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beholdmydemons) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
slowpoke_gif2014-02-22 07:03 pm
beholdmydemons) wrote in slowpoke_gif2014-02-22 07:03 pm
hail helix i mean uh CR MEME
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easy-peasy. HAVE FUN
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Parker | Leverage |
Kyouko Kirigiri | Dangan Ronpa |
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Like, if the world were a puzzle, there are some people that Kirigiri can see clearly as the border pieces — defined edges and beliefs, it's really obvious who they fit with and who they don't, and so on. Then there are some that she can kind of make educated guesses about where they go, based on the attributes she sees in them and what she's already been able to work out of the big picture as a whole. But then there's a handful that she doesn't quite know where they connect yet, despite being able to see that it looks like there's half a seagull and maybe the black border of something in them, so she's got to just kind of wait and see what happens with them. And that latter type, I think, is Walter.
And then of course the fact that he mailed her a Bloober isn't really helping, either. c:
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and very not sorry about the bloob
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I think in a lot of ways, the SDR2 cast really lucked out by having Nanami be the first one to show up, because as far as the first-cast Dangans are situated, she's probably the most trustworthy ease-in to the idea of another round of the murdergame that they could've possibly gotten. Which is both good and a thing that I am thankful for, because Kirigiri has a tendency to run paranoid as fuck about seemingly inexplicable things, and it would've been kind of a hassle to relentlessly investigate the Super Dangans if Nanami hadn't already answered a lot of the burning questions there.
Because of Nanami's spoilery circumstances, I think Kirigiri feels fairly protective of her, or at least that she's responsible for Nanami in some capacity. And that's kind of weird, because Kirigiri tends to be a lone wolf a lot of the time, but she's got a soft spot in particular for Alter Ego because of the Chapter 5 trial, and so I think at least part of her affection for Nanami stems from the idea that watching out for Nanami is a way of repaying an owed debt, in exchange for the way Alter Ego had watched out for them (and Naegi in particular) in murderschool.
And I think Nanami's weirder habits kind of contribute to that, too - the things like forgetting to eat, or needing to be told to sleep like a normal human being, or needing the structure of "a destined rival" in order to navigate the world. She's got a very childlike air about her, and it's the same kind of semi-naivete that Kirigiri's fond of in Naegi. It contrasts with her own sort of world-weary battle-hardened cynicism, I think.
So basically all in all, if the collective present Super Dangans were about to be thrown off a cliff, Kirigiri would try to grab Nanami and bail her out while simultaneously giving absolutely zero fucks about the rest of them. Sorry, Other Dangans, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
Parker → Nanami
Parker thinks that if somebody is going to date Ishimaru it should probably be Nanami because she is the closest thing to a hacker that the Dangans have and therefore she is probably destined to be Ishimaru's Hardison. Or something. Which is, coincidentally, also why she's okay with Nanami, because she misses Hardison and so it's hard to go wrong with Hardison-like people around. :|b
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In a nutshell, much like how someone can be your Brother From Another Mother™, John is kind of Kirigiri's Naegi From Another Canon™. It's not just that he fairly reeks of plucky optimistic protagonist; it's also that he's managed to somehow just kind of settle in so naturally as a counterpoint to her very cynical outlook on things. I think John (and the other Homestuck kids, in their own ways) makes for a sort of healthy, safe medium for Kirigiri because on one hand, he's not from murderschool so there's a sort of distance there that lets her gradually open up about some of the shit that went down there, but at the same time he's seen a lot of shit himself so it's not like he has no frame of reference whatsoever upon which to relate to her. I'd say she's probably closest to Dirk of any of the Homestuck kids, but John isn't that far behind.
And that's really been helping her a lot, I think, to have people about her age that she can semi-trust and relate to who are completely removed from the trauma of the murderschool experience. And when it comes to aggressive friending, well, you know John leads the pack in that.
Kirigiri → Kuzuryuu
AND THEN THERE'S THIS ASSHOLE
This may come as kind of a surprise, but I think that of all of the in-game SDR2 kids, Kuzuryuu is actually really high in Kirigiri's esteem — second only to Nanami, and that's largely because Nanami tells her shit when Kuzuryuu won't. But if you think about it, we've got, like:
> Protagonist 2.0 (no thanks, she's got her own)
> Foul-Mouthed Mechanic Guy (disdainful superiority complex, engage)
> Foul-Mouthed Little Girl (...see above x1000)
> Clearly Batshit Hamster Guy (......okay......)
> Pushover Nurse (no really this is like shooting soggy goldfish in a dixie cup with a tactical nuke)
> Nanami (awesome)
> Hella Gangster (sticks to his guns and actually knows when to keep his mouth shut)
So even in the moments when Kuzuryuu is actively inhibiting Kirigiri by withholding information or whatever (which, don't get me wrong, bugs the shit out of her), she can at least respect that he's smart enough and tenacious enough to stick to his guns about not giving up information to her, as opposed to being an idiot or a pushover, which are things she arguably likes less.
That said, he also gets some respect for the family name thing, just because look, you may not like the yakuza, but you damn well better respect them as something, because they are the fucking mafia, okay.
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But Kirigiri's certainly all right with her, and I'd definitely like to have them interact more in the future so as to see where else it might go!
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Now, granted, she's usually not an egregious dick to Kayneth, but there's something about the way that she can be conscious enough of her own fuckups to remember to apologize to him for ditching on the spur of the moment, but then turn right around and talk pretentious superiority complex shit with him in practically the same breath, that I find really refreshing? And I think it's done a fair part in helping me to start to find my way with her again, because she's had her arc now of being influenced by Lawful Good CR, and now I'm getting the sense that maybe it'll be just as interesting to see her swing back and watch how she plays off of people who are sometimes just utter tools, but tools in the way that it makes it fun to hang out with them.
Kind of like when Batman's rogues gallery got together on a Friday night to play poker. Like that's just awesome.
But to actually talk about Kayneth for a little bit...I dunno, it's just weird because he's like this guy that she finds really interesting and fun to shoot the shit with and kind of hilarious to tease, and I think some of what makes it fun for her is that she thinks she's still got that quality of ~gosh who is this mysterious woman~ in his opinion, which...is actually kind of horrible of her but she really likes to be liked? And she likes to make people interested in her, so when someone demonstrates that they are intrigued by her, she's all about encouraging that with game-playing and teasing. And she's been told before that pulling that kind of shit is actually a pretty douche move to pull on someone you care about, but the thing with Kayneth is that at this point that level of personal sentiment hasn't really developed yet? So it's, at least in her mind, sort of harmless to just have this outlet to be all mysterious and femme fatale, and the fact that he is her go-to outlet for that has the side effect of elevating him to something a little more special than your average acquaintance guy.
Granted, she probably couldn't tell you what he's been elevated to, but he's gotten the beginnings of his own special box in her categorization of relationships, so that's something. :|b
So yeah, like...as long as he doesn't go full dickbag and somehow just utterly piss her off, she'll tolerate a lot of his more quirky classist douchebaggery because by now she just kind of thinks it's funny.
AND LOOK WE ALL AGREE THAT ZACK'S MUSIC IS TERRIBLE BUT FOR FUCK'S SAKE WE DON'T TELL HIM THAT, YOU ASSHOLE
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And god I feel like this is going to turn into a clusterfuck and I cannot wait.
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I think it's easier for Parker to connect to Hagakure in some ways because he's the oldest of the Dangans, so he's a little more like the Team Older Brother in the way that she's fallen into being at least a few people's Older Sister. There's that kind of understanding and rapport there, which makes it easier to bond. But then also there's the reminder that Hagakure is a murderschool alumnus, and that just makes Parker as determined to protect him as she is to keep the rest of the Dangans safe. But I think it's good for her to have him as a resource for information, if only because there are some things that she either wants or needs to know that she can't get from Ishimaru because of how close she is to him, and so knowing that she can rely on Hagakure to help her out if she needs it really does mean a lot to her.
Hence it's awesome whenever they hang out. c:
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No actually I have to confess here, this is the thing that has been perpetually cracking my shit up lately — assuming you take all the world domination villainy completely out of the equation, Carmen actually is really fond of Cobra for a couple of reasons. She's had some character development over the past...year and a half (good lord) that's led her back into the mindset that not only are the villains in Johto people too, they're actually (and I cannot believe she actually lost sight of this for awhile but you know, so it goes) people with more in common with her than most people have. For all that she's worked for so long to set herself apart from "other villains" via her lofty moral superiority, sometimes it's just like...you know what, Cobra Commander is the only person in this godforsaken nation who understands my deep and passionate longing for implausible transforming vehicles and outrageous primary-colored clothing.
Naturally she's still got her personal lines that she won't cross (hence the chaotic-mass-destruction-world-domination caveat from before), but I think she's gotten to the point now where, if Cobra were going to take the day off from shrieking villainy and maybe get together with some of the other villains and play cards and drink the nineties sanitized version of brewskies and shoot the shit for an evening, she'd be basically completely fine hanging out with him. ...I mean, all standard objections to his personality traits aside, obviously.
I dunno. I think they're really great and it is always nothing short of a privilege to play off of you, regardless of the variety of shenanigans it may produce. :|b
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And if somebody could actually get him to, or force him to attend such a thing, he probably would. Gotta do villainous networking somehow. Getting him to go though, there's the problem.
Also, yes, understanding the need for things like transforming vehicles is great because seriously, how do some of these people actually do villainous things and not appreciate having backpack jetpacks or a plane that shoots smaller planes out of it, or any of that stuff? He'll never get that.
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The thing that I think I find most impressive about Parker's CR with Ishimaru is that, just by virtue of interacting with him, he's managed to advance her character development to a lot of the places she ultimately reaches in Season 5 of the show, when her canon pull point is really early in Season 3. But the thing is, a big part of those seasons was Parker's advancement toward learning to trust people and to have faith in the dynamic of her team, and Ishimaru ended up on a fast track to that because he gets her in ways that people in Leverage canon never did. He makes Parker feel less alone because she's often had the experience that her very quirky viewpoint on things tends to isolate or distance her from the people around her, but more often than not Ishimaru either sees things the exact same way or can understand her logic fairly quickly, so there's still always that reassurance that yes, he gets her, even if he doesn't agree with her outright.
The other thing that's been kind of impressive about the development of their CR is the fact that one of Ishimaru's predominant influences on her has been the idea that she would do pretty much anything for Ishimaru, but there's a fair amount that she won't do because he wouldn't want her to. He's never going to be able to influence her out of the habitual (and sometimes unconscious) stealing; that's just such an ingrained part of her that she literally does it on reflex sometimes. But more and more she'll have these moments where she'll either do something and reflect on it, or have an impulse and stop herself, and it'll occur to her that while her moral code raises absolutely no qualms about it, Ishimaru's would be violated and so she heeds it because what he thinks is important to her. The classic example of that being, if someone threatened a Dangan and her impulse was to haul off and murder somebody for it, she'd stop herself because she'd recognize that while she wants it to happen and maybe it's even completely deserved on the part of the threatened party, it's not what Ishimaru would want and it's no good to fix someone's problems if you just hurt them more in the process of doing it.
But he is her family. As far as she's concerned, there's no difference between a surrogate brother and a blood relation, largely because all of her family members have been surrogate in some capacity or another. And if he were to voice aspirations in Johto above and beyond just keeping all the Dangans safe (which she intends to do anyway), she'd be right there at his side the whole time, because that's what you do.
In canon it takes Parker until the middle of Season 5 before she really comes to terms with her difficulties at trusting people; in Route, Ishimaru is probably the one person for whom she really would jump based on his word alone. Which is kind of a big fucking deal, and understandably so. c:
tl;dr OH, TOTO, INDEED
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AAAAAAAAAAND THEN THERE'S THESE ASSHOLES
I'm just going to start this off with a couple of warranted admissions, some of which already came up a bit in my answer to Kayneth, but which bear a lot of repeating. Probably one of the the most notable things about the way that Carmen and Kimblee interact is the fact that he really does an excellent job of pointing out just how horrible she can be in a lot of ways, and I really do respect the fact that neither you as a player nor he as a character give her a free pass on the shitty things that she does, because that's something I haven't always been the best at so in retrospect I'm glad that you're not afraid to call her (and me) out on how awful some of the stuff she does really is.
There's no doubt in my mind that her CR with Kimblee has been responsible for more of her development as a character than I think she's had with literally any other character in the game, in the entire duration of her stay in Route. I told Ran that recently I've been feeling a little lost with her because I haven't really had a clear idea of what direction she was going in; I'm still not entirely sure where she's going to go from here, but it's a certainty that whatever direction she takes, it's going to be founded in large part on the developments that have come from her interactions with Kimblee.
I think one of the biggest defining moments she's had regarding him came recently — not during the conversation where she found out about Superior leaving, but off-screen in the aftermath of it, because I feel like somewhere in there she finally just decided that regardless of her Gordian knot of moral standards, regardless of pretty much anything, what it was going to boil down to in the end was that he's her friend, and so she needed to be in Olivine, and there'd be time to rationalize and figure out the morality of it later but for right then, she was going to do it because...because. Because.
And after the fact, once she had the chance to think about it, I think she started unconsciously trying to come up with explanations for it — that she owed him something, that there's some complicated nuance of The Arrangement that called for it, that...whatever. But as I think about it in retrospect, I think it ultimately really came down to an impulse that was almost Kimbleeish in nature, itself — she did it because she wanted to, and trying to tack anything more onto that is just overthinking her own motives this time.
I think she's gotten a lot better at making peace with the idea that she doesn't have to like everything he does in order to like him, and at accepting that he's different from her in his ability to differentiate between his professional life and his private one. I think she realizes that's not something she does very well herself, but at the same time it's progress toward her being able to move away from her egocentric view of the world that she's starting to handle the concept that not everyone is like her, and not everything works the way she thinks it should just because she thinks it should. And I think she's at least starting (or even just on the path toward, maybe) to reexamine her own moral standards and begin to reevaluate whether she's holding on to them because she actually believes in them, or if there's something else subconsciously influencing them that maybe she should look at and address outright.
...also I just have to put in a word for the fact that as much as I love their ridiculous intellectualism and general...philosopher everything, my favorite threads are probably the ones where they're just outright stupid in each other's general direction, be it nerding out over movies they apparently have in common or texting each other about the intriguing mystery that is the Bloober. And I like that their CR is multifaceted enough that there's room for all of those kinds of interactions.
tl;dr you are pretty cool and stuff ok bye
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I feel like I should go for the hat trick and do Kirigiri on somebody so you know what, AND THEN THERE'S THESE ASSHOLES x2
(It occurred to me a second ago that if Dangan Leverage ever were to become an analogy, Kirigiri would probably be the person playing the role of Sterling, which is now cracking my shit up like none other, thank you.)
I mean, all things considered, I think that the majority of Kirigiri's problem with Ishimaru stems from the fact that he tends to have A Problem™ with her when she's doing one of the egregiously dickish things that she thinks she's entitled to do by virtue of being God's Gift To Dangan Living — not just the serious things, but also the inconsequential mind games and dodgy behavior she just kind of does by virtue of the fact that, I don't know, she thinks it's funny or something. So him being comatose has actually been really great for her, because when he's not actively hassling her, she's generally pretty okay with him? She's got a certain personal investment in the idea of the Dangans Ever After In Johto future, so she does want him to be okay, even at the expense of having him better situated to piss her off as a result of that.
...honestly it might just be that the entirety of their CR can be summed up with, "Look, If You Could Stop Being You For Like Five Seconds..." :|a
But yeah. Good on you, SHSL Frustrating as Hell. Sorry about your face.
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(Anonymous) 2014-02-23 07:36 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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Carmen has...a kind of interesting relationship with the Dangan Ronpa kids, I've found, and I think it stems in large part from the fact that she's an edutainment character and the horrible tragedy that was inflicted on the Dangan kids occurred in the setting of a school. It hits her as very wrong on a fundamental level, the idea that this group of kids weren't safe in their school, and that for them it ended up becoming a place for a bloodbath instead of an education.
Of the Dangans, Leon is the first one Carmen has talked to who's actually been a murderer. He's lucky, I think, that she got the majority of the story from Ishimaru first, and had plenty of time to acclimate to it, because under different circumstances I doubt she would've taken the revelation behind his actions very well — particularly considering his going excuse about "just wanting to help Maizono" comes off sounding really sketchy anyway. And because she can be pretty judgmental when it comes to people making choices that she personally thinks are wrong (or even just different from the ones she would've made herself), it wouldn't have gone over well for him at all.
Fortunately, by the time he did get to her, Carmen had come around to the idea that these poor kids got thrown into a really fucked-up situation, and that it's wildly not her place to try to dictate as a third party what they "should" or "shouldn't" have done; it's not about ~educating~ them as to how to do better, but about just being someone that they can connect with and feel safe around and maybe just...extend some semblance of comfort even if she can't solve their problems. Which is kind of a big thing for Carmen, because she is a raging problem-solver, and particularly so when it comes to other people's issues.
So Leon was one of the first people who really pushed Carmen into the position of trying to be a supportive adult rather than a source of answers, and I think she managed to figure out that what Leon really needs sometimes is just someone who he can trust to listen to him without passing judgment on him. Which isn't to say that Carmen isn't judging him on some level, but at least she's not outright telling him about it to his face. It's easier for her now to see past his actions and recognize that he's a scared, uncertain kid who was put into a traumatic situation where circumstances basically hammered home again and again that no one was going to help him, and no one was going to save him, and that if he didn't fend for himself he might just be the one to die, so he better fend for himself. And she finds that really horrible because that's a very animalistic, primal sort of mindset to be in, and Carmen is nothing if not cool and intellectual and full of superego.
...also, to combo-break the seriousness, she thinks it's really funny that he finds her attractive and frankly has no problem with it whatsoever, because she likes the attention regardless of its source and it's never a bad thing to have someone all flustered because you're apparently super hot.
So I think as far as Carmen is concerned, she wants to make sure that she keeps enough distance between herself and Leon that he doesn't end up clinging to her or getting weirdly dependent on her like she's the only adult who's ever understood him, but at the same time she wants him to know that she's available if he does need her and he's not without that sort of lifeline, the way he was in murderschool.
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