#associating my favorite things

[mayrine]

So I’ve been listening to Will Wood lately and started to associate his song from the Self-ish album to tma. So here are some loosely connected things that i found    (spoiler warning btw)

Self fells like Jon at the end of s2 all defeated and stuff giving a sad song as he  sits on the floor in Georgis apartment. Here are some lyrics that express that: “We'll write history books from memories“ - trying to figure out what the hell is happening from the statements that people give “Well, they always ask you not to leave“ - Elias forcing very nicely asking his employees not to leave “No, I won't come back and be the same“ - Jon and everyone being change about the things they experienced

2012 is about Jon in s3 being scared about becoming an avatar for the eye, as in scared that he’ll lose himself. “I was an existential criminal, so innocently cynical Ignorant as fuck but a proud individual Originally meant to live a God-damned miracle Mighta’ve been metaphysical, but I think it was medical” - basically s1 Jon “Never finding a theory” - Jon not understanding how the statements fit together in a coherent way “Did you lose yourself?” - Jon is afraid that he is in fact losing himself

I dont really have anything on Cotard's solution so we’ll move on

Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity is the theme song of the not!them. I could go to every lyric and say how they related but that would mean that id have to copy paste the whole songs. Still, here are some examples: “Levitating off the ground“ - the first ep, the guy floating a few cm of the ground “Is another man wearing your face!“ - do i really need to say anything at this “Somebody to replace yourself“ - the not!them association with the stranger “Ready in your head and fed upon your memoirs” - again the not!them fit perfectly here

The Song With Five Name is my favorite. I imagine every  entity coming together and making fun of Jon “You can break a shovel when you break new ground You dig dirt up when you dig deep down” -this lyric is about Jon in s2 and 3 breaking every connection he has with other people while trying to uncover the truth “Don't you forget That all you project Is just to protect you from The void within the form“ - again this is about Jon trying to protect himself from the truth with skepticism in s1 “And we'll have nothing left for us to lie to No matter what we seek you'll never find truth” -t he entities telling Jon that he’s to dumb for trying to find the truth

Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In! this is kinda like self in the sense that it’s a Jon solo but this one takes place in the peak of his paranoia in s2. The whole vibe of the song is jon frantically doing anything in his power to figure out what is happening. “It just seems unlikely that it's me who was to blame” - i know i said that this song would fit in s2 but this line specifically remind me of the s3 climax when  i think?? it was Sarah Baldwin that used Gertrude and Leitner skin to make Jon think that the end of the world was his fault “This is not enough, this is not enough to prove it yet No, I need to hit the bottom                                                                              Gotta get to the bottom of this” - pretty self explanatory, Jon trying to find the bottom of things “"Don't look down! You'll fall and break your back!" But that just reminds me how There's more to be found beneath the black” - the “Dont look back” is Elias telling Jon to stop doing stupid thing but he doesn’t listen “Gotta get to the bottom of this Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey Gotta get to the bottom of this If it kills me”  - the last bit of the son makes me think of when Jon got an axe and broke that table. The last chorus fits perfectly with that bit, it has that frantic energy and desperation that Jon is having while he understands how massively he fucked up

Dr. Sunshine Is Dead is just a song for the dark, point blank, so i will not go into it

ish is self part 2. Theres not much to say here, it again plays into Jons fear of losing himself “And if I change my self can I still stay me? Or did I just change my mind? No it doesn't matter who I am”

Now if you read all of that  first i must thank you for putting up with me for that long, you may be thinking that there is no connection and that im grasping for straws or that because the message of the album is about the fear of losing yourself it would obviously share that theme with tma since that is like a main plot point in the podcast and not everything that shares a theme is connected.

And you know what, you’re right. Im not writing this because i think that i found  definite proof that the album and tma are connected, I dont even thonk that the connections I found are that good. First of all, I wrote this because it was fun and it gave me a chance to talk about two of my favorite thing and because I find it really cool how the human mind can find connections between thing that arent related at all and this is an example of that. So, thats all i got. If your a tma fan go give this album a listen because its good and who know maybe youll also think that it fids with the podcasts vibe and if you’re a will wood fan go listen to tma because i said so.

Goodbye now, thanks again for reading and have a nice day :]

ps. Honorable mention of ok ultra from the normal album for kinda feeling like how i imagine taking and reading a statement feels like

[kenzan-brainrot-mp4]

talk more about the white whale/whale symbolism in general whatever thoughts you have on the whale stuff i want to hear it 👂

GRAHHHHH YEAH (This one got. Long (again lol) So be prepared (series-wide spoilers but I feel like that's a given atp))

First of all I just wanna say that I love how rgg drags the player along around the final chapter title. With how upfront the other chapter titles are in what they're referring to, you might end up wondering why they chose White Whale for the final chapter title once you see the title card (or at least I did). Of course, this could just be referring to the treasure that everyone's been looking for, but with how nonchalantly they react to the fact that the treasure isn't actually there, it doesn't seem to completely fit the bill.

But then you beat the game (and by this I mean beat the final boss) and lo and behold, there's an Actual white whale, and so you think "Oh! Duh, the chapter's called White Whale because there's a literal white whale and it pretty much just finished off the final boss!" But that still doesn't make that much sense. Why name the final chapter (arguably the most important one) after some whale that appears in the last like 15 minutes of the game? Like, take the final chapter name of (Kiryu) Gaiden, it's literally the name of the game (The Man Who Erased His Name) so it's gotta be something more significant than that, right? (But then of course take into the account that by this point the player is still convinced that nothing really in pyih is too deep/serious, so maybe it could just be something as simple as that).

Then you get to the credits, and they reveal that the "elixir"/the ambergris is found in the stomachs of whales. Damn, that's pretty crazy/cool, but once again, nobody that was actively seeking the treasure (Rodriguez, Jason/Noah, Spade Tucker, etc you know the drill) seems to hung up on the fact that they didn't find it, and they didn't even encounter the whale, so they wouldn't get that same sense that they just missed it either, again, it's not a big deal really, so why make that the final chapter title?

Of course, we all know what this builds up to: the big reveal, the fact that Majima, who we've been following along with this entire game, was looking for that elixir this entire time, was the only one to actually encounter a whale in the game, and then there's the insane line drop from Saejima.

"Kiryu Kazuma. You never could give up on that one."

Ironically, the final chapter title has nothing to do with that whale you saw earlier at all, rather it's a summary of what Majima's motivations/actions for this game, and the past. Almost every game, has meant for him. It's what Saejima spells out for us at the end of the game, but said in even fewer words.

An all-consuming obsession that only leads to your destruction. An impossibility, something that you can destroy yourself over but never achieve/obtain. This is what the white whale means, metaphorically. And it is this, exactly, that Kiryu is to Majima.

Kiryu is larger than life itself, to just about everyone. He's a legend, he's the one Majima has had his sights on since the very beginning, the legend he chases after game after game and also what he destroys himself over game after game.

(see:

Yakuza 1 -> Majima just straight up taking a full-on stab wound for Kiryu. Like, buddy, I literally saw one of my favorite characters die that way in another game, there was No guarantee you were surviving that.

Yakuza 2 -> Majima fights off an army of yakuza for Kiryu. That man was beat to total Shit (which is Not something that happens often) and we all saw it

Yakuza 3 -> Majima re-enters the Tojo Clan for Kiryu even though he is (extremely likely) aware that it is already entering its steady decline that we see throughout the rest of the series up until its dissolution. And while he's willing to do it for Kiryu, we can't exactly say that he's happy about the situation as a whole.

Yakuza 5 -> Majima's willingness to die for Haruka, specifically stated because "She means more to Kiryu-chan than life itself." Like, of course he wouldn't just let Haruka get killed, but to choose to mention Kiryu as part of his reasoning in that moment? Christ

While I (surprisingly) can't say anything particularly self-destructive happened in (Kiryu) Gaiden and Infinite Wealth, you could argue that Majima trying to more and more directly tell Kiryu not to leave ("No need to rush outta here yet... Alright?" -> "Don't leave! Don't you dare leave, Kiryu-chan!"), knowing that it's likely pointless, knowing Kiryu, is not doing himself any favors.

Pirate Yakuza -> *gestures at the entire game*

Also his reaction to encountering that giant squid ("Sure is a helluva way to die. I think I'm into it!"). Like, okay. I don't want to try and read too much into it because it was very likely just a one off line. But I'm still gonna side-eye it.

Honestly now that I think about it, if Majima Had died fighting that giant squid (that is such a way to begin a sentence thank you rgg), you could argue that that would've been his nail in the coffin for the white whale metaphor. If he had, it would've meant that his obsession for Kiryu is what got him dragged down into the literal depths of the ocean, and even if it wouldn't be Kiryu physically dragging Majima down like the white whale to Ahab, this is a situation that is completely, entirely, fueled by Majima's obsession towards him (Majima had no real interest in the nuclear waste cleanup project, after all, Kiryu was his one motivation this entire time), and it would've drowned him.

Guess that means he got real lucky with the last part, but we all know he sure as hell isn't beating the allegations.)

All this and yet Majima seems to fail to reaching Kiryu time and time again.

Majima does not obtain the Heart of the Dragon, found in the intestines of the literal whale. He does not obtain eternal life for Kiryu. And he (arguably, though the final scene of him walking to Kiryu's hospital room could oppose this) does not resolve the indefinite limbo that has been sitting between them throughout the entire series. What he gets at the end of the game is the acknowledgement (through Saejima, everybody thank him) that he has been obsessing over this, and perhaps the realization that Kiryu was, in fact, this white whale that he would never truly reach ("Well, still just a dream in the end.") Of course this is something he already knows/has acknowledged deep down, and it's a feeling that is hinted at in some of his dialogue in scattered moments, but this is the first time he ever says it in such an outright manner.

I guess in a way, you could say that Pirate Yakuza is a story about the newfound success of all the people Majima helped and supported in achieving their dreams, and the continued failure of Majima in pursuing his own (Kiryu), and him needing to acknowledge/accept that. And the post-credits begs the question of what he decides to do with the aftermath and what he has left. (An oversimplification definitely but still. augh. Augh)

Naming the final chapter White Whale was yet another crazy move on rgg's part. Its so unassuming, seemingly straightforward yet also seemingly insignificant, but once the realization dawns on you it slaps you right in the face, just like everything else about this game does. It's yet another instance of how rgg managed to pull its big reveal so well, with all the small details, all the reframing, all pointing back to the same topic that it had spent the entire rest of the game dancing around.

Majima recounting his story of how he went to Hawaii -> Majima recounts his story to Kiryu in the exact same way at the very end

The treasure everyone's been looking for/known about + Majima, the one guy who didn't have knowledge about any of this legend stuff prior? -> Wrong, he was after the treasure from the very start (before the amnesia at least). For Kiryu

Majima originally being on course for Hawaii so he could help with the nuclear waste cleanup even though he'd be bored as hell? -> Nah. For Kiryu (Ohhhhh you know what this is reminding me of some screenshots I took from near the beginning of the game)

(I'm sure this meant nothing of course. Lol. Lmao)

Majima's dream during pirate yakuza being to fulfill Other People's dreams -> Haha. Well, I think you get the point by now

Kiryu, Kiryu, Kiryu. It all goes back to Kiryu, every single time, without fail, in an obsessive loop that Majima has been dragging himself around over for Years. He is the white whale, seemingly untouchable, the constant object of Majima's attention and devotion in so many forms, his consistent weak point, that only seems to dig at him deeper as the games go on.

Like I said before, while the white whale metaphor is undeniable, and essentially spells doom for Majima, it's not over for him yet. Because, hey, he didn't drown at sea, or die on the beach. He was saved, and he's survived enough to retell that tale and reflect on it all with Saejima in the post-credits, brief as that reflection was. I mentioned before how he really only said one line of any actual substance during that specific part of the exchange, but the significance of it says so much.

"Well, still just a dream in the end"

As much as it hurts to here Majima address the hopelessness of it all, to hear him say something like that after Saejima basically just laid out his sheer devotion and refusal to give up on his dream for everyone to see, I think the bittersweetness is. Good, actually. Captain Ahab never gave up on that pursuit on the white whale, and it destroyed him; that whale dragged him down until he finally drowned, and it feels like all Majima has been doing over Kiryu since Yakuza 3 is drowning himself in him.

Don't get me wrong, I (for now at least) do not take that line as a complete admittance of defeat, or Majima finally giving up on Kiryu, on that dream he could never let go of. (Like I've been saying, it's an acknowledgement, not exactly a declaration.) I do not think it means he is just letting go, full-stop.

But I do hope it means he can stop himself from self-destructing completely. I hope it means that he can slow down with the wild chase, (and that he and Kiryu can just. Sit down and talk like fucking normal people. Which i guess they are doing in the post-credits, supposedly) and I hope it means that he won't drown completely, especially in the case of the worst possible scenario.

[chamoemileclown]

Last egg design but the first egg to go

[jaybleu25]

was randomly thinking about this but a big majority of the threats luigi's had to face are associated with purple in some way

meanwhile princess daisy's favorite color (according to that one charles martinet luigi clip) is purple

i wonder if luigi's ever thought about that

[radiotrophicfungi]

by the way, are there any disability-specific blinkies anyone would particularly like to see? my inbox is probably going to remain closed for the sake of my own sanity, but you can always drop a reply down below. :-)

[starry-bi-sky]

catch me looking up nightingale symbolisms for tales of the passerine. if danny's using the name of a songbird for a hero name, regardless of familial connections, i will utilize the symbolism tied to the bird. Anyways general gist of the nightingale symbolism i've seen, other than what wikipedia told me, is that nightingales were frequently symbolisms of spring renewal, loss/death, love, etc. catch me about to incorporate music into Danny's character

[frogaroundandfindout]

Nightwing tells Batman he’s going to be a cop and Batman wonders what more he can do as Bruce Wayne (Detective Comics #725)

[rxttenfish]

also i won't lie. the single point where i hated the silt verses with my whole heart. the part in the qna where it's insisted that frog horror just doesnt work.

like EXCUSE YOU. I HAVE REFINED TASTE IN AMPHIBIAN HORROR. DO NOT TALK TO ME ABOUT A LACK OF FROG HORROR, I WILL NOT EVEN HONOR THIS SENTIMENT.

[scatterpatter]

Feeling normal again

[outlandish-dreamer]

the fact that rdr2's now part of my lists of things that make me insane, I just wanna apologize in advance for the amount of posts I know I'm for sure going to spam

[raiiny-bay]

oc questionaire

tagged by @sikoi & @salemssimblr (ty for the tags <3)

NAME: Kelly Parker

NICKNAME: Kel, Parker, Redhead, & (on rare occasion) Benny

GENDER: male, he/him

STAR SIGN: taurus

HEIGHT: 5'5

ORIENTATION: bi

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: american, white

FAVORITE FRUIT: lmao

FAVORITE SEASON: winter

FAVORITE FLOWER: iris

FAVORITE SCENT: ngl, it's probably weed

COFFEE, TEA, OR HOT CHOCOLATE: hot chocolate

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP: 10

DOGS OR CATS: cats

DREAM TRIP: he'd honestly be happy just taking a day to trip to go to a concert or something. he's not particularly interested in traveling.

NUMBER OF BLANKETS: 2-7 + Dhes

RANDOM FACT: his island in animal crossing is named hot topic

i tag @teddybearsims, @mattodore, @barbieaiden, @wldestluv-rs, @morrigan-sims, @fizzytoo, @void-imp, & @nekrophoria (feel free to ignore ofc!)

[wildmrmix]

@battleslippers redesigning him rn actually because I have no clue why I made him shirtless the first time around

[luckyshouse]

its because im a cartoonist and not an illustrator but i never understood a single time why people cared so much about a consistant art style. sure it's fun to have, but the point of an art style is not containing yourself in a box but instead acknowledging traits of your art that bleed through no matter WHAT you do, you know?? begging and fighting to have an overly consistant art style is what kills inspiration. i think people with this mindset still just worship those steven universe animation error blogs at their beck and call and apply that logic to their own art, as if there was literally anything wrong with steven universes inconsistancy in the first place (hint: there wasnt)

[rachelannezegler]

.

[apotelesmaa]

My fave thing about the WxS dynamic is that emu/rui/miku are always like tsukasaaaa it’s 3pm it’s time to make you do incredibly dangerous and life threatening stunts!!! & tsukasa is just like ok 😔 into the cannon I go 😔 while nene (arguably the most normal and sane person in WxS who could easily put a stop to this) is like yeah see you later idiot. Bye. (Not looking up from whatever game she’s playing)

[fungi-maestro]

Lars Tunbjörk – Alien at the Office (2004)