#ryuulock

I HAVE A MERCH STORE UP!!

so far there's:

aquaculture inspired silly 3d mouse pads

ryulock merch - a standee and multiple keychain, sticker and print designs

baroryuulock prints

so STOKED ABOUT THIS!!

He vexes me. I like when a flawed character has an internal logic I can follow. But as I get to know Sholmes better... my understanding of him decreases.

When you are first introduced to Sholmes, the immediate conclusion you're meant to come to is "oh, so the twist is that he's actually an idiot". And when the game comes back around to it and says he was never dumb, he was actually always the genius from the books... that doesn't explain all the mind-boggling dumb shit he did. If I cannot attribute it to idiocy... the unfortunate conclusion is that I must attribute it to malice. And that'd be interesting. Evil Sholmes... but he's not even evil. In fact, him being branded as a genius kind of robs him of any complexity because we're not meant to question anything he does or says because it's to be assumed that any action he takes, no matter how baffling, must be the right one. Characters attempt to criticize him, he waves them off with a "I'm a Great Detective", and they just drop all criticisms there and then.

We're given his reasoning for passing an alive man off as dead eventually. I disagree with his methods (and I'm right to because he fucked up and lost Kazuma in transit), but he did have a reason. He thought "If Kazuma is dead, Kazuma can't be murdered." It's an idiotic plan, but it could have worked if Sholmes wasn't criminally incapable of basic communication with the people whose lives he's fucking up. But that's just him. If you gave him communication skills without first having a catalyst that convinces him, the self-proclaimed genius, that he needs them, it'd just be a different character entirely.

Accusing Ryuunosuke of murder makes NO SENSE. Yes, Bif planted evidence to frame Ryuunosuke, but Sholmes could have simply ignored that fake evidence and solved the mystery himself. His being a genius who we can presume solved the entire case before even doing his first dance of deduction makes him look like such a jackass for putting Susato and Ryuunosuke through all that stress.

My first impression of Sholmes was that he was high off his own supply. That he drank his own Kool-Aid. That his book counterpart was his final draft, and, being influenced by his fictional depiction, he envisioned himself as the genius detective who always got it right on the first try, but that actually he took a few tries to reach the truth. I took his most stupid deductions (Ryuunosuke being a Russian revolutionary) as him working on a couple cases at once and trying to force a conclusion where the current case was intrinsically tied to something else he was solving because he was looking for cases that would make for interesting stories for his daughter to write.

But that interpretation of his character is completely wrong... so he's just a ragebaiter...

Not to be a Ryuulock shipper, it's just the only way to give him actual intentions behind his actions. The only reason to frame Ryuunosuke is to give him a life-or-death consequence to not being involved in Sholmes' investigation. The only reason to purposefully get his deductions wrong is to force Ryuunosuke to jump in and correct him. The only reason to force Ryuunosuke to dance with him is that he's fucking Cady Heron pretending to be shit at math so a hot boy will tutor her! AND THE CHARM GOES WHEN WE'RE IN A ROOM WITH A TIME BOMB AND SHOLMES JUST LETS THAT SHIT TICK AWAY TO RANT ABOUT ANTI-GRAVITY. PEOPLE COULD HAVE DIED, SHOLMES.

If Ryuu had been unable to solve 1-2, I do believe Sholmes would have cut the shit and saved him. BUT IF 2-3'S DANCE OF DEDUCTION HAD GONE ON SEVEN SECONDS LONGER--- You can have a genius character that plays dumb for funsies, but when he does it all the time... I'm going to shoot him with a crossbow. It's frustrating to be constantly told a character is one way, but you only ever see them behaving the opposite. A "good" person who only ever does bad things... is a person who does bad things. Their "good" label has no lessening effect on their negative impact. People are what they do. If Sholmes is a genius who only ever does stupid shit, he's a stupid shit ijoegpo.

and the spicy entries for winter @ryulockweek !!

happy winter @ryulockweek to all who celebrate!!!

i adore them so much...