#eg rambles

[eg515]

don't you just love it when a series has a good ending that takes care of all of its characters, shows how their futures will look like, ties up all loose ends, reminisces about old times, references important moments from before, and brings back elements of the very first episode, giving a nice frame to the whole series?

[lazylittledragon]

Random thought/question: what would your Tavs/Durge and their significant others like... legit fight about? Not bicker, not argue, but actually get mad and say things they don't mean and have to cool off and talk about it later when calmer heads prevail and they're able to apologize without it sounding forced?

this is such a great question that i needed a whole 24 hours to think about it akdhdjhd

i think gale and cyra probably have small things blow out of proportion (because honestly. kids and work and Tired) and then a Lot of stuff they haven't talked about comes up and it ends with 'how the fuck did forgetting to change the bedsheets turn into This'

i actually feel like dorian and astarion are pretty good 90% of the time but sometimes one of them is in a bad place and is like 'i actually really need to be left alone with this thing right now and i don't want to talk about it' and maybe they're not always great at taking the hint

ashe and halsin have never had a fight ever

[everestgale]

Inspired by this un-cheated Cheated from @/itsonlypolite and by my un-broken Broken, I started to think about what would un-cold Cold look like (it was also a suggestion from @/neverpathia)

Specifically, I imagined how much Cold would change, wither and, quite literally, grow colder as the Narrator shoves the Long Quiet into the Good Ending. It was a fun exercise to see if I could figure out what Cold would look like before he gets traumatized by the eternity of nothingness and boredom. His frame gets thinner, his feathers get longer and more tattered, and his expression gets more and more done with everything :]

...and then this snowballed! And I started thinking about Paranoid, too:

...not that different from how I normally draw him, except he's got actual eyes! What happened to them?

...the Nightmare happened :]

(This was supposed to be a quick brush test, but then surprise! I really wanted to draw the moment his eyes "break" and turn into the static-y mess they are normally. Also pre-Nightmare Paranoid doesn't need gloves, too! It's only after the Long Quiet's body gets thoroughly paralyzed by Nightmare that he needs them as a sensory item, if that makes sense... I've got a lot of Paranoid HCs-)

[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.

[c00kietin]

kny + acnh <3 more waffling in tags javdjhdbdjf

[gmobanana]

[fabcreature]

for no particular reason, here's how i like to think about some batman ships (superbat, batcat, brutalia, batjokes)

-

superbat: i don't personally ship them, but i definitely get the appeal, and i like to think they have a bond like no other. they're friends, and they're not in love, but they love each other, so so much. they understand each other in a way no one else does, lois doesn't understand clark the way bruce does, alfred and none of the robins understand bruce the way clark does. their comradery is unmatched. and tbh, they can have a little crush on each other, as a treat. not like hopelessly in love, just a casual little crush you get on your best friend sometimes.

-

batcat (plus some analysis about bruce vs batman identity stuff): they are a two-person love triangle. bruce wants selina, but selina doesn't want bruce. selina wants batman, but bruce can't let her have him.

in another life they might be together and happy, but not in this one. maybe if bruce's parents never died, he never became batman, he never had to create a false persona to hide his true self, they would have met under different circumstances, and they could've fallen in love and gotten together in a mundane, comfortable way. or maybe if selina loved brucie instead of batman, they could get together, with bruce continuing to keep batman and his true self hidden from selina, because he would do that if it meant he got to love her.

but alas, that's not how it is. bruce can't let himself be loved, not his true self, the one batman is closer to. he can't let himself be vulnerable like that, he considers himself unlovable, and besides, his mission is too important. in the end, he loves gotham and batman more than anything else. that's what he devotes himself to.

bruce wayne, in his heart, was a man who was supposed to settle down, get married, have kids, be happy. but he's not bruce wayne anymore, not really, he's batman. ever since his life turned in the direction that made him batman, the chance for that happy simple life was taken away from him. bruce wayne could have gotten married and been a family man. batman could never. bruce wayne died the same night his parents did.

-

brutalia: i'll be real i'm not super familiar with talia yet, but i want to learn more about her and i will. but for now, i have a very simple analysis of their relationship. former lovers, who used to be in love, aren't anymore, but kind of are. talia claims to still love bruce, but truth is she hasn't for a long time. meanwhile bruce claims to no longer love talia, but in truth he still does, even if he wishes he didn't. but he loves how they used to be, who she used to be, who he used to be when they were together, and he can't help but hold onto those memories and still love her. but he doesn't want her back. despite his foolish heart still yearning for her, he knows going back would only end in disaster.

-

batjokes: i am a batjokes stan first and foremost, sue me. they're obsessed with each other. they're soulmates that are destined to destroy each other. joker loves batman so much he hates him. bruce hates joker so much he loves him. they complete each other, and in doing so they also doom each other.

the joker is obsessed with batman to the point where he wants to hurt him, and wants to be hurt by him. it's the only form of release he can get for all that pent up tension, he needs batman, and the only way he knows how to have him is for them both to hurt each other. to the joker, their rivalry is a game, and he's having a blast. he wants to keep playing the game forever and ever, until eventually batman kills him. joker truly believes that's how it will end. there's no other way it could. one of these days he will have pushed batman enough, and he will kill him. and he will die with a smile on his face.

also important to note that it's batman specifically the joker wants. joker doesn't know who batman is outside of the uniform, and he doesn't care. because he knows whoever's behind that mask is irrelevant and fake. batman is the true man. joker knows this. whoever he is in his daily life is an act, and he lets his true self out at night when he runs along rooftops and beats up villains in his stupid cape and cowl. because he's crazy - joker is hellbent on proving this, proving the fact that batman is just as crazy as he is, making him face it, accept it, he's no better than the clown, no more sane. batman's near equal obsession with the joker proves it.

bruce is obsessed with the joker. he doesn't want to be, but he is. maybe because when the joker insists they're the same, he's hitting bruce where it hurts. maybe because he wants to prove the joker wrong, by being better than him. maybe because he wants to prove the joker right, by helping the joker be better. yes, bruce hates the joker's guts, trust me, he really does, he despises the clown. but for whatever reason, he finds himself caring. worrying. in the angry parts of his heart, he wants to destroy and kill the joker. but in other parts, he just wants him to get better. bruce hates their rivalry, their neverending game of cat and mouse. he desperately wants the game to end. and he doesn't want it to end because there's no one to fight anymore. he wants it to end because the fight is over. because the joker finally allowed himself to be helped, and he would be rehabilitated, he could live the rest of his life as a stable, happy man, leading a normal, unextraordinary life. a life bruce knows he'll never have. he spends his life fighting for other people's right to that life.

that will never happen though. the joker believes it's too late for him. he believes we are not in control of our lives. we are slaves to the cruel, uncaring, random chance of the universe. so he's insane, and so is the batman. and they will keep fighting, forever and ever and ever, until...

[goingferalapparently]

the jaidens on the can you hear it mini-event and we all know ab their chat shenanigans

but like. how about this one. (after the dungeon crawl, when they're at the ordo discussing theories)

they're so silly.... their friendship means so much to me

[sprinklenoodles]

It's time for some rambling posts! And this time I want to talk about both of Wolfgang's parents. This post will be about his mom, another one coming in the future will be about his dad.

But his mom. The way people have been painting her is as this good against the evil of his dad. And while I certainly think that his dad is defenitely evil and the worse parent, I'm not so sure if Wolfgang's mom is a saint.

As we know, Wolfgang seems to look up a lot to his mom, wanting to be just like her and seeing her as his inspiration. But as we know from his whole crash-out thing in the boiler room, he is not only scared to living up to her, but feel like he has done so.

"Despite how hard I tried... and how much I wanted it to become true... I could never become you... I'll always be a failure."

That are the words from somebody who has been told he is a failure. And while it could be from his dad, I... don't think it is. It's clear that it's his mom who he values, who he admires. His dad telling him he's a failure wouldn't matter all that much if his mom assured him he wasn't.

But if she was the one who told him that... Then it defenitely would make sense. He failed to be like her... because maybe he was like his dad.

And his mom would probably hate that. I have no doubts that he was an awful husband- maybe even murdered her. So, she probably told Wolfgang that if he grew up to be like his father, he was going to be a failure... just like he already was.

It simply wouldn't make sense for him to act like this if his mom was fully nice towards him. Yes, she probably was a good mom when he was young- something we could see in that one art of them playing piano- but I think that changed as he grew older.

Wolfgang's mom grew more cold. She was stuck in a loveless marriage, getting mistreated, and her son was turning out to look like- maybe even act like- the man who caused her all of this misfortune.

But Wolfgang wouldn't see this. He would refuse to see this. He wouldn't believe his mom could be bad, so that meant that he was the problem. That his mom hated him because he was a failure. It was his fault.

Honestly, I think this could be a much more interesting take then just a 'good vs evil parent' take. It would be another jab at Wolfgang, proving that he was wrong once more, even after his death.

And if his dad killed his mom, that would only amplify it further. Victims are (mostly) innocent in his mind, we know this from his view of the mock trial. No matter how she might've acted to him before, it wouldn't matter. Because she was an innocent victim now.

But hey, that's just a theory... an pjeg theory hehe. The post about Wolfgang's dad will come... eventually. And if you maybe have some questions are want to hear me ramble more, feel free to send me an ask! :D

[eg515]

I just finished another full rewatch of Elementary and once again I'm reminded how good the final episode is. sure, the whole final season was a bit of a struggle after they didn't expect to get renewed, and the reveal of the villain in the last episode was a bit underwhelming, but it wasn't about the plot. it was about the characters. and having such a good series finale makes rewatching the show all the more satisfying. and just like last time I rewatched, I immediately want to start again.

I'm so happy to have this show as an example for what can happen when everyone involved loves the show and the characters so deeply and cares so much about them.

this was also my first rewatch since we found out about JLM's addiction and sobriety coinciding with the show, and it made everything all the more special.

[the-girl-with-too-many-ideas]

So, raise your hand if you found yourself thinking that Shen Jiu and OG Shang Qinghua would have made a terrifying power couple. 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️

[an1muuarts]

why do people theorize on pjeg as if it was written by spike chunsoft

[wynandcore]

Underrated Beck trait: just because he’s not a killer doesn’t mean he won’t beat the shit out of cops

[greenapplebling]

I understand that some people don't find Jamikali appealing but I just don't understand how people aren't aware of the appeal of it as a gay ship

Like, it has: sunshine x grumpy / golden retriever x black cat / black-haired x white-haired / childhood friends to enemies to lovers / sun x moon, etc...

ALL of those ship dynamics are incredibly popular on queer fandom spaces??? Like, not trying to be condescending, I'm just genuinely surprised that people can't recognize these things unless they're into the ship 🤔

[tom-is-online]

i have like 4 different people in my sea of asks asking for tgirl toya and ill be real idk if im super comfy with drawing that many (im not being weird im just a transman lmao)

i did not realise it was this popular at all

(read tags for more info)

[1000dactyls]

So I wanna know, you'd true and honest thoughts on THW I think I remember you saying you didn't want to talk about it? I'm so sorry for this ask, but I'm curious because so much of the fandom doesn't like it, and while I agree everyone sees to have different reasons

there is quite a bit i dont like about thw, but the two most primary reasons are a) the artistic direction and b) the narrative's betrayal of the core themes set up by the first movie

a lot has already been said about the artificial smoothness of httyd3's rendering -- the textural smoothness of the dragons and skin, for one -- but it's the botox injection valka and the other ladies seemed to receive that irritates me the most. coming off the heels of two other movies less hesitant to show signs of aging as a natural process, the flattening of their wrinkles and fat feels shallow to me.

IMHO, the unnatural smoothness of movie mimics the hollow feel the third movie's narrative has, lacking the history and depth of the events the characters have lived through and the impact that history has on the characters' physical appearance. the movie instead has a dreamy, hazy quality to it. which would be fine in most movies, but not for a franchise dedicated to the physicality of the characters (which was the whole point of the first movie, that hiccup (and toothless) was visually distinct from the rest of the cast)

so not only is thw ugly to look at compared to the other two movies, it's also a narrative shitshow pitted against the other two movies. like, setting aside the objective masterpiece that the first movie is, how does httyd2 end with "come hell or high water i will always jump after you when you fall" to httyd3's "nah man let's let you go". how did we get here???? by completely assassinating everyone's character

and it's just extremely frustrating because httyd1 was about overcoming differences; that message was the flesh and blood of the series, the franchise's beating heart. httyd1 navigates complicated generational trauma to cease endless bloodshed. httyd3... puts off that conflict into some however many centuries into the future. and then the last 5 minutes of the movie even don't get the departure RIGHT hello???

the only good thing about thw is that john powell got to flex his muscles and compose "once there were dragons" and bring me to tears in 5 minutes and 46 seconds