#that's what makes him terrifying

[bearfeathers]

no but the way halloween (2018) restores to michael myers the identity of the shape and the boogeyman is just 🤌

[pianokantzart]

I don't think we talk quite enough about these two NPCs:

At the beginning it's clear that they're supposed to be reflections of Mario and Luigi. The younger brother is skinnier, taller, less experienced, and (initially) easily frightened.

The older brother is shorter and chubbier, more experienced and protective of his sibling.

But when they're reunited, it turns out the two are very much different characters from Mario and Luigi.

The first sign is that the younger brother is pretty blasé while the older brother breaks down into tears of relief. A direct opposite to the way things go when Mario and Luigi are reunited.

Furthermore, the younger brother now embraces danger and desperately wants to go on another adventure, while the older brother forgoes treasure hunting completely in favor of focusing on keeping his sibling safe.

These are two behaviors that don't quite fit with Mario and Luigi.

HOWEVER...

Before Mario and Luigi leave, the younger treasure hunter takes Luigi aside and asks if he can sneak off with them. When he's overheard, not only is the older treasure hunter mad at his brother, but Mario is mad at Luigi for considering it.

This teeny tiny moment lead me to the suspect that the "character arc" these NPCs undergo are fuzzy reflections of Mario and Luigi's desires.

Luigi wishes he could just go though the wringer and come out on the other side with permanent bravado, unable to be shaken and as adventurous as his brother. He more than likely wants the younger brother to embrace this change and pursue his dream.

Mario on the other hand?

I think... while he doesn't dislike being a hero... part of him prefers the idea of just hanging out with his sibling in a world where things aren't consistently on the verge of disaster.

He understands the way the older brother feels, so much so that he deeply objects to the idea of helping the younger one sneak off (especially so soon after they were reunited), and gets mad when Luigi merely hears the idea out.

And I think a more selfish part of Mario likes the idea of telling Luigi to stay home, safe and sound where nothing can hurt him.

Heck... we've probably already gotten a peek into a world Mario gave in to this impulse and tried that approach...

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Time loop edition!

Jason gets a chance to do everything right.

He’s got one day, twenty four hours, to change everything to the way he wants it to be (read: repeatedly kill Joker). And if he’s not satisfied with the result by the end of that time, well, that’s fine. He gets a do over for as long as he wants—if he offs himself before the twenty fourth hour mark.

He just didn’t count on his stupid family to be such a wild card and keep switching their routines around at the drop of a hat. Makes it so much harder to plan Joker’s perfect demise…

((Meanwhile the batfam: screaming and falling over each other, very much aware of the time loop but under the impression that Jay’s death is the catalyst, trying desperately to stop Jason from committing suicide by the end of each day.))

[im-smart-i-swear]

coming back home.

@barrenclan

[wyrmwinds]

Someone with a better mind for character design than me should redesign Vauthry because of how the fatphobic design makes idiots unable to read the nuance surrounding him and ALSO because I do feel like there's a good design in there.

The way he's stylized doesn't do him any favors but I think that the tie between his baby-like appearance and the whole concept of innocence surrounding him could be so good if they didn't do it like that. At the very least, I feel like he should have gotten childlike eyes.

I feel like it would have been interesting if instead of leaning heavily into "grotesque fat manbaby" stereotyped design they maybe made him look like. An actual child, to give off that air of innocence. Sort of like a padjali situation with him, which offers an interesting tie between the "pure" white mages of the Source and him. I also feel that it would offer a more visual parallel between him and Alphinaud. He can even keep the fat, with it even giving him a design aspect of angelic cherubs.

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: trauma / ptsd / violence / brainwashing / ]

I’m not done talking about Raph and Leo yet because you know what kills me? How the beginning of the movie with Raph very angry at Leo to the point of lashing out at him is paralleled with how the end of the movie has the Krang very, very angry at Leo and beating him horrifically.

Both Raph and the Krang are so much bigger than Leo, both have been very angry with him, and both deem him responsible for ruining their respective missions.

To make matters worse, Raph’s body was used to hurt Leo. So it’d make sense for Leo to just…flinch, sometimes. To have his body reflectively brace for a blow that will not come because Raph would see this and just be horrified. Their fights, their roughhousing, their existing together all have a newfound and unwanted extra layer to them.

And Raph? Raph is traumatized enough having been brainwashed the way he was, turned into a monster in a way he always dreads in general. To be made into the antithesis of a hero and instead be a villain’s pawn, made to hurt his own family…poor kid, to say the least.

Can’t imagine what it must feel like, the first time post invasion that Raph gets mad at Leo and they fall into their old dynamic only for Leo to see the Krang and for Raph to feel like he is the Krang.

[serpentface]

This was going to be a panel of a little comic but I got too invested in drawing minute background details so, here.

[lleclerc]

iceman + his concern for maverick post-hop 31

[sculkshrieking]

saw or mcyt you say… how about saw AND mcyt. put trafficgrian into a situation. reverse bear trap him or fuck em up in some other way do whatever you want forever have fun!!!!!

i loooove drawing AUs that a total of three people wanna see <3 this is how we finally get mcyt fans into Saw

[jackdaw-and-hattrick]

The Batfam becomes convinced Danny is a clone/son and try to get a DNA sample. They can’t, not because Danny knows what they're up to, it’s just because he’s been so thoroughly ingrained with zero waste practices by Sam and never throws anything away.

[hijinxinprogress]

Whenever the JL starts complaining about YJs public image YJ just straight up gaslights them

[ineffableteeth]

They probably almost kissed after this

They probably almost kissed after this

They probably almost kissed after this

[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.

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Damian isn’t happy about father’s rule not to hurt the gaggle of false kids he has acquired. How is he supposed to prove to him that he is the only one worthy of the title of heir now?

But fine. Most of them are stupid enough they’ll end up dead sooner or later. Damian just has to play the long game. Establish himself as the only constant.

But then father’s wayward son, Todd, comes home… and it’s so much worse than Damian expected.

He remembers this man. Remembers him from hushed whispers in the League, from mother’s creased eyebrow, and training halls drenched with blood.

And he’ll take one look at Damian and know. Know that he’s a threat to his position.

And the worst thing: Damian isn’t allowed to defend himself.

[wam-my]

do I kin elias fucking bouchard

[23z567]