Lurker > Suprak the Stud

For sure Biden isnt blameless, but I saw this getting shared yesterday too:

https://www.ft.com/content/0c3a069c-2245-11ea-b8a1-584213ee7b2b

Well actually I saw the Washington Post story but think this provides more details. So there is at least some evidence that, specifically on Afghanistan, Biden was opposed to what Obama was doing and was simply overruled.

Its part of the reason my hope for this actually happening is now slightly more than zero.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I mean that is an extremely reasonable take too. But I didnt even think wed get lip service. This at least sounds concrete.

But yeah obviously wait and see.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

xp1337 posted...

https://twitter.com/biannagolodryga/status/1381993140001898500

Biden Administration says all troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11th.

I've always been "believe it when I see it" with these promises but when the media followed up, the admin said it wasn't conditions-based and that the previous policy of condition-based was a recipe for staying indefinitely.

Holy shit.

But like in a good way.

I did not have this as a possibility at all under Biden.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Sure

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

To follow up on this, they showed off the body cam footage this morning and apparently a female cop screamed Taser multiple times, pulled the gun on him and shot him once, then immediately said "Oh my god I shot him."

So it seems like a legitimate case of her not wanting to shoot him and went to use the taser, but then she just... Fucking shot him instead in the heat of the moment. Which, frankly, is atrocious as well in its own way and Jesus they need to train these people better because this shouldn't happen.

Nobody was in actual danger. I can't fathom not taking the moment to make sure "Yes, I'm holding my taser and not my lethal murder weapon."

What an absolute clusterfuck holy shit.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/04/12/daunte-wright-police-shooting-near-minneapolis-protest-what-to-know/7185768002/

Shot a 20 year old over an air freshener because you couldn't tell the difference between your taser and your gun. If a surgeon was this incompetent they would've sewn their own hand to their patient.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Meeting someone when youre 30 and meeting someone when youre 13 isnt even close to the same thing unless youre Jennifer Garner and you just body swapped with your older self and then its pretty close I guess.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1380671618876207106?s=20

Yeah he's just using bullet points from people who believe this replacement theory at this point.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/08/politics/joe-manchin-bipartisanship-januar-6-cnntv/index.html

"Joe Manchin says January 6 changed him"

yesssss

"as he calls for democrats and republicans to work together on a bipartisan basis"

noooooooooooo

"Hey, guy getting stabbed, why aren't you coming to some common ground with that guy stabbing you? Seems selfish on your part."

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I think the first Captain America is a little underrated and probably my second favorite of the phase 1 films.

But 2/3 I think are both better. Civil War gets a bit messy, but Winter Soldier is probably one of my top five or so Marvel films so I think 2 3 1 is the way I'd go.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Oh just one scoop of sexism for me please, I've been trying to cut back.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Thor 1 takes an all powerful character in a vibrant fantasy setting and sticks him in nowhere New Mexico for 3/4 of the film. Thor 2 isn't great either though so I'm torn on which goes where.

3 is far and away the best though and it simply isn't close.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Biden misspeaking?

I dunno man that sounds like a stretch.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Yeah, Jimmy Dore fucking sucks, he's not a smart guy and he's also not a good comedian.

Also random tangent, knowing Rock, I suspect he considers people like fuming, deepraw, and myself aligned or similar to Dore.

Definitely not you but I do consider Deep to be pretty close to Dore. I also used to watch Dore quite a bit as embarrassing as that is to admit but I swear he wasnt always this bad.

I think the issue (again) is that we are having two slightly different arguments because I dont think we actually disagree so let me clarify. I do not care if people like you make a joking comment of ugh even this idiot gets it. I was more talking about someone like Dore signal boosting Tucker because I can almost guarantee there are people in Dores audience that only kinda sorta know Tucker so him sharing a clip and being like oh hes not terrible is shitty and what I would consider signal boosting.

But you agree Dore sucks so like I said I dont think we have a real disagreement here.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Yeah it made sense after he explained it!

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I guess I just wish people like Dore hated Tucker Carlson the same way they hate the squad.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

There are plenty of people our age who are aware of who Tucker is tangentially but have never ever watched his program. And I mean I dont see how that gives us any credibility.

This racist grifter agreed with me isnt something that makes me think Im any more right. Unless Im misunderstanding what youre saying.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

The worst person you know just made a great point.onion

I guess I dont see the value of even pointing out when hes right. His audience will see that from him, not us. All were doing is signal boosting and maybe thats someones first intro to Tucker and they think oh hes not so bad. This person I like tweeted out this segment and he seems reasonable here

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Its also bizarre because an entirely legitimate complaint about Biden was worrying her tried to work with republicans at the expense of his agenda. I havent watched Dore in years now but I can almost guarantee he had multiple segments on how Biden working with Republicans was going to happen and evil. And then some of these same people who said that was (rightfully) a concern are like oh but we cant just ignore Tucker Carlson.

Yes you can, as it turns out!

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Up next: the 40th character I decided to include in the rankings, and undoubtedly what will be my shortest write up.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

All of this isnt even mentioning what I hated about the game from the start, and that was the absolutely nonsensical motivation of the despair virus. I mean, sure, by the end you sort of know what was going on and this sort of thing is a lot more forgivable with that context. But, at the time, did ANYONE enjoy the despair virus? It is basically Monokuma choosing both the murderer and the victim, and I feel like I utterly muttered this is bullshit more times during this case than I did at any time over the last year combined. I mean, just from a what makes Danganronpa interesting perspective, it was always that sort of anyone can kill anyone tension underneath the surface. And then, in this case, it was well one person could kill one other person and also the reason for doing so was asinine. The despair virus might make more sense with the context of the ending, but it sure as hell didnt make sense at the time. A magical virus that could do anything it wanted to anybody is long past where Im willing to suspend my disbelief, and I was onboard with the magical bear sending an old man into space from the get go of the first game. I like that Danganronpa has this unique flair and I dont even mind that it is silly and asks you to suspend your disbelief for a lot of little things. But this was too much. This wasnt as much suspending your disbelief as it was asking you to lock it in a submarine driven by unicorns and burying it at the bottom of an ocean of spaghetti. It is less egregious now, but that didnt make it any more fun to deal with at the time.

So that was a lot of ranting and raving about stuff I hated, but I don't actually totally hate this case. There's a lot of fun touches here if you can get away from the dumpster fire of stuff I mentioned. I know Mikan is a character that seems to get a lot of hatred around here, but I actually like her turn at the end. Her voice actress was fantastic, and this is yet another example of how much better the voice acting is in this game than in the last one. Like she went from ditzy klutz to hysterical lunatic to unfeeling psychopath sometimes in back to back to back lines, and all of it was really well acted. It was a nice to get a live peak at an Ultimate Despair too, once you figured out what the hell was going on. You get little glimpses at the end and the brief scene with Nagito and Hajime in the ship, but this sort of insanity was nice to see. You can say people were grafting body parts on to them and humping corpses, but actually hearing Mikan talk for a while is a nice compliment to just telling us about all the gross stuff theyve done. I wouldnt have minded Mikan as a villain at all if it wasnt for the stupidity of the whole despair virus surrounding it, and it was a good enough finale for a case I hated.

Well, except for the execution I suppose. I teased before that there was only one other execution that was even close to 1-3 in terms of how much I disliked it, and this is it. I at least like the homage to the iconic scene in Dr. Strangelove, and the play on strange and love is at least moderately clever. The scene itself though is kinda a let down, especially with how great 1-2 was in comparison. Her flying off on a giant arm works as an homage to Dr. Strangelove, but it is like they just stopped there and didnt try to think of anything else clever. Mikan riding off into the sunset with a horny look of her face is basically all we get here and this is probably the execution that has the least going on. It is the same thing from start to finish without any fun or interesting twists along the way.

Of all the cases I dont like, this is the one with the most interesting trial, too. While the evidence tying Mikan to the conference room was extremely heavy handed, I actually didnt mind the rest. Figuring out the locked room and how she created two of herself was actually pretty clever, even if I thought the reason for having two was stupid as hell. The trial was at least interesting to follow a long with and I hadnt pieced everything together beforehand, just who was the actual culprit. I mean, there was a lot of little story stuff I liked in this chapter. Ibukis concert and Hiyoko/Fuyuhikos growth and Hiyokos little shrine at the start and all the reactions to it. Theres a lot of really good stuff here surrounding some stuff I really, really dont like. I feel like this would be the kind of case Id be much more charitable to on a replay, because if you take out the despair virus and some dumb stuff about the crime itself, this is actually a pretty solid chapter. Unfortunately, thats a lot like saying if you take the needles and Ebola virus off of this pizza, it is actually a pretty good pizza and the bad stuff is so bad I cant really take this case out of the lowest tier. It is at least approaching entertaining though unlike all the other cases Ive ranked.

Before I close up I want to go on one unhinged conspiracy theory rant here. I have no clue what the official word on this is, but it almost feels like Hiyoko dying was some sort of weird last minute addition to the case. I dont think it makes the most sense for her characterwise, and also the game pretty much focuses entirely on Ibukis murder where Hiyoko is almost purely an after thought. Like I said before we dont get what the murder weapon is or even a murder location. Like I think I vaguely remember a wiped away blood stain on the stage of the music venue. Is that really where were supposed to assume the murder took place? How would that even be possible? Did Mikan chase down Hiyoko, drag her all the way back to the stage and then slit her throat and then immediately cover it with something so the blood stain wasnt too huge? Did Hiyoko wander up to the stage of her own free will even though Mikan was in the process of murdering someone else? I dont have a really good understanding of the time line here, and thats because the game doesnt really care enough to explain it to us. My crazy pet theory based on absolutely nothing other than my own conjecture is that Hiyoko originally doesnt die here. The development team either kills someone else or has one body, but then after playtesting or something, they decide to switch it up and just sort of ham-fistedly shove Hiyokos death in chapter 3. Whatever forgiveness she was cooking up with Fuyuhiko gets cut short and the game barely talks about the events of her murder because theyre just trying to work it into the context of a preexisting case as easily as they can. Again, I have no evidence to support this but I BELIEVE IT IN MY BONES.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

#9: Case 2-3
Strengths: I think Mikans voice actress actually does a great job at the end of the case, the set-up to the murder itself is pretty fun, I like the location of island three
Weaknesses: The motive is impossibly dumb before you get to chapter six of the game, Hiyokos murder is messy as hell and poorly explained, certain clues make it too obvious whodunnit
The One Sentence Summary: The case where the real victim is your suspension of disbelief

I am decidedly more positive about this case than I was immediately after finishing it, and that is because the ending actually explains a lot of the stuff I hated. But if I was going to rank this case right after I finished it, it mightve been dead last. I mentioned before but after finishing 2-2- I was like well that sucked but at least 2-3 is coming up and then I finished 2-3 and I was like uh oh. These two cases back to back, without having the full context for what was going on, was like a giant alarm bell going off. I had heard that Danganronpa 2 was great from like half a dozen of my friends, and here I was halfway through it and the last two cases I played were absolutely horrendous. I was loving the cast and was still enjoying the premise of the game enough, but I had to admit to myself that I was legitimately disappointed. This was a game I had been saving for years and meaning to get back to, and all of a sudden I was finding out that it wasnt what I was promised. 2-3 isnt going to rank very high for me because it accomplished Junkos goal of filling me with DEPSAIR, but only because of all the problems I had with what was going on.

There are a lot of things I dont like about this case, but I think what I dont like the most is how messy the whole sequence of events is. I gave this as my hint and people immediately figured it out so obviously this wasnt a complaint that just I had, but the evidence here is kind of all over the place. Is there any other case in either game where no one cared what the murder weapon was? We know Mikan slits Hiyokos throat and I can sort of logic out things that mightve happened to the murder weapon (Mikan used some sort of medical equipment and then just washed it off would be my go to if I was writing this) but it is bizarre that at no point during the entire case does any one go what was the murder weapon when that is such a huge sticking point in so many of the other cases. It sort of feels like the writers didnt care enough to write it in, and instead focus on a bunch of other pointless stuff rather than what feels like a pretty major piece of evidence.

Im alsowell, a bit confused about the proposed timeline for Mikans movement after Hajime leaves her for the hospital. Part of it is that it has now been a little while since I played the game, but I was also confused at the time about how the hell Mikan got around without being seen in between everything else. Hajime leaves the hospital, goes to find Ibukis body. He runs from there, and Mikan sneaks in behind him to pull down the tarp and seals the door. Then she sprints back to the hospital and manages to make it there just in time before Fuyuhiko comes back to see her. I dont think the game ever covers the movements here exactly, but I feel like this is an insanely dangerous part of Mikans plan. She had to be running almost at the same time as Hajime right? And it isnt like these roads were densely populated or she had places to hide. Im surprised Hajime didnt turn around at some point and see Mikan like 100 yards behind him ducking behind a bush. Then running back she is basically just lucky Fuyuhiko didnt show up and see her sprinting back from the music venue. MIkans excuse for being outside is that she is looking for Ibuki, but I think if Fuyuhiko was just waiting around outside and saw Mikan running back towards from where the murder happened he would have some questions. And Im also like 95% sure Fuyuhiko had routinely been showing up early prior to the day of the murder, so unless she was sneaking out some back window or something, on most days she wouldve run into him in the lobby while she was leaving the hospital. I dont need a detailed step by step movement of Mikan, but I feel like a lot of stuff in this case is just sort of handwaved away like the game doesnt want to talk about it because it complicates the actual murders.

I know Mikan was also straight up insane thanks to the memory juice Monokuma inject her with, but her plan is also incredibly dumb just from a logic perspective. Assume for a second her plan goes off without a hitch. The prime suspect is going to be Mikan. Everyone knew that Ibuki was under some sort of spell where she would do whatever you told her to do, and Mikan was the only person that had continuous access to her. The whole camera set up she did to trick people into thinking the event was happening live was pointless. Go kill yourself isnt something you need to be in the same room at the same time to be carried out. There was a person who could be told to kill themselves, and a single person with access to this person. How was Mikan not the immediate suspect for everyone regardless of the rest of the stuff that happened? The very best she can hope for is the excuse that she was negligent and not there when someone had access to her, but that still throws suspicion on her because it requires everyone to ignore the fact she left her post and fell asleep in Hajimes bed. And, again, there is no time frame for when you tell someone to kill themselves, so this is the one case that is un-alibi-able. She wasted all this effort creating an alibi (which is what ultimately gets her caught) and it was pointless to try and establish one in the first place. She got lucky Hiyoko wandered into there because her presence is the only thing that complicates the case at all. It makes the case more interesting this way and I understand that, but at the same time Mikan basically kills the person only she has access to and it isnt really brought up.

And it isnt just these sort of logical leaps that bother me to, as I have issues with a lot of the fundamentals about this chapter. This case is also a great example of the game occasionally not knowing how to work evidence into the case in a good way. The fact that Mikan stages it is interesting. The way the game goes about showing this to us is having us visit the conference room in the hospital apropos of nothing, have Chiaki comment about how interesting it is when it is dark in here and how this probably relates to the case maybe and oh hey haha dont mind me just going to have a ten minute scene here in a location that is clearly super important tee hee. It is such a bad way to introduce evidence because anyone thinking at all knows that this location is important and then anyone would be able to deduce that only Mikan had access to it. It is an obvious, awkward clue that points at one person and one person alone, and it takes away the interest that was building in the case up to that point. Like I had a theory that, storywise, it wouldve made since for Fuyuhiko to do it and all these interesting things about him going to the hospital to set things up and etc etc etc. But as soon as I got to the scene with Chiaki in the conference room, I was like oh I guess Mikan did it. They needed a much more clever way to go about introducing this sort of stuff. I dont know exactly what that would be, but I am positive that this way was not the way to do it. It feels like this is one of the few cases in either game where there are absolutely no red herrings, and that on top of the big ol fat obvious anvil of the conference room being important being dropped on your head kind of takes away the fun of the mystery.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

It was just a copy paste of a horrendously awful opening by Tucker Carlson and his thoughts on the insurrection. He prefaced it with an opening of for all the talk of AOC being canceled remember this is the number one tv news program.

Im not 100% sure how those two are related either, but Im tired so Im probably just missing something,

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Theres also a lot of people who arent progressives that like to pretend that they are because they know we are more palatable so you have them sharing stuff like that video under the guise of IM ONE OF YOU. Think fringe rose Twitter.

I said in my original post I wasnt even really talking about more than one or two people here but it is something I see amplified on Twitter quite a lot.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

At this point were just to arguing about two different things because he was mean to my fav was clearly not my complaint even though you want to frame it that way because it is easier to argue against.

And I know there is no hope of convincing you and Deeps otherwise so I usually dont engage but I wanted to at least clarify that.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

But hes a fake progressive because he has a YouTube channel and his methods make neolibs squeamish, and if youre off putting to neolibs it means you dont actually want to make changes.

Or something

His methods of attempting to cancel notorious neolibs AOC and Elizabeth Warren yeah that checks out.

Well less attempting to cancel and more crying like a toddler because I fully understand the only people that actual care about him are literally fake progressives like previously pointed out.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

StealThisSheen posted...

Twitter/Youtube/etc. progressives aren't actually progressive because they don't want change, they just want clicks and likes and whatever. The ones trying to cancel AOC and always being staunch "both sides"ers literally only care about what will get them an audience. That's why they're melting down over what AOC said, because you're not allowed to point out that anything is "better" at all because "better" isn't a headline that drives people to watch their stupid videos. That's what this comes down to. It's one thing to disagree with her messaging, but the kind of reaction she's getting isn't legitimate in the least.

Thats exactly the point I was trying to make so thank you for elaborating! I disagree with AOC on this isnt a hot enough take so you have these second tier breadtube scumbags with a AOC is a TRAITOR to our values because thats the kinda heat that generates clicks. And then it gets shared by people on Twitter trying to score some imaginary points to prove they are better and more TRULY PROGRESSIVE than motivated, talented progressives that somehow made their way into congress and genuinely affected the national discourse and then I see it in my timeline and it has been driving me nuts this past week.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Biden has been a lot better and is on pace to be exceedingly better than I possibly hoped for. That was a very low bar, sure, and thats the kinda guy I feel like pressure needs to be kept on at all times to ensure he doesnt revert back to the Biden I was expecting.

I see no need to waste mental energy worrying about AOC for saying something that was clearly politically crafted and motivated for once in her career while actually fighting for all the right things.

DoomTheGyarados posted...

Warren pissed me off for a good month but she's back to being great in the Senate so it's kind of like 'sure okay, fair enough' and also Biden is pretty left on the possible Biden scale which I will credit Bernie being low key on pushing him on things.

I mean this is a totally fair take because I feel like she pissed off everyone for a month lol.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

StealThisSheen posted...

It was such a minor, nothing of a "stupid stuff" that she did that this reaction is ridiculous, since it's not even just "Hey now AOC," it's literally "AOC IS A TRAITOR, SHE'S JUST PELOSI ALL OVER AGAIN, FUCK AOC"

Yeah to me there is a difference between AOC is wrong here and AOC IS A CORPORATE SELL OUT TRAITOR PELOSI 2.0. I said in my post I wasnt actually describing all that many people here! I have noticed an absurd amount of the latter on Twitter as if AOC hasnt been one of the best politicians on these issues consistently for the past two years.

And yeah like SEP said that is almost
certainly because Twitter progressives arent actually progressives.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Are you saying snake or sn-academia supported political policy?

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

While I dont think AOC is the only savior of the progressive movement, I will say I am fucking sick and tired of how eager some Twitter progressives are to cannibalize progressive, good politicians because they arent perfect in literally every way. Im not even saying people in topic are like this (I mean there are a couple) but there is the loud annoying wing of progressives online that would rather gain Twitter cred by cancelling politicians that are hundreds of times smarter than they could ever hope to be than to actual be a part of a winning coalition.

I still cant mention Warren without getting snake emojis even though she is in the right on 99% of all issues. And now AOC says something non controversial and politician-y and these neckbearded big brain Twitter twerps need to relentlessly attack her for a week in the hopes of getting their YouTube subscribers up to triple digits.

AOC and Warren are great progressive candidates and Im sick of this constant ideological purity progressives have to stick to always on every single issue at all times always or risk the wrath of PoonSlayer69xxx for the sin of having an iota of political acumen.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I should finally have an update tonight or tomorrow!

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I do look forward to this upcoming winning political party of the corpse of Bernie Sanders and the three guys from Breadtube who haven't been cancelled yet.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Yes

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Up next: a case that seems to be missing some pretty important evidence

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Oh I definitely agree with part of that, the only distinction here to me is that he isn't trying to kill Sayaka. He's trying to kill 14 people, 13 of which were not trying to kill him. The gap between the attack and the murder is long enough, to me, that he has to realize what he's doing.

I mean, not that the distinction is hugely important to me. I just think it makes the most sense this way. Me ranking Leon low is a result of him having like three lines and no character.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Anagaram posted...

He doesn't just leave! He also cleans up his hair.

It is actually kind of funny to picture him painstakingly going over every inch in the room for hair but not noticing that there is a "LEON DID IT" sign written in blood in the bathroom.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

StealThisSheen posted...

Right, but it's a realistic reaction at that point. Up until then, he didn't seem interested in the killing game at all. But suddenly she tries to kill him almost right away, which tells him

A. She could try again
B. Somebody else could try, the killing game has clearly actually begun to some people

That'd definitely cause a sense of urgency, so he saw the opportunity to try to "win" and get out of there and took it.

It's kinda unique in that there's no silly, convoluted motive on top of it. Just a pure, gut reaction to almost getting killed and realizing it could happen again, which makes him suddenly very willing to play the game.

I wouldn't quite say it is gut reaction. It is more of a "go to my room, get the screwdriver, walk back down the hall, slowly take the door off of its hinges, go in and stab someone" reaction. He didn't quite kill her in self defense.

I do like the idea of "He didnt seem all that desperate to get out before, but hey maybe getting almost stabbed was enough to convince him to change his mind. It wouldnt be the weirdest logic in the game, I suppose." I'm not saying it doesn't make sense, but he's still a jerk for trying to get everyone else killed on top of it.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

StealThisSheen posted...

Because celebrities know young fans of theirs are going to be easily manipulated and coerced and take advantage of that. If you're a big fan of LeBron James and you look up to LeBron James and he's a personal hero of yours, and you get a chance to meet LeBron James, you're going to want him to like you and validate you as a fan. If LeBron James uses that knowledge to manipulate you, that's wrong. If, when he meets you, he goes "Yo, you know my BEST fans give me their car keys," he's preying on you as a fan. He'd be knowingly using his status to take advantage of you.

EDIT: Fans get starstruck and don't always think straight, and when celebrities take advantage of that, that's morally wrong.

I mean I'm not saying you're wrong, but then almost the entirety of Twitch is unethical.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I mean I like Leon a lot more than Hifumi for obvious reasons. I was just saying in terms of impact on the game, due to his short number of lines and doing almost nothing in his chapter, I feel like he has the lowest overall impact. Hifumi is around longer to annoy me. I definitely have "more" of an opinion of Hifumi, even if it is a bad one.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

It is on my list of things to do! I just had a baby so I don't think I can quite play UDG as it seems to be a bit more of an action-y type game and I'm just sticking to slow paced stuff right now in my free time. But I'll get around to it eventually!

Johnbobb posted...

I kind of hate how much the GameGrumps playthrough has influenced my thoughts about the game. I can't think of Leon now without thinking of this specifically:

https://youtu.be/9CslkLKj854?t=546

I had actively avoided the GameGrumps for like years but I watched this entire playthrough thanks to you and it was actually really good (except some parts near the end where it appears Aaron had taken too much time off between episodes and forgot what the hell was going on). Of course, this happens to be like the worst time to be saying "hey Game Grumps isn't all that bad actually!" so I blame you for that.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Of course, if you see his free time through to the end, you find out that maybe he does actually like baseball a little bit as he admits to Makoto that he misses it and kind of wants to play some more. So maybe he doesnt really hate baseball as much as he hates the routine surrounding baseball, but either way youre left with this character that doesnt fully embrace his ultimate ability and seems to sort of want to move on a little bit from what got him here. Maybe hed go back and play for his old team if he got out of there. Or maybe not. He seems conflicted a bit with who he is and what he wants to do, which honestly makes sense for a high school student at his age. I had forgotten most characters free time events and had to rewatch them recently when I was doing my full game rewatch. But Leons I actually remembered because I found it kind of interesting that he wasnt just blathering on about his ultimate ability and how cool it was. He actually felt like he had one of the most human reactions to being an ultimate and not knowing whether or not he should embrace it makes sense.

But thats really all there is to Leon. He is one of a couple characters you learn more about through free time and post game stuff than you do in the actual game. In the game itself, he is an afterthought. I mean, I dont hate Leon but I dont really think about Leon at all. Even the only thing he is really known for, being the first killer in the series, is more reactionary than anything else. I know Reg made a joke about main cast characters being ranked below literally who but I feel like Leon is almost as much as a literally who as any of the other literally who characters who have appeared on the list. He is the Ultimate Literally Who, a guy who comes and goes and leaves absolutely nothing behind besides Sayakas bloody corpse. You learn absolutely nothing about him. It feels like he barely makes a cameo appearance. Sure, hes main cast but hes really more main cast than actual main cast. If they had a main cast reunion, hed be the guy they force to stand outside and look at everyone else through the window because he clearly doesnt belong with anyone else. Ive listed a lot of characters Ive disliked, but I feel like Leon might be the only character nobody missed when he died.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

#28: Leon Kuwata
Main Cast (Male) Ranking: 11/16
Killer Ranking: 9/11
Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Baseball Star
Actual Ultimate Ability: Ultimate Literally Who

I know I've said this before, but I liked looking through other peoples Danganraonpa lists just because of how different theyre guaranteed to be. You see characters all over the place because certain things resonate with certain people and dont with others. But I feel like Leon almost always has to be at the bottom. People who have Leon in the top half of their character rankings are really just saying I hated the cast of Danganronpa so this guy who wasnt really in it is one of my favorites because at least he wasnt around long enough to annoy me. I mean, that is part of the reason he ranks above a good chunk of characters for me, too. This is the Leon line. It would be like if I was ranking my favorite movies, and one of them was the loading screen on Netflix. You would know anything below that was something I didnt like, and the same is true here for Leon.

Leon doesnt really get to do much in the game and I can almost guarantee that almost no one remembers anything he says or does other than his meltdown at the end of the trial. From my recollection he introduces himself, gets tricked by Sayaka, then dies. He shows up at Sayakas room, probably assuming he is going to get some booty, and then winds up getting attacked instead. Not a good night. Leon makes this night even worse by deciding the best thing to do here is to go back to his room, get the tools he needs to take down the door, and murder Sayaka. I know he gets attacked first but he pretty easily fights Sayaka off because shes incompetent, but Im not giving Leon any credit for acting in defense. He actually might have one of the worst motives for murder in either game, now that I think about it. Sayaka wanted to reunite with her band and Mondo needed his secret to not get out and Celeste wanted a castle of vampire servents. Leon just seems like he got mad and decided to kill an already wounded Sayaka because hehad a chance to get out? He didnt seem all that desperate to get out before, but hey maybe getting almost stabbed was enough to convince him to change his mind. It wouldnt be the weirdest logic in the game, I suppose.

The thing isI dont have a lot to say about Leon and I feel like I should take this time to remind you I wrote like seven paragraphs on Teruterus mom. Thats how boring Leon is. He is kind of this big ball of nothing that they dont really bother to give a personality to. Im trying to think back through both casts, and other than the Ultimate Imposter, I dont think there is any other character that is developed as poorly as Leon. If I was going to describe most of the other characters, I would start with their personality. Byakuya is arrogant and stuck up and thinks little of other people and Mikan is hesitant and scared and apologetic and so on and so on. I would do that for almost every character. With Leon I think I would go oh we was the one who killed Sayaka and had his name written on the wall. That is pretty much the extent of his character for me. Hes the guy so dumb he didnt notice Sayaka writing her name on the wall as he was stabbing her. Or maybe he left a bit early and she was clinging to life and then she wrote what she did on the wall. I choose that, actually, because at least then Leon isnt a complete and utter moron.

I also feel like if I was going to list all characters from most impactful to least impactful, Leon would be all the way at the very bottom. Sure, he kills Sayaka but that was entirely reactionary. I know he went back to his room to get the stuff to kill her, but it wasnt like he came up with some great plan. His entire plan was I will stab her because she tried to stab me and it was really Sayaka who set all that in motion. Im trying to think of anyone who had less of an impact on the plot than Leon. Teruteru, maybe? Except he at least set him own plan into motion as a way to stop Nagito, even if things went wrong. There are maybe one or two others you could argue for that I havent ranked yet, but I feel like it is pretty clearly Leon. He just serves as like the tutorial villain and doesnt even really do all that good of a job at that.

And this isnt just a when he died sort of thing, either. I mean, part of the issue here is he dies case one and yeah thats going to mean he gets less screen time that everyone else. It is hard to endear yourself to other people when you are currently rotting in the morgue because you got baseballd to death. But, still, Leon just does nothing with the time hes given. Sayaka dies long before Leon does and has ten times the development. Even fake Junko gets a lot more characterization than Leon, and she probably has around the same amount of lines. The first game early exit-ers in Fake Byakuya and Teruteru also get way more characterization than Leon. I mean, I hate Teruteru but you have a really firm grasp of his personality almost instantly and he even gets a MOMMA backstory to help round him out. Leon doesnt get any of these things. He dies really early, but his personality was dead when the game started. I think of all the main cast, Leon is the character the writers put the absolute least effort into making. Leon seems to have been included solely for evidence related reasons. Hes the ultimate baseball player because they needed a baseball player to throw evidence into the incinerator so thats pretty much all he gets to do. He is more a talent than a character, and they shoo him off the stage once hes served his purpose.

There isnt too much I actually about when it comes to Leon, but I have to say his interaction with his ultimate ability is actually really interesting to me. At least to my knowledge, he is the only character that straight up hates his ultimate ability. He doesnt care about being good at baseball, and in fact doesnt seem to want anything to do with baseball. He doesnt have much dialogue at all in this game, and most of what he does is either him freaking out about getting caught for murdering Sayaka or complaining about how much baseball sucks. I just thought that was kind of a fun dynamic, especially considering how everyone else in the game is. You have people dedicating their lives to martial arts or fanfiction or swimming or whatever and it is like this big part of who they are and how they act. And Leon, just sort of, like, doesnt care, man. It is something I wouldve liked to see a little more about, honestly, and it was sort of interesting watch Leon try to figure out what he wanted to do with his life outside of baseball. That is the kind of struggle no one else in the games has, and it helps give Leon the slightest sliver of a personality that hed otherwise be lacking.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I understand it helps the store run more effectively, but I just think it is worse for the employees. And, again, my understanding is this sort of thing primarily targets the less fortunate, more menial jobs that already get paid poorly and lack the benefits of better positions. I guarantee people at your level and above are doing things that are bad for the company as well, but no one thinks of monitoring them.

Although based on your last post, if there were cameras at all levels of the company, and not just ones targeting the lowest employees, I am actually more ok with it!

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

I think your opinion of it would change if upper management installed cameras in your office to make sure you were always doing what you were supposed to do and not sending non-work related texts. I think the constant threat of monitoring is going to add undue stress to people who are very likely working a bad job anyway.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

HashtagSEP posted...

To be honest, I used to hate it as an entry-level worker, but when I moved up to management and realized just how often workers were just fucking around, it completely changed my opinion of it.

Like, I always figured "As long as I get the work done, who cares." But then when I saw workers doing things like riding flatbeds down the aisles or purposely disappearing down aisles to avoid customers, it made me realize there were problems that weren't going to just be caught by physically walking around the store, so my opinion changed to it being a necessary evil. My opinion's likely skewed because of it.

You know if you install cameras in the bathrooms you can probably check to see who is actually peeing and who is just browsing their phone.

This is probably unnecessarily snarky after re-reading it but I'm going to leave it up anyway and just apologize for being antagonistic. I still think "hey its an evil but its a necessary evil to boost that productivity" is a shaky argument though.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

It is weird this came out of RantGrumps, of all places.

I am also not a fan of the Game Grumps for a variety of reasons, and found Rant Grumps a couple of years ago, and it has to be the weirdest, strangest, saddest subreddit I've ever seen. Half the people there are racist, anti-Semites, that seem to be mad at Aaron because he thinks trans people are people and JonTron saying "wealthy black people commit more crimes than poor white people" was a bad thing. The other half have this perverse obsession with the Game Grumps that is entirely unhealthy. They conflate conspiracy after conspiracy and it is utterly bizarre to see this group glued together by their mutual intense, undying hatred of a Youtube gaming channel.

I don't actually think they did anything wrong here (other than intentionally mislead/backtrack on the initial accusations of grooming and pedophilia) but seeing them dig this out is definitely a "worst person you know just said something you agree with" kind of feeling for me.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Yeah I am strongly opposed to workers being constantly electronically monitored by their employers regardless of the environment it is occurring in.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

SeabassDebeste posted...

i actually have 1-3 higher than 1-2 since mondo is unbearable. i also think 1-3 is just fucking hilarious. you're entirely right about how predictable it is, but i think it actually kind of is a comedy. like yeah it's insulting to your intelligence but playing DR is an exercise in the game insulting you in lots of ways. especially DR1. like i'd rather have celeste doing her 4th grade class play acting with actual murder than have to deal with kazuichi and hifumi perving on people and being expected to laugh. kyoko is terrible, but this is a case where her "intelligence" is extra-funny in context simply because it's so obvious.

also yeah, celeste is one of my fav characters of the first game. that really is a legit ace attorney-style change she undergoes, and that's one of the more satisfying parts about AA.

I don't disagree with most of that, but that was definitely the case I was the most "bored" in during the first game. 1-5 is a whole different level of bad, but that was at least approaching end game and I wanted to see what would happen. 1-3 is funny at several points for how weird parts are, but the trial itself was so boring and I was more annoyed than amused by how everyone was pretending not to know what was going on.

I get liking 1-3 though. There were parts that even I found appealing.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

Up next: A character with perhaps the most interesting interaction with their ultimate ability.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."

UshiromiyaEva posted...

https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1374033974700478470?s=19

They really reaching.

You might think it sounds silly at first glance, but if you actually think about it, it harkens back to the colonists original demands of no taxation without having to see our yard signs on your way to work.

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Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."