#is it even still relevant?
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I wonder if any of my mutuals are doing nanowrimo this year. Is that still a thing that people do?
#I feel like this is a question I should be asking back in 2014 or something#is it even still relevant?#not a critique. I think itâs cool.#words that instantly send my ass back to my early tumblr years: nanowrimo. nerdfighters. onceler. skeleton war. presidentâs shoelacesâŠ#makes me feel so old nowâŠ. anyway!#I never see anyone mention it. then again maybe itâs just not relevant to my âcircleâ. and it is only once a year so đ€·đ»ââïž#I think itâs fun they made a whole month to write and support other writers. itâs cute.#I love when mutuals are creative#lemme read your poorly edited 50k gay fantasy novel pls (SERIOUS)#you think your writing sucks? even better. thatâs zero pretention baby. I love that.#also Iâve been thinking about trying it but also am hesitant to talk about that bc I hate hyping things Iâll probably fail at#but also yeah I think it#sorry I got distracted what was I typingâŠ#my brother texted me he has robotics club after school and I spent 5 minutes looking for a good robot gif and forgot what I was doing#uhhh⊠books cool#i love books#i love you#you can ignore this#text
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Was thinking about this line because Harrow what the actual fuck are you talking about, and I realised something.
Not only does Harrow really for real not know that Gideon loves herâin the bullshit context of their lives, this is a reasonable misunderstanding for her to have.
What has Harrow known Gideon's life goals to be since they were children? Hint: There are at least two Harrow is fully aware of.
The first is to be wanted. As much as Gideon hates and wants to escape the Ninth, she also paradoxically craves their acceptance. They're the only community she's ever known. Harrow plays on that desire from the very beginning, mostly by kind of .... well, okay, by negging her about it. Ironically appealing to her sense of loyalty and duty to her house when they both know Gideon never even had that bridge to burn. That kind of thing.
Whether or not she's right, Harrow sincerely believes that acceptance to still be important to Gideon. First flower of my house, the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph. The best of all of us. When Harrow has only seconds left to make amends, she not only banks hard into praising Gideon, she frames it to unambiguously offer Gideon the acceptance she's always been conspicuously denied. Assuring her of her value not just as a person or as a cavalier, but as one of their house, one of their people.
The second thing Harrow knows is that Gideon wants to join the Cohort. Easy, everybody knows that. She's only been telling everyone with ears (and then some) since she was eight years old. It's the bait Harrow dangled to entice her into this mess. She wants to be a hero, to do great deeds like in the comic books. She wants to be a soldier.
Against the backdrop of all that context, Gideon's dying declaration "for the Ninth" starts to sound a hell of a lot more like "for Queen and country." Especially when you remember that Harrow is still the sovereign ruler of the Ninth. From Harrow's vantage point, Gideon could easily be playing the heroic underdog in a war movie. The soldier no one believed in until she threw herself on a grenade to save her squad. The knight errant who proved her chivalry by giving her life in service to her king.
From that perspective, Harrow's line to Ortus makes sense. She's following through on her promise of acceptance, defending Gideon's loyalty to the first Ninth face she sees. She's playing out Gideon's war hero fantasy, where Gideon's act of heroism proved them all wrong about her. In which case Ortus's response, "You are the most worthy heroes the Ninth House could muster. I truly believe that," flows very naturally as a reply. He understands what Harrow is trying to say, and affirms it.
It's not a hero's burial in the Anastasian, but it's the closest thing Harrow has the power to give her. And it's a fucking reasonable interpretation of Gideon's actions that doesn't touch on her feelings for Harrow at all. Fuck me.
#the locked tomb#griddlehark#harrow the ninth#don't mind me just. still dissecting these characters to figure out what is even going on in there#this series is the most satisfying exercise in limited perspective I've ever encountered#no one is on the same page but all their pages are coherent#god I love mess#tlt meta#tlt character analysis#gideon nav#harrow nonagesimus#harrowhark nonagesimus#and it's not really relevent here bc this is about Harrow's understanding of events but#I think she's right about Gideon and the Ninth#Gideon said ''for the ninth'' as she died which she very much didn't have to do#and. well. no spoilers past htn in this post so no spoilers past htn in these tags
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class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)
#dimension 20#fantasy high#fhfy#fhsy#fhjy#riz gukgak#gorgug thistlespring#kristen applebees#figueroth faeth#adaine abernant#fabian seacaster#my class swap stuff! oh yeah I think I got a tag for that I'll call that#fh class quangle#gna slowly go back and get that tag on relevant posts too. for organization's sake#even tho I didnt really intend this blog to be that kinda blog lmao. we were all just gonna be out here dealin with that at our own pace#anyways uh! they! u know all the lore for the designs already I put em in tags. but otherwise this also collects like the#color keys kind of for these. mostly the things that change between designs#doing this did make me realise half of these are a Lot more consistent in color keys than the other half lol#like kristen's palette stays pretty much the same. and fabian's. the hit's mostly in the construction#a lot of this is overall like an exercise in remembering what high schoolers would actually wear and how to work in Costume pieces#on this point at least I straight up have No relevant recollection lmao all the basic education establishments I went to have uniforms#and outside of school I was. well kind of a shorts and tee guy. so#on that topic I feel like fabian's is the furthest stretch lmao. like if a guy in high school wears the same bright yellow raincoat#to school every day that's like. people would Not like that guy. fabian really is saved by being cute and a rogue#he will still have stans when he's deep in his fishing arc in junior year he's the manic pixie dream bf#anyways uh. things to do! stuff to get done. sleep first tho. have a good night lads#I have not caught new nsbu yet! seems I mostly catch them like two to three days late nowadays.#so please uhh. don't reply on my posts with nsbu spoilers? we are all excited and having fun but that's rude#ok thank u. signing off for the day have a good night#!!
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Wes ruins everything
Wes had finally done it, he had finally realized why nobody ever belived him about Fenton and Phantom! It made so much sense now, he had been looking for an answer for years, thinking he was going crazy because everybody refused to see the Obvious!
He was Cursed!
He literally had an Ancestoral Curse on his Bloodline that made it so that all those born with the gift of Prophecy would be ignored! A Gift of Prophecy that he apparently had.
It was Cassandra's Curse, the one from Greek Myths. Apparently she was his GreatĂ1000 Grandmother and passed down the Gift (and Curse) of Prophecy to him. And he knew how to break it!
All he needed to do was gather the right resources, chant the correct incantations, make sure not to accidentally summon a Demon in the process, and he could just foist the Curse onto some other poor schmuck. Sure it would suck for them, and he would loose his Gift of Prophecy, but Wes had been ignored for Years at this point, he needed validation!
So he did the Ritual, and he didn't mess it up, and he managed to get rid of the Curse.
Now all he had to do was convince everybody that he was right for the first time in his life! This was going to be great!
...
Cass didn't know what was going on.
A while ago, she had started getting these...gut feelings that she couldn't explain.
She would look over the details of a Case her Family was working on, and see a patern that the others were seemingly ignoring. Like when she realized that The Penguin was about to raid the Docks on the East Side, but the others were convinced it was going to be on the West.
But when she had tried to tell them, they had brushed her off. "We've already concluded that he will begin the Raid on the West side, no need to go to the East."
She had gone anyways, and low and behold she had been right. But nobody even acknowledged that she had been right at all, they had just wondered how they had missed the signs, not even questioning how she had known.
It wasn't limited to Cases either. Even small things, like telling her brother's where the TV remote was were brushed off, and hours later they would still be looking, never even having checked where she told them.
It seemed that no matter what, nobody cared about her point of view anymore. They kept brushing her off, telling her she was wrong, actively ignoring her ideas.
And it was getting worse. They were starting to ignore her more and more, forgetting she was in the room, not calling her down for Dinner, even forgetting to check in on her during Patrol.
She knew that there must be something going on, Magical or otherwise, but when she tried bringing it up with her Dad or JLD, they would also Brush her off.
Her Family was forgetting her. And they didn't even realize it.
...
Danny was not okay at the moment.
When he had gone to school a few weeks ago and noticed everybody staring at him, he didn't give it much thought. Maybe Dash or Paulina had spread another Rumor about him again, not too out of the ordinary.
When his name had been called over the Intercom, he hadn't thought much of that either. His grades were falling even more than usual, so he assumed his Guidance Counselor wanted to have another talk with him.
When he walked into the Principals Office to see both of his Parents and some GIW Agents, that's when he realized something big must have happened.
He didn't have much of a chance to react when the Shields went up, but he did react when the first Ecto-Blast scorched the wall behind him. His Parents began to scream at him as they fired their Blasters, something about replacing somebody? He didn't know, he was pretty preoccupied at the moment.
It took more effort than he cared to admit to escape the Room, but a stray shot to the hidden Shield Projector under the Principals Desk proved to be his saving grace. Unfortunately the moment he escaped the Office, he was met with a veritable Army of GIW Agents, all armed to the Teeth with Weapons he had never even seen before.
He managed to get away for a moment, hiding in the Bathroom as the Agents chasing him passed it by. That's when he met Wes.
He obviously hadn't been expecting him, but the moment he saw him Wes put on a smug look. "Oh hi Fenton, trying to get away from the other students?"
Danny had replied with confusion, "What the hell are you talking about?!"
"I finally managed to convince everybody about you, now everyone knows that you're Phantom! I'll bet you're hiding from all of the other Students hounding you for questions right?"
"...it was you?"
"Yeah, so? I finally get to be right!"
"...You absolute MORON-"
That was the last Danny got to say to Wes before an Ecto-Blast launched him through a Wall, seeing his face morph into a look of Shock just before the dust cloud covered it up.
Since that day, Danny had been on the Run. Nowhere was safe anymore now that the GIW knew both his Human and Ghost's faces, but he had to keep running. He crossed state Lines already, and was on his way to the next Ecto-Rich City he could sense, somewhere in New Jersey.
He cursed his Fenton Luck every day. Why had everybody believed Wes this time?! Nobody had ever belived him before, nobody even seemed to acknowledge his existence after a while! What had changed?
Danny just wanted to rest already.
...
Cass had taken to Patrolling alone recently. She had taken to doing a lot of things alone, actually.
After the first month, it seemed that nobody could remember that she was in the room with them, even if she was within their eyeline, she just faded into the background. By the 2 Month Mark they had stopped talking to her entirely, although occasionally she would get a Text or two from her dad. By the 3 month Mark she was completely invisible, and By the 5th she had been forced to get used to it.
She didn't know what was going on, was it a Meta Ability? Magic? Alien Tech? She had no idea.
She had begun to cook for herself after the first time Alfred forgot to set her Plate at the Table. The same with Washing her own Clothes, Cleaning her Room, and Paying her Phone Bills. At the very least the Automated Allowance Payments to her Account had kept up, or she wouldn't have been able to go to her favorite Cafe anymore.
It was bittersweet for her. She used to go to that Cafe every week with Alfred, but he didn't even come on his own anymore. Had he only come for her? Did she really mean that much to them? It hurt, she finally had a family that cared for her and suddenly she didn't exist to them.
She sat alone at a Table, ignored by everyone in the Cafe as usual, when a new face walked in. He looked about her age, a little roughed up, walking with a sort of cautious gaint, as if he was scared of something. His Body Language seemed to agree with her assessment, as his body practically screamed "Worry" in its movements.
Cass stopped watching at that point. Just another Gotham Teen, probably worried over something like getting not having enough money or getting mugged on the way home. It was a Common sight in Gotham.
She attention was pricked again for a moment when she heard a voice speak up. "Uh, can I sit here?"
She ignored it, he wasn't talking to her.
"Um, excuse me? Miss? Could I sit here?" He repeated.
She ignored him again, he wasn't talking to her. Nobody talked to her.
"Hello? Do you have Earbuds in?" He said, and he waved his hand in front of her face.
Her face. He waved his hand. In front of Her Face.
He was talking to her.
She looked up at him sharply, seeming to startle him for a moment before he asked, "So, is that a no?"
"You can see me?" She asked.
He looked a bit bewildered, but replied "Uh, yeah? Why would I not? Are you...a Ghost?". That last part sounded a bit suspicious.
"No. Not a Ghost. But nobody sees me. Ever. Nobody remembers me." She replied. She had never spoken this much to anybody outside of her Family, but in the past few weeks she had been starved for interaction.
He seemed slightly interested, and sat down at her table. He looked her in the eyes, and said "Do you...talk about it?"
She smiled. He could see her.
#Dpxdc#Dp x dc#Dcxdp#Dc x dp#Danny Phantom#Dc#Dcu#Batman#Cassandra Cain#Cassandra's Curse#Wes Weston has Cassandra's Curse#He manages to get rid of it and foists it onto a random person#That being Cassandra Cain (because irony)#The Cassandra Curse works a bit differently here#The User will slowly become less relevant and more ignored in the lives of the people around them#Until nobody can even be bothered to remember they exist and the Prophecy they speak becomes utterly useless#Ever wonder why Wes isn't an actual character in the Show? It's because everybody including the Audience forgot about his ramblings#Danny is unaffected because of Ghost Shenanigans#Wes Weston reveal Danny Phantom#He was so obsessed with finally being right that he didn't think of the consequences#He's still a moron though and doesn't have a way to undo it#Danny is on the Run#This is Cass/Danny if you didn't catch on#Danny has been Unseen because hasn't been able to talk to people for months due to being on the run#Cass has been Unseen for months because that's when she was cursed#Both haven't talked to another person is so long and it is relieving#They live together Unseen for Months since they don't know how to fix either of their situations#Dead Silent#That's their Ship name right?#Had to reference the Shipping Chart
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update was literally devastating
#honkai star rail#hsr spoilers#2.2 spoilers#honkai star rail spoilers#stelle#hsr trailblazer#misha hsr#hsr aventurine#textpost#so happy that one of my little ice guys was plot relevant!!!!#what do you mean he's gone forever and I'll never see him again#not even in an event#the story was so good!!! i'm still in shock
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various doodles again
#i still need to figure out how to draw majimas hair...#why are bowlcuts so hard#its not even a full bowlcut i think. he only has his forehead exposed#but other than that#have some light kazumaji stuff + tachibana doodles i love my real estate man#yakuza#éŸăćŠă#yakuza series#rgg#ryu ga gotoku#kiryu kazuma#majima goro#kazumaji#tachibana tetsu#ichiban kasuga#ryo aoki#doodles#digital art#fanart#y7 spoilers#? (might still be relevant?)#spoilers#pinky's gallery
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dan could never
#so whimsical even in the most hashtag srs business hashtag adult tasks#i luv him#this dnp had real responsibilities and now they have a mortgage#who let them#i still refuse to believe sometimes they started forever home planning in 2017#like what do you MEANNNN dan lucked out so hard fr#my top post will never lose relevancy I fear#dnp#dan and phil#phan#phil lester#daniel howell#silly philly#tweets
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Baizhu design :V ? For funsies totally not going to draw him or anything
had way too much fun with this one hahah
#listen i know that baizhu's eyes should be red in theory here but like#im too used to my golden eyed princess to change that#plus its funnier what with the whole childe crush list#also im sorry but i can't think how to explain it away rn#baizhu's not even a relevant character so it doesn't even matter but still#we'll just roll w it#anyway#we can name baizhu's snake smth else too#idk what#just in case anyone here doesn't realize gui is herbalist gui#hilariously enough gui also fits like. a good chunk of childe's crush list#like he's only missing the 'being able to beat his ass' and the 'deep voice'#the rest of it checks out iirc#childe; still a bit in shock at the revelation: huh- the husband is literally just some guy#gui; very friendly and polite and sweet invites ajax into the convo and never sidelines him and is always happy to meet new people:#childe; touched and charmed: yeah ok this makes sense actually. i get it#guizhong and ping yan only found out about the short crush like. months after LMAO#changsheng and gui are cannonically gossip buddies so i think the dynamic would be hilarious whenever baizhu goes to the clan#changsheng dumps a bunch of homework/tests on him to run and then goes sit w gui to the side to gossip for the rest of the day#she approved the husband from day1
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everybody saying oh eddie cheerleader parallel means eddie is GAY do we actually know the cheerleader is gay? or is he just a cheerleader whoâs primarily characterized by his relationship with his parents not his sexuality. maybe that other cheerleader was his awkward teenage fwb situationship we donât fuckin know itâs not actually relevant to his role in the story
#maybe the cheerleaderâs sexuality isnât especially relevant to an arc about eddie confronting the ways toxic masculinity has shaped him#even if it never defined him! itâs still had an indisputable effect#maybe the cheerleader is about men and boys getting to pursue the things that fulfill them not whether theyâre gay or not#just sayin#911 abc#eddie diaz#911 spec
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In Stars And Time? More like In Ace And Gender
+ some alts
#in stars and time#isat#siffrin#josh art tag#happy pride yall!#getting to play as a nonbinary protag who is also ace was just so so cool#im hoping to draw the main 6 with their flags for pride#cuz this game and its lgbt-ness makes me so happy and its awesome that its canon!#i also really love the varied relevancy of the lgbt themes#cuz its certainly not the plot of the story#but some characters lgbt-ness is quite important to their backstory or their current struggles!#while for others its just kinda there!!#and i think thats great#its a good reflection of real life and how different people have different experiences being lgbt and how it affects their lives differently#and works well with the story#it doesnt get in the way at all while still being important to the characters#and it even fits into the worldbuilding so well????#truly if there were no mentions of the Gender Themes i think the worldbuilding wouldnt have been quite as good#mirabelle specifically really gets to me...#prolly cuz im. yknow. aroace too#but seeing how she felt she was betraying her religion? how she fept she needed to change to fit other peoples expectations?#and how earlier in the game she does actually say breaking traditions is also a part of the change belief#but she doesnt realize that can extend to her#it all hits really hard for me
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stede approximately 7 hours after meeting ed (they have been talking this whole time): âespecially wildflowers cuz i hardly ever saw any. my fatherâs houseâhe kept the lawn completely manicured, just thisâŠdepressingly plainâŠâŠ er, plane
ed: a plain plane?
stede, moving his hand back and forth parallel to the ground (to indicate a plane): thatâs right, it wasâwell, it was sort of aâŠsmall plain, i guess, landscape-wise, but itâa really plain plane of a plain
ed, following every word of this: sounds like a pain
stede: fuck ugly. all that grass and no bugs!
ed, now sort of seeing the appeal when you phrase it like that but not saying anything bc fuck dads and fuck the rich and also he thinks its hot when stede complains: like a golf course
stede: eerily like a golf course
ed: did yâactually, iâm afraid to ask.
stede: ooh, go on
ed: âŠdid you ever use it at all? like, forâŠfancy people barbecues, orâŠ?
stede, becoming increasingly irate about it all: not evenâwe mowed it, is what we did with it. and we hadâmy fatherâd got it from his father, it wasâhe had me using this littleâone of those lawnmowers that look like egg beaters, yâknowâ
ed: awwwgh, the old-timey ones?
stede: like a push-along that also cuts peopleâs fingers off
ed: did you cut anybodyâs fingers off?
stede: i came pretty damn close once
ed: physically or emotionally
stede: emotionally, mostly. i had a wishlist to santa on the line, i wasnât gonna risk that
ed: you hadâhang on, how old were you when this was happening
stede: i think i was about fifteen
ed:
stede: NOBODY TOLD ME!!!
ed: bro
stede: if anything i think my parents kept it going on purpose. so itâs him iâd get upset with
ed: oh you didnât like santa then
stede: such a relief to learn heâs made up, i thought he hated me
ed: oh no. what??? why? what the fuckâd they do to you??
stede: nothing egregious, justâŠ.. every year iâd write to him, and iâd be explicit about what type of thing i definitely didnât want, and every christmas thatâs what he got me. bb guns, boxing gloves, g. i. joeâŠ
ed: :(
stede: âŠparaphernalia from dadâs alma materâŠthere was one year i got to the bottom of the stairs and went, âoh god, santaâs fucked it. thatâs all clearly meant for someone else.â so every year after that, santa put my name on everything. just to make sure i knew. embossed, sometimes.
ed: aw. mate, if iâm honest, that does strike me as kind of egregious
stede: well, they were nice things
ed: yeah but he knew you didnât want em and he gave em to you anyway when they couldâve gone to, i dunno, some rough-and-tumble kid whoâd be over the moon about a bb gun⊠what were you hoping for? what did stede want?
stede: i remember the big one i asked for was always a lawnmower
ed:
ed: OHHH yeah to liberate you from the push-along?
stede: all the time i was push-alonging iâd have daydreams about those big rideable ones
edâs brain (separately from ed): any lawnmowerâs rideable if youâre enough of a pervert
ed, internally, to his brain: i cannot fucking say that to him
edâs mouth, without permission: any lawnmowerâ
ed:
stede: ?
ed, sweating: anâan-any lawnmower jokes?
stede, face lighting up because nobodyâs asked him that before and heâs got half a dozen ready to go: OOH YES HEREâS ONEâ
#taking advantage of these crashless moments to finish and post this one that i found in my drafts#didnt even mean for it to be seasonally relevant it just did that on its own#miss you all still đđđ
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Ask Box for Macaque is Open!
I don't think he'll admit it, but I think Peng did a number on him.
Finally, at long last, season four is officially part of Blue and Violet! All of the content we learn from season four for the progression of the LMK narrative is now relevant to the BAV story, so, hooray! We finally got there!
The box is now open for questions for 24 hours, so have fun!
Update: The ask box is now closed!
#lego monkie kid#lego monkie kid fanart#monkie kid#monkie kid fanart#lmk#lmk fanart#monkie kid macaque#lmk macaque#blue and violet#feathers are only there to add context to the image really- they aren't really exactly there#actually- this scene isn't even featured in the story itself - but it is part of the aftermath so- still relevant
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Week 2 - Muse
Click for Quality!
Thanks to @localcanadiancreature62 for the prompts!
#BillfordWeek2024#aria draws#digital art#digital drawing#fanart#billford#I was gonna put code in this one about âoooh who REALLY was the muse ooohâ but tbh I think it diluted the whole concept#I think Ford being all starry and Galaxy-y and bill being the more âhumanâ looking of the two here make my point#also the angel and demon bills honestly have very little to do with my higher concept I just wanted to have fun#also also HUMAN BILL JUMPSCARE! AGAIN!#Iâm sorry I just. I REALLY. like. the design I came up for him.#HES FUN TO DRAW HES ALL TEETH AND EYELASHES AND HES NICE AN BIG AND CHUBBY HES FUNNNN#ok Iâll shut up#bill cipher#human bill cipher#human bill design#ford pines#young ford pines#stanford pines#grunkle ford#bill x ford#all aboard the toxic yaoi train or whatever that woman with the ukele said idk#is that even still relevant. I am not online#gravity falls
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thinking about how Amphinomus is the first man Telemachus ever killed. thinking about how he died out of Telemachusâs protectiveness for his father. thinking about how that was his warning shot. thinking aboutâ
#in the legend Amphinomus is a bit more tragic because he was one of the last âniceâ suitors and ho even came at Telemachusâs defense#he was also VERY against Antinousâs plan to kill the prince#he was on the âhey guys :) but hat if we tried getting on the royal familyâs good side :)â#and even Ody SAW that kindness and (while disguised) urged him to leave before the bloodshed#but Athena influenced him to stay#because good character or no#Amphinomus was still a suitor#he was still someone wanting the hand of Penelope#he was still a bystander to everything#and he was Telemachusâs first kill#anyway that isnât relevant to the musical but it still makes me insane#epic the musical#epic the ithaca saga
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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.
#danganronpa#dr analysis#komaedology#komaeda#.txt#sorry @ non komaedaheads for making it about komaeda again LMAO#that was not the intention initially he's just... a really good exploration of this#and i think about his expressions in that comic vs his corpse and what we retroactively knew he was dealing with a lot#btw don't send spoilers to falter please!! i'm @ing to credit them- this was a discussion not solely my ideas- but they are not done yet#and aren't reading this post until they're caught up for obvious reasons#this came from discussing ch2 since the incomplete picture people voted with nearly killed them#(btw don't @ me about komaeda's description in the second-last paragraph being an oversimplification; i know :p )#(he has nuance- especially outside of the killing game- but i'm just focusing on the thematically relevant broad strokes here)#(eg. i feel like he demonstrates empathy sometimes but kodaka has said that lack of ability to empathise/be empathised with#is a theme for him- and the ways he's been proactive in the killing game consistently lacked regard for others' feelings/individuality#reducing them to interchangeable Ultimates(TM) instead. it's partly why he self-destructed while everyone else#was able to forgive themself and keep moving forwards imo. your worth being defined rigidly by objective contributions to society#does not mesh well with the idea of rehabilitating people who've destroyed the world before they could even start to improve it#and even if he did give them a chance at surviving he still succumbed to his own ideology in the end#killed himself for 'hope' and to be 'important' like he 'wanted' but died terrified and in pain and alone instead of fulfilled#man i wish 2.5's ending/postnwp canon in general dug into that ;-; )#ANYWAY ty for reading all that. i feel like i rambled a lot in this one. i have a headache now ghdkjsfgdsf
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let me be clear i like veilguard but it does suck that no one disapproves anymore outside of like. three choices. i want to be fighting for my life earning approval back again someone has GOT to hate my ass. i should be careful about party composition and companion reactions again. i miss tactically taking fenris out of the party before i'm nice to merrill like those were the days
#please omg can someone hate my ass . not really. but in previous games it sometimes did feel like i was earning approval back#like a. 'even when we fight i still love you. don't forget that' way . i wanted some uphill battle and dav IS super sanitised#the difference is more staggering to old players than new ones. i think dav plays rly well for someone who doesnt know the franchise#but i keep asking questions like 'should the dalish not be more worried about solas/etc' 'the crows r not this nice'#'why wouldnt isabela ask about varric' 'there should probably be more fantasy racism here'#of course these r the devs who were slandering zevran weeks before release. however its also just. man.#I AM ENJOYING THE GAME THOUGH. just wish it had a bit (a lot) more relevance and respect to what its built up in the prev games#dragon age#dav spoilers#veilguard spoilers#dav#txt#like for example i think one of my favorite small writing moments is cass asking about the inquisitor's family in dai#where she approves if you are also estranged but disapproves if you say you want to go back#because for a split second she does not just see a so called 'herald' that she's forced to work with#it's someone just like her who never got along w their family and despite herself she likes the inquisitor more for it#or it's someone who couldn't be less like her and her dislike and initial mistrust becomes more certain#it just. there's is an amount of depth lost when vg tries this hard to make rook be loved as a default
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