doot doot magic flute

My contribution to @creatingblackcharacters 's Melanin Beam Challenge (happy birthday btw 🎉)

Just wanted to draw a quick comic after drawing these outfits. I'm not sure if we'll start Chapter 6 on a light note, so let's pretend it does for these short moments of ambiguity.

I poured my whole heart and tears into him over the past month! From the concept sketch to the 3D model to thiiiiiiis moment! I learned how to sew just to make my favorite TV real ♡ Details:

And it’s very important to clarify that Reigen did not -accidentally- give Mob good advice. Because one of Reigen’s most distinct traits is his ability to come up with genuine advice and tell people what they need to be told. But he’ll do this on the spot. He’ll do it wrapped in bullshit. He’ll camp it alongside some conman string. He’ll go along with anything. He’ll pretend anything is true. The grift is, in fact, integral of it.

And I love this dichotomy in him because he’s so precariously set up at all moments to topple. For anyone to call him on his bullshit and use that to dismantle everything he’s said. He was lying. He was scamming you. He was using you.

And yes, he was. But it wasn’t really for service of the con. It was for service of the customer, who needed to hear something important.

There's a line he gives Mob right after the LOL arc that sticks with me, it comes on the tail of him confirming that Mob is catastrophically inept at reading the room and hearing him out about the "damage" he caused by spoiling the mood of a happy cult.

“Today you saved some people that only you could have saved.”

Pointing out that the weird and inconvenient and frustrating parts of himself are what allowed him to be a hero to people who couldn't be saved by normal means. His inability to match the energy of the cultists led to Dimple showing his true nature, and ultimately to his downfall. It wasn't just Mob's psychic powers that made rescuing them possible, it was his social incompetence.

Reigen on the other hand, is socially overcompetent. Every interaction, no matter how absurd and outlandish and unbelievable and hysterical and stupid, gets his full attention and is treated with the same level of seriousness and gravitas as buying a used car. He makes people feel heard, because he is, in fact, listening with the utmost care. So he can sell them the top-of-the-line century-old jalopy of their dreams for a ridiculously reasonable price. Which will bring them peace and happiness because it's exactly what they need.

Reigen's ability to bullshit just what people need to hear is what allowed him to help Mob in his time of crisis. He thought this little kid was utterly bananas, but he recognized that the distress was very real, and cooked up a rudimentary life lesson on the spot to comfort him that was specifically, perfectly crafted to fit his imaginary psychic situation.

And when the situation ended up being entirely real, the fake advice Reigen cobbled together on a whim is what stopped Mob from spiraling. Nobody else could have done this, because nobody else would have treated his "absurd" fears seriously.

He was in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills to save someone that only he could save.

Title text: What's Kikky?

(Pixel art of a cat in silhouette, from the Kikky Park minigame in Chapter 5.)

Text: Kikky is my cat that won't shut up. She gets incredibly noisy every second you don't play with her. She watched her room on TV and didn't understand it was her. She's like if a cat's brain was put into a cat's body. The song in her room is the song that I sing to her every day because I love her. It's not "Fanservice" for you but it's a "Kikkyservice" for her even though she doesn't like it. She's bothering me right now.