#things I'd say to myself

[lazylittledragon]

isn't it weird how if you get up at 7 or 8, do your work all day, then have free time and go to bed at 11 that's absolutely fine

but if i said i get up at 10, do fun stuff in the morning then work in the evening and go to bed late, i could be called lazy, nevermind that i'm getting just as much or MORE work done as i would in a traditional work day

[memen18-m5r3]

hello surviving centricide fandom...I bring you some wacky food

(i'm also animating a small portion of Centricide 3.5 but since I can't tell how much more time it's gonna take I'll show you some sneak peeks! :3)

((since I'm a certified yapper, I added some additional info + translations to all the images descriptions! not sure if it qualifies as ID so feel free to add upon it if necessary))

[hajimemiya]

THEY'RE SO ADORABLE AAAAAHH💞💞💞

JUST LOOK AT THEM AND THEIR SQUISHABLE CHEEKS I WANNA KEEP THEM IN MY POCKET🥹❤️

[lucyschens]

at this point, i don't just want — i need for lucy to actually get upset with tim and express her emotions about the unfairness tim showed her with the breakup, for tim to show some deeper understanding of what he did and how he really hurt her and show remorse for that (+ show the progress from therapy that's been mentioned in interviews), AND for both of them to show growth as individuals!

[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.

[5-turtleducks-in-a-trenchcoat]

Everytime I listen to the Ancient Rome Sidequest it destroys me emotionally. But who knows, maybe somewhere there's a world where nothing terrible happens and it's just Sasha and Grizzop having fun adventures in ancient Rome.

[autumnwhistles]

(ft synthesised voice, also this isn't quite the start of the song but it works better as an excerpt)

[vaguely-concerned]

ingellvar must have so many strange off-putting little personal habits in their day to day life that they don't even realize come across as weird, especially if they haven't ever dated outside of the watchers much. in rye's specific case I think lucanis has a capacity for such immaculate 'sure my life is already so fucking weird this might as well happen' energy that I believe he'd be able to roll with the punches admirably given the time, but it really would be a situation like

(what was going on there was that rook was placing down some experimental wards, by the way, it's what he does to calm down before bed and if he wakes during the night. what with the necropolis itself being a liminal space of lf sorts on a cosmic scale, watchers take the additional liminal space between wakefulness and dreaming extremely seriously b/c they know there are things drifting through that would just love to get their foot/tentacle/conceptual spores in that particular half-ajar door that should not be allowed inside. or outside, I suppose, depending on your point of view. rook and lucanis are also experimenting with whether solid wards can help any with lucanis' weird post-spite dreams even if they can't do anything for the more mundane ptsd ones. third reason because in my worldstate they still live in the lighthouse after the game: unless gently dissuaded wisps will sometimes drift by while you're asleep and hover over your face curiously as they sense your mind doing stuff in the fade, and no one likes waking up on an eldritch sneeze with a well-meaning yet terrified wisp zooming about the room. important watcher novice 101 lessons.

blessed mental image of rye cross-legged on the floor, barefoot in his PJs with his hair down and no makeup, peaceably tracing out elaborate geometric shapes that somehow make your eyes scared when you look at them* while lucanis sits on the bed and reads out loud to both him and spite and occasionally sneaks some carnal looks at rook's fully unleashed curly hair and bare wrists & throat...... okay I think I've found the thing that will help me through the day thank you for coming on this journey with me)

*what is the paint he's using made out of and why is it such a deeply unsettling colour? don't worry about it! :) patented mostly well-meaning yet also borderline condescending mortalitasi hand wave of 'don't worry your sweet little non-nevarran head about it we both know you don't actually want to know. do not ask questions lest you learn the answers, especially if you're going to be annoying at me and freak out about it. let the things man was not meant to know stay unknown. unknown by you I mean I'm built different'

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

This might be a bit random but would you say you have any thoughts on Neurodivergent readings of Zhongli (more specifically autistic)? I was thinking about it in the latest chapter of JG amd even before then too. as an autistic person myself i feel he reads very heavily as such, especially when talking about his human mask and feeling like he doesn't need to force it as much with childe, and his issues with human expression in smiling etc. but I think it's then an interesting debate between that and the fact that, well, he's just not human. that all comes from a place of being an entirely different species, unevolved and unrelated to human brains and how they think and read social patterns, and I feel we don't really have any way of telling if ZL has any divergent tendencies among dragons right? and even then he's half, too, so that affects things.

anyway sorry for the ramble I was mainly wondering if you had any opinions on the matter, or if you intended the parallels I definitely see while reading your Zhongli! love your work as always <3333

i think i might've commented on this at some point but never directly, so here – i do have thoughts on the matter!

as you mentioned, it's difficult to tell with characters that aren't human, because you can't call something 'neurodivergent' if the bases for their neurotypical-ity are not the ones by which we measure this stuff. so, to me, ALL non-human characters are neurodivergent-coded. they may not be neurodivergent, technically speaking (like how you mentioned, maybe all dragons are just like zl), but to us, they read as such. so, coded. ultimately i do think there is merit in labeling them as neurodivergent because, even if they, again, technically aren't; we are going to run into problems if we attempt to treat them as neurotypical, so we might as well say yeah, neurodivergent. it is also kinda correct anyway – they do diverge from us. that's a fact. it's like saying dogs are colorblind. if all dogs see in the same range, then you can't say your dog in specific is colorblind (unless it actually is but that's beside the point); but compared to us, from our perspective, for what it matters to us and how that will translate into how we treat them then yes! dogs are colorblind! i think i mentioned it once in conjunction with characters like alhaitham. to me, zhongli is neurodivergent-coded, while alhaitham is neurodivergent straight-up. because (as far as we know) he's human, so his brain should, in theory, be like ours.

as for which flavor of neurodivergency zl is coded to have in specific i would agree with you on autism! but then again, i'm not an expert on these things, i don't know the exact ins and outs and the specific characteristics that constitute an autistic character – i just write them the way i perceive them, with the quirks i perceive them to have. not to get preachy but i think that's the better way to write characters in general, since that's how real people work, after all. people with autism aren't born fitting some parameters that will make them autistic – they're born with specific quirks that we then interpret as autism, and even then you don't necessarily get two people having the exact same experience with this. most of these terms are umbrella terms regardless as to how well-defined or how big or small the umbrella is.

so yeah!

[crxzytogether]

I had to do it... I LOVE THIS SONG AND THIS ARTIST

here's one more byler edit to we hug now to add to your collection :)

[necrotic-nephilim]

What's so fun about BruJay as a ship is Jason's sheer obsessive devotion to Bruce. Jason is possessive over Bruce, to the point he doesn't care about the deaths of others so long as he has Bruce's attention. A part of the UTRH arc this isn't talked about enough is that Bludhaven fucking explodes mid-way and Jason won't let Bruce see if Dick is alive.

batman (1940) #650

A lot of discussion about UTRH paints Jason as this anger-driven cold, calculating machine up against Bruce when it's so clear that his love for Bruce is what drives him at his root, even if he won't acknowledge it. He says it himself, he would've done anything if it was Bruce who'd died instead of him and his anger is rooted in that possessive devotion not being reciprocated.

batman (194) #650

BruJay as a ship always to be, to some level, unrequited. Even if Bruce loves Jason back in that way, he'll never be that obsessed with Jason. Jason will always view Bruce's love for Dick or Tim to be a distraction, proof that Bruce isn't dedicated enough to him. Jason has the need to always have Bruce's attention, even when it could come at the cost of Bruce's other loved ones. Something something cannibalism as a metaphor for love in how Jason wants to consume Bruce's whole existence. He can't let Bruce leave him again, can't let Bruce love or grieve anyone else. Forcing Bruce to choose between Jason and the Joker isn't just about confronting Jason's killer, it's about confronting the other person who exists as this duality with Bruce and consumes so much of Bruce's life. That's the role Jason wants to fill, calling himself Red Hood and forcing Bruce to look at what he's become. But still loving Bruce and wanting more than anything for Bruce to reciprocate that love in the way that Jason understands. I just think it's good soup and rife with Dynamics that are underexplored with them.

[kidokear]

Peak Gabv1el development (for me, at least) is when someone calls V1 an object and it's Gabriel who go off on this someone, like, he will not allow anyone to entertain that notion. This angle will defend V1's autonomy and sentience with his life.

I think it's sweet and it's a great way to show how far their relationship and bond (romantic or platonic) has gone. Gabriel going from calling them a thing to not letting anyone to call them that and even taking offence (probably more than them) to someone thinking of them like that? How can I not love this? He's the king of fast character development. XD

[xenomorphicdna]

On the string propaganda

Heeellll yeah

Bestie is an entire PLACE

I look at those guys and let me tell you the soul of that thing ain't just in the puppet, it's in all the neurons carrying the thoughts and emotions, it's in the power rails that serve as the heart. All the memories in the memory conflux and all the numbers we see flicker across displays, the flux condensers, the puppet; a little avatar.

No way these massive machines see life the same way we do. They have their own experiences and senses and things they hold dear. A world we can't imagine, a way of living we couldn't even comprehend.

I could never tear an iterator apart to be just a puppet. Who am I to decide how's life supposed to be enjoyed or perceived?

You treat your creechurs however you want- I ain't gonna dictate that. But damn, hearing the thrums and buzzes of the linear systems rail? They are alive with so much power, these mechanical beasts are exactly what they should be.

[disposal-blueeee]

[reksink]

How Art Thou Fallen, Child of Endless Starlight

Another Comm From Other Realms 💚 (Click for better quailty)

[thevioletcaptain]

as someone who normally reads a script over on the tv writing site every day while eating breakfast like it's the morning paper, but who didn't have time today because i'm trying to meet a deadline on my own script that i've been slow to work on due to an assortment of fire related stress as a resident of los angeles this week........ i am experiencing some severe fomo over these new spn script drops