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stargayzingidiot · 4 years

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In The Eye of The Storm

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Summary: In a world where some people are blessed with powers, Patton feels cursed.

This chapter: Patton’s story

Characters: Patton Sanders (and a few “unimportant” characters)

Words: 1454

Warnings: Crying, nightmare (creppy faces and strangling), bullying (in a way), (let me know if i should add more)

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12 years ago.

It was common knowledge that if you were destined to be blessed with powers, they would manifest at age thirteen.

Patton was bouncing up and down on his bed. He was so excited to go to school and see all his friends. Most of them had been blessed with powers. The newest one was his friend Kyle. Patton could not wait to hear what kind of cool stuff he had done with them.

They also had their ‘History of powers’ class today. It was Patton’s favorite class. He loved to hear about all the abilities people had had through time.

His favorite thing to learn about in that class was the heroes, the people who chose to use their powers for good.

Of course, they also talked about the villains in that class, but Patton was less fascinated by them. They were honestly kind of scary, and Patton was glad that the heroes were there to stop them. He liked to think that he would stop villains if he got powers, but he was also kind of scared of that idea.

No one knew why some people got abilities, so everyone just collectively agreed that it was some higher power that had given some people powers. That was why they were called a blessing.

Patton often daydreamed about what his powers would be if he got any.

If he got the ability to be extremely good at something, he would like to be exceptionally talented at baking. He loved to bake with his mom. If he got that power, he would open up a bakery, and people would come from far away to taste his treats.

If he got a more unusual power, he would like to talk to animals. He loved animals so much and often wished he could communicate with them. If he got that power, he would work at a zoo. There, he would always know what the animals needed, and he could make sure they were taken care of. He could even make friends with them.

Maybe he would get both abilities. That would be an absolute dream. Patton could scream of excitement at the mere thought of it.

If he didn’t get blessed with powers, then that would be okay too. He would love to just hear about what all his friends were doing. He would support them with every inch of his being.

When his mom stopped the car in front of the school, Patton pushed the door open and jumped out. He was ready to run towards the school when he heard his mom yell after him.

“Patton, your backpack!”

He turned around, collected the backpack, gave his mother a quick peck on the cheek, and sprinted into the school.

During their lunch break, Patton sat with all his friends. Kyle was talking about his weekend and how he used his power to prank his brother. He even showed all of them his ability in action. He could control water, and right now he used the water from his cup to splash small drops of water on all his friends.

“You’re like Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender. You can bend water!” Patton exclaimed.

They all looked at him with small awkward smiles. He heard all their voices at once. Patton thought he imagined it because none of them were moving their mouths.

‘He’s so annoying’

‘Why can’t he just stop talking for once’

‘If he doesn’t get blessed with powers, is that a good enough reason to stop hanging out with him?’ Kyle said.

No, wait, thought. Kyle had thought that. Why could Patton hear it? And was that really what they all thought of him?

Patton had always had a voice in the back of his head that said his friends didn’t actually like him, but he tried to tell himself that it wasn’t true. That his mind was just being mean.

But now Patton was questioning everything. Had that voice been right all along?

Was he now destined to hear their true opinions of him? Was this the power he was blessed with, hearing people’s thoughts?

He tried to stay positive and tell himself that they were just having a bad day and that he could live with the power of always knowing what people thought of him.

But as the day progressed, he heard more than enough of their thoughts. His hope of it all being okay was crushed.

He contemplated whether or not he should tell them about his new-found powers. Maybe they would think it was cool and want to be his friend for real this time.

Or maybe they wouldn’t want to be near him at all because he would always know what they were thinking. Patton could understand that. He wouldn’t want people to hear everything he was thinking about all the time.

Maybe it was best if he just stayed away from them. They clearly wouldn’t miss him.

Patton wasn’t even excited about the ‘History of powers’ class anymore. He also couldn’t concentrate when all he could hear was thoughts of how boring the class was.

He just wanted to go home so he could hug his mom. Maybe they could bake some cookies like they always did when he was upset.

The drive home was pretty quiet, except for the music that played on the radio. Patton was grateful for something to focus on, so he didn't hear his mother's thoughts. He tried to piece together what he would tell his mom. How did he tell her that all his friends apparently hated him and that he found out he had powers?

His mom didn’t have powers, so he wasn’t sure she would be able to help or understand what he was going through.

He helped her unload the groceries, gathering up the strength to talk to her.

“Hey, mom?” he hesitantly said, while putting the milk in the fridge.

“Yeah?” She responded, with a hint of worry in her voice.

‘Oh no, he sounds upset. I don’t wanna deal with that. Can I just bake cookies with him? That usually distracts him’

Patton froze, and he felt his heart shatter into a million small pieces. He felt it would never truly be whole again.

His whole life was one big lie.

He had never been super close with his mom, but he didn’t think this was what she truly thought of him. Nothing more than a burden.

“Nevermind, mom” He dejectedly said, trying not to let it show that his world was falling apart around him.

‘Oh, thank god’

Patton could almost hear the relief in her thoughts.

He felt the anger bubble up inside him. The hurt was swirling inside him.

Why did everyone lie to him? He would rather have that they told him the truth and hated him than pretend to love him.

Patton had never felt more alone.

He looked at his mom with tears in his eyes.

‘Stop pretending. Just act the way you’re truly feeling, mom’ he thought, turned around, and made his way to his room.

He needed to lie down and maybe cry a little.

Yeah, no, he was definitely going to cry.

That night, Patton dreamt of all his so-called friends. They had smiles with long, sharp teeth that stretched to their ears on their faces. Their eyes were devoid of emotion, and they danced around him. Each of them had one end of a rope in their hands. The other ends were attached to him, slowly wrapping around him as they moved. The more they danced, the tighter the ropes got. They just kept dancing and dancing until he couldn’t breathe anymore. As soon as everything went black, it started all over again. They danced and smiled as he was strangled and crushed.

When Patton woke up the next day, everything had changed.

He walked down to get breakfast, and his mom didn’t even greet him. She looked at him once before walking out of the house to get to work. She just ignored him completely. It was as if he didn’t even exist.

Patton sank to the floor with tears streaming down his face as he realized what had happened.

She had stopped pretending.

She had done precisely what Patton had wanted her to do. Except he didn’t directly ask her to do it. It was just something he had been thinking. That thought had somehow planted itself in his mom’s mind. It was mind-control. He hadn’t done it on purpose, but it was still mind-control.

He was terrified of what he could do with an ability like that.

Patton decided right then and there that the powers he had been given were not a blessing. They were a curse.

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Thank y’all for reading the second chapter of this fic. I hope you liked it :D Next chapter will hopefully be posted tomorrow.

Taglist for this fic: @radioactivehelena @residentanchor @rosesisupposes (cuz you wanna be tagged in superpower AUs) @omgsomeonesomewhereonearth @magpiemorality @the-office-cat @fandomfan315 @croftersjam15 @kawaiikat54

General taglist: @naturaldee-saster @ent-is-undecisive @patton-pending-123 @anxiousnotaesthetic (can’t tag for some reason, sorry)

(ask to be added or removed)

#sanders sides #patton sanders #patton angst #in the eye of the storm fic #sanders sides fic #birdie writes #crying tw #nightmare tw #bullying tw

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argentdandelion · 5 years

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Why You Should Read: The Anomaly

Introduction & Disclaimers

The Anomaly, by Coffeelemental, is simultaneously the "Saturday Morning Cartoon of Undertale sequels" and the Sistine Chapel of Undertale fan comics in its tone, dedication, polish and detail.

(In this work, Frisk is referred to as “she”. As such, the review will refer to Frisk with corresponding pronouns. The comic also has a major character death, in case one really, really dislikes that. The following review may contain minor spoilers.)

Art

Few other comics compare to its consistent precision, polish, and detail. That said, The Anomaly's sheer amount of content (128 pages, five playable segments, several lore posts and a few animations) and dedication over the years (it started on June 19, 2016) makes the work incredible even among those few.

Its great attention to detail and polish is especially obvious because of all its human characters. Many find humans hard to draw properly: there are so many ways they can look “off”. Yet, even in the comic's relatively crude early pages, humans have perfect proportions and poses. More impressive still is how Coffeelemental draws perfect humanlike anatomy (e.g., humanlike hands) even for characters where she could easily dodge the challenge.

What the Sistine Chapel does not have: a before-and-after (left and right) comparison of turtles in business suits.

In short, The Anomaly is basically the Sistine Chapel of long-form Undertale comics. As Coffelemental points out herself, in the first fourteen pages quality and style varies. But she improves very quickly: there's a jump in quality at Page 9, and it just keeps getting better.

As per its realism/detail, characters look somewhat more biologically plausible and, for lack of a better word, more monstrous or bestial. Undyne has scales in some places, as well as (this may come as a shock) a nose, though in most shots her face is largely flat with slit-like nostrils like Lord Voldemort. (well, some fish do have tiny nostrils.)

Indeed, as impressive as it is, its stylistic approach is so unique it takes some time to get used to. Furthermore, it seems the sheer dedication to precision and detail has its downsides. In Coffeelemental’s first animation attempt, she had to slightly simplify and adjust the antagonists' designs just to make animation possible, and then she could only do it in choppy 15 FPS (frames per second).

While its overall quality is rather consistent, the style/format shifts in tone. Akin to the original Teen Titans' anime-like exaggerations, characters are drawn in a simple style for comic effect a few times.

One particularly stylish element is how Coffeelemental blends in-game mechanics (such as literal buttons) with a somewhat more realistic style and tone. Referencing how battles in Undertale are in black-and-white, the pages are monochrome when Frisk resolves conflicts. Indeed, as it’s revealed later, Frisk can only see in black-and-white ever since falling into the Underground.

Plot & Themes

“Frisk is using her personal control of the timeline to ensure monsters have a peaceful return to the surface world – but the seven who sealed them underground in the first place have some problems with this.” - The Anomaly’s About page

It's clear The Anomaly's plot is carefully planned out, as is suitable for a work of its length. That most of the work takes place after an eight-year time skip, its mentions of other timelines, and its timeline-jumping might seem like risks to a simple, comprehensible plot: it's certainly complicated other works' plots. Nonetheless, in The Anomaly these are kept balanced, leading to a plot that's the perfect blend of simplicity and complexity.

(Pre-game foreshadowing, from this page. If one looks closely, the brown goat has barely visible pink blush stickers...just like Chara. Art by Coffeelemental)

In the comic itself as well as the game, there's foreshadowing aplenty---even for the events of the game itself. One of the playable segments is even an entertaining flashback sequence in itself.

Sometimes consequences are delayed across pages; characters make plans to deal with other characters later. Given the antagonists are immune to reload-related memory loss just like Frisk, they must resort to stealth, trickery and subterfuge when interacting with her.

As befitting a work with several immortal characters, it has extensive historical lore, contextualizing the human-monster conflict and immortal characters' motives. One piece of lore even neatly resolves one big problem in the game’s background: if humans can’t use magic, how did “humanity’s seven greatest magicians” create the Barrier?

The story brings up intriguing questions and mysteries. Why are monsters losing access to their magic? What is the mysterious thing connected to Frisk? Some have been resolved at time of writing, and others have been resolved in a fascinating way that just leads to more intrigue.

While some of The Anomaly's themes (e.g., "With great power [over time] comes great responsibility") are pretty common in Undertale works with a Frisk-based, Post-Pacifist timeline premise, The Anomaly nonetheless deals with those themes in an interesting way. Its biggest theme is "Are you [Frisk] strong enough to protect humanity?"

The theme is manifold. Frisk feels obligated to protect monsters (and humans) from human-monster conflicts, but a secret confidant worries the pressure of her role is mentally running her ragged. Then there's moral strength: as the antagonists fear, despite her goody-two-shoes persona Frisk has used her power for evil, selfish, frivolous or just silly ends a few times. (e.g., flirts and jokes backfiring and leaving others aghast)

Characterization

The characterization is so widespread, so outstanding, that the reviewer figuratively can’t say enough good things about it. (But, literally, will have to do so, or this post will get awfully long)

From the first playable part. Note Undyne's higher LV. Also note she eventually joined the U.S. Coast Guard (which is technically military) here sometime eight years after the Pacifist ending, so whether she gained the LV then or earlier is ambiguous.

Characters from the game itself hew closely to their original, nuanced personalities. (This is especially remarkable for Sans, given how often his character is distorted or misinterpreted in the fandom.) It pays attention to even tiny, easily-missed quirks and variations, such as the fact Sans always takes Frisk out to eat before a serious talk (Genocide Route aside) and Undyne’s military(-esque) background and combative nature. Like in-game, characters have “portraits” when talking in the playable segments, but these ones are small full-color digital paintings with a wide array of expressions.

Many works give Frisk an undefined or pretty bland personality and background. That's easy to do, given Frisk's ever-neutral expression, rare and indirect dialogue, and only faint hints of personal preferences. Yet, in The Anomaly, Coffeelemental made the rare choice of giving Frisk a particular ethnicity and background, vague it is. (Her entire pre-Underground backstory is told within two pages) It contextualizes why Frisk was such a goody two-shoes pacifist from an early age, that one (spoilers) timeline deviation aside.

Speaking of Frisk's friendly and pacifistic ways, while Frisk is indeed as described, it's not her whole personality. Though playful, flirty and, well, “frisky”, she feels responsible for the safety and happiness of a people she brought above-ground, and has kept her role as a “time-space hero” secret. Her duty has made her something of a control freak; after a major character death she rewinds time to prevent the most minor of conflicts. But that absolute control over the timeline may yet corrupt her: she selfishly reloaded just to fix a bad grade on a test.

The Anomaly is impressive not only for its seven antagonists at once working together, but for them all having distinct personalities, approaches, and relationships with each other. Though they broadly agree on particular courses of actions, their motives and level of monster sympathy differ. Regardless of their species, it's remarkable just how humanized they are as villains.

Playable Sections

At a few points in The Anomaly, Coffeelemental chooses to convey the story in a way that is “hopefully more fun and more practical than using a comic format”. Namely, in playable downloadable games.

At time of writing, it has five playable sections. While the reviewer, unfortunately, cannot play the playable sections (the reviewer's computer is rather old), I’ve seen playthroughs on YouTube. The level of characterization, worldbuilding and general atmosphere in this playable segments are excellent. It adds lovely details that simply wouldn’t fit into a comic within a playable narrative.

The author says she’s chosen speed over polish for the sake of regular updates; nonetheless, they are impressive. Four of these sections even have a turn-based battle system, and two are so in-depth they take an hour to fully explore.

Coffeelemental says she tried really hard to emulate Toby Fox’s style and sense of humor...and she succeeded. The quirks and jokes in things like item descriptions would fit right in. Indeed, when looking out the window in the first playable section, one gets the famous phrase “It’s beautiful day outside”, in a non-threatening context, long before Toby Fox did the same thing in Deltarune.

While Coffeelemental didn’t make the music for these segments, she nonetheless curated the music for the playable segments well. Often music from Undertale is used, but for situations where Toby Fox’s music doesn’t suit the situation, she’s contacted composers.

Conclusion

This gem of a multimedia work seems rather under-appreciated on Tumblr itself, or even its dedicated YouTube channel. Truly, it boggles the mind to wonder how a long-running work of such quality could stay obscure.

#Undertale #Undertale Comic #The Anomaly #Coffeelemental

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oumakokichi · 7 years

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Hi! can you do an analisis on Shirogane the same way you did with Ouma? I love reading your posts

Thank you so much! I’m sorry to have left this message forso late, but I wanted to go through absolutely every inch of the Chapter 6trial from start to finish really carefully before answering this, because Ifeel like Tsumugi deserves a really full, well-done analysis, and I wanted tobe able to write one to the best of my ability!

Tsumugi has jumped up in my character rankings since gettingto actually see her in action for myself. She’s a fantastic antagonist,absolutely fascinating as a character, and she is just all around fun to watch in the final trial. There’sso much about her that leaves room for speculation—the entire ending andepilogue is all about speculation, after all, and there’s no way to really besure with her, because like with much of ndrv3, she’s someone who wants to puther entire existence into a “catbox” of sorts and make sure the mystery can’tever really be solved for sure.

I don’t think anyone would be reading this post if they didn’talready know a bit about Tsumugi’s character and the things that happen in thelater chapters, but just in case, this post will contain heavy spoilers forChapter 6, so don’t read past the read more if you’re not comfortable!

So I’ve talked a bit before about how one of the mostfantastic and enjoyable things with Tsumugi is that she’s not Junko. We finallyfor the first time in the core series have a well-written, effective antagonistwho is not the same as Junko, who was foreshadowed very well in advance, andwho was among the group the whole time. Compared to twists like “mastermindTengan,” which was the single biggest letdown dr3 had to offer, the twist withTsumugi is outstanding.

It’s so hard to pin down exactly what makes “her,” becauseher being is entirely comprised of fiction. We see her for the first fivechapters, hiding in plain sight, clearly prone to human error and makingmistakes where she shouldn’t be, and without knowing anything about her as themastermind, it’s easy to buy into exactly the kind of act that she’s trying toplay: that she’s boring, plain, thatshe doesn’t contribute anything, isn’t worth paying attention to because she justflies right under the radar.

I feel like one of the core things to understand aboutTsumugi is this: that while the Tsumugi we see for most of the game, the “boringand plain” one who slips right by without catching anyone’s notice is certainly“the real” Tsumugi, from her own perspective, it’s just one more character that she plays.

Tsumugi is completely marked and defined as a character andas an antagonist by her complete inability to distinguish reality from fiction.The reason it’s so hard to tell how much of what she says is a lie and how muchis true (without catching very specific hints) is because she really, reallydoesn’t care. She makes anything and everything into a “lie” or “reality”according to whatever scenario she’s trying to pull, and she can start weavingnew scenarios from nothing at only a moment’s notice, true to her SHSLCosplayer ability. Tsumugi Shirogane is a person to us as the people playingthe game, and to the other characters around her. But to herself, “TsumugiShirogane” is just one more character she plays among an ensemble of fiction,as she tries to keep maintaining a fictional world in a fictional game for thesake of the only thing that feels enjoyable to her anymore.

In the Chapter 6 trial, it’s easy to sort of fall into thistrap where everything Tsumugi is saying gets taken as a sort of “truth bomb”and even when it sounds horrible and we want to deny it, we brace ourselves toprobably admit it was true, because that’s how things were with Junko. Junkohad a few lies here and there in her own final trial and showdown in dr1, butfor the most part she dropped truth after horrible truth, from everything aboutthe state of the outside world to the fact that the Togami family had fallen,and both the players and the characters in dr1 sort of had to take her at herword at some point because she was such a force of nature.

But Tsumugi is no force of nature, but merely an imitationof one. She is all about imitation. She emphasizes that her cosplays arethemselves “perfect imitations of the real thing.” The only way she canpossibly achieve that result is if she has no “real thing” of her own. Only bydiscarding one’s “true” sense of self and throwing oneself into fictionentirely can one achieve this perfect ability to camouflage and even believe orhonestly feel “what the characters are feeling.” Tsumugi has no real sense ofself, because she relies on Danganronpa, and on fiction, to give it to her.

She’s just absolutely fascinating. Certainly, she admiresJunko. She understands Junko, and she wouldn’t be able to emulate Junko ormimic her so perfectly in the trials without knowing how vital Junko is as acharacter to DR. In some ways, it’s even true that Tsumugi does crave “despair”in very much the same way that Junko does—because despair itself is such aconstant, vital presence in DR overall. Without “despair,” there’s no DR asTsumugi knows it. That’s the entire reason she tried to pull the stunt with theremember light in Chapter 5, and convince the group that they were all tied toHope’s Peak Academy.

But it’s not justabout despair. It’s about “hope vs. despair,” and it’s about the core,essential ideals that make DR what it is. The desire to see that conflict, tosee the suffering and then the climactic resolution, and to see the characters’resolve and how they overcome these things again and again, is precisely whatis being commented on, and it’s those desires that have let the killing gameshow in ndrv3 go on for as long as 53 seasons.

Junko’s primary goal in dr1 was to prove her theory aboutdespair right, to show that even the “hope” of the world with the 78thClass from Hope’s Peak would kill each other and fall into despair with onlythe slightest provocation, and to pull all of this from behind the scenes andget away with it as long as possible. Although she came to accept being “defeated”by hope because it was so despair-inducing, and allowed herself to go to herown execution, getting caught and beaten wasn’t within Junko’s calculations,and it wasn’t what she wanted.

But getting caught is exactlywhat Tsumugi wanted, once the game is clearly getting to its final stages. Itdidn’t have to be her: it could have very well been Ouma, as she trieddesperately to set him up to be the Junko-figure of Chapter 5. It could havebeen “Kaede’s twin sister.” It could have been a million different fictionalscenarios that she kept planning on the spot, lying about, coming up with,because fiction has so much infinite potential to her—unlike reality, which hasnothing at all worth living in.

Once everyone was in need of a mastermind in Chapter 6,Tsumugi was more than happy to step up to the plate herself. She was fine withexposing herself, and leaving extremely obvious clues that would get the gameto that point, because the trial itselfwas her goal, not making her classmates despair or suffer. The trial is part ofthe show, and the show is everything to her. It’s the most exciting, climatic,popular part of the entire killing game broadcast. It’s the reason people reliedon Danganronpa, on the killing game broadcast, and she wanted to put on that show, and was willing to do anything andeverything, and break any and every rule in order to do it.

The reason why she’s so terrifyingly effective as anantagonist is not because she’s a super analytical, super infallible force ofnature like Junko. Tsumugi can be wrong about things, is often blindsided orcaught off guard by developments she didn’t foresee. She’s very, veryintelligent, but she’s not Junko or Kamukura or Ouma levels of intelligent. Herintelligence is very human. But what’s terrifying is that she doesn’t need tobe right about everything or able to predict everything, because she “weaves” a new fiction and a new web oflies at every single turn.

It doesn’t matter if she didn’t see certain things coming,because she knows that within this world which is essentially an unopenedcatbox to the rest of the characters, there’s no way for them to prove that she’swrong. Not objectively, about everything. If they catch her off guard and takeher plans in a new direction that she didn’t see coming, she just takes creditfor it anyway. They’re all just “scenarios” she can put to use and utilize tomake sure that DR and the killing game broadcast continue.

While her words and claims have left a lot of peopleconfused on how much can be trusted, the more I pored over the Chapter 6 trial,the easier I found it to tell when she was lying on at least a few points. Herclaims about Ouma as a “pawn of the mastermind,” for instance, have left manypeople wondering if this was actually true or if it’s just a bluff—and I cansay with relative certainty that it’s the latter.

Ouma’s stunt with the Exisal and all the things he pulledbehind her back and all the ways in which he got in her way were not supposed to happen according to heroriginal scenarios. He was supposed to be compliant, easy-to-manipulate, and alittle puppet on strings for her to shape up into the real mastermind, becauseshe felt his character would have “matched” with Junko’s so well. So when thecharacters begin realizing things about not only her being the mastermind, butabout the truth of the world around them and their memories being implanted,she rolls with it. She retcons his role. She lies her ass off, basically,because that’s her element.

The wording she uses specifically, rather than “pawn of themastermind,” is more along the lines of “he was a blind devotee to a god.” Sheeven says all of this as Junko, still perfectly in character; the rest of thecast by this point were not anywhere near realizing that the world wasfictional or that they were in an actual reality show broadcast. She’s not evensaying this as a producer of the show; she’s saying this from a role in whichshe’s written Junko to be “the realone,” and she was just posing as “Tsumugi,the fake character,” hiding among the cast and pulling strings “just like shedid with the Hope’s Peak killing game.”

Her lines about Ouma are specifically said whilein-character as Junko, who is “like a god of despair” and a force of nature whoshook the entire world. And that makes it surprisingly easy to see that this isa revisionary tactic made to get back at Ouma, precisely because Saihara andthe rest were pointing out just how much he’d gotten in her way. He ruined aperfectly good fictional scenario she had planned, from her perspective, so shegets back at him by revising him and claiming his character was “just areligious acolyte” all along and that he was a “huge fanboy who had Junko ashis idol.” And all of this is so blatantly untrue because Ouma had no ideaabout Junko, or about the Hope’s Peak memories from the remember light. This isliterally just Tsumugi being simultaneously petty and brilliant at revising her own story, and I love it.

There’s at least a few other of these similar points whereit’s pretty easy to tell that she’s lying, in my opinion. One of them revolvesMomota and Maki, and I’m going to save that for a later explanation, becausethere are a few questions about the Momota and Maki relationship in my inboxcurrently. But there are other points in the trial where she switches fromrelatively believable explanations which fit with the objective proof we gotfrom characters like Amami or Ouma, to taking credit for anything andeverything, almost desperately, and those are the points that strike me as theweakest in her claims.

The state of the outside world is just one example. When therest of the characters reflect briefly on how they saw the scene of itdestroyed and horrific with their own two eyes, Tsumugi happily claims that itwas all a “set” prepared by the killing game staff, a perfect imitationachieved by her talent. But when the group immediately rebounds, thinking thatat least if the world is fine and peaceful then that means they actually havepeople and places to go back to, she really, really starts revising her story.She absolutely latches onto trying to prove that they’re “just fictional,” that“all the people and places they remember are fictional,” that they “havenowhere to go back to.”

It’s because to Tsumugi, the last thing she wants is themopening her catbox. With her fictional world exactly the way it is, she can sayanything and have it be considered true—because there’s no way to proveotherwise. It’s the perfect set-up for writing millions and millions offictional scenarios, as opposed to “a single unchanging truth.” But the momentthe group thinks about wanting to get out, wanting to see the outside world forthemselves, that means the catbox ceases to exist, all the fictional scenariosfade, and only the truth remains. If there weren’t very obvious flaws in herstory or things that would immediately come to light and be proven when thegroup got to the outside world and checked, then she wouldn’t try so hard to crush their willpower and getthem to accept staying in the killing game instead.

The things she targets (their friends, their families, theirloved ones, their homes, their emotions and feelings) by saying that they’reall fake, fictional, that they never existed in real life, are all the thingsthat really, truly take away their will to investigate or go on. Knowing thatthey weren’t actually Hope’s Peak Academy students or that they didn’t haveSHSL talents shocked them, sure, but once they got over the initial shock, theywere all sort of back to being excited about the prospect that they had a home.That there might be somewhere for them to go.

Tsumugi immediately noticed that, and pinpointed the thingsinstead that might give them willpower or strength to go on, by claiming all of it was fiction, all of it was her doing. These claimsare so large, so over the top, and it’s precisely why it’s easier for me tothink of it as a lie than her other claims, which actually matched perfectlywith evidence provided from Ouma’s or Amami’s labs, or things other charactershad said or done. If there weren’t actually some real life counterparts orsimilarities with their memories that would give them incentive to end thekilling game, there wouldn’t have been any reason for Tsumugi to have targetedthose things so hard and sospecifically in order to try and keep them from wanting to go out.

Tsumugi is a character who thrives on the fictional in orderto “elevate” it to the level of reality. Fiction is her everything; it’sreality that’s meaningless. As long as she can continue creating new scenarios,new lies, new works of fiction to counteract boring, bland, meaninglessreality, she has her niche, and that itself is her meaning to go on. Butwithout that…there’s nothing. Once it’s all stripped away, she literally wouldrather go straight to her death, because “there’s no point in a world withoutDanganronpa.” There’s no point in a world in which she can’t keep creatinginfinite new fictional scenarios and seeing the same grand climax unfold againand again.

This itself is a terrifyingidea for an antagonist, and I love it. She was absolutely astounding from startto finish in Chapter 6, and watching her come slowly to the forefront, puttingon a spectacular act, and ultimately blasting both the characters’ and the players’subversions out of the water because her objectives were so different fromanything that previous antagonists have done, was so much fun.

The only way to fight against her, an antagonist who thriveson lies and presents them as “truth” because there’s no way to disprove her, isto come up with your own lies, and to accept them as your own reality. Just asthere was no way for the other characters to objectively disprove Tsumugi’s “truths”about the outside world, there was no way for her, in the end, to disprove their“truths,” that their lives had real meaning and that the experiences they wentthrough were very real for them. Once again, the Umineko resemblance was verystrong, and I loved every bit of it.

Tsumugi is always going to be a hard-to-read antagonist,because her entire character wanted to stay in that catbox forever, and shepreferred dying willingly to being dragged out into “the truth.” There’s no wayto ever eliminate doubt and suspicion over all her words. But I think inkeeping with the themes of ndrv3 overall, it’s a safe bet that there are plentyof lies and truths in the things shesaid, because that’s the way it’s been with her every step of the way, and withpretty much every other character in the game besides.

I’ve seen many people so far trying to determine whetherJunko or Tsumugi was “better” or “more effective” as an antagonist, but I haveto say, I think it’s a lost cause. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. Bothof them have different mindsets, goals, processes. Both of them are terrifyingand incredibly well-written in their own right, and I think Tsumugi will get somuch more recognition and appreciation from the fanbase once the English localizationcomes out and people can appreciate in full just how much of a terrifically fun,lying asshole she really is.

#ndrv3 #drv3 #new danganronpa v3 #tsumugi shirogane #shirogane tsumugi #ndrv3 spoilers //#my meta #okay to reblog #thank you so much for asking this and again i'm sorry it took so long!#i'm really thankful for the translations and screencaps you've been posting in the past too! it's a huge help!#arisjonesb

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