#I think at the end of the day I'm more interested in writing about the struggles of being in love than falling in love

[hauntedjellyfishwitch-blog]

Blankets & Burdens

Summary: Sometimes, just sometimes, she catches him flinch.

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader (No use of Y/N)

TW: Very brief mentions of childhood abuse. Brief mention of Merle (He's always a warning). Mostly fluffy with just a sprinkling of angst.

A/N: This is a chapter from a Daryl series I'm writing, but I wanted to see if it would be of interest to anyone before I start posting chapters.

-

Daryl is great in a fight, hell of all people she’s ever met if she wanted anyone to fight with it’d be Daryl, he’s quick and instinctive and strong, but sometimes, sometimes she catches the flinch. Not the usual flinch of being hit, the flinch that tells for a split second he remembers. The flinch of the little boy he used to be, the flinch that makes her see him scared and sad and alone. The flinch that makes her see fucking red.

He barely bats an eyelid at walkers, they’re as easy to him as Squirrels now, but when the bigger man’s fist is millimetres from his face she sees him flinch as if watching it in slow motion. She barely remembers moving until she finds herself standing over his lifeless body with her hands bloody. He’s easily almost double her size, hefty as well as strong but fingertips drip onto the ground with a deafening thud that she should barely be able to hear.

There’s a tremor in her hands as she looks at them, she’d like to blame the cold for it but she knows it isn’t the weathers fault. It’s been hotter than Satan’s asshole for weeks, so why they had to go hunting on the coldest day of the damn apocalypse she’ll never know but she hasn’t turned down an invitation for his company yet. He asks if she wants to join and the easy answer of yes rolls off her tongue before she’s even thought about his question. She’d say yes to anything as long as he asked.

“Thanks”

His voice startles her out of her thoughts, and she knows him well enough to know that’s on purpose, so she raises a fleeting smile in his direction suddenly feeling warmer just for having looked at him. She clenches her fist to try and calm the movement in her hand, just missing the way his gaze flicks down and back up in time to clock it. He’s observant to an alarming degree.

“Always”

Daryl’s arm cracks loudly as he pulls the blade out of the mans torso, grunting as he adjusts it in its socket to make sure he hasn’t just dislocated it. She nods towards it as he awkwardly hands her the machete back, trying to ignore the fact his fingers touch hers, trying to ignore the way it electrifies him or the way she shakes.

“You okay?”

“’m fine”

He brushes her off as if the joint doesn’t sting, as if his whole body doesn’t hurt already when he wakes up, as if any of them have been okay since everything started. Sure, the prison is a million times better than being on the road, but its not exactly comfortable and he doubts anything will ever be safe again; what’s a little shoulder pain if not another inconvenience on top of a never ending plethora of inconveniences.

-

There’s a fire going that night. It burns just outside the courtyard where they’ve dragged a handful of chairs to hide, enough behind a building to be out of the line of sight from the walkers gathering by the fence. He watches for a moment as she tries to warm herself up, still delicate hands running the length of her arms as she stares at the flames in front of her. He’s been surprised that she’s managed to stay gentle in all of this, always a smile or a laugh for him but her face looks haunted.

He watches her more often than he’ll admit to, though he’ll admit to exactly zero watching if anyone dared to ask, which they wouldn’t because he still looks terrifying to most people. He’s definitely not in love with her, no way, he definitely doesn’t lay awake at night thinking about how he’d like to grow old with her. Zero thinking or watching, if anyone asked, thank you very much.

He toes his boot on the concrete as he tries to decide if he should leave her alone. He doesn’t, of course, because he can’t. Hasn’t been able to since he found her in a cabin in the woods with more holes than walls. Excuse after excuse to be close to her, and okay there’s a tiny spark of hope in him that feels like she seeks him out too, but he’s never allowed himself to entertain the blossom of it for more than a split second before his low self-esteem takes over.

“Ya alright?”

“Yeah”

Her voice sounds far away, quiet and floating in the middle distance as she stares through the fire without turning to look at him. He sits on a chair next to her, tapping his fingers against his jean covered knee to stop from reaching out to hold her hand or something equally embarrassing.

“Ya sure?”

“I didn’t even blink”

“Huh?”

“Saw you flinch and I just wanted him off you, didn’t even hesitate”

“Yeah” he doesn’t know what to say, he’s had the same urge for her countless times. He never hesitates; he likes the group, he really does despite his disposition, but he thinks they’d probably have to think twice if it was a decision to save him. He doesn’t have a response for knowing she wouldn’t.

“People talk you know? Stuff about your brother”

He grunts in acknowledgment, but he doesn’t have a response. Of all the places he thought this conversation might go, Merle never crossed his mind.

“I think maybe we’re not as different as you think we are. I saw the way you flinched, I…recognised it” She pauses for a beat, flicking her gaze up to him, catches the way he chews on his lip before she continues “I don’t know who or what-“

“I ain’t gon-“

“I’m not asking. I’m just sorry that’s not something you got to tell me in your own time”

He’s taken back by the care in the sentence, though he shouldn’t be. She’s given him pause numerous times with the amount of consideration she shows. He’s not the only observant one between them.

She shivers violently, bopping the soles of her trainer covered feet on the ground to make her body shake.

“Ya alright?”

“Freezing. Can’t get warm, been cold for fucking hours” She tries to laugh but he hears the way her teeth clench as she grits the sentence out. They’ve been back since before sundown, she should have warmed up by now.

“Ya want my jacket?”

“No, I think I’m going to bed” She pauses as she stands. Rests her hand on his shoulder with a firm but gentle squeeze, he resists the urge to gasp at how cold her hands are “Thanks though”

-

The gentle tap of knuckles against metal makes her lift her head. It’s quiet enough not to wake her if she’d been sleeping, and that alone tells her its Daryl before he even draws back the makeshift curtain. For all of his gruff exterior, considerations seeps from his every pore even without trying.

“Brought ya a blanket”

His voice is low, hushed and gruff at the edges but he holds it out to her like a kid who might get scolded for it. She shuffles up slightly, smiling at him in the dim light from the hallway.

“This your one?” She asks, knowing there’s hardly spare anything in this place anymore, taking it and bunching it up under her nose to inhale the smell of him, knowing it’ll look like she’s testing her theory instead of relishing it.

He doesn’t answer which is in itself an answer, she shakes her head, holding it back towards him.

“Jus’ take it”

She studies the way his sock clad feet twitch against the floor, the slightly wringing of his hands in front of him, nervous and shy in a way that’s so him but shouldn’t be.

“Want to share with me?”

“Nah, it’s okay”

She opens the blanket covering her with her free arm, refusing to take her eyes of his face to see if she’s imagining what’s been under the surface with them. It’s minute really, a split second that she’d have missed had she not been looking for it, but his eyes flick down to her bare legs, jaw clicking in what looks like restraint. She tilts her head to the side like a dog trying to understand a situation that seems familiar but isn’t.

“’Cause you don’t want to, or ‘cause you think I don’t?”

He doesn’t answer. Her options are push him out of his comfort zone or take his only blanket and neither seem like a great option, but he hasn’t stopped looking at her and he doesn’t seem like he wants to make a Daryl sized hole in any of the walls.

“Won’t even touch you if you don’t want me to”

A pause, a scoffed laugh under his breath. She expects him to ignore the tease entirely. He’s shy, tentative, she’s not even sure he feels anything like she does but he accepts the invitation with a stiff nod, closing the curtain behind him so the light blurs out. She can just about make out the solid shape of him as he steps forward.

He’s quiet at the best of times, hunting trained steps that are softer than they seem they would be, but he barely makes a sound until he’s sitting on the edge of her cot. Shaky sigh leaving barely parted lips as he eases his legs up onto the bed; sliding under the blanket she offers; throwing his own one on top of them both haphazardly.

“Didn’t say that, did I?”

He lifts his arm up, above her head, sucking in a sharp quiet breath when she burrows into the crook, resting her head on his firm bicep and avoiding his shoulder. Its not like he was expecting her to face the wall or anything, but he’ll never stop being shocked by the casual affection she offers.

“Don’t want to hurt your arm”

He huffs, using his other hand to shift her into a slightly more comfortable but closer position so her head Is resting on his chest. He studies the top of her head like it holds all the answers, like if he can just focus on the tip of her nose that he can see past her hairline he can magically work out what this means.

“Why ya s’ kind to me?” He whispers, as if he hasn’t spent all day caring for them all, hasn’t given up his blanket and his bed to keep her warm. He thinks she might have drifted off before she answers, soft voice low and drenched in the threat of sleep. Comfortable. Warm.

She moves a hand up to his chest, rests it over his heart so she can hear the steady thudding under her palm, presses her lips to the cold skin on his cheek

“Why don’t you think you deserve it?”

“Go t’ sleep”

A snort, dismissive in a way she normally wouldn’t let him get away with. Normally he’s not wrapped around her though, normally the beginnings of rest aren’t pulling behind her eyelids whilst he holds her.

“Goodnight Daryl”

[fernpetals]

What do you think about Donnie Barksdale and David Allen Griffin of Dollification Kink?

Hmm, that's an interesting question. I have watched 'The Gift' but not 'The Watcher'. But I have read/watched some reviews about 'The Watcher' so I'm not sure how accurate I can be. I will be skipping the canon part and write about the yandere aspects Warning: Dollification, objectification, sexism, non-con, dub-con, stalking, harassing, violence, yandere behaviour and implied age-gap

Masterlist

Yandere Donnie Barksdale

GIF credit to the owner Unedited Piece

Donnie is not a good man in the movie, do not expect him to be good as a yandere as well. Canon Donnie is violent as such. He is a hypocrite, he is violent, and intolerant and yet there are hints of having some childhood trauma that made him that---though that does not excuse his behaviour in any form.

Yandere Donnie is violent as well and believes in rigid gender roles, but let us assume that he does love the reader, in his own twisted way and hurting her is not the first thing in his mind.

But that does not make him pleasant in any way. He is the type you are warned about. If you are new in town, he might take advantage of your lack of knowledge about him and pose as a kind of 'rough around the edges but kind-hearted man'. You have a flat tyre? He is going to fix it for you, even though you feel like you should be cautious around him.

But if you are already familiar with his notorious reputation, then he can skip the act and just be himself. If the events of the movie affect him in any way, the most he can do is to let Valerie have a smooth divorce and never see her again. I can see him putting an effort into being a better man but some things just don't change.

He might try to be 'good' to you first but if you reject him, or avoid him, he is not afraid to intimidate you. Imagine going somewhere and his pick-up truck pulls up. "Off to somewhere? Need a ride?"

Canon Donnie is scary as such but Yandere Donnie is persistent, does not take no for an answer and is not above stalking you. He forcefully inserts himself into your life and tries to control you. You are partying somewhere? No, you are not. It will do you no good. He knows how nasty boys can be (hypocrite alert!) so either you go back home or he is taking you back to his place. He is almost tempted to do this though. But he does not want to run into trouble with the law again. As a yandere, he is not afraid to harass you until you say yes to a date with him, or even worse, marry him. If you have a boyfriend or have been even remotely friendly with a boy, he will beat him bloody. He will harass even your family, make rounds around your neighbourhood frequently and make sure you see that.

If you go to the cops, he is going to be pissed, but if the sheriff is a man to be afraid of, that might make him back off, for a while. But he might come up with something more sinister.

If you end up marrying him or being his girlfriend for some unfortunate circumstances, his controlling nature will emerge and sometimes, his anger issues will rear its ugly head. He would be breaking things, shouting at you and gripping you tight enough to leave bruises. He is not afraid to manhandle you, like Tom, but unlike him, in the heat of the moment, Donnie can hurt you---he might regret later, but at the moment, he does not care. Even if he tries to better himself, old ways always come back. He is controlling, jealous, possessive and does not know the meaning of 'no'. Arguments with him either end up with you two on the bed, or something broken or smashed that leaves you shaken.

Donnie's behaviour on good days may even give you a whiplash. He is sweet, kind and giving. He comforts you, makes sure that you are snug, cosy and loved and treats you every bit of a soft doll he sees you as.

As mentioned before, he is into rigid gender roles. You are to take care of the house while he provides. If you do not conform to your role as the sweet little housewife who always looks gorgeous for him--well-maintained, dressed up smelling like a fresh breeze and always wearing a smile for him, you will have to face his wrath.

Yandere Donnie might care for you enough to actively fight his demons and try not to hurt you, but he ultimately views you as his property. A pretty little doll who is all dressed up for him. He likes to believe you are with him because you genuinely love him, not because he beat up one of your loved ones or punched the kind man who helped you with your groceries. He forces himself to believe that you trust him, even after he raises his hand on you. He might have enough self-control to not beat you up but he is not above choking, slapping or really hard spanking. There are moments of lucidity when he is vulnerable enough to express his regret to you, but they are rare. He regrets, but behind your back. His regret is mostly shown in the way he turns 'good' to you. Takes you out---movies, dates, and shopping or maybe makes you a hearty meal. Even in the bedroom, his controlling and possessive nature comes to life, but with a darker face. It is a canon thing that he is good in bed, and he uses it to his advantage. You can cry, scream and or plead, but he makes you come as many times he wants and however, he wants while mocking at you for enjoying it. "Aren't you a little slut? Comin' on my fingers after tryin' to run?" He loves to see you helpless and under his thumb and it is just one of the many ways he likes to exert his control over you, to place you in the roles he believes are ideal. But deep down, he is a miserable, insecure and cowardly asshole whose sense of control is rooted in his fear as well as in his ego. So, redemption might be a far cry. The best he can do is to try not to hurt you physically and express his 'love' for you. ***** This one stretched longer than expected, I will be posting about Yandere Davild Allen Griffin in another Part.

[royhasissues]

I'm gonna put this here bc I don't know if I'll ever write it.

I had an AU where Lethica was a queen and Marius her knight. He was essentially her body guard and was always at her side.

Marius is a human and not a vampire because that wouldn't make sense lol. Lethica is still a drow and she still wears her mask (the owl one). Honestly, she looks hot as hell in my mind lol. The mask has something to do with the beliefs of the kingdom and all that idk. Recently, someone mentioned that Marius should just worship Strygga if he gets a redemption arc, so I'm incorporating that because I didn't know what god to choose at first (I also know NOTHING about Strygga...).

Marius is wholly devoted to his queen and that devotion turns to love at some point during the fic. He has a lot of angst about this because she's literally the QUEEN lol. Not only is he not worthy of her (in his opinion), but she's also supposed to marry royalty and all that. He's guilty because it feels a bit like a betrayal of her trust to have such feelings... He does his best to quash these feelings and just do his job.

But he would do anything for her. I had some scenes where other ruler/viceroy/proxy were somewhat dismissive/rude to Lethica during a meeting and he gets all up in arms about it and Lethica has to tell him to relax lol.

Little does silly Marius know, but his feelings are requited. Lethica does not have such angst, but she does keep her feelings close to her chest for some time.

They have a lot of moments were they like almost say/do something, you know? Like they'll have a moment and stare just a little too long or he'll protect her and be very worried about her well-being. All that fun stuff! :D

Despite being her most trusted knight, Marius has not seen her face. Of course, there would be a scene where he does, and it would likely be quite similar to canon. It's so over for him after that because she's beautiful lol. I'm imagining him covering his eyes like, "My queen!!!"

Lethica instigates most of the time, she'll flirt and compliment him (praise kink) and he'll get all flustered but he doesn't reciprocate, obviously.

At some point marriage would be discussed between the two. Just that Lethica should marry a king at some point and Marius is all sad about it (but he can't let her know that! He tries to be very professional). Lethica doesn't give a shit about marrying royalty, she likes her little knight. He's confused about how blase she is about it. She doesn't tell him that it's because she's more interested in him.

At some point it would all come out and they'd get together. Marius assumes it's kind of a clandestine thing and that she'll still marry royalty some day. He would be wrong. She says Fuck the rules, I'll marry whoever I want. And Marius is like :O

Happy ending :)

Jericho is the court jester.

I did kind of think about the other characters, but I don't think they'd really be in it that much. This is about religious levels of devotion lol. My favorite Lethicus dynamic is Marius absolutely worshiping Lethica... heh.

I've had this idea for MONTHS and I love it a lot, but idk if I'll ever be able to write it :/

[thecurioustale]

I had a read of this today, and shall share my thoughts!

First, by virtue of its brevity, this ended up being your first fictional work that I've ever read. I've been holding off on delving into your existing body of works till Jennyffer Episode 10 was finished so as not to cross the streams of two different works. (I'm not sure if that's even a thing for you, but if it were me and I had two works out, and I got feedback on both of them at the same time, the effect would be anti-synergistic / less than the sum of its parts.)

Anyway, let's start at the end, with translation stuff: I didn't read the note at the end of the story till, well, I got to the end of the story! While I was reading I had been thinking to myself how very impressed I was by your English proficiency. You've already demonstrated vast skill here on Tumblr, but this story was written in a way that seemed to lack any error at all: quite a high level of polish! So when I saw that it was originally in Spanish and adapted to English with the help of a translation service, that made sense. As an native English speaker of some repute myself, I can vouch for the good job Deepseek did. That said, as I had been reading your story it reminded me of The Days of the Deer, the book you recommended me which I am currently reading. There is a certain impersonal quality to it. (I want to stress that my use of the word "impersonal" is neutral here, and does not carry an aesthetic judgment; I'll get to those later!) The Days of the Deer speaks in an extremely simple style, with absolutely no playfulness in the language, and everything is stated declaratively and matter-of-factly, e.g. "Old Mother Kush understood that it was time to leave the room." At first I had thought that Liliana Bodoc was imitating the style of the old myths, which are often written in such a style. But as I went on I began to wonder if it might be an artifact of the English translation. There is virtually no figurative language, no "having fun with the wordsmithing," etc. And, fair enough, some authors don't like to engage with that aspect of authorship. But it felt rather impersonal, and now that your story here also has that exact same style, it makes me wonder even more if this in fact a translation artifact and not representative of the warmth of the original text. I would be interested in your opinion on that, actually, as it will help me to learn and better understand Bodoc's writing.

Another aspect of your story, which also exists in the nebulous realm of possibly being related to the translation or is perhaps a deliberate choice of style on your part, is the curious use of vocabulary. Days are called "cycles"; the world is said to be "illuminated" rather than "shining" or "bright"; the place for urinating is the "designated area." This kind of style, where "the most common word is seldom the one chosen," reminds me very much of the midcentury science fiction writers in English, who wrote like this as a way of evoking an alien, exotic quality of their extraterrestrial settings and beings. Is it on purpose, to illustrate just how different this version of humanity is? Or is it Deepseek's doing, and the vocabulary in the original Spanish wouldn't read this way? When I was younger I used to reach for "more expensive" words myself; it's how we incorporate them into our own vocabulary naturally, I think: My very ambitious vocabulary in the past gives me access to those words today in a much more fluent manner. And you did mention that you wrote this story six or seven years ago, so perhaps this is what's on display in your story?

I enjoyed reading this story! I am still learning about you, and, as I know so well, with my own fiction being so different from my nonfiction, there is a lot to be learned about you that isn't necessarily accessible through your day-to-day nonfiction writing here in Tumblr. So your fiction is potentially a different viewpoint of the same "Amandonian" monument, offering different perspectives thus, and the revelation of new faces and aspects. Having read two of Rob's novels recently, I was also reminded of that...how there's just so much about him that I don't know, but which is hinted at only through his fiction.

Since this was my first exposure to your fiction besides Jennyffer, I was very curious to see "what you've got to say." I found your introduction ("a quick exploration of an alternative world where humans evolved to be solitary animals (like bears or tigers) instead of a social species") to be an immensely helpful orientation, as I felt grounded in the purpose of the story immediately, and I think that this helped me to enjoy it more. (Which raises the topic of how one should introduce their stories, which I will leave for another day.)

The story was very much a still life, a mixture of worldbuilding and thematic description, without any plot or internal "point" per se. As you know, I do tend to enjoy that kind of writing :3, so I found that agreeable. Indeed, I like that you didn't take any of the several stereotypical offramps that presented themselves. The attacking boy and his ensuing death was not used as a plot twist, which I would have found dissatisfying. The other neighboring humans make no appearance in the story (except for the distant cries of one at the end), which I was sure would happen at some point, but I like the story better for having not done so. The focus was solely on the protagonist and his isolation.

I am a huge fan of the "zoomed-in third-person omniscient" narratorial point of view. I use it myself in most of my fiction: It mimics the third-person limited POV whenever it wants to (and it frequently wants to), but is capable of instantly relaying external information to the reader or hopping into the minds of other characters. So I enjoyed the extra embellishments in your story that were not in the protagonist's own knowing, such as the number of breaths left to the boy or the very meta revelation that the protagonist was having an important thought for the first time. Etc.

I found the premise of your story interesting. For me, it served to underscore how unlikely such a humanity actually is. The humanity you describe in your story, Homo solus, couldn't exist from the stock our own species. They would die out very quickly. Our social nature and support of one another probably accounts for more than 80 percent of our survival as a species, throughout history. Probably a lot more than 80 percent; I picked "80" arbitrarily as a ratio that I think would be hard to argue with by virtue of understating my case. Considerable pre-speciary evolutionary adaptations are required for Homo solus to be viable. This seems to be the case in your story, as Something Weird apparently happened a little farther up the family tree to the female half of the human precursors, which carried forward into Homo solus, while the male half appears to be much like those of Homo sapiens. It's fascinating that you would choose for female members of Homo solus to be so unrelatable, menacing, and dangerous, while giving us a highly-relatable, skillful, and intelligent male Homo solus protagonist, "The Man."

But, to get back to your story premise, I wanted to what you actually think about it? I make no assumptions here; I was chastened recently when, after reading The Apocalypse of Herschel Schoen and offering commentary, Rob pointed out to me that he didn't actually agree with the AI doomerism premised in his story. That thought had honestly not occurred to me while I was reading it! Obviously I know in the abstract that writers don't have to agree with the things they write, but I'm so used to my own vantage point of having a glacially slow pace of publication that, to me, it would be insanity to spend time and energy on a story premise I don't actually endorse. But you are not me, so I wonder: What do you think of this premise?

I had thought at first we were headed for the Ferengi at first, some supremely ultra-selfish picture of society. Maybe a dig at "capitalism" for good measure. But you didn't go in those directions at all; you stuck very literally to the idea of "a species that is solitary, not social," and that high-faith implementation forces a complete rethinking of the premise, with all previously attached strings cut off. And that's what got me to what I said above: The premise is completely unworkable without significant evolutionary divergence in our precursor species.

As far as I know, there is no species among the simians who could account for a viable Homo solus. For female domination, the closest animal on the Earth to humanity that I am aware of is the spotted hyena—quite a ways off the family tree from us, and they're still very much a social species! So what you're proposing isn't biological realism so much as the pure whimsy of fantasy, the lightening of one's boots off the ground and floating up into the air of possibility without the constraints of real-world history.

I found it quite refreshing! Much as I love the vividness of the anchor that is realism, sometimes, when you float away from it at precisely the right moment, the most amazing ideas come into view.

I think, as far as negative criticism go, I only have one: I think the altercation with the boy under-delivered on the emotional intensity that I expected. I am glad that the altercation wasn't "drawn out"; I think it was about the right physical length for me. But I think there is a sentence of contextualization missing. Or something, at least, to either deepen the emotional intensity and dramatic tension of the encounter, or else to otherwise make the encounter stand out more. I do think it did a good job of illustrating just how starkly solitary and non-social Homo solus is: The boy's motives are only briefly pondered, and his behavior is judged in the most conservative fashion without any benefit of the doubt owing to the potential danger of grievous harm or death. It really underscores why conservatives exist at all: In lieu of more information, it's safer to just kill everyone. =/ Ironically, this reminds me of my theory that conservatism is fundamentally a prey animal instinct. Humans have this strange blend of predator and prey within us, perhaps because we are both highly territorial amongst ourselves and situated at an intermediate (albeit high) tier in the food chain, with many animals who would have hunted us in the past. And so we are a deeply afraid species, but not a helpless species, and thus are quick to violence—and impossibly enamored of our machismo and chest-thumping and faction-building. Homo solus wouldn't have access to the latter, and wouldn't have need of the other two, but the option of violence is still there.

And yet it is interesting that such a creature would nevertheless still take pets—subservient utility animals—and form social bonds with them. If I were being a stickler I might be inclined to call that a continuity error, although in truth I think the notion probably deserves a full trial: Maybe it really is the case that a sapient but strictly non-social species could still form social bonds to its servant animals. A fascinating idea...

Anyway, there you have it! I enjoyed the story. Thanks for posting it. I only found your post because I specifically go to your page sometimes to see what you're up to, since there is too much for Tumblr to show me in my main feed. But I still miss a lot of your stuff because you're a frequent poster. So if you ever have something you want to alert me to, feel free to reach out directly.

And for everyone else, go read Fip's story! It's short, and she made an interesting thing.

i posted a new short story in AO3

HOMO SOLUS a quick exploration of an alternative world where humans evolved to be solitary animals (like bears or tigers) instead of a social species.

for some reason tumblr is not letting me post the link right now, so you will have to follow it manually, right here!

[eelclaw]

stupid fucking bastard. i am not coping with the leaks

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Tumblr isn't letting me find again @fictionadventurer's and my own posts on epistolary novels, but I have been thinking about it again, because I fell down a Goodreads review rabbit hall and I have thoughts again.

So many people dislike the style, and honestly, I don't blame them, because it's so often done... not well. It is in some aspects, a deceptively easy one, and in others, deceptively hard. And because I'm trying to write a novel with this format myself, I have been thinking about what makes or breaks an epistolary novel.

I talked yesterday about TGLPPS, because it is an interesting case to analyze. I have thought many times about it, and cannot think of a single non-merely-aesthetic reason for it to be told in an epistolary style. A lot of it depends on -British- people who have survived some terrible war conditions willingly opening up to a stranger about their experiences, and that's made... even more difficult if the medium is letters? typically writers will appeal to tropes like making the reserved character drunk, or have them share an extreme experience in isolation with the stranger to create sudden intimacy. None of this is possible in writing; if anything, one is much more self-conscious about the things one writes than the things one says; verba volant, scripta manent.

It seems to me the story would have flowed much more naturally if Juliet had been stranded on Guernsey for some reason -like the first author herself!- suddenly Dawsey commenting that he got a book from her library makes so much more sense! Yes, certainly, if you met a stranger out there, and they introduce themselves and you realize you have a book that once belonged to them, you would tell them so! And it is in this way that the epistolary format does violence to a story that would otherwise sound much less contrived.

Another problem is the large cast of characters and multiple settings. For all I complain about Dracula, Stoker manages this pretty well (of course he has the model of The Woman in White, but TWiW has fewer povs), at least on the first half, because structurally the storylines of the characters are converging, and that does a lot to guide the reader in the understanding of the character's relationships. TGLPPS's relationship structure is more of a multidirectional flow chart, and that becomes confusing really fast.

Another novel I read reviews for recently is one set in WWI, composed of back and forth letters between two lovers torn apart by war, and one common complaint was... that the climactic scenes, the times they meet, etc all happen... off-camera. It is a fair complaint, but also one I cannot really blame the author for, because that's what usually happens with real life compilations of letters of that kind. Sure, usually the editor/compiler will fill in the blanks sometimes and add an epilogue of sorts explaining what happened afterwards, and that is possible if you are writing it fictionally too, but some may think it spoils the effect of immediacy and whatnot, which, fair too.

But it makes me think of how aware Jean Webster was of these difficulties, and how deftly she managed them in both Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Both novels have aged badly in terms of content and message, but they are very interesting stylistically.

DLL is a bildungsroman with a dash of romance; through Judy's letters to daddy long-legs we can see how she grows as a person, gaining independence intellectually and economically, and as a writer, as her grammar and vocabulary change and grow. Between making Judy an orphan who hates the orphanage where she has lived her whole life, and one where she lived past the usual age of being thrown into the world, Webster does away with the need for letters between Judy and her friends and family: all her friends and family are her college roommates and her benefactor, who is the person she writes to. The benefactor scheme also makes it so that she doesn't have to write dll's replies, which in turns makes it much more natural and acceptable for the reader when Judy writes him the ending's love letter describing the feelings and impressions of their finally meeting in person and in truth; Judy has become a writer, and she is so used to write to him as another person all the time, that it just makes sense for her to write to him one more letter at the point where her benefactor and her lover become one and the same person. She has written a novel where the core is the correspondence between lovers AND managed to include as well all the moments of their meetings that we would otherwise miss.

Dear Enemy is a similar, but longer and more ambitious story. Instead of one relationship-connection (Judy and Daddy's), we have Sallie as a nod of connections: she's Judy's friend, Jarvis' "employee", the boss of several characters, has a tense colleague-boss relationship with the visiting doctor, a boyfriend of sorts in Washington, and a family we have met before. It is, in that way, a similar setup to TGLPPS: a urban girl of means becomes a fish out of water in a different setting till she ends up assimilating to it, and settling definitely through marriage. But Webster does a few things differently to make it click.

For starters, it is clear to her that this is the story of Sallie's maturation -I have sometimes talked of Dear Enemy as a novel where a Mary Crawford-like character undergoes a transformation arc. The happenings and stories she meets and tells Judy about along the way serve this arc, besides standing on their own as case studies to illustrate the problems, ideology and solutions proposed to the secondary themes of the story (education and social reform). I feel like TGLPPS is much more interested in Guernsey's survival through the war, in which case Juliet's story is already a frame, which, again, makes the epistolary format cumbersome rather than complementary.

Dear Enemy adds more correspondents, but it is very austere/economical with them, and narrows the letters we see to only those Sallie sends. YMMV regarding if it was too much cutting or not, but the undeniable effect is structural soundness; you are never confused by what is happening or who is writing to whom. We can guess the Honorable Cyrus Wykoff probably wrote some indignant letters to Jervis, and those would be funny to read, but... would they be worth the break in the flow of the narrative? I don't think so. To this effect, just having Sallie write a line to the effect of "I expect at this point you have at hand an irate letter from the Hon. Cyrus" is enough to paint a picture for the reader. Perhaps a letter or two from Dr. MacRae would have helped develop his character more -definitely a first read of the story obscures how much misdirection there is in Sallie's narration to Judy, which in turns tends to create an impression of suddenness to the closing letter that doesn't come across well to the reader.

The choice of Sallie mainly writing to Judy is, IMO, a really good one too. It not only establishes a connection with DLL, but it also allows for the intimacy that makes disclosure believable (something TGLPPS struggles with, as I mentioned above). When you add a few letters to the doctor and Gordon and Jervis, you also get a better perspective of Sallie's personality, how she deals not only with a friend, but with acquaintances, romantic partners and coworkers.

From all this it is pretty evident that for Webster the main function of epistolarity as format is aiding in showing psychological and moral development. But that's not the only thing the format can be really good for: perspective is another, and Austen uses it to great effect in both Lady Susan and Lesley Castle.

Both stories deal with mainly static characters, but who have very strong perspectives of the same situation, and it is this singularity of setting and story that anchors the narrative to avoid confusion, while the variety of perspective brings interest. In Lady Susan, we are dealing mainly with the marrying off of Frederica and seduction of Mrs. Vernon's brother, Reginald. There where Lady Susan paints Frederica as an undisciplined, irrational and ungrateful daughter, her sister in law, Mrs. Vernon, paints her as a sweet girl and a victim of her mother's ruthlessness and lack of love. Both agree that Reginald is being seduced, but, of course, with opposite goals: Lady Susan wants him to succumb, Mrs. Vernon, to escape, and this is a delicious struggle for the reader to follow!*

Lesley Castle being an earlier effort, and unfinished, does show some of the defects I have mentioned before (mainly, the relative confusion of having several correspondents in separate storylines), but illustrates well this same perspective effect: Margaret writes to Charlotte about the new Lady Lesley, and the new Lady Lesley writes to Charlotte about about Margaret and her sister... and in these contrasts lies the main interest of the narrative.

Some conclusions to these musings, then:

Not every story is suited to the epistolary format.

The epistolary format seems to work the best when it is used for either A) showcase psychological and moral development B) to play with perspective on people and/or events.

One of the main difficulties of the format is finding a narrative element to anchor and structure the letters around.

It must have a core couple of correspondents, or at most, two. More than that will make it confusing (unless, perhaps, the story is very short and about a single event or two).

A delicate balance must be found so that the secondary correspondence doesn't cut the flow of the main one, and if possible it must feed into it.

*It is interesting how Love and Friendship, being such a delightful -and I sustain one of the best ever- Austen adaptation, is by force of the perspective switch towards a more impersonal third person, more about a love story between Frederica and Reginald than a struggle between Lady Susan and Mrs. Vernon. Which isn't dissimilar to how adaptations of DLL end up being more about the romance between the leads than Judy's coming of age in college; tropes aside, I feel like if the epistolary format is well embedded in the story, it's going to be nearly impossible to reproduce the effect in adaptation.

[vandalizedheart]

if i may allow myself a monthly Joker Moment, a lot of the harshness i have towards myself tends to be a side effect of how the rpc as a whole tends to operate.

i have a lot of joy and love for the things i create. when i share them in rp spaces here though? sometimes it gets hard to keep loving them, and myself as well.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Adorned by stars | Changing States

When he hits the I-70, Jeremiah slots George Michael’s Faith into his ’98 Accord and drives with the windows down. His mother would chide him for two reasons: a) he’s wasting fuel and b) it’s begun to storm. But he likes the way the wind shears through his hair like a nail breaking drywall and he likes the way spats of rain settle on his skin like constellations because on the road, he isn’t just a hand for someone else to hold, a body to handle, a man who looks at another man and fears how much of himself he’s lost in his reflection. No. On the road he is the sky, adorned by stars of his own making, relentless in his abundance, blinking in the absence of any other light.

A little Changing States aesthetic & excerpt!

i'm so normal about him i'm so normal i'm so normal i'm so-

[skrunksthatwunk]

ok so. kiwami 2. rooftop scene. the ending. it's a bit of a clusterfuck but i wanna talk about one detail, a problem they bring to your attention by Fucking. Talking About Her.

haruka is watching all of this unfold.

[this post is like 4.5k words long + pretty critical + has spoilers for kiwami and kiwami 2, and really minor/vague ones for a couple others. they're not that bad though, trust me (and i added a warning in the one place it is major)]

ALSO CONTENT WARNING i'm gonna talk about kiryu's passive suicidality a good amount in this one, so stay away from this if you think that might affect you negatively/you'd be better off skipping it. i'll also make a tl;dr (which i will highlight in red) at the very end if you really wanna know what my point is that will exclude those elements <3. i am also going to use a lot of choice-based language in regards to kiryu's contemplation of suicide because i think it's the lens through which the games treat the topic, but i personally don't find it a productive or realistic way to look at suicide or suicidal ideation at all. someone dying by suicide absolutely does not mean they don't care about their loved ones enough to fight on or whatever. i love you, and proceed with caution on this one.

(also i'm using the kiwamis as my point of reference because i uh. don't have a ps2? those are the games that i played, and though the differences are likely slight, i wanna be clear about that. also,, ignore the watermark on these screenshots,, i didn't notice them and i'm not retaking them. we're all gonna have to settle for youtube cutscene comps for now xoxo)

first, we have to talk about the ending of the first game.

[note: i am Really Really Confident kiryu has a conversation earlier in the game about his going to jail in nishiki's stead being him running away and choosing not to resist his two options (go to jail or let nishiki go to jail) and define his own path, fighting his way against fate to make it happen. part of why i'm so confident it exists is because it made such an impression on me at the time. it's pretty important to my interpretation of things but i also can't find it for the life of me, so uh. sorry ✌️ i really tried. this post's takes/analysis will be dependent on this scene existing, so keep that in mind. if anyone knows where to find the scene/screenshots of it, lmk and i'll add a follow-up with it]

kiwami stuff

so as she's dying, yumi tells haruka this:

that she may be dying (painfully, and right as she's getting everything she wanted), but she doesn't regret it, because at least she did something rather than running away from it all. that you shouldn't run away, ever.

shortly thereafter, when the police find kiryu and haruka, this exchange happens between him and date. here's the play by play:

date tells kiryu he can get him out of trouble with this, and that if he doesn't, he'll get life in prison; kiryu declines his help:

kiryu is so devastated (understandably) by the back to back losses of the three people closest to him that he resigns himself to life in prison, and the death-in-effect that would be. he would prefer to waste away rather than struggle through a life without them. prison was monotonous and isolating, but coming back after a decade was overwhelming, and coming back to everything being so warped and twisted, and then losing the corrupted scraps he had anyway, well. he wants to go back to sleep. he doesn't want to be in a world where everything's the same except he's on his own. better to return to safety, to die slowly in a hell he knows well than weather a new one where he has control and agency, and thus one where he has the ability to fail and to lose anything at any time. he explains to date that that loss is why he can accept his death:

date shakes him and asks him if there's really nothing left for him, no reason to keep living at all:

then echoes yumi's advice to haruka:

which makes an impression on kiryu:

date gives him a reason to live in the form of haruka, saying she'll be on her own again if he goes to jail. he hijacks kiryu's tragic protector complex to keep him alive, because she needs him, and because she's someone precious to him:

after the dust has cleared,

kiryu and date also have this exchange, where date tells him to stay away from the cops (and presumably arrest and a return to prison, the aforementioned fate akin to death), and kiryu cites haruka as his reason to stay away, one he holds to with no uncertainty (showing again that he's accepted date's logic, that his reason to keep living even when it's incredibly difficult is to care for the more vulnerable haruka). given the weight of the consequences, to me, it feels like date's telling him not to be alone with his thoughts or something. it's almost frightening:

so, what's our takeaway from kiwami?

kiryu lost everything and hit rock bottom, but he chose to fight, and to live life on his own terms, even when it got difficult. that's the narrative life lesson he had to learn to avoid repeating the events of 1995. he made that choice for haruka's sake. it's seen as growth.

and without him, haruka would've just returned to the orphanage (assuming she could make it back to sunflower at all) with no one who knew or understood what she had been through, no one to mourn with her, and no one to give her the attention, care, and protection she needs. kiryu knows what it's like to be an orphan with a limited parental figure who only checks in every so often (kazama, "aunt" yumi), and what someone will do for attention/affection from that person (via both himself and nishiki swearing up, climbing the ranks, etc. arguably haruka coming to kamurocho by herself to find "mizuki" is similar), and what it's like to lose them anyway (again, kazama, yumi). their situations parallel each others' somewhat, and that binds them further. and after losing everyone (which he blames himself for to some extent, as one can probably assume from this and 2, and something key to his arc in later games), he chooses to protect her. and this time, he won't fail. at least partially because failing would hurt him, too. he'd have nothing left again.

okay. now we get to kiwami 2.

if you forgot, the context is basically:

everybody's fighting on the roof of a building which i'm sure will not be a running theme or anything as the series goes on

there's a bomb that's about to go off and they don't know how to/can't defuse it

ryuji shot the twist villain to death, but took fatal hits to do so

sayama's like hey!! let's get out of here!!! and kiryu and ryuji are like nooo we have to settle this oughh it's punchin time and they stick her on an elevator and send her down so she doesn't have to watch

ryuji loses. sayama returns, they have a cute sibling heart to heart, and ryuji dies in her arms. sad

kiryu is in rough shape as well, and there's like 2 minutes left on the bomb's timer

here's the scene itself:

sayama tells kiryu they have to run, and kiryu says he can't. the gist is "let's run!" "you go without me" "i'm not leaving you!" "i'm in no condition to run" "i'll carry you then!!" sayama: *sees how fucked up kiryu is, realizes he's Going To Die Anyway* "ok, then i'm staying with you!" and then further bickering about that, before they give up and make out (as one does i guess)

date (he's here now) yells this at them from a helicopter:

before someone else in the helicopter tells date this:

we get this shot of haruka calling out to kiryu as the helicopter swerves away:

and kiryu and sayama have this exchange about haruka where they say they let her down, but that she'll understand:

then they hug and the bomb ticks to zero right when the credits hit. in post credits it's revealed that the twist villain defused the bomb when they weren't looking, betraying his co-villain for reasons i truthfully do not remember and am unwilling to look up. it's not about that right now.

so, how does this scene interact with the ending of the previous game?

the short answer is "badly <3" but here's the long answer:

it's about choices.

the thing about fiction is that anything you want to have happen, as a writer, can happen. it may not be effective, internally consistent, or logical, but you can write it regardless. audiences suspend their disbelief for the sake of engaging fully with your fiction, but everyone has a threshold past which they will stop being engaged in a story and either become uninvested or annoyed. writers usually have lines they're unwilling to cross as well. but in almost every story, there's at least a couple of places where they stretch reality a little to make the narrative they want happen. this is not a bad thing at all. that's how stories get told.

now, i'm gonna be real with you. i don't care about how feasible plots are like 95% of the time. it's not something i think about much, nor is it something i prioritize. i am a very character-centric media consumer, so if world building and/or plot are a bit stale or contrived, that doesn't really bother me much so long as i'm invested in the characters involved. some people can't stand plot holes or the ways musicals burst into song or whatever, and that's fine for them. but it's not something i tend to find that all that important.

this is all to say that i have a sorta affection for rgg's flavor of bullshit pulling. and it is a powerful flavor, maybe even an acquired taste, but i can and do rock with it so long as it doesn't damage the characters too much. this is why i'm not making a lengthy post howling into the void about joji kazama or the second joon-gi han or how many secret relatives there are. those things are silly and endearing and a clumsy yet heartfelt part of a series i care about very deeply. i'll joke about it, but i don't consider it much of a flaw. it's more like personality. flaws are texture, and they help a piece's identity. point is i am very, very willing and able to suspend my disbelief for these games in exchange for a good time, particularly via good characters.

(if you want another example of where i draw the line from within rgg, the answer's the YAKUZA 4 SPOILERS INCOMING rubber bullets twist, because i think 1) it's actively horrifically stupid (especially retconning a scene we SAW HAPPEN. WE SAW BLOOD ON EACH IMPACT, AND RUBBER BULLETS DON'T OFTEN BREAK SKIN THAT DEEPLY (THEIR DAMAGE IS MORE PERCUSSIVE THAN PENETRATIVE). THESE EVENTS HAPPEN IN THE SAME GAME YOU DON'T HAVE TO RETCON IT JUST REWRITE IT. OR DON'T SHOW THE HIT AT ALL SO THERE'S MORE PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. DON'T DO THIS JUST TO HYPE UP YOUR SHITTY VILLAIN NO ONE CARES ABOUT. and 2) (a bit more importantly) i think it actively removes saejima's primary internal conflict for that game, that being his intense guilt over the 18 murders he thinks he committed, one i was invested and interested in. but this isn't a rubber bullets post.)

characters in this series walk off a lot of life threatening injuries. they survive miraculously, they escape in the nick of time, and they pull through in the end. kiryu still somehow hasn't killed anyone. almost every game in his saga ends with an "is kiryu gonna make it out this time?!?" shortly followed by a "yeah lol. lmao" postcredits reveal. kiryu fucking punches a marble statue into dust in the first game. having a story that asks you to suspend your disbelief so much and so often means that when a decision is made, it's not the writers saying, "well, this would have to happen so we are obligated/forced to write it happening" so much as "we wanted this to happen for some reason(s)," because you already know that they're not guided solely by logic. again, this is true of all writers, it's just amplified in stories like these because they've already given you so many hard mode suspension of disbelief moments (they've broken you in like leather, yeah? or like how obvious internet scams allow for self selection by being so obvious that only the most vulnerable people would fall for them. they curate an audience willing to play along with their bullshit flavor so they can tell a story that's more likely to satisfy that audience. in a good way, in a fun way! mass appeal is overrated). there is not much limit to what this series is willing to try and sell you.

so when ryuji takes lethal damage taking out the big bad, that's a choice. when he doesn't die immediately, that's a choice. when ryuji and kiryu send sayama away in the soon-to-be-forgotten elevator so they can settle this like men or whatever despite the literal actual bomb about to go off, that's a choice. when sayama comes back, that's a choice. when ryuji does die, that's a choice. when kiryu determines that he can't escape in time, that's a choice. when sayama is unwilling to leave him, that's a choice. when she says she'll carry him out and there's an elevator right fucking there and then she's like never mind i guess i won't anymore we're dying together right now kiryu like they're not gonna even try?? wouldn't distancing themselves from the blast give themselves a better shot, something that's super possible given the 2 minutes they have with that elevator??? sayama you met him like a week and a half ago why are you ready to die with him that's not a plot hole i just think that's kinda strange whatever anyway, that's a choice. when kiryu stops arguing with her so they can kiss (next to her brother's corpse), that's a choice. when date shows up, that's a choice. when the helicopter can't save them because the bomb was going to go off too soon, that's a choice. when they put haruka in that helicopter and take her away, let her only impact be reminding kiryu and sayama that they can't help her, that's a choice. when they spend their last moments talking as if they're already dead, then simply waiting, that's a choice.

they're all choices that the writers made for the characters, and we are asked to believe them for the sake of achieving the writers' vision, as with any story. the only problem is that the writers' vision here fucking blows.

i'm not saying it would be realistic for kiryu and sayama (and even ryuji) to make it out alive, but it wouldn't be out of character for the series in the slightest. kiryu is suddenly unable to power through here, and that's a choice. so, what is their vision?

put simply, i think they wanted a romantic last stand for kiryu and sayama, a tragic scene of doomed, devoted lovers. and i think they wanted an edge-of-your-seat fake out death. they wanted spectacle.

here's how some specific choices they made undermine all that shit we talked about earlier from the first game.

once again, kiryu is called by date to live, to pick himself up and keep going, no matter how impossible the odds are. he's even reminded by haruka's presence, his one anchor in keeping himself going. the growth he had in the parallel scene in the previous game is challenged, and he fails.

it's not enough this time. and that's a choice.

it's also one i can't think of a good reason for, and that's the real kicker.

characters can have developmental backslide just like people do, and if they're given good reason for it, it can be just as, if not far more compelling that purely linear growth (i am a chimera ant arc enjoyer, and that's all i'll say. sorry if you haven't seen hunter x hunter. uhh. i am also a zuko avatar enjoyer if that helps). but i can't think of anything that happened in that game that would cause this from a character perspective. if anything, kiryu should be less likely to do this intentionally. he's spent around a year raising haruka, and a year has passed since he lost his loved ones. at the very least, the pain should be more dull, though it is established through an early nightmare sequence that his ass is (justifiably) not over it yet. given that their deaths were the initial motivation for his willingness to rot forever, theoretically, he should be more motivated to stay alive than before now that he's got more investment and stability in his life outside of them, particularly when it comes to haruka, his reason for surviving. and if the ongoing nature of the trauma was the motivator for this, then they should've had it affect him more past that nightmare scene (it really serves more as a recap of the last game than anything else) so it didn't come out of nowhere. so the reminder of the lesson that saved his life and then guided it for at least a year afterwards, one that the whole resolution of the previous game relied on heavily falls flat for... some reason.

i think this is a good time to mention that, generally speaking, you don't write arbitrary choices into characters. sure, people in real life are often sporadic, but when analyzing fictional characters, every choice is filed into a portfolio of characterization that can and should be analyzed. going for pure realism can obfuscate their development, motivations, themes, etc. their choices and reactions may be unorthodox, but they must be internally consistent. this is very related to how i view plot contrivance as well. characters drive the plot, not the other way around. stories are about the ways characters affect their worlds/lives and vice versa, and they're the human face to the themes and ideas the writers are trying to explore and express. maybe my stance on this seems hypocritical. i don't know if it is. but to me, plot issues are usually a matter of engagement and investment, while character issues are a matter of substance.

i hope this doesn't feel patronizing explaining all of this, but i want you guys to know where i'm coming from in my analysis. starting at my base philosophy on writing is the easiest way to do that, i feel. defining the terms of the debate, and all that. anyway

and i mean, look. they survive because "it was defused the whole time we just didn't see it happen", so it's not like narrative tension or realism or whatever was THAT big of a priority overall. if it was gonna be a cop-out anyway, they should'nt have ruined kiryu's development too, yeah?. and sayama fucks off to america after this game anyway, so it's not like the doomed lovers thing had much payoff or meaning after this one (though you could argue that's more an issue with yakuza 3 than yk2, which has some merit to it). which means that they chose to sacrifice kiryu's prior development and internal logic for the sake of cheap tension for their finale that was both kinda illogical in and of itself (the elevator!! the elevator!!!) and a romantic climax that neither required nor really benefitted from this staging. (like. you coulda had them make out and then get saved by date, or kiss on the elevator in a "it's moving, but will we make it in time??" way or whatever. look i'm not saying those are great options either but they're SOMETHING okay. it would remove/reduce the amount of time wasted on characters sitting around with their thumbs up their asses for no reason in this finale).

instead the message of this finale is that, actually, sometimes it is impossible to change your circumstances and fight for your own way out of an awful situation. and what should you do about this unfortunate truth? uh. die! i guess. it's the exact opposite of the encouraging, optimistic message of the last game. zetsubou chou pride my ass.

note: i feel i should mention that when suicidality is brought up within the series (particularly in substories), it is always something someone has to overcome themselves through wanting it badly enough. they simply need the inspiration and the motivation to keep going. it's arguably treated as a moral obligation. frankly, the series is broadly very meritocratic (<- bad) when it comes to this topic (and others, but that's a Whole Other Thing. see akiyama's weird loan shark tests as well). sheer will and resolve is enough to conquer any problem, be it physical or mental/emotional, and it's irresponsible to act/feel otherwise. this is the logic the games operating under, and kiryu is often the mouthpiece for this bootstrap-pulling "tough love" sentiment. so when kiryu "chooses" to die, yet faces no emotional fallout from date, haruka, or anyone else, it feels very out of place. it's not just an odd choice; it's specifically, once again, an odd choice to make in context of the game/series/character it appears in.

kiryu's just like eh, haruka'll watch her only family die right as she gets some sense of tentative stability and lets her guard down after a devastating month the year prior (and a relatively dismal upbringing before that) that we trauma bonded over. sure, she likely came to view me as the one who would stay no matter what, who was too strong to be taken out, who she could always rely on, and so i know that dying would hurt her immensely, but she's smart enough to know it'd happen eventually. her eventual recovery means it's okay for me to do this (somehow, in a way it wasn't in the first game). it's an excuse within the narrative's logic, and one it is uncritical of simply because it's kiryu. he gets a pass.

and i think with the previously mentioned passive suicidality and general series-long mental health issues kiryu displays (i mean. yakuza 5's literally his depression arc), this could be retroactively seen as an interesting choice, like a piece in that particular narrative. i don't even dislike that viewing, especially in terms of fan approach. but (assuming this went down the same in yakuza 2), they likely didn't have that in mind. all they had then was the first game and the movie. and they took the first game's Entire Message and contradicted it for nothing but a scene they wanted to have happen because it'd be suspenseful and/or emotional (without actually doing the work to earn it). and they're not fans trying to analyze his character, they're the ones making choices for him. and they chose to massacre my boy. and if the subject of kiryu's mental health was a priority of theirs, why didn't they explore that? haruka and date's feelings on him not resisting and their words not being enough (whether that blame is justified by the narrative or not (it shouldn't be btw)), the uncomfortable drifting that resigning yourself to death and living afterwards anyway often brings, literally any conversation about it besides the minimal shit we get post credits of date being like "did you know about the bomb not having a fuse?" which like. bad answer either way (which is why they weren't straightforward about it, the cowards). you can't just be like "oh uh. idk he just gave up this time. yeah he was gonna die on purpose for some reason. good thing the bomb was fake lol" and then pack up and go home!! that's stupid!! any merit the idea of kiryu dying by suicide in this scene and in this way could have had from a character-based perspective loses its weight because 1. it didn't happen (for kinda stupid reasons), which makes it fall flat and 2. no one is really affected by the fact that it almost did, including him. they sacrificed his ass and replaced it with nothing, even when there could have been interesting outcomes to it.

so the narrative effectively chose to kill him by making the situation impossible, and this impossibility is ultimately arbitrary, given the series' usual approach to miraculous, illogical escapes. that, or the choice to stay was up to kiryu and sayama, one that 1. doesn't make sense and is actively regressive in context of kiryu's arc in the only other game in the series (as well as his whole saga in retrospect) and 2. one that contradicts how the series sees/treats resignation to death/death by suicide in all other contexts without being addressed, challenged, or condemned in ways it would in all other contexts. because they don't want you to think about it like that. they want you to think he (and the narrative) had no choice, that it made sense to do that. but it didn't. it doesn't.

and look, honestly? if i was bleeding out and had like 2 minutes to live, there's a non zero chance i'd say fuck it and kiss a girl too. i get it. but i am (and this is crucial) not a fucking yakuza character. and i'm certainly not kiryu kazuma.

tl;dr (basically just rephrasing the second to last main paragraph)

there are not sufficient character reasons for kiryu and sayama not trying to escape. additionally, because the narrative regularly facilitates even less likely escapes, it's not so constrained to logic and reality that it couldn't pull this one off. the choice to let their situation be impossible this one time was a cheap and arbitrary way of forcing a scene they thought would be cool and dramatic, and in doing so they chose to cannibalize a key emotional note of the previous finale (namely kiryu's mission to dedicate his life to protecting haruka) for hollow last minute stakes-upping in this one. it is then completely disregarded anyway. god damn.

[milfbrainrot]

have always been a bit more neutral to timebomb but it has rly surprisingly grown on me so much ;-; i think i do see it more from the tragedy angle and maybe more one-sided. i'm not sure jinx has ever been in a place to reciprocate the feelings i'm sure ekko has, but it is nice to think about for years down the line and in terms of what could have been.

[discoreptile]

Beasties of Greenhollow soundtrack! Some tracks on this are from older projects like elphame but all of them have been reworked in some way. Most of them are entirely new. Enjoy!

[pyrriax]

ANYWHO goodnight tumblr i'll be back on the art grind tomorrow i think 🙏

[redeemed-wren]

Classic Who explores ideas, New Who explores morals

classic who is like 'i see this trend, lets explore what might happen if that trend continues and let the audience figure out what it's talking about and come to their own conclusions.'

new who is like 'this trend is BAD and i'm going to PREACH A SPEECH about why it's going to RUIN EVERYTHING' and it's so much more exhausting

[elaineofascolat]

i wanna take a course on arthurian lit soooo bad there's one at my uni that i would be able to take bc there's no english class requirements if it weren't for the fact it's on the campus that's way far away from me i'm so sad

[blujayonthewing]

I've kind of joked about melliwyk being taken by surprise by her own alignment shift but honestly I think if you could have told her at the beginning of the campaign that she was chaotic neutral she'd have been rather troubled by that

[noctomania]

Idk, there is just something about a country denying the right to vote to the majority of the country's population kinda gives me the vibe that withholding your vote isn't gonna make the impact you think it is.

Maybe it's the over 4 million disenfranchised people who have been charged as felons.

Maybe it's the restrictive voting laws that disenfranchises disabled people

Perhaps the attempts to prevent military and overseas American from being able to vote

Could be the continued challenges of the Native population to have their votes counted

But idk! Yanno maybe I'm wrong and ALLLLLL of the big wig democrats for the next 4 years will go to every door of everyone who withheld their vote to have a cup of tea and talk about how the politicians can better appeal to people who refuse to get off their computer to vote.

I reckon a lotta folks are gonna learn to grow up the hard way over the next 4 years, on all sides.

Also, just wanna note for the record: trump got to campaign for EIGHT. YEARS. Harris for 107 days. Sorry she didn't have time to come have a spiritual moment with you personally. (This is for ppl who still insist she "didn't do enough" with her campaign. Foh with that shit, i doubt you've properly cleaned your asshole in that amount of time)