#Everything else is a banger to me

[duncanor]

I have a confession to make,

I genuinely dislike the iconic music of the 98's opening.

[catboybatman]

Literally begging batman/batfam fans to read comics written before the 90s

[hdusa]

are the songs on your playlist mostly for specific seasons/eras/moments or are they mostly more general songs for the overall character? what are your favorites and why?

in the spirit of recent events these are the songs I put on after every stream to really feel everything that happens

[thesoulsofthedarned]

So I finished the Farewell Rayashki event:

Wow, what an amazing event. Probably one of my favorites in Reverse 1999. I loved watching the story of the townspeople of Rayashki fighting back against Zeno to protect their home with the help of a down-on-her-luck researcher unfold. This was probably the first event story in this game that got me feeling emotional. I think what contributed so heavily to my enjoyment and investment in the story was how we got to familiarize with the town itself, from it’s backstory, to the lives the residents that live there.

Back before 1.8 released on global, I never had much of an opinion on Vila. All I really knew about her was that she was a top tier healer mermaid who liked talking about freedom and stuff. But man, this event story really warmed me up to her as a character. She’s such a lovely teacher for the children of Rayashki, always encouraging them to be open minded and learn new things (kinda reminds me of teachers I used to have). Vila’s also such a brave leader for the people, not afraid to speak her mind on the unfair treatment Rayashki was facing at the hands of Zeno and rousing the townsfolk to band together to find new ore to support the town. I also really liked her relationship with Windsong and how she encouraged Windsong to not give up on her dreams. And that’s not to mention her backstory of being shunned and scorned by humans and rusalka alike, yet being able to find a place where everyone could live in harmony in Rayashki. Such a great character :)

Avgust was such a cinnamon roll. Just about every appearance he made on screen was a delight to watch. He’s got such an odd yet endearing way of interpreting the world around him and that made for some excellent chemistry for him and the other characters. He’s so strange yet so cute at the same time, it’s no wonder my sibling went for him on Vila’s banner (they got Vila but not Avgust btw).

Windsong was definitely the MVP. At first I assumed she’d be like Yelan from Genshin: cool, alluring, mysterious, all the typical tropes you’d expect from a woman like her in a gacha game. Turns out she’s almost nothing like I’d expect. Windsong at first was awkward, anxious, not confident that the study of ley lines will even make a comeback due to past experiences. She was on the verge of giving up, yet throughout the story she’s able to finally prove the study of ley lines can be a valid and useful field with the help and encouragement of the townspeople. Watching her become a teacher for the kids at the school was also heartwarming to watch. Also watching Windsong tell that Zeno guy where to shove it was also pretty satisfying, seeing her developing friendship with Vila and the rest of the town was sweet, watching her slowly helping the town achieve their goals and subsequently reach her own and finally coming to her own as a researcher was so cathartic aaaAAA-

Overall, this event was incredible, thanks in no small part to the excellent writing. I absolutely love this story, and I can’t wait for it to rerun :)

[phantom-kiwi]

Adding deathloop 2021 to the list of things I'm definitely normal about. I love you arkane studios I love you I will follow you to the end of the world

[tauforged]

Just 10 hours later I have finished the new war. Dawg what the fuck is going on. Holy shit. What the fuck.

YEAH. YEAH. i am so sorry it took so long but also YEAH THATS BASICALLY IT. welcome to warframe under the new creative lead!!!

[triglycercule]

me when i find the PERFECT mtt song (yamitsuki,,,,,,,, maretu my king how did you do it,,,,,,,,,,,,, literally HOW did you do it why is this song weirdly accurate wtf and its for a completely different character 2??? HOW DID YOU DO THIS??? THE ENTIRE FUCKING SONG FITS??? THE ENTIRE SONG COULD BE MADE TO HAVE CONNECTIONS WITH ONLY MILD REACHING??? HELLO??????) (this translation!!!) (the translation is not.linking i will be shooting myself. its the on on the vocaloid wiki NOTthe video....)

literally like. 1/3 is horror. 1/3 is dust. and then the last is killer. in that order. the first 2 verses talk about bloodshot pain (bloodshot EYES.... HORROR'S EYE) and a rotting fatal wound (THE FUCKING HEAD CRACK!!! HIS GODDAMN HEAD WOUND!!!!). commiting brutality. i dont think much else is needed. wrong/right and judging biases,,,,, jesus fuck wtf. AND THEN in the next verse there's a mention of "starving for necessary evil" HELLO!!!! HELLO!!!!!!! him starving himself while also feeding snowdin human which totally sucks,,,,,, horror sans,,,,,,???? chorus of shrill voices (duh snowdin. or also could be undyne and royale guard. i like snowdin more). and then the last line of the second verse mentions sadism. nothing more to say. horror sans i mayhaps perchance mightve just encountered you in a song. or maybe the translation is freakily accurate and the song itself isnt that specific (probably but hey i can dream)

and then th next 2 verses r dust except i dont really know about the first verse but also a line that says "this is the death of the conflict, come and see me" could be referring to the human's death which like. man. and then the next verse is just dust sans but in a single verse. give me more excellent pain could be interpreted as LV but also the mental pain that comes with yk..... killing all you love.LOVE. LV. he needs more LV... anyways. mad off the beaten track. MAD. MENTION OF MAD LIKE CRAZY LIKE MAD TIME LIKE DUST SANS!!!! echoes of a haughty voice resound,,,,, phantom paps,,,,, "severe punishment, 100 renouned sights, i long for pure pessimism" i cant explain this one well i think but just think about it okay. this time you get to be the one coming up with the ideas (σ´∀`)σ

killer only has one verse that i can link this song 2 but i also think its th most freakily accurate. verse 1 is "through instantaneous joy, entertain me for my whole life, i'm cunningly"LUCKY". i get completely bored. give me pleasure without worry. and now, right away." and then "i'd rather head to eternal darkness. i'll abide by you always, emptily "HAPPY". i shed tears from my clear white eyes. come and show me your best smile!" HELP HELP HELP THEYRE SHOOTING ME HELP HELP!!!! THEY JUMPING ME (these lyrics) because WTFyhis isFREAKILY accurate. the entire first verse and its spiel on boredom and having someone else manage the entertainment/emotions,,,, and the cunningly lucky part is just. i think the word cunning is just really good to describe killer (sneaky little bastard) and then he's "lucky" emphasis on quotes because idk he got chosen for whatever the fuck his chara wants. what luck. really bad luck but whatever. and then MORE on the following another person and EMPTILY!!! EMPTY!!! KILLER FEEL NOTHING EMPTY!!!! fake happy too,,,, and killer has white eyelights sooo IM NOT REACHING!!! also he literally cries

in conclusion MARETU is a god amongst men and somehow this song managed to fit the mtt i have no idea how. next coming up: how NAMIDA fits horror. how thirst fits dust. how i'm high fits killer. idk if i already said this one probably did BUT JUST IN CASE maretu also has maegamist,,,,, maretu i knew i listened to you for a reason. so i could make totally irrational and unreasonable connections of your songs to the fucking murder time trio of all things. what joy

[chryso-chryso]

melody journey ep8's 荒芜之地 performance is now on spotify!!!!!

(i don't think there will be a performance for next week. what a relief, honestly! this show's filming schedule was ridiculous)

(edit: no performance for ep 10, either! alas)

ep 1, ep 2, ep 3, ep 4, ep 6, ep 7, ep 11!

[fistsoflightning]

01 | TAKE THE WHEEL

ffxivwrite2024 01: STEER to control the course of; to be subject to steering

desperate times call for desperate measures. atalanta & a monster. 1390 wc.

It took her a small eternity to work out how to open her eyes, mostly because she couldn't remember how the muscles in her face were connected or how many eyes she had to begin with. Or eyelids. She was used to having transparent ones, not this—solid nonsense that left you vulnerable. How useless. And when she finally got them open she couldn't even tell she had managed it for several minutes because these eyes were no better than a nychterida's. It looked just as dark as when she had her eyes closed, black as death and no less cold. The only reason she could tell she was in a cavern was the roughness of the stone beneath her hands, the curve of the wall pressing into her back. Everything in her burned and ached the longer she stared into it.

She was alive. Returned to the land of the living after so long.

Then she realized what must have brought her here and a much sharper feeling started to bubble in her blood.

"You little coward," she roared, an awful ache in her throat revealing itself as she did. What came from her mouth barely sounded like words. Forget that. Forget everything she'd thought before. None of that pissed her off more than Them. She tried to leave, to claw deep down inside her—inside Their body and rip until They were forced to wake up, to take it back, take it all back, but in her fury she lost control. Every muscle spasmed. Ligaments groaned. It was only when something snapped that she grit Their teeth and stopped herself before anything more permanent occurred. The satisfaction wasn't worth the retribution she'd earn—though, if she did it right, ruined just enough…

"Alright, monster, listen close."

She froze at the sound of Their voice accompanied by a flickering light, confused and afraid. By this point she'd tipped Their body over from its seat by the wall, cheek pressed to cold and damp cave-floor as blood dribbled from the mouth, and a terrible feeling came over her; she'd been tricked, she'd been lured out to slaughter, she was in a different body and They were in the shadows ready to be free of her for good.

But Their voice came again, in perfect time with the light, and she heard it: fear.

"Don't go getting any clever ideas. You're only here because I let you," They said, and there—a tremble, a pause for a deep breath. That was a thing They did to stay calm, wasn't it? She copied them, a slow in-out-in-out through Their mouth, and most of the burning feeling everywhere dissipated, which was strange. "And before you start tearing me apart, you're not here for anything but to sit here. Right here. Get back up, you melon, before you get me ill from all the… cave dirt. Or what have you."

In a stubborn fit, she tried to stay still, but something in her coiled tighter the longer she laid on the floor. Maybe it was already too late to not be infected, or some manner of spell to compel her. Either way, she got up.

As she did, clumsily bending one arm to brush the sharp pebbles off Their face, she saw it—she saw Their sword, glowing to the rhythm of Their voice. It had been stabbed into the floor clumsily, at an angle that threatened to tip over the longer it remained that way. But it stood, and if she focused, she could clench Their hands and feel the exact way the sword's handle would fit.

"In the interest of curbing any rebellion, I might as well explain what you missed."

She groaned. "Just because I reside within you doesn't make me blind," she said. "I know already, you—"

But They couldn't hear them, or at least Their spellwork couldn't. "In the process of aiding Azem with this week's disaster, there was an earthquake. Or a landslide? Can't seem to recall the word. Either or works for you, I suppose. I got caught, and then—I was. Here." Pause. "I think I fell through somewhere I wasn't supposed to. They warned us—the village. To create, they convert aether from the abundance of crystals grown underground, instead of putting their own aether into the already-dense aetheric atmosphere of their home. They said they were trying not to give the wildlife anything more to gorge on. Creative of them. Wish I could manage even that."

"Haven't you done enough?" she grumbled. Not only had she been unceremoniously dragged here, but now she was forced to listen to more of their moping? Was it not enough that she had already personalized her own little space in hell? "I'm sitting right here."

Pause. Pause.

"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry. For the rambling and what I've done."

She blinked. Once, then twice. That was… new. Her memory was blurred, terribly so, but in all her time she couldn't ever recall anyone knowing of her and apologizing.

Their words started gaining speed. "If I were better, maybe you wouldn't be stuck down here in the dark with me. Just my luck I fell into one of the emptied caverns. It's so dark. I can't think here. So in a desperate act, I forced this on you. To think. I'll come back when I've got something. All you need to do is stay here and—not break anything. Please. I'll make it up to you, find anything you want, get your revenge twice over, just—" Deep breaths. She could feel the last remants of Their panic still running through Their blood. "Don't make me come back until I'm ready."

She watched the sword carefully as the last few sparks of aether conveying Their voice guttered out and left her in the dark for good. It was still there, a short distance from where They had abandoned their body in cowardice.

But she knew that fear intimately, didn't she. Some amount of satisfaction rose in her knowing that They were no stronger against it than she was.

And—They were sorry.

Careful of the thing in Their back she had pulled too hard earlier, she got up from her seat and stumbled over to the sword. There was no telling in the void-black darkness where the handle met the blade, and she misplaced Their hands, but it did not cut. She smiled when she finally set Their hands in the correct place, the barely-there callouses feeling at home on the grip. Her approximation of a smile must have looked strange—all teeth and pulled too tight, but who was here to see? What mattered was that it felt good.

"My turn to talk, abomination. And I know you can hear me," she growled, though she tried hard not to ruin anything this time. Who was she to ruin what she'd been offered? "You're as much a fool as the rest if you believe I'd just sit here in the dark until you come to collect. And couldn't you have thought to ask my opinion with all your intelligence, instead of so rudely dragging me out?" She paused. "Though I have to admire your cleverness. Your body is a mess, but I've not had one in an age. What a wonder it is to feel. We should do this more often."

Her old senses were rusted, but having to listen to Them talk had given them time to line up alongside Their senses. The dark remained as it was, but the body had other ways to discern its surroundings, and They had given her a clue. If she were any other being, it would have been useless. But she had spent countless years in a 'dense aetheric atmosphere' and could tell apart ambient from living by smell alone; there was at least one thing underground with her, and if she could find it, make it afraid, make it want nothing more than to escape her, then maybe it would run to the surface. Leave a path to follow.

Better than than to sit here. She pried the sword from its resting place and hefted it onto her shoulders.

"I've no desire to be trapped down here any more than you do," she said, "so let's get out of here, 'Atalanta'."

[lovecatsys]

im realizing i really dont know a lot of 2000s through modern punk music... besides a few obscure bands here and there i mostly stick to not even like. the big three classic punk but Before that, early 70s proto punk. id honestly like to know more modern punk i just dont know where to look for it

[enumaaelish]

drives me a lil' bit nuts that hozier's songs that get popular in the "mainstream" are nowhere near his best ones... like they're good and i'm biased to his whole discography but i swear all of his best songs are the ones that majority of people don't listen to. don't fear the bog man please check out the rest of his music too

[sleidog]

don't feel like spreading the poll of the week because theres enough negativity and pointed-ness around, however

[chaotictomtom]

turning my attention each 5 minutes to some genre of music and going insane +++++ thinking how much i love this genre of music then getting unprompted to some songs from a totally different genre and the same things happens i just cannot stop loving things the circle goes on and on

[unproduciblesmackdown]

love the remark from joe about the christmas extravaganza wherein like thee main inspiration here is that it is essentially an actual christmas special that purports to be a christmas special which is about christmas specials, and his talking about like yeah the talk about commercialization(tm) of christmas and yet this is about such artifacts of [so there's Anything & there's capitalism:] but about the actual heart there & there's actually one here too, even while at no point do things pull back or become "serious" in the way that seriousness has to refer to a Tone of somberness sobriety drama & gravitas etc etc....illuminating when also only now do i know that much about the show as a whole and when also i'm not That familiar with christmas specials, though already certainly enough to like, generally Get It even without having seen the specific ones joe cites for example lol

thinking about like [there was never a Christmass held as an occasion of particular significance that didn't absorb preexisting nonchristian traditions, for instance, partying & treats] and [then a christmas carol revival and reinvention of more modern Cultural Significance, from the context of industrializing 19th century goings on & going like i don't know that the impoverishment & child labor seems great] and then like of course in a [see: that context] sense like you have Anything? in capitalism? of course like how to commodify things & fit anything that people can possibly do or desire or value into an act of consumerism, all the potential of life itself is contained in a way you can give this one company money. but at the same time here we are where just supposing there might be something "pure" of being associated with this system, you know, means what? that there, no i'm pushing through i'm making this post too lmao, that there isn't [insert Valued concept, like artistry, good intention, any genuine meaning to possibly be found] in a tv series, despite this not generally being considered the realm of High Art (which is, what, as a concept within what framework, with what examples and what reasoning) and yknow pick your true/valuable/high art, & how "pure" from any interactions w/commerce was that in its creation, or in it Now

smash cut to remembering a quote recently from someone's like first closest viewing of a Christmas(tm) happening, i think from a like roundtable article of people with varying opinions on the whole occasion from jewish currents magazine but don't quote me & i can't directly quote them but the person talking about how christmas despite all its hype seeming mostly a demanding time to perform this Event that would also invariably be a disappointment. and that had it occurring to me how like, also after the christmas carol cultural shift like the way traditions shifted / were shuffled around & absorbed & re/invented, like it wasn't really something so contained to The Home, it wasn't so centered around like whether it was amazing for small children (or there wasn't so much a concept that anything about being a small child was extra special or precious. for example the children yearn for the mines) but prior like, on The 25th what might happen is like outside homes, between Families, like the poor going out for alms, not exactly so familiar with mumming and wassailling and [it's the christmas chaos figure give it treats] as is somewhat present in halloween here modernly, hooray halloween lmao like yes Yes outside the house outside the family nighttime antics performing etc treats....anyways. also the christmas tree as like "ugh that germanic pagan ritual??" but then i think some royal xmas english or french had an xmas tree so it was like oh alright & adopted as "normal" now....but Anyways like even now reflecting like yeah lovely if Thee 25th is a genuinely nice time for people in the [nothing's open b/c why aren't you at home (or church)] nuclear family household time fr, as it's lovely if that's a generally nice context/situation/time for them in general, but it's like no the fun stuff is the more purportedly to de facto actually secular shit Outside the home & family & the 25th lmao, which is the shit that indeed seems more fun & hypey & then perhaps you encounter [actual 25th is demanding & stressful & perhaps overmuch, inevitably falling short of a pageant of perfection much less an ostensibly spontaneously genuine manifestation of perfection, etc]

certainly my own experience being like, church every week christian household so we did christmas & as a young kid it was indeed like ooh ahh i love the kind of mysterious special occasion that to me is like this chill Nighttime deal with the intriguing decorations & dim cozy Lights element like yeah love the depths of an xmas tree with the interspersed lights. then inevitably as per the nature of [you're stuck with your nuclear family in your family house, "ideally"] like the The 25th Day aspect which was never really the highlight vs the more general Xmas Zone was more an ordeal more dreaded thus eclipsing the other stuff. plus when it's like "ohh christmas can't be secular it also shouldn't even be Fun: go to church, stand around in somber wonder perhaps, the classic guilt if you want i dunno. trying to remember the annoying advent or christmas day homilies sermons Lectures like oh so you think this is a joyful time and you like the fun stuff? Wrong. not much of a conclusion beyond that now we sit around for 24 min slogging along eucharistically. ignore the more fun banger xmas singing though or we're bringing back monastic chants"

(sidebar lol a highlight of Later Christmasses Stuck With [it is a curse] was doing it monastic with nuns like yeah i'll be a tenor doing the harmony in your choir knocking out nighttime mass wahoooo....the fun of being theatrical gays like fuck yeah i'll take the reserved seating and enjoy harmonizing singing while i gotta do the church stuff anyways. and i enjoy well enough interacting w/the nuns who were nice & helping w/yknow practical shit yippee)

anyways and back to like knowing more about what's even in the full christmas extravaganza show and the illumination like oh right yeah having this Language of the heartwarming & perhaps chaotic on purpose or not Christmas Special, established / pervasive enough that even in like yeah not being very familiar w/these specific examples or even so many others, i have a grasp on the context & that language lol. as people for whom xmas is not a religious requirement thing or a casual religiousish thing or more like reverse engineering a yule out of the fun celebratory revelrous aspects & traditions lol like a secular party, or less / no direct specific interaction/relationship to the occasion: you sure still Know Of shit / have any familiarity all the same. where perhaps the stuff Surrounding xmas is like all this hype but then you participate more proximately in some [on The 25th deal] & be like isn't this just disappointing...? like so true the Secular shit is what's Fun, the [not the 25th! not dutiful church attendance!] shit is like, out of the home, interacting outside the family. it of course has the [formally businesses can only respond like uhh something something christmas is truly contained in our product] which is year round always with anything but ramped up with the [buying things] increase for xmas which is indeed a Tradition of like hey this can be expensive & stressful. and an opportunity to go "materialism....go to church" like making you think huh But. hardly necessarily Lacking anything genuine or meaningful or valuable outside [go to church] and people can be finding & creating that from what is happening in their lives anyways, & of course it doesn't have to be about Anything someone considers like ""objectively"" "significant" at all, religious or [this is anything besides a funny little occasion anyways. love to sing songs & have feasts] or like an installment of tv or like a whirlwind of like 20th century's second act secular (and decidedly heretical & technically blasphemous i'm sure combo re: the "and christianity etc etc yeah yeah" elements, if one would care about anything like that. no papal bull of approval, but ft. the tongue in cheek acknowledgment of the whole element like "it's fine to celebrate Other holidays of course. but you Gotta celebrate christmas with meeee.mp3") (separate note but shoutout to the "it's Not fine to celebrate other holidays ugh!" faction who don't Really want the idea of "we'll just be over here having a joyous occasion while you have to sit it out, unhappily unbaptized" to result in universal conversion, they just want Being Christian to confer authority, hey no you Can't be also having fun having food celebrating observing etc etc >:( and i certainly Can't be Forced at p.c. gunpoint to acknowledge Your goings on exist like You absolutely should have to Mine)

anyways it's like hell yeah fun to muse on like yeah the flipside of [strangling diminishing forces always trying to find new ways to encroach & be like how can this benefit me. like capitalism e.g.] being the creative expansive enriching forces like many people who care about the world they are in and about what actually makes life better and less strangled and diminished, which also will spontaneously find ways to grow and can't be truly extinguished or contained by the inherent stifling & limiting & extracting approach. like oh yeah of course like not just the secular out of the house outside the family shit that can be fun fr but now also the modern media, after [nothing to me b/c xmas soured & then was not much relevant & yeah i'm not exactly dying to "replace" the The 25th aspect anyways even if i supposed there was some opportunity right there but it's not much relevant] like ooh yeah fuck the joe iconis christmas extravaganza huh lmao i hear that i get that. krampusnacht's beautiful reinvention (even though afaik currently krampusnacht is also mostly about out of the house out of the family partying & antics like a lil scamp. to me it's about fucking the krampus now, alternatively, beautifully) i love it i am enthused it is a light in my heart & i'm not unserious about that, the way i could even go [!!!] just over what could be found in traces online for extravaganzas of yore back in dec 2022 when one was not currently going on. like oh yeah lol i could be on a sidewalk and go like "it's (ah) be (ah)" with corresponding choreography & the implied [—ginning to look a lot. like. chris. miss] i love strings of lights i recall the joy to the world harmony years later the nutcracker slaps always i have the media i Have encountered & do enjoy etc etc etc. and shoutout to the haters and the people who do go to church about it even possibly

[pankomako]

video sighted at zero views??? wild

[nyxqueenofshadows]

so officially finished kiwami 2, majima saga aside which won't take long. ignore how this isn't a screenshot, this was easier

i'm just gonna dump the thousand words or so of thoughts i put in my fic doc here for posterity and anyone who might get a kick out of reading them. lots and lots of messiness, vague spoilers for rgg online plus one itsy bitsy reference to the stage play

hot take that there were maybe some redeemable elements in the last bit (mainly all the times kaoru and ryuji talk to each other) but so much of it is so fucking stupid and full of HE WOULD NOT DO THAT (mainly kiryu). idk. i don’t hate it but it needed some work

interesting things learned tho, ryuji didn’t expect to live long, he says he made it further than he was expecting. as we now know from rggo, he already knew about his jingweonha connection and was actively ignoring it (which is why terada marks him for death in the first place. slot han in here?) and remembered the night where his father died (despite being like 2 at the time, at most). kiryu also reiterates that he sees nishiki in ryuji, which i think is fair (and the stage play people clearly agreed). ‘the least i can do is honour a man like that’ is an interesting attitude to have. also ryuji is like ‘i see why my sister fell fer ya’ which is not quite the japanese line (ish) but it’s also not the straightest thing he’s ever said. ryuji also very clearly would have doted on kaoru quite a lot, if they’d lived together as children or otherwise, and i really think we missed out on seeing more of them. maybe i’m just soft for that kind of thing.

i feel like a more interesting conundrum would have been both ryuji and kiryu being wounded from their fight, delaying it again (cos they’d done it once no reason not to do it again) but neither are moving the way they should and (believing the bomb is real) kaoru has to pick one to carry and one to leave behind. (maybe halfway down the stairs or smth?) it wouldn’t be especially original but it would make more sense imo. her going down the lift does nothing but slow her down (ig she has access to the controls and doesn’t use them for hashtag drama reasons) which i don’t think fundamentally changes her position that much from before the second ryuji fight. it also gives her smth to fucking do that isn’t just crying and grabbing fences and doing that dumbfuck charge that i don’t think she would have done (her gun hadn’t gone far! then again i have hindsight and am thinking clearer than she is). anyway kiryu pushes her to take ryuji (guilt over nishiki?) and locks them in the lift thingy and sends them down, fully ready to die now. his and ryuji’s wounds mirror each other but i feel like kiryu got the shorter end of the stick? plus he was shot slightly earlier so has been bleeding for longer.

i cannot say this enough, kiryu would not leave ryuji. like, he just wouldn’t. if there was even a chance he was still alive, he would make sure he got to someone or he would at least try. he’s at his most inactive in cutscenes in kiwami 2 (i think) and it’s frustrating as a player asdfghjkl

ALSO if sudo and date and haruka went to the effort of preparing and going up in that helicopter, why didn’t they also prepare a rope?? or smth to rescue people who were on top of the tower???? they clearly knew there was a bomb up there (beforehand or not is unclear but we don’t see them have a conversation about it) and want kiryu and co. to leave. (and not MAKE OUT ON A ROOFTOP they were really going at it huh, ryuji’s ?corpse? is right fucking there guys oh and goda jin’s? he sort of vanishes from that last bit)

also it would have been kind of funny if, while there was still that ten minutes, everyone sprinted for the stairs and made it down and they’re waiting for the building to blow and when it inevitably doesn’t they’re all just standing there checking their watches like is it late? did smth break? who wants to be the sucker and go check? can we call an ambulance for the two idiots? majima is down in the construction yard i think so he’d probably send nishida, maybe?

idk kiryu has no interest in kaoru to me. he treats her no differently to anyone else aside from the two times they kiss, both of which feel very out of character for him, and that romance subplot takes away any and all girlboss power kaoru had. she went from beating men up and threatening them with bokuto and shit to like, i love man, so sad. (they knew each other like a week!!!!!! and they’re dying for each other!!!! give me a break!!!!!) that’s not to detract from the awful fucking week she has of learning who her family are (some racism in there??? i’m not qualified to speak on that, maybe it’s just the gang thing, ) and then watching literally all of them die one after another. except mama, she’s fine and never appears again. it’s very much aiming for a ‘she can be a ‘woman’ (i.e. be emotional and like cute things and not try and match the locker room attitude of the men) and also take names’ but it doesn’t succeed at that at all. from kiryu’s conversation with her on their little date thing (which is cute, i’ll give it that) he was telling her to be true to herself, right? it's his go to line. which suggests that her kicking dudes in the face a lot and working incredibly hard (she’s a prodigy, in multiple fields! this doesn’t get explored enough) is NOT her true self, the one who plays with teddy bears and falls in love is. which, again, not that those two things can’t co-exist, but the game doesn’t allow them to either. just, ah. more wasted woman potential in a yakuza game. yayoi gets the same treatment :((( you gave me two step on me yakuza ladies and dropped the ball on both of them, come on guys. hopefully she gets to live a little in 8.