come to think of it there may be a decent chance ww has actually seen something ive made and that genuinely sounds surreal to me. what do you mean WILL WOOD has potentially seen the stupid images I MADE on pinterest at random
to think that if I hadn't changed jenna's age to a year lower in my ef au (I gotta change that name it's ugly af), she'd be 13 in drs2...in her lego ver she'd have the fucking Teenager Legs......
If I recall correctly, your CG and Keith are childhood friends with Miku in the Main and Symbol, right? I dunno about Symbol but I do know that the two happen to meet her as young teens during one of her cons and all three kept in touch with each other since then, right?
Ah anyway uh would we still be keeping that aspect too with ex-CG? I always adore that bit and it'd be a shame for that to be changed too
Everything that has happened to ex-CG will happen to new gal.
Personality and lifestyle hasn't really changed (since those were my own ideas, idk jack shit about OG CG), it's gonna be the appearance and name that's different
I had a hard time w robins hair bc I always tend to be doodling when I draw her so I don't put in much detail. BUT I learned from this i think? I figured out brushes to use
[ID in ALT] I've made posts before about Talia/Dick co-parenting Damian moments (will never happen but let me dream) and this came to me in a vision. Took me ages to finish for some reason 😭 and then even longer to post
Pac: Take care of Ramon, take care of Richas, ok? See you on the other side, big boy.
Fit: [Laughs] Take it easy, big boy. Take it easy, big boy. Actually, nononono– You can't just say "big boy" and then just expect me to not drag you outta here. [Fit tries to lasso Pac] You're coming with me.
Pac: No, I need to leave!
Fit: You're coming with me. You are not dying today! You are not dying today!
Pac: I need to leave, Fit! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!
Ironmouse: Are you guys like, having sexy time?
Fit: There's homosexual activity going on Mouse, don't worry about us, ok?
Ironmouse: You guys, we don't have time to be gay right now.
[ Full Transcript ↓ ]
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Pac: I'm just here to say goodbye to you, Fit.
Fit: Goodbye? We're not– we're gonna be fine, we're going to get out of here, don't worry.
Aypierre: Yeah, don't worry!
Pac: I know, but like– I will sleep until the end, you know? I will pass through this moment sleeping, man. I won't be able to be awake for the moment.
Fit: [Laughs] You know, it's– I mean, if that's how you wanna go, but– I mean, that- I mean, isn't that bed kind of like.... I don't know, it's–
Pac: No no, I will be staying on the sofa, you know, I will be staying on the sofa.
Fit: Oh the sofa. Ok, that's a nice sofa! Yeah, that is a pretty nice sofa.
Pac: Yeah, it's a nice sofa right? No, yeah– I'm going to stay on the sofa, you know? So, since I will be going Fit... [Pac starts tossing Fit all his items]
Aypierre: [Not paying attention to their conversation] Is that bigger cell? I don't think it's a bigger- biggest one.
Fit: Oh... Thank you Pac, thank you.
Pac: Everything you need to survive, ok?
Fit: Wow.
Aypierre: Wow.
Pac: And if you need this one also, maybe, who knows? [Throws him more items]
Fit: Ohhh, well hey– just take this to remember me by, ok? [Tosses him a photo of himself – the same one Aypierre was carrying all day yesterday]
Pac: [Laughs] Ok, I will sleep holding the picture you know, like this. You know, I will dream about you, Fit. And I hope this is gonna be good dreams. I see you in the other side. Good luck, my friend.
Fit: The other side... Yeah, you know, yeah, we– we– you know? It's been an honor, Pac. It's been an honor, you know?
Pac: Yeah, for me too, you know? Take care of Ramon, take care of Richas, ok?
Fit: Ok.
Pac: See you on the other side, big boy.
Fit: I will sing your praise– Oh yeah, hey– [Laughs] Take it easy, big boy. Take it easy, big boy. Actually, nononono– You can't just say "big boy" and then just expect me to not drag you outta here. You're coming with me.
Pac: No, I need to leave!
Fit: You're coming with me. You are not dying today! You are not dying today!
Pac: I need to leave, Fit! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!
Fit: Sorry, there's–
Pac: I'm sorry!
Ironmouse: Are you guys like, having sexy time?
Fit: There's homosexual activity going on Mouse, don't worry about us, ok?
Ironmouse: You guys, you guys– we don't have time to be gay right now, come on. There's no time.
Pac: No, there's no time! Oh, goodbye Fit...
Fit: Ok, c'mon, no no no, come on, we got this we got this!
I’m just thinking long and hard about the way Akiren and Akechi are written as foils for each other. Because of course, the game drives it home for us that the two are narrative foils: Akiren is the champion of free will who finds power through his friendships, Akechi represents the ways society binds us. He is chained by his desire to be wanted (importantly, by the wrong people– I’ll get to that).
At first glance, Akiren and Akechi’s point of divergence has to do with their relationships– Akiren has confidants, Akechi doesn’t, and this is the deciding factor in Akiren’s victory over Akechi on November 20th and in the engine room. Still, while this is certainly part of what makes their relationship important as a narrative device, it’s not the full picture. That, I think, has more to do with the fact that they both desperately want the very relationships that are used to foil them. They have common ground, and that’s what makes the emotional beats of their differences hit as hard as they do.
Even though Akechi doesn’t have the close bonds that Akiren does with his friends, he is defined as a character by his desire to belong. He wants to be praised and given everything he feels he was denied by Shido’s callous disregard for his mother and society’s unjust treatment of him after her death. He was a self-proclaimed “undesirable child” who spent his young adult life doing everything in his power to never feel unwanted again. He literally spells it out in his engine room monologue– “I was extremely particular about my life, my grades, my public image, so someone would want me around!”
Akiren, like Akechi, begins his character arc as a social outcast. Unlike Akechi, who appeals to systemic power to claim social clout and chase his own sense of belonging (the Shido revenge plot, which would, uhm, theoretically end with Shido acknowledging his son’s worth), Akiren finds family with other outcasts. All of the Phantom Thieves understand his struggle, and because of this they foster a sense of understanding and community that Akechi never gets to experience.
It is important to note that these bonds are deepened when Akiren helps those around him. While there’s absolutely nothing bad about doing things for the people you care about– in fact, most would argue that this is what makes a friendship a good one– we can take a reasonable guess that Akiren craves the love of those around him just a bit more than is healthy for him. He plays therapist for half of Tokyo– he stretches himself absurdly thin for the sake of his friends. That’s a bit much to ask of one person, but Akiren seems to demand it of himself. This is the nature of confidant routes as a game mechanic, of course, but hey, reading into game mechanics is important to getting a solid reading of who Akiren is behind the mask!
The crux of it is, Akiren and Akechi are both lonely characters. Their desire to be loved quite literally drives the narrative of the game, both in terms of plot and gameplay. What makes their foiling so tragic is the fact that Akechi so obviously wants what he has himself determined he can’t have. He says as much in the engine room when he questions why Akiren has things that he doesn’t, despite being (as he says) criminal trash living in an attic.
And yet, Akechi’s isolation is frankly the result of his own decisions. He is the one who chooses to work for Shido. He is the one who acts on a worldview that requires he keep his cards close to his chest to win— against Shido and against the world that wronged him— and to be considered desirable (even despite the fact that this mindset obviously works against satiating his hunger to be loved. He really needs to go to therapy, but I digress).
I don’t think Akechi even knows how to go about claiming what Akiren managed to. Akechi has agency in the actions he takes, absolutely– he would be furious about any suggestion to the contrary– but in many ways, the choices he feels himself able to make are constrained by his circumstances and the lessons imparted to him by his past.
All this to say, Akechi and Akiren aren’t different because Akechi doesn’t want teammates, or even friends. He sincerely wants everything Akiren has. He tells us this in the engine room. He shoots himself in the foot by prioritizing approval from society and love from Shido above other relationships. But thinking from inside his shoes, what else was he going to do? Where else would he have thought to turn to find what he wanted? He was dealt a horrible hand and he played his cards according to the rule book he was given. If the world were just, Akiren and Akechi wouldn’t be foils. It’s the injustice implicit in that that really drives home the point I think P5 is trying to make when it foils Akiren and Akechi in the first place. It also, personally, has been making me want to scream all day.
On a related note, this is also the exact reason that Akechi being the one to bring up that things might have been different if only he met Akiren a few years sooner makes me want to throw things, but this post is long enough. I’ll save all that for later!
I find Miss Grimshaw’s death to be one of the most interesting out of the characters that die in RDR2 because there is just so much going on with it. She begins chapter six shooting an innocent woman, doing what she believes is the right thing as the arbiter of justice she is described as. She shoots an innocent woman through the stomach for a perceived betrayal, and in doing so, she damns herself. Grimshaw ends the chapter being shot through the stomach by Micah, by the real traitor that she failed to recognise, for what was, in Dutch’s eyes, her own perceived betrayal. Molly confessed to ratting on the gang, something that she didn’t do but knew the consequences of, and Grimshaw, as her final action of the game, turns on Dutch, the man she has been loyal to for so many years, on the side of John and Arthur. Grimshaw’s death comes at such an interesting part in the story, such a climactic moment, and yet it is almost entirely unnoticed by everybody around her. In this huge moment, this standoff between what remains of the gang, the murder of one of its longest standing members just kind of happens, and then the standoff continues as Dutch gives a speech over the dying, agonised screams of a woman who has spent so many years loyally at his side, who has taken her first real stand against him, who has been murdered, who is now a traitor and not worth acknowledging. Grimshaw dies in pain, perhaps the most that we hear from a gang member’s death that we actually witness, though I’m sure Kieran’s torture at the hands of the O’Driscolls was even less pleasant. Grimshaw’s death is the death of what may have still remained of the gang, the security within it that she helped to provide, and her death is the justice that she failed to correctly serve returning to her, her failure to actually kill the traitor then killing her. She is shot through the stomach and dies in pain and the man she had been so loyal to simply does not care