feenie | PLAYING SDR2

Cecil art is by @littleulvar

(spoilers across the board for dr1&2)

one thing i’ve noticed during my experience of these games is how grief is handled when it comes to male vs. female characters. bear with me here.

with taka, we see him become a shell of his former self after mondo is executed. i’ve always taken the ishida (kiyondo) transformation to be a metaphorical representation of his mental state instead of a physical change that the rest of the class can see. i would say this is the most complex character-to-character relationship we see in the first game.

with fuyuhiko, we see him wrestle with the burden of having the blood of two people on your hands all because of petty revenge. we see him slowly start to form real connections with the rest of the group instead of pushing everyone away.

now, how is grief portrayed for the female characters?

hiyoko forgives fuyuhiko for killing mahiru—the only person who ever showed her any amount of sympathy—only a few days after it happens. she is killed before we ever see any proper development of her grief or character as a whole.

akane, aside from a few passing remarks, barely talks about nekomaru’s death aside from the “(name) would want us to move on” bullshit that seems to be a recurring theme here.

the same goes for aoi, who mentions sakura quite a bit more than the other two mention their loved one, but she shows barely any signs of her death even affecting her remotely beyond chapter 4’s class trial. you would think that because they were friends for the entire game, she would have a similar reaction to taka (who, by the way, was friends with mondo for 2 days) after losing her best friend, but no! nothing! because aoi’s just a dumb girl with no need for emotional depth, right guys?

a small fraction of Komahina art I've made and will show up in the fanzine I'm doing with @altiegg and @/phaidriades 🩷