and there was no one to intervene. Or that Teruki had to torture descriptions of "Claw organization" and "brainwashed soldiers" out of these grownups to know what they wanted with him. His parents couldn't know. Why should they know? Better put: what could they do?

What could a normal person do against someone with psychic powers?

It was Teruki's choice to live by himself. He could manage it all. Contrary to the other kids, he was an independent and responsible young man who could be trusted with a house and money. Such a great boy. His parents were so proud to have someone as competent as him as a son, one which wouldn't mean hard work for them. One who always had the best grades and was the soccer team's best player and was the best student on the town's best middle school.

Of course they would suddenly allow Teruki to live on his own. Any parent with a child like him would, wouldn't they? Anyone on their right mind and who knew the slightlest about him would be sure he could do it.

And even if this "Claw" organization scared him a bit and he felt a bit lonely at times, it wasn't an issue. Issue would mean it was an obstacle - which it wasn't, as Teruki did perfectly on his own. His parents believed on so. That's why he had his own apartment at 12 on the first place. Teruki was so wonderful at this. It wasn't horrible if they didn't answer his calls, because they were so busy and he wasn't a little kid who depends on his mommy. None of this was their fault. He shouldn't bother them or himself over this.

Because they cared, right? On the end, it was only a pile of tragic circunstances and coincidences no normal person could act against. It was part of life as someone special like him. He couldn't expect that his parents could change any of this, and this made his loneliness the best possible choice. It was obvious that they would support such a decision.

What would a normal person do against someone with psychic powers?

[feline-evil]

I don't normally talk about his tan because it's all anyone talks about, which i get but it has been an integral part of the character for ages so i'm not surprised by it when i see it and therefore don't have much to add to the convo (i'm more surprised when i DON'T see it), but as much as i know that the show was disrupted by the blizzard and MJF was probably elsewhere/at home/not at the stadium and that's why there was some variance in appearance my little pattern seeking brain is like oooohhh...... hair slicked back straight and tanned vs no tan and curly hair, are these signifiers of the facade vs the real* MJF....And when it looks more hastily or heavily applied is that to show us how artificial the facade is........

*(Still in kayfabe)

Like obviously there's variance he's had his hair unstyled and had the tan at the same time but notably......that's how he looked when the mask slipped. And when the mask was off he had no tan and his curly hair in the mirror scene.... You have to imagine me standing in front of a pinboard Pepe Silvia style ok, that's how i am about this man. It could mean nothing, it could just be natural variation in a sport that requires traveling a lot and being in a lot of different places, if thats the case then RESPECT. But it could also mean everything. The tan IS deliberate it's a deliberate character choice regardless. It might not be as deep as i think it is though. But what if it is? But what if (i am dragged offstage by shepherds hooks)

[fruityfroggy]

Co-op combat game play…in r1999…each player has two characters they can control…could be cool for like a special Mane’s Bulletin/UTTU feature…or event stage hard mode…ough

[enjoyvoidblack]

Was midway through typing out a defense of Jon's decisions in light of how everyone (including Jonny) seems to think he could've done much better, but then I remembered he walked up to Jude Perry's front door and knocked and yknow what post cancelled actually. For that alone this man is an idiot (affectionate)