#i'm gonna be using this setting for a game in it

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - So Many GREAT Kisses!

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

(Please notice I am now using 6 dots in all ellipses because according to Taiwanese BL that's how we queers roll. Who am I to argue?)

Sept 2024 Week 3

Ongoing Series - Thai

Jack & Joker (Thai Mon IQIYI) ep 2 of 12 - A most excellent glow up. And it’s still a great show. And I cannot wait to see the many different faces of War. Bring on the Leverage of One action-packed mess. I'm waiting.  

Monster Next Door (Thai Thurs Gaga ) ep 9 of 12 - I’m gonna say this because it drives me crazy. Why are boys in BL, when out and about the countryside, always dressed inappropriately for Thailand? If it’s hot, takeoff your damn jacket. I don’t mean to be crass or crazy or whatever. But don’t wear a jacket when it’s 90° with 90% humidity. In Thailand, jackets are for malls. Meanwhile, I’m an extrovert and that still seemed like an exhausting trip. Although, I suppose they didn’t show all the drive time in the van, when everyone is asleep.

Meanwhile, why are the sides so frustrating in this show? Authentic friends-to-lovers is always a slog. Finally a kiss! And a decent one.

New character? Aw! Hi Yu!!!! Gosh Putter is so cute.

Where were we? Oh yes, Beer is now heartbroken. Always the great fear in F2L that the friendship will be destroyed as a result. And it’s a decent fear. 

On a completely different note, I cannot help but wonder when somebody’s chue len is Beer, if that is because beer was involved in their conception. Like, it’s the name you give your "oops baby" from that drunken night at the club. Don’t mind me. I’m just over here in the corner being crass.

Battle of the Writers (Sun YT) ep 8 of 12 - That was one of the cutest wake up sequences ever depicted. Utterly adorable. And now he’s blind again? Oh my God this is such a soap opera, I can’t even. Meanwhile, wicked ice prince finally made his move. Gah! Why aren’t we getting more of this couple? I always love the sides best with this production house.

I Saw You in My Dream (Weds Gaga) ep 10 of 12 - I love a hard fraught game of badminton. Even though we actually didn’t see play. YoIng claiming was so cute!!! And their shower kiss was v hot. Yay little show! Also cute use of the punishment trope!

Kidnap (Fri YT) ep 3 of 12 - The weight upon the shoulders of our idiot good guy kidnapper continues to pile up. So does the affection. The dude playing Q has sanpaku eyes. Cool. He’s not a particularly good actor though. Rough because everyone around him is giving their very best.

The problem is. I'm noticing. I shouldn't be noticing all the talent trying so hard. That usually means there is something wrong with the story, or there was something wrong on the set.

I don't know what to say at this juncture except I have the sinking suspicion this might not actually be a good show. (Covers head and cowers. Don't hate me.) I'd loved to be proved wrong, but my faith is GMMTV is only about 50% these days. And it probably should be lower.

Addicted Heroin (Thai Tues WeTV) ep 6 of 10 - I was so confused by how we suddenly got on a trip together, that I went back and re-watched the previous installment. And it still isn’t explained. So I have no idea why our leads are on a trip but apparently that’s the next trope to hit. I also have no idea how they're suddenly boyfriends. I’m just generally confused by this episode. It’s like an alt reality. We skipped over all of the stuff where they actually got into a relationship. In general I wasn’t wild about this episode.

The Trainee (Sun YT) ep 12fin - The most realistic thing about this show is that everybody is everybody else’s ex on any given set. I feel that in my bones. Or do I mean boner?

Frankly, both actors look better after a glow up and I guess pretending to be more their actual ages suits them? Considering what was actually done to invoke youth (a lot of the shine and gloss) aging them was an anti-glow up. A great mattification? Well...... this was a somewhat lackluster finale. (Thank you, thank you, the pun was unplanned. It's a gift.)

I don’t know. I guess I wanted to see Jane suffer? Work HARD to get the kid he abandoned back? I would’ve liked to have seen Ryan a little bit more competent and capable and his job. Maybe dating someone else. But I also do not want any more episodes. This was more than enough. So instead no separation, just boyfriends and a montage of their lives together, getting new and better jobs, moving in together, being supportive and sweet, etc... LOOK: It’s never a good sign when I immediately want to rewrite the show that I just saw.

In conclusion:

A story about a group of interns at a commercial video production company. While I genuinely love OffGun, I’m not convinced this was a good vehicle for them. Is it terrible for me to say, I miss their PickRome days? I don’t think they’ve ever had rolls that suited them better. Still, theirs was the best storyline in this ensemble piece masquerading as a BL, although they still fumbled the ending. Thus, I enjoyed about a 1/3 of it as much as possible, and 2/3 of it less than conceivable. 7/10 and I seriously considered dropping it to a 6/10 so don't push me.

Love Sick 2024 (Thai Sun iQIYI) ep 1 of 15 - Not gonna lie I was very skeptical. But I like it fine. Better than I expected because it’s been changed just enough. But it does need to stay changed. I don’t know what I’m trying to articulate here but…... I guess we’ll see.

Live in Love (Sun Gaga) ep 3 of 5 - It’s cute in a weird disjointed way. I’m enjoying it enough, I guess. I do like how forthright and direct Kla is. 

Bad Guy My Boss (Thai Sun Gaga) ep 1 of 10 - Ah. Bully romance. My old frenemy. Of course making this office based means +10 for workplace harassment. Well well well. This will be red flag party town I see. How VERY old school yaoi. It’s all very Cdrama CEO = dudes in suits walking on parquet (minus all the gay sex of course.) The jumping around between times and unfinished scenes is very strange. Is this Starhunter chaos only applied to a timeline?

Imma say this so they hear it at the back. YOU HAVE TO CHANGE THE HAIR. If you do time jumps: change. the. hair. It's the easiest and best clue if you aren't going to apply a filter or other cinematography tricks. JUST CHANGE THE DAMN HAIR STYLE.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

The On1y One (Taiwan Thurs Gaga) eps 9-10 of 12 - And now we all start using six dots in our……? A new coded way to indicate that one is into BL? I did think we were in a slight mire with ep 9, too much teacher filler. Not enough time spent with our boys. Meanwhile, sports day. Pouty Baby utilizing the power of Ge, in front of all of the classmates who do not realize how hard he is flirting and activating babygirl = one of the greatest things ever to happen on my screen. Essentially this was a version of the claiming trope, only nobody knew it but the two of them. Fucking genius. Yes, I watched it multiple times. Then babygirl is injured, the carrying and the flirting!!!! Gah!

I don’t mean to trivialize the show, but this is me and I can trivialize everything even something as brilliant as this. But that conversation about history at the beginning of ep 10...... Was that about topping and bottoming? Because it sure seemed that way.

And then...... Possibly the best only one bed trope twist ever?

This show is so fucking amazing.

And I am so worried about the end.

Sugar Dog Life (Japan Sun grey) ep 7 of 10 - I love the kinkyness of our baby boy’s fantasy. Where he is the gift and his boyfriend is in uniform. Very nice. Thank you Japan. Never one to let kinky dogs lie. Also, the premise continues: one half thinks that they are already boyfriends and acts like it, and the other half is still trying to become a boyfriend. It’s absurd in that way that only Japanese miscommunication extraordinaire can be absurd. Also could Kyosuke be any more under his boy’s thumb? 

Love is Like a Poison AKA Doku Koi: Doku mo Sugireba Koi to Naru (Japan Tues Netflix?) 1-2 of 10 eps - Shiba is a top lawyer, angular aggressive bespectacled workaholic cat-type (Kitten? Babygirl? Tsundere? Some unholy combination of all 3?) I am reminded I should be more considerate of my potted plants. OMG the teasing and the little tongue sticking out. Haruto is such a flirt. I love this dynamic. What fun! Manic pixie dream boy but MAKE HIM EVIL! Or very high? Or a grifter? I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. But I’m enjoying it. It’s very...... very

First Note Of Love (Taiwan Mon Gaga) ep 7 of 12 - Oh! Good kiss. Smart to have the younger character initiate. I also like that he put a stop to it and then went and had a long conversation with a friend about it. Cautious boy. Also shows how in control of the situation Sea is becoming. It works for this BL since he has the stronger personality. I don't care what the characters say, this is about Sea becoming a rock for Neil.

But the secondary couple is actually winning this show. I want so much more of them. 

Seoul Blues (Korea Fri? YouTube) ep 8fin - I’m not sure that blackmailing and entrapment, especially of your ex, necessarily justifies cheating. Plus I never like it when it’s gays against gays. But what did I expect from this show? This whole series was basically Korea’s version of messy gay. If you liked Only Friends you’ll probably enjoy this bullshit. And they were quite pretty. I, however, am monumentally displeased. 4/10 FATALLY FLAWED but still, basically, BL, however…... do we want to support this kind of behavior?

KOREA PLEASE GIVE US A NEW PROPER BL!! WHERE ARE YOU? WE ARE SAD AND LOST WITHOUT YOU.

It's like now they discovered boys can kiss they can't be happy.

It's airing but...

The Hidden Moon (Sat WeTV) ep 1 of 10 - This is a supernatural romance (my ghost boyfriend trope) by Violet Rain (I Feel You Linger). A man is hired to write an article about an old mansion in Chiang Mai being converted into a café. He sees the ghosts of people who died at the mansion, falls in love with one of them. Was substantially recast. I loved IFYLITA except the ending so I think I'll let this one run it's course you can tell me if it's work tracking down... if they managed to land it. I have my doubts.

Happy of the End (Japan Tues Gaga) - A boy is disowned for being gay, dumped by his boyfriend, and ends up in a dysfunctional co-dependant relationship with his would-be kidnapper. We were due for another messy JBL and it's exactly as expected. I do not like it at all. And ya know what? There is plenty airing. DNF 

In case you missed it

I FINISHED Meet You at the Blossom (China). I ate crow, binged the fucker, and live blogged the experience. I enjoyed it a lot and got quite witty (I think) there are also puns (warning). But if you don't wanna slog though it, here are my final thoughts:

This was undeniably a wuxia and most definitely a BL. Evil stunning princely Cheekbones meets and falls in love with the bisexual disaster Dimples of his dreams. There’s a lot of floaty fighting, tangled plot, and overworked emotions. From start to finish it is exactly as it claims to be, including more than the expected amount of sexual claiming (dubious conscent to the point of rape). I’m not wild about the wuxia genre, but I will tell you what I do like: Very pretty men in flowing robes + eye makeup + hair ribbons wafting about stabbing and kissing each other plus ridiculous soap opera machinations. I also like cheekbones and dimples. AND I love a stupid gay sleeve, okay? There was also truly epic levels of stink-eye, and that too is to be lauded. This show left me grinning like crazy. Was it great? Not really, but it was a great experience and I enjoyed it immensely. 8/10

4 Minutes (Gaga) Ended - Spies reported in to say the ending was not-exactly-unhappy and mostly lackluster. I'm torn over whether to watch. My natural disinclination to binge, meets my dissatisfaction with wishy-washy, is going up against my love of high heat and pretty men. Oh the age old struggle between art and lust.

Mitsuya-sensei no keimakutekina ezuke finished and it’s reported to be solid. Age gap treated with respect. I'm curious, so I'll check it out if I can get hold of non-G-drive subs.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

Still Coming Sept 2024:

9/28 Teenager Judge (Vietnam Sat YouTube) ?? eps - oh I don't know just Ba Vinh doing his thing with pretty boys again.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

I love love love this execution of the punishment trope. What's Ai going to do to you, Yu? Ride you to death?

I Saw You in My Dream indeed.

Sigh. This show. (Addicted Heroin)

All praise one of BL's best-in-show glow-ups. Nicely done, Jack.

James, on the other hand. Never needs a glow-up. Still the prettiest. Has been since Oxygen. (Battle of the Writers)

He's playing the role of Saint in this show, thank you very much. Speaking of which, wouldn’t that be just the most gorgeous pairing in the entire universe? Saint and James? I’ll be in my bunk. 

Taiwan giving us a boop! Reminds me of Be Loved In House I Do, right up there with TharnType as chronic boopers.

Why is he SO GOOD in this show?

All Frist Note.

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in its infinite wisdom doesn't like too many at-ings.

[celtyshiftingrealitiddies]

AWAKE SHIFTING TIPS +

SHIFTING METHOD: FOCUS METHOD

Type: awake (similar to meditation;begginer friendly)

Hiii so one of my friends in a server asked for tips on awake shifting which inspired this post. I'm gonna give up guys some tips for beforehand to really get u in a good state to shift via this meathod bc if u jump right in and aren't usually the meditation type it might be more difficult but imma explain all the meditation stuff like a for dummies book and make it easy for yall (yay!).

Pre-attempt: So firstly to make it easier for you to start the meathod you can do some breathing techniques, you can look up some on YouTube if you'd like but I'll also recommend one of my favs. So this breathing technique is simple actually all you gotta do is breathe into your chest and let the oxygen flow to your head (hold ur breathe and focus on feeling the oxygen move to your head). Do this for a while till you like feel serene/at peace/relaxed or till you forget what you were doing bc u were to focused on breathing whichever comes first shouldn't take to long dw you'll be suprised.

Secondly you can use a hand mudra imma put a chart down below i made btw. The purpose of this is bc for the meathod your gonna want to hone in and hand mudras are kinda like the difference between using a marker and a fine point pen. if your gut is wanting to do something specific with your hands on its own listen to it, if not use one of these or whatever u come up with as long as you stay away from ones that are kinda rounded, and ones with ur hands separated. I've found that when I try and reality shift a sharper mudra with both hands will really sharpen your energy/intent.

MEATHOD TIME YAY

So if your using a mudra (Not nessasary) have it picked out beforehand to use.

The Focus method (How I Usually Shift)

So your gonna get in a comfortable or safe space where you can be fully relaxed and just focus on shifting. This method can be done laying down, sitting, standing whatever.

Imma give you guys 2 versions use whichever works for you.

Version 1: Pick out your dr first, now you have your intention set for what your doing with this method. Now your gonna focus, not about anything in particular simply focusing. When you start to feel like pulses/brainwave type sensations you'll know you've achieved the type of focus needed. Keep maintaining your focus at some point you'll probably notice your surrounding/the world around you fading/changing, it's working don't shift your focus to that tho keep maintaining the focus until you feel yourself coming back to your body. Your dr body on your own.

Version 2: alright version 2 has slightly different begining steps. After you've picked out you dr your going to imagine it/things about it until you can lock in on its essence. This can come from the most stupid random small things, you might feel like it needs to be something that encapsulates the whole dr but nah just keep thinking about your dr until you hit that one thing that bridges you to it in that moment.this is a feeling you'll be able to tell what I mean because the thing will bring you the essence of your dr. Now once you've locked onto the essence you can start your shifting attempt. (You don't need to continuously feel that essence thing btw you just need to have locked onto the energy for your shift bc the next part will bring you there). From here you'll focus, (again not on particulars) simply focusing on focusing. Keep focusing until your world, cr, any world; it fades away. Don't divert your focus when you feel your surroundings shifting and changing, keep maintaining your focus until you drift back to being present in your body once more. Your dr body; when you emerge.

Merry shifting~

The game :P

[ben-drabbles]

Psycho-Tech

A general term for devices that interact directly with sentient minds or reproduce psychic effects. Examples have been developed independently in many different civilizations over time, and our modern understanding stems significantly from research into older examples.

Ancient psycho-tech is found in nearly ever chr'tai ruin, though many other examples are found in old human colony ships or other places of long-dead civilization. Due to the near-universal nature of psychic communication, once these devices are reactivated, they can usually be used by any sentient person; as such, they are some of our best understood records of these ancient civilizations, alongside being useful pieces of technology in and of themselves. Examples include the ubiquitous chr'tai memory injectors, true ai cores, and the original foldspace drives.

A common variant of those aforementioned 'true' ai cores are what we now call psy-bots. While we don't understand the inner workings of their cores or the reason for their similarity across cultures, we know that they can be installed in psycho-tech exoskeletons, allowing them to effectively "inhabit" mobile bodies. They can even, rarely, exhibit psychic capabilities once activated. However, every core yet uncovered has had no remaining memory of their original design or purpose - effectively, they have become new beings after their long slumber. There is some contention as to their place in the galaxy, most placing them somewhere between simple technology and fully sentient people, some considering them a potential danger due to their unknown origin. While it is not our place to comment on ethics, we prefer visiting the places where they are considered people.

Modern psycho-tech, while easier to produce and understand, has more limited capabilities. Still, direct connection with a sentient mind has many useful applications. Mechanical exoskeletons can be controlled as one would move their own body. Foldspace drives allow ships to 'move at the speed of thought,' if you listen to the advertisements. Psy-com terminals allow psychic communication over interstellar distances. The list goes on - while we haven't yet cracked true AI technology, we continue to explore many new frontiers. With any luck, this record can become something of a living document.

[black-salt-cage]

Welcome Home icons

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚ Free to use with credit!

[bevirspnsblmnt]

Can we see your durge? :oc if not no worries I'm just curious!

Of course! Have a lil WIP of her in all her evil glory 🥰 (Hope I can finish this anytime in the next century lol)

Her name is Sandra, she's a war cleric of Gruumsh/oathbreaker paladin and she's Totally Bad Not Good Unredeemable. I haven't posted much about her bc I'm still in ACT1 with her (Im replaying Khael and campagn that takes priority).

fun fact before I even got through half of ACT1 of all the compainons only Astarion and Shadowheart were alive/present. I dont know how long theyre going to last though lmaooo

She's another iteration of my DnD character Alasandra, who Ive played for a couple years in a homebrew campagn! I also played with her in Solasta (another DnD game, that I suggest checking out!) He's all three of her together for the meme:

I also technically have a Redeemed Durge character that's based on another DnD character! His name is Chan, he's a warlock and a cinnamon roll who can do no wrong 🥹 (which makes me chosing him as a durge an awful parent)

and here's how he looks like!

[thefirstknife]

Getting real sick of a certain subset of Destiny players complaining that it’s a baby game and crying to Bungie to nerf exotics and abilities when their ENTIRE POINT IS TO BE STRONG in specific ways as if they are being locked into using them.

IF YOU WANT AN EXTRA CHALLENGE STOP BEING SUCH A DPS GOBLIN AND JUST EQUIP SOMETHING THATS NOT TOP TIER META AND STOP COMPLAINING JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

MOOD. Go off.

It's incredibly annoying to me. They always use the argument of "the game should FORCE me to do things, I should not SELF-IMPOSE challenges." And like. ? I'm sorry but what? It's a video game for a big audience, it's here to be playable and accessible to the widest possible playerbase. There are plenty of ways to make the game difficult for yourself, so knock yourself out if that's your thing, but don't force others into it.

Like, I enjoy hard content, I regularly at least attempt day 1 raids, I do master raids, GMs, solo and solo flawless content and all that. But only when I want to. Sometimes I don't and I don't want to suffer in a patrol zone or struggle in a seasonal activity I'm doing for the story. The majority of the players don't want that. Designing games for the professional gamers only has NEVER been a good idea and never will be. Fifty streamers can't sustain a video game. It needs casual players who will want to come back to the game instead of feeling defeated.

One of the reasons I really enjoy helping others is because I know that casual players tend to struggle in stuff that's basic activity for me. I've seen people unable to get through a strike. I've sat for 10 minutes rezing someone who couldn't do the jump in a seasonal activity. I want those people to be able to play basic content without feeling frustrated and I want them to know that there are people out there who will help them out.

And this doesn't apply just to basic content, although it should start with that. I think all dungeons and raids and everything should be things that all players can complete. Fine, doing a master raid with all challenges should be tough, but it should be achievable with time and practice, not impossible. What a lot of these "pros" want is just completely divorced from reality.

It takes days and days of practice every time a new master raid is out for me and my team (all with thousands of hours of playtime) to get comfortable to finally finish it. We're far from casual players and it still takes a lot of time to be able to finish hard content. Making it even harder is insane to me. Like, if something is so hard that my team full of people, each with 5000+ hours of playtime and a coordinated team that's been raiding together for years now can't finish it, that means it's absolutely impossible for probably 90% of the playerbase. That's wild to me. Raids and GMs should have more people playing them. If master raids are too easy for you, Mr. I-Play-Destiny-For-A-Living, that's on you buddy. Unequip the super god tier god roll meta guns and loadouts or play something else.

And ofc, another excuse they make is "if I don't use meta, I am not going to win a raid race!" Then don't. Idk. Let me play you the tiniest violin. This affects literally nobody except a grand total of 50 people. Run your meta in day 1, and play with random shit otherwise. Play raids with all white weapons. Play without mods. Play without a HUD. Do things solo only. I don't know, make up a way to spice things up for yourself. I'm not interested in that and neither are 99% of the players out there. The game is genuinely hard enough for the majority of the players. On top of that, I am here to feel like a powerful space fantasy superhero. I am NOT here to die to dregs in patrol zones. If there's ONE thing that I know for a fact that put people off from Lightfall (as in this year of Destiny), it's the difficulty changes. They're annoying, frustrating and for some a barrier to entry more than anything else.

[queensparklekitten]

time princess players how do y'all picture the MCs of every story

like since every set and piece of official art has a different hair colour, length, and style with every picture of them, and sometimes there's descriptions that don't match the images, which one do you go with

and do you make half of them look like your avatar or have your own designs

[morrigan-sims]

The other post was getting long, and this is a different sword, so here you go:

I actually fucking finished a mesh edit!!!!! Well, at least the meshing part. This thing has parts from three different sword meshes. Tomorrow it's on to texturing hell. I've never textured anything before in my LIFE, and I just know it's going to be miserable, lmao.

Especially since I assume I'm going to have to make a new uv map and I don't know shit about that. But I at the very least need a texture for renders, and this sword is low-poly enough that I could probably make it an in-game accessory too.

[sun-marie]

It's been a while since I last thought seriously about Dr*gon A*e (even prior to falling in love with BG3) and I think a big part of that is I'm not as big a fan of the setting and the worldbuilding as I used to be. Like to me it really does feel like BW looked at typical fantasy settings and went "hmm okay but what if there was Catholic-enforced racism and abelism". And like. Cool thought experiment bro. Do we really need three games made by primarily white guys about that.

[wholesome-cryptid]

MY GRIMSLEY DICE FINALLY CAME IN THE MAIL

aughhhhh i'm feeling so normal :3!!!!!

[skrunksthatwunk]

yakuza: dead souls - american vibes, bigass guns, and why zombies are super weird to have in ryu ga gotoku thematically/ideologically speaking

so i've been playing dead souls recently (hell yeah hell yeah hell yeah) and although i'm having the time of my life with it, there was something about it that kinda felt off to me, and i think i've figured out what it was, but i'm gonna have to walk you through a bit of my thought process to get there.

my first instinct was that it felt... american? and upon further examination i think that boils down to a couple of things:

everyone suddenly has lots of guns and also way way bigger guns

high emphasis on individual heroism (this itself is quite typical for rgg, but it manifests differently here; more on that in a bit)

military/government incompetence, which must be solved by the right individuals having the biggest and bestest guns

[for the sake of transparency i will note that my experience with zombie media is pretty limited and skews american (and i myself am american), so that may create bias. however, the 'this feels american to me' instinct is a rare one for me even in genres where i have seen little/no non-american media, so i think the fact that it did occur to me is notable. what about dead souls triggered that response when little else has? that's why i examined it and, truthfully, i think there's merit in the idea itself.]

the first point is pretty self-explanatory. america's got more guns than it does people, and its gun worship is infamous. japan's ban on guns (aided by its being an island state) means there's far fewer guns in the country, as well as far fewer people with guns (and likely far fewer guns per gun owner, excepting arms dealers/smugglers) than somewhere without such a ban. obviously, there are guns anyway. due to their illegality they are clustered within the criminal population, which explains their presence within organized crime within the series. very few guns will be sitting around in the homes of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

and yet, when the zombie outbreak hits kamurocho, plenty of civilians suddenly have access to quite an arsenal. everyone has the knowledge they need to aim, fire, and reload smoothly and quickly; ammo is infinite for certain guns. characters we've never seen using firearms before suddenly have shotguns under their couches (looking at you, majima). it's not only very different from reality, it's very different from guns' place within the series up until this point, when they were limited weapons used primarily by the enemy.

and they're making a zombie shooter, so of course they would have to do this. it has to be unrealistic to be simultaneously in this setting and in this genre, in the same way that yakuza solving their problems with bareback fistfights instead of guns is itself both unrealistic and necessary to being the kinds of games rgg are.

my point is that this is a kind of focus on and valorization of gun ownership and competency unusual for the series and setting. further, it serves as an argument for why an armed, competent populace is crucial typical in american media.

which brings us to the third point (we'll get to 2 in a minute). guns are often marketed as self-defense weapons. the implication is that the government's defense of the individual (via law enforcement or the military, but particularly the former), are insufficient. this is objectively true. if someone pulls a gun on you at the gas station, will a cop manifest out of thin air to intercede? no. that's impossible. but if you have a gun, or if some bystander has a gun, you or they may be able to do something with that gun to stop the armed person. thus, there is an undeniable gap in the effective immediacy of such responses.

many gun advocates also point to the incompetence or insufficiency of law enforcement, even when they are present to stop an armed aggressor. the fact that law enforcement do not have a 100% success rate in protecting the citizenry is also objectively true.

so, when you are in danger, arming yourself increases your chances of being able to put down (or at least take armed action against) a present or potential threat. whether it is viewed it as a supplement to or a replacement for law enforcement, it is meant to make up for the shortcomings of the government's ability to completely protect all its citizens. it's a safety net for state failure.

back to dead souls. rgg has always centered political corruption in its stories, including politicians, the police, and sometimes even the military, though usually the former two. sometimes this is treated sympathetically (i.e. tanimura, a dirty cop, whose dirty-cop-ness allows him to work outside/against the law to help disadvantaged people, not unlike how kiryu views being a yakuza), and other times it's simply a matter of greed or lust for power (i.e. jingu).

however, something that's almost never touched on so clearly is government incompetence. when the government fails to help people or hurts them or does corrupt things, it's usually due to a competent, malicious bad apple who is removed from power by the end of the game. this implies holes in the system because it keeps happening all the time, but that's on a series-wide scale, a pattern ignored by the series in favor of the individual game solution of "this guy's gone now :) yay".

but in dead souls, the SDF's barracades fall, their men are killed, they are unable to help protect the people outside or inside the quarantine zone. they are weak in a way the government usually isn't in these games. and who is stronger than them? our individual good guys with guns. so we need to be armed because the government is weak and can't protect us. boom. america.

returning to point 2, i'd like to say that dead souls is not particularly more individualistic than any of the other games in the series (other than, perhaps, y7). rgg is an incredibly individualistic series, actually. its protagonists are usually men who defy, oppose, and skirt around the law as a way of helping others and doing what is truly right (with a few exceptions, like shinada and haruka). the romanticized view of the yakuza as a force for helping the community in the face of government incompetence is a real one, and one that tends to manifest itself most in kiryu and how the series treats him. it shows us yakuza who aren't willing to kill, yakuza who cry about honor and justice and humanity and brotherhood, yakuza who never dip their hands into less palatable crimes, or only do with intense regret (and only ever as part of their backstory). the beat-em-up style emphasizes this as well. i mean, what's more individualistic than a one-man army?

put more clearly, this series is about men defying legal and social laws and expectations to live in a way that feels right to them, and about making themselves strong enough to combat those who would get in their way. the individual is placed before the society in importance, (though generally in a way that benefits the community, because they are good guys who want to use that agency and power for good).

all of this is true in dead souls as well, technically. those who live on the outskirts of society are the ones who actually save the day, and the ones who go in there and save people rather than just walling them off and pretending like they don't exist. they have the guns, which are illegal and mark them as criminals, but this broken law is what gives them the power to save themselves when the government will not, and to save their community if they so choose.

where dead souls differs is in the nature of that strength.

rgg places a lot of emphasis on self-improvement, both of one's body and of one's character. do both of these, and you will be strong enough to back up your ambitions. what allows someone to carve their own path in life is the ability to put down ideological and physical resistance by having resolve and the ability to tiger drop whoever won't be swayed by your impassioned speeches. you make yourself a weapon. you make yourself strong. in dead souls, that strength comes from an external, material possession. strength is something you buy (or that you take from someone else). who is able to survive the apocalypse comes not from the heart, nor from rigorous training, but from who has the most, the biggest, and the most bestest guns. it's an intersection of capitalism, militarization, and individualism. simply, deeply american.

[when i was talking myself through this a few days ago, i spent a lot more time on the capitalism + individualism stuff, but i think i'll keep this moving. consider this aside the intermission]

dead souls also differs for a few other interlocking reasons. it can be described with this equation:

zombification of enemies + lethality of guns = loss of emphasis on redemption

if your best friend turned into a zombie, could you shoot them? or your child? or your lover? it's a common trope, but it's a damn good one. watching your family, your neighbors, your town, everyone turn into a husk of themselves, something that looks like them but cannot be reached, is deeply tragic. it's even more tragic when these husks are trying to kill you. unable to be reasoned with and unable to be cured, you must incapacitate them before someone innocent is hurt--or hurt, then themselves made dangerous; each loss adds to the number of threats surrounding you. your life is seen as more valuable than that of your zombified friend, not only because the zombie is attacking you and it's self defense, but because they are no longer a person to you. to be a zombie is to no longer be human; zombification is dehumanization.

and so in a series so focused on connection with one's community, on saving innocent civilians, often on saving kamurocho specifically, one would expect similar tropes to occur. even if one's friends aren't turned, perhaps the cashier at poppo you chat with sometimes is. it's the destruction of that community and of the members one has tertiary relationships with that i expect would occur most within a kamurocho zombie story, since they are likely unwilling to axe anyone more important than that, even if dead souls isn't canon. i'd especially expect to see that in the beginning, before the need to kill zombies rather than contain or redeem them becomes apparent.

this does not happen.

i cannot speak for the entire game, but i can speak of gameplay choices that affect this, and ones i think will not be subverted throughout, even if they are somewhat contradicted by plot events i am presently unaware of.

kamurocho is not a community to protect, nor is it filled with your fellows. it is a playground filled with infinitely respawning, infinitely mow-downable, infinitely disposable zombies. you are meant and encouraged to kill them by the thousands, and never to hesitate or consider whether they may be cured or who may be mourning them. who may be unable to identify their loved one because you were trying to reach a headshot goal from hasegawa. you are not meant to consider them as human, nor beings that were once human, nor beings that could be human again, in the eyes of the zombie shooter. they are merely bodies, targets, and obstacles.

the zombies are contrasted with the true humans, those barricading themselves within the quarantine zone or those living in ignorance outside it. humans are meant to be saved, zombies are meant to be killed. the player character is the only one who can truly help with either of these goals, because the other humans are cowardly, ignorant, or unarmed/helpless. you must be their savior. to be a savior is to eliminate zombies, who are less than human.

the black and white nature of this is also emphasized by another gameplay characteristic: the lack of street encounters. when you traverse the peaceful parts of kamurocho, you are never attacked. you are also never directly attacked by the humans within the quarantine zone. kamurocho feels very different without its muggers and hooligans, but it's because this is a zombie shooter, not a beat-em-up. in a normal rgg title, you'd subdue threats by punching, kicking, and throwing them. you'd use your body in (supposedly) nonlethal ways. dead souls does not have a combat system meant for civilians. you have your guns. you subdue threats by shooting them, preferably lethally. the game doesn't want you to do that to humans, so you never fight humans. this furthers the black and white divide between the salvation-worthy, noble humans and the death-worthy, worthless zombies. combat is only lethal, and only used against the inherent other.

this leads me to the part of dead souls i find most conflicting with the ethos of rgg broadly, and perhaps its greatest ideological/thematic failing.

because the enemy are incurable, dangerous, and inhuman, you must kill them to protect yourself and others, others who are still human. humanity is something that is lost or preserved, but never regained. once someone's gone, they're gone, and you not only must kill them, it is your duty and your right to kill them. you should kill them.

in dead souls, there is no redeeming the enemy.

and that's a big problem.

rgg is about a lot of things, but a key one is the ability of people to change for the better. its most memorable, beloved villains are those who see the light by the end and change their wicked ways (usually through some form of redemptive suicide, though that's another essay in itself). its pantheon of characters is full of those who come from questionable backgrounds struggling to be the best people they can be, to live as themselves authentically and compassionately. it's about the good and the love you can find in the moral and legal gray zones of life/society, and the potential/capacity for good all of us have, no matter how far we may have fallen. it is a hopeful series. it is a merciful series.

this is something bolstered by its gameplay. countless substories are resolved by punching a lesson into someone until they improve their behavior, either out of fear or genuine remorse/development. the games don't just discourage killing your enemies, they don't allow you to (yes, we've all seen the "kiryu hasn't killed anybody? umm. look at this heat action" stuff before, and while they've got a point, i believe it's the narrative's intent that none of this is actually lethal, based on how laxly it treats certain plot injuries (cough cough. y7 bartender) and the actual concept of taking a life, the gravity it is given by the text, particularly when it comes to characters crossing that threshold into someone who has killed. explicit killing is not an option open to you, even when you're being attacked by dozens and dozens of armed men. conflicts are resolved by simply beating up enough guys in this nonlethal manner.

but dead souls is a shooter. to avoid conflict with the series' moral qualms about letting its characters kill, the enemies cannot be human. furthermore, the zombie shooter genre can only fit within the series if its zombies are completely inhuman. this means their pasts as humans cannot be acknowledged, nor the possibility of a cure, nor the characters' own potential conflicts about killing them; or, at least, not in a way that impedes their or the player's ability to gun them down afterwards.

if you can't kill humans in your series, then it cannot be possible to save (in this case, rehumanize) zombies. this is especially true in a game where you are unable to fight humans, and thus human lives are universally more valuable than zombie lives. because if you kill a zombie that can be cured, you are, in a way, killing a human.

and so, in a series where you should always assume your enemies (and everyone, for that matter) are capable of reason, compassion, change, and redemption, and where they are always worth that effort, even if they reject it in the end, dead souls' enemies are irredeemable and only worth swift, stylish slaughter. there are only good guys and bad guys. good guys must be protected, lest they be turned irreversibly into bad guys. good guys are only protected by killing bad guys, and the only way to save good guys is to kill every last one of the bad guys. do not spare them, and do not ask whether or not it's right. only kill.

i love dead souls. it's a silly game. i like seeing daigo in decoy-drag and majima gleefully cartwheeling his way through zombies and ryuji with his giant gun arm prosthetic. it's fun. but when i was trying to figure out what felt off about it to me, one of the words that came to mind (besides american) was indulgent. that, too, felt odd, because i love indulgent media. i am not one to scorn decadent, hedonistic, beautiful high-calorie slop type media. if dead souls was just fan servicey, that wouldn't really bother me. i am a fan and boy do i feel serviced. it rocks. but i think my problem is in what dead souls is indulging.

i think dead souls indulges in the desire to cut loose, and to see these characters cut loose. thing is, they're cutting loose all over kamurocho, and all over the bodies of people they used to (at least in concept) care for. with lethal weapons. it is catharsis via bloodbath, not by pushing your body and mind to the limit in man to man combat, but by pulling a trigger before the other guy can hurt you, or even think about hurting you, for the crime of existing as the wrong kind of thing.

and i just don't think that's in line with rgg's beliefs.

yes, it's probably fair for dead souls' characters to kill zombies. i'm not against that. i'm also not against games letting you do purposeless violence. i spent a good amount of my elementary school years killing oblivion npcs for shits, like. that's not what bothers me about dead souls.

rgg as a series has always taken a hard stance in both its game design and narrative choices against killing and for the potential for redemption in its enemies. and i think the lengths to which it goes to promote that despite the probably-lethal moves you do and the improbability of a harmless do-gooder yakuza is one of the most endearing things about the games. so for this one entry to disregard that key theme for the sake of a genre shift that flopped super hard, well? i dunno. it feels weird i guess. it's out of place not just because it's a dramatic shift in gameplay and style and also zombies are only a thing here (and the supernatural/fantastical are thus only prominent here), but because of what those shifts imply.

so, uh. yeah. my pre-dead-souls thoughts that dead souls wasn't that out of pocket bc rgg's just kinda weird? turns out it was actually super weird to have a zombie shooter in there, but for way way deeper reasons than anyone gives it credit for.

(footnotes in tags)

[leafy-m]

So I hit my 700th edit for the WHA wiki today, because I am a totally normal person

[onewingedangels]

I finished ff7 rebirth

[revrads]

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“Midnight Mass: The Unholy Trinity”

I got a bit silly and did this little thing! It was supposed to be a fully rotoscoped version of the scene but my Toon Boom bugged out, my carpal tunnel kicked in, and I wanted to practice After Effects more so I just used the first frame of that scene lmao. (Gonna be posting pre-edit version later in the reblog)

[thepandalion]

not to be annoying or anything but it's been 9 years since the release of indie game undertale

[laugtherhyena]

Playing Bomb rush cyberfunk has been a crazy experience so far because i feel like I've been enjoying the game just as much as I'm not doing so