#caught me lacking

[ruelin024]

lmao, did i cook?

POV: a parent

[tannnnblogs]

Erm...um!

[iceclew]

Back from Vienna, and could finally finish this!! ╰(▔∀▔)╯

Part 2 -> here's Part 1

well, SOMEONE (@mechazushi) put our shared braincell to work, so as per usual, I just had to :D

No really, I loved the idea, and it fit so well to what I was going for, so this is for you my mutual kafhoshi simp from the other side of the planet ♡＼(￣▽￣)／♡

Have yourself some very unusual awkward Soshiro being caught in the most embarassing moment in years propably, lol. Maybe that's the reason Soichiro got ghosted in the first place.

[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.

[idanielions]

Trey rkgk

[eggsploded]

GREAT WORK DURING ALTERNIA'S OPEN SEASON GUYS!!!

shitty comic with sollux below cut

[buff-muffin]

I NEED MORE MARCO FICS PLEASE STOP BEING HORNY I GET IT HES HOT LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY BUT I JUST WANT MORE FOUND FAMILY CONTENT ABOUT HIM BUT HES SUCH A BACKGROUND CHARACTER IN FICS IM SOBBING

WHY DO I PICK THE SADDEST MEN TO BE MY BLORBOS GIVE ME PRE-CANON. IGNORE CANON FOR ALL I CARE. NO ONE DIED LET HIM BE HAPPY AND LOVE ALL OF HIS LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS. GIVE ME DUMB FICS ABOUT HIM BEING A BIRD. GIVE ME HIM BEING A GOOD BIG BROTHER. GIVE ME HOW HE BECAME THE FIRET COMMANDER. PLEASEEEEEEE

[normalbrothers]

KIMBER: For your ceiling.

[luna-the-cretar]

You’d think that, between Gideon and Kremy, Gideon would be the easier one to get a read on (in terms of feelings towards certain situations and party members), but no. I can read Kremy like a motherfucking book. The way he spins lies and half-truths like a spiderweb; the way his tone will shift subtly depending on who he’s talking to, what they’re talking about, his feelings on the situation/subject/towards the person, etc; all of it. Kremy is so fucking easy to read for someone who’s supposed to be a silver-tongued conman.

But Gideon? His tone doesn’t shift all that much. He generally has a happy, confused, or entertained tone in his voice, with the exception of when he’s angry, frustrated, or upset.

Idk, maybe it’s harder for me to read Gideon because I listen to the podcast (it’s just easier for me since I can listen while driving or working), so I have to rely on tone shifts and other verbal cues. That, or maybe it’s because all of my past blorbos have been emotionally constipated men, who would only express their actual feelings about a situation based on tonal shifts, body language, and reading into what they’re saying.

[smallfrogpleasedtomeetyou]

imagine being so down bad you spend your last minutes alive fighting for the enemy that destroyed your empire, inadvertently killed your brother and got you permanently disfigured

[paradoxolotl]

I am very sad and could use some happy if anyone has a drop to spare

[summergoodwife]

Gonna say it again, "Just stop consuming the genre" is THE WORST POSSIBLE RESPONSE to someone complaining about the lack of representation in their preferred genre!! And "Consume other stuff too" is not much better!!! I don't care how much you think varying media consumption is a Good and Holy lifestyle, not everyone wants to do that! There is no obligation to do that and there should not be! Because it's fucking entertainment. It's not a college major.

And! And and and. I would be remiss to not point out that when you tell someone, "If you want well written (minority) just get out of (genre fandom)" you are, regardless of your motivations, rhetorically aligning yourself with the exact same bigots who just want the pro-representation crowd to shut up and go away.

[hp-lonesome-actual-art]

Eugh ignore these—doodled it lazily late at night and passed out afterwards, hence the really terrible quality. Doesn’t help that these papers are not graphite friendly and decide to smear every time I wanna erase. Honestly I should’ve seen it coming given how the sketchbook is advertised for markers, but I wouldn’t have expected it to be THAT picky with pencil. Oh well. I dunno enjoy whatever this is if you can even manage to follow along. No I will not rewrite it in a more concise way sorry lol

[moonchild-in-blue]

Happy to see yall are enjoying that TNDNBTG x Euclid post. That was written in a fit of madness after being plagued with FTRB feelings all night. Feels good to put my writing muscles to good use again - let's hope this continues 👍

[chatpileroan]

as a companion piece to my poll from last year asking your least favorite least streamed mitski song per album,

I FORGOT TO MAKE IT LAST A WEEK FUCKING WHOOPS

[canary-song]

pete type of guy to say "back in a jiffy" or "i know doodly squat about that"