#me vs society

[verawhisk]

*the gang steps into baldur’s gate*

halsin: they’re making people pay for flowers?? for fruit?? things that silvanus gave to us for free?!

astarion: omg why are you yelling at me? i didnt make the system

astarion: wait

[clairesbeauchamp]

2.08 | 3.04

[dooblebrain]

Benry and Gordon actually get along challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

I love how canonically Gordo is fascinated with Black Mesa Sweet Voice its just so funny

I imagine this happened right after one of Gordon's iconic "have a breakdown on the floor in the fetal position" moments

[doubleaabat]

Filled to the brim with the color of conviction.

[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.

[asthedeathoflight]

Coda to my other post because I didn't want to completely derail it but we might not be ready for this conversation as a fandom but ableism is absolutely a contributing factor to the way Armand gets treated and im tired of pretending like it's not. The way autistic people of color get treated in our society is abominable and this fandom is not immune to perpetuating that. So much of how he gets talked about can be chalked up to "well he didn't perform empathy/emotion/regret like I wanted him to." If Armand was as effortlessly personable and correctly emotive as Lestat is we'd be having a different conversation. That's all I'm saying.

[fandomfluffandfuck]

Thinking about Steve Rogers finally getting the chance to go to college post-ice and being the most fucking annoying student in a philosophy professors class

[61below]

I’m absolutely tanking my google demographics bc I keep not thinking of the right way to word it? But wasn’t there a Chinese soldier or other kind of imperial worker who got fired, realized ~fuck I’m executed either way, let’s ball~ and ended up leading a successful rebellion and ended up becoming emperor?

Anyway. That. I want THAT Word of Honor AU. Zzs just accidentally overthrowing his cousin. Does he have an actual claim? Who tf cares, his loyal subjects sure don’t, they just want someone who will actually be dedicated to the good of the nation. SEED VAULT WHOMST?

[realredbanana]

Perhaps a controversial opinion but, I think Take Me To Church fits WangXian more than HuaLian.

[gabrielleyueerrrrr]

Just a thought, does the stick figure society also has gender stereotypes about colours? Like blue belongs to boys and pink belongs to girls? Would a boy be made fun at school because he was born with a pinkish colour?

And more generally, are the beauty standards in the stick figure society related to colours? Does someone with a more saturated and vibrant colour considered more good-looking than someone with a more dull colour?

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Walking Practice

weird scifi horror novella

follows an alien who crash-landed on earth years ago, and spends their days hooking up with people to then eat them & gain enough strength to make it through the day

explores existing outside of the binary norm and being seen as other, deep loneliness, and desire for connection

meandering narration, interesting formatting, illustrations

[watcher0033]

When Gege be literally giving us an enemies-to-lovers template:

“Either we are alive or dead, together or apart, I have a promise with you.”

The High™️ Toxicity of this pairing, your honor.👏🏼

[pinkrose05]

THE GANG!

Warning: Mild spoilers for the new Myriad Celestia trailer.

These guys are such a pleasant surprise, oh my god. They're basically a demon lord and his 4 generals, and every one of them has a very neat, very unique design!

(Dubra is my personal favorite, because her description as a scribe and someone who mastered the blade seems at odds with her demure appearance. That, and the ghostly figure looming over her, really makes one think.)

It's also interesting to note that the four Paths Ifrit mentions for each of his children correspond to specific factions involved in Penacony. The Harmony to the Family (Sunday, Robin and co.), the Elation to the Masked Fools (Hanabi), the Preservation to the IPC (Aventurine), and the Remembrance to the Garden of Recollection (Black Swan).

I can't wait to see what they're up to next. Here's to some of them being playable, at least- I'd love to get more info on the Annihilation Gang.

[horizon-verizon]

George saying that Jaehaera is Aegon's heir is quite contradictory to what he wrote in the book itself because she was NEVER even seen as a possibility of being heir, perhaps by 1/2 houses that were still supporters of the greens but not by her own father the most important? Aegon was already thinking about the heirs he would have with the Baratheon girl for god sake...

("The Sad Short Reign of Aegon II")

I believe that he uses "heir" in the sense that Jaehaera was the only living candidate to be his heir...but while Aerea and Rhaella were Maegor's true "heir presumptives" (a person entitled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of a person with a better claim to the position in question), Maegor declared them as such and so they were. Aegon never declared or claimed Jaehaera as an heir presumptive at any point in time, and instead, as you say, marriage for male heirs. So she was neither his heir apparent, nor his heir presumptive. And no, just because he said that Jaehaera's children by Aegon III--if allowed--could become inheritors, doesn't mean Jaehaera is a "legally" declared heir just as Henry VII's mother--Margaret Beaufort--wasn't a heir apparent nor an heir presumptive but could birth possible claimants and pass down their "right" through her own lineage.

So if George wants to express that Jaehaera was Aegon's "heir presumptive" or that "heir presumptive" means something a little different in Westeros, then he should have said so in the text somehow. Yes, I'm being firm even with the author of the series, bc this is how lore/fantasy writing works. You need to be consistent and clear for some things if you make statements about how such a detailed world works.

There is still, again, also the possibility that either he forgot or was, again, just trying to express Jaehaera's new only-child status offhandedly.

[shannonsketches]

like why did they change where Vegeta was when Cell announced the cell games in the anime

why did they make this vegeta starting shit with yamcha instead of chillin in the lab with his family? why did they take Bulma out of the lab? Why'd they say she was Out while Dr Brief was repairing 16? Why did they change Bulma working on advanced robotics to running in late with her baby?

it's the same scene except: - Bulma's actively at work being a scientist - Vegeta's not being rude to her (or anyone else!) - Vegeta waits for Trunks instead of leaving the room - Cell interrupted the airwaves, which means Trunks and Vegeta were just hanging out with Bulma and Dr B while they were working

Those are all Great Character Details!! That the anime rails against!!

[allineedisonedream]

absolutely obsessed with how you draw vampire dick [and with the titans? it’s the story we deserve but will never have]

aww thank youuu! something about him as a vampire gives me the sillies happy to hear you like it!^^