#this footage is so wholesome though | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

inventedfangirling · 2 years ago

Text

PatPran & the Bet Era™

A week ago Bad Buddy PatPran Bet Era discourse started heating up again and i thought i should finally try to put to words my unending (that's in BOLD so you know what to expect :3) all consuming thoughts about this most brilliant, jam-packed with funny, heartfelt and equally wholesome moments of an episode- episode 7, an episode that I have watched a minimum of 14 times in the past 2 months and so yes finally, here I am, let's go.

Before anything else though I first want to scream about something i realized while writing this post which is that episode 7/ bet era is probably THE ONLY time in the whole show where PatPran truly and completely enjoyed having and keeping their secret. Like they were truly thriving off of the fun they were having at the expense of and with the other. And keeping it hidden only added to that experience.

With the whole world oblivious to what's going on between them, the secret is undemanding, mostly easy and even fun to keep cos the bet was for them and just for them...

...unlike a relationship which they would want to experience around other people too.

But for an episode that leaves you with so many good feelings (after the first watch) it is quite easy to forget just how much it took to get to that ending. Episode 7 Pran still had his reservations about their possible relationship and he still had to work through years and years of repression and trauma. Episode 7 Pat too was not always in the best frame of mind, because while all else was said and done they were still in an in-between, unlabeled, unprecedented and unfamiliar space in their dynamic. One that a simple uncomplicated guy like Pat would loathe to continue to stay in. And yet for an episode set on such an underlying premise for the most part they made this liminal space appear as such a fun, warm, wholesome and enjoyable place to be in that there are times when we forget the shakiness of the foundation of it all -> A still undefined rival-turned-friend-situation-ship.

And in the light of this, episode 7 can easily be seen as a microcosm of their incredibly layered relationship and the show as such and when packaged in such an attractive, intriguing, exciting, seldom seen set-up (that was designed to subvert years of terrible tropes in the industry) who wouldn't sign tf up for it. If i could live in an episode of the show, it'd most probably be episode 7. If i was asked to name an episode to rewatch forever it would be episode 7. If asked to write endlessly on my thoughts about the show again it would be episode 7 that would take a substantial part of it cos i just love it that much.

Here's some secret footage of Pran feeling all warm and fuzzy over thoughts of him and Pat me any time i think about episode 7.

Alright now actually getting into the episode, we know that Pran was still deciding when and how exactly to progress with his now reciprocated feelings for Pat yes, but he was also finally getting a space to express his long held affection for Pat without having to pretend otherwise.

Without rolling his eyes and "reluctantly" letting him in. Without pretending to scold him for "stealing" his breakfast when he had in fact made it for Pat himself. Without stopping himself from getting closer. Without the numerous restrictions he had placed on himself, the bet era finally gave Pran space to care for Pat openly but also unleashed the romantic in him (not that i'm ignoring the fact that Pran wrote a whole song about Pat in high school, but you geddit).

And eventhough none of his schemes to make Pat confess worked, (Pat confessed on his own like he would have on the first day of the bet if Pran had allowed him to talk about it), the baby steps he was taking was crucial for laying the base for their eventual relationship, but also for Pran as an individual making significant strides in learning to be vulnerable and more open.

It not only gave Pran opportunities to try out a lot of things, helping him figure out along the way what Pat likes and what he doesn't, and what Pran himself would like to do to and with him, things that a younger Pran would have died to have gotten the opportunity to do with Pat- the cooking, the feeding, the prolonged charged eye contact, the physical proximity (and I will never stop being devastated but also delighted over the fact that baby gay pran would be thinking that he's dreaming if he could see his future) but also of course the bet gave Pran time to process his own issues while it operated on the familiar turf of competition, with his fav and only rival and boy, and allowed him freedom to think and act in ways he wouldn't have earlier.

The seeds to Pran's "being with you already feels like freedom" to Pat in episode 11, were sown right here in this very episode. What he learnt and absorbed during this time expanded his field of vision regarding the possibilities of his own life and the power he had over his own choices, broadened his emotional horizons and quite literally opened his heart.

While earlier the dark shadow of his closed off heart would loom large over his face each time his feelings surfaced...

....post bet era Pran's face could fuel a couple of hundred thousand solar panels.

Pre-bet Pran loved Pat of course. But the feelings of love that bet era and post bet era Pran exude, is of a wholly different texture. It's borne of a more layered, luminous sort of love. The one that gets to be expressed and is reciprocated. And you observe the look of love on his face and its is as if he glows from inside out.

It's based on the foundation of reciprocation and therefore no longer something that needs to be hidden from the receiver, but it's also as if he learnt to love in a different way, like he learnt that he could love this way too, that he could make use of his heart this way too. Post bet era Pran's love just flows out of him in waves, nice and easy, minimal repression and none of the doubt that accompanied it earlier.

And at this point I can't not mention the swagger that Pran gains post Pat's episode 6 reveal (that he didn't have feelings for ink), finally secure in the knowledge that Pat really feels the same love that he feels for the other, his whole demeanor changes and its something that just hits you immediately.

The assurance and confidence of reciprocation in his face, contrasting with the hesitation and doubt each time he allowed himself to feel pre-bet (as if each time he is looking at Pat 'loving you is a losing game' plays in the background) is just remarkable. And that confidence just increases each episode and i was LIVING for it.

And again, back to episode 7 and my point which is that Pran has loved Pat for years and years by then but all that time his love was something to hide, his heart was closed off and barred from any encroachment no matter how ineffective it was against Pat. It was the bet era that allowed Pran's heart to undergo a renewal, a second coming, a rebirth so to say, of a heart that is no longer so boarded up and closed off, a heart with a lot more windows and a few more better oiled doors and a heart that most importantly Pran would eventually, wholeheartedly hand Pat the keys to.

In many ways we can see Pran's growth beyond this episode, from the "I care about you more" to the "I came quickly because i was worried about you" to "how can i stop if i think of it like that" to the brave way he stands up to both Ming & Dissaya all of it in the span of a few weeks, all of it as borne from the lessons he learnt during the bet era.

Pat also went through his own growth during this time. I have already talked a bit about the episode focusing on Pat's side of the things here. While not as evident as Pran's growth was during this episode (but only because we see him transform more gradually over the course of the first few episodes itself) Pat also learns to use his heart in newer ways that veered off a bit from how he had pre bet era. For the most part though the bet was more of a fun thing for him than it was for Pran for whose sake Pat even agreed to this in the first place.

And so while Pran tries to make Pat confess, Pat defers the confession because he knows that Pran needs more time, and Pat takes to that reality and adapts to it so beautifully, with such wisdom that's so above and beyond what could be expected from a 19-20 year old man, the thought of it still takes my breath away and turns me into a puddle.

Just look at just how careful and gentle Pat is with Pran. And think of how much he has grown and how much he will grow from here. Think of Pat as a child telling Pran to not talk to him in front of people cos "they will think we're buddies". And then years later (in episode 8 and beyond) think of him wishing wishing oh so desperately to proclaim his love for Pran out to the world, for Pran to let him do that, to claim their relationship and celebrate their love. I WILL NOT BE OVER THIS. Or anything in this episode/show actually. Cos it really is that special. Episode 7 Pat my beloved did that.

That being said, it ofc wouldn't have been all easy and he would have had his share of upsets. The confusion, the lack of clarity, the staying in the limbo, the lack of any tangible progress could all have deterred him. There is also the fact that Pat doesn't strike you as a patient guy. He is the first born male child in a patriarchal asian household having been pampered as a result of this his whole life. His every whim and wish probably granted within days. And yet for the bet, for their relationship, for Pran he learns to be patient. He learns to bide his time. He learns to not immediately take action without thinking (the time he silently walks away from Pran's room post Wai's guitar return, he could have said some hurtful things, but he didn't, he bit his tongue, kept quiet and moved on).

{I am totally in the camp of "we should have gotten a 'how could you give it away Pran?' conversation after this scene but i also understand why it didn't happen}

Over the course of the episode and his time with Pran in general, right from the beginning Pat steadily starts learning to put the other person first. To cater to people around him and not for them to cater to him, always. We see this transformation begin in episode 3 itself when Pat just goes out of his way (multiple times) to help Pran out, but that is at least partly in due to his new found need to be around Pran (courtesy his crush that he is still not aware of) and not as much a conscious effort to be better. Although ofc that is there too. His transformation from entitled boy in the episode 1 family lunch scene to the considerate helpful man in the finale family dinner scene is so stark you might think they're two different people, and a lot of that growth is owed to what he learnt and unlearned while he was falling in love with Pran.

He learns to read Pran. The feelings that won't be uttered with words, but the ones he'd have to pry out from his eyes. And he does all of that while still being respectful of any boundaries that Pran may have, while also testing the waters to come closer.

I know i've used gifs from this face cleaning scene thrice already but i just love it so much?? I love how it might look like just a fluffy scene but the layers?? Just how deep and meaningful and just full of substance it is??? I might need to write a whole essay for that itself. And also when you think about it what i said about this scene could literally be said about bad buddy (and the whole of episode 7 for that matter). With an uncritical eye you can watch it as the beautifully executed romance(cute fluffy episode) that it is. But when you unearth the layers whoa boy thats where the real beauty of the show (episode) comes out. But also this is extra special because this is the first scene where we get to see Pran completely softening when Pat tends to him. His adoring melting puddle looks reserved usually for when Pat's attention isn't entirely on him. But this time he lets himself be softened. Lets himself feel. Lets himself be babied. And even if non verbally he lets himself express, agreeing to move closer and tracing hearts on Pat's face. It is more than just a cute moment, it's a small declaration of faith. Among the first in a long series of declarations of faith that led to the ending we ended up loving.

So yes, Pat was learning to use his heart in a different way too, to love in quieter more mundane yet still special ways, but also learning to respond to Pran's emotions, and the repressed ways he sometimes continued to express his feelings, he learnt to read between the lines, not jump to hasty conclusions he would have done earlier and was thus steadily progressing into the partner that Pran could trust his heart with always.

Episode 7 shows us how patpran changed and molded themselves in various ways to fit into the other, but it also shows how they change to accommodate not just the other, but also the world. Not in a compromising way, but in a way that allows them to function in it more effectively and later on in the fake break up era, diabolically using it to pull wool over the eyes of anybody who threatens their peace.

Also i wont go into it in detail here but it is entirely possible that Pat was going through a spiral of his own issues during this time because of worries fueled by insecurities due to the fragile nature of their relationship at that point and the lack of certainty in the situation like I talk about here, but even if he was feeling all of that, even in that in-between state of limbo Pat had tons and tons of fun teasing Pran and trying to outdo him each time and we know that his cheery exterior which he may have put forward occasionally to keep it light for pran wasn't just for show, he really did enjoy the whole push-pull thing they had got going on, his smiles popping out when alone too.

I mean look at his delight each time one of their(Pran's) plans to outwit the other fails.

The bet era was without a doubt a VERY fun time for both of them (and for all of us watching) the flirting, the teasing, the act of courting one another, the familiar feeling of competition and the easy sense of play that pervades their interactions during that period....

...everything, everything, everything was just * chef's kiss *.

And also I still can't get over the fact that it's the only time the secret is theirs and only theirs and they have THE BEST TIME keeping it.

And also if Pran was able to shed his loving you is a losing game attitude to finally accept the love that Pat offered, it was possible in no small amount due to Pat's willingness to lose to Pran over and over again if that meant he was happy. And Pran having had to harbour a long drawn painful unrequited love for years and years, used to all the repression and self denial, he really needed that assurance, that dependability. And Pat readily gave it to him because that's just the way he loved. Fully, freely and fiercely. And you won't ever catch me feeling normal about any of that ever.

And also speaking of things i wont be normal about that scene at the end when Pat arrives to save the day and all eyes are on him and the flashback to Pat's audition with his callback to their rooftop conversation and Pran's 'fuck i love him so much i can't believe he's doing this here' face oozing pure love and then present PatPran exuding the sun looking at eo, with Forever May playing in the background, that scene? That scene is everything to me. I will die for that scene.

So to recap, Pat flexed his emotional intelligence muscles and his literal actual muscles and learnt to be more patient than he had ever been his whole life, meanwhile Pran got to flex his flirting skills, looming skills all while he learnt to let go, express and be more vulnerable.

And also not to forget that apart from all the space for growth that the bet provided patpran it also allowed them to indulge in their love for shenanigans and roleplaying that continues well into their relationship even years later, more on that in the ever amazing miscellar's post here . There are so many more posts of their's and a buncha other accounts i really want to reference but then we'd be here for days if not weeks and so i wont :3

And also I can't not take a second to mention just how wonderful it was that throughout this episode we see the seeds being sown of all the ways they and their relationship would grow, and especially when it came to consent and boundaries. Just how equal their relationship is. How they're always, always meeting in the middle.

No interaction, nothing is initiated without knowing what the other wouldn't want. And of course both PatPran were being respectful of each other's non existent boundaries with eo, they were all up in each other's faces but you just know that if one of them expressed actual discomfort the other would step away immediately.

And thats just so so rare not only in dramas but also real life and i love them so much for it.

Episode 7 showed us not only how patpran became better partners to eo but also better human beings as such, their influence on one another so evident, molding them on a fundamental level into better versions of themselves. Pran who gifts a bottle of liquor (to the man who ruined the better part of his & his mother's life) as a peace offering but also as a sort of pre-engagement ritual, choosing to open up, to be vulnerable, to love more loudly, being a more well adjusted adult and he did it for Pat, because of the lessons he learnt from Pat. And Pat who learns to read between the lines, who recognizes the value of gestures that might appear small but aren't, offering to wash dishes, serving food to his sister and in general taking responsibility and also the importance of order and routine to contribute to society and just be a well functional adult, and he learnt it in no small amount from being inspired from the man he loves, from Pran.

But all of that of course is in full splendor only after the time skip. That being said Episode 8 that comes immediately after this episode shows PatPran taking the lessons they started learning in episode 7 and putting it into effect with them openly communicating, asserting their needs but also compromising their wants for each other and illustrated exactly how and why they work together so well, why this isn't the product of a childish bet but a very serious relationship into which a lot of thought and effort has gone into.

A relationship based on the softest, kindest, most tender (but also often, feral) forms of love even in the more hostile of circumstances. There's a saying in my mother tongue that "What's born in the fire, won't wilt in the sunlight." And that to me perfectly captures PatPran's resilience despite their obstacles. Ming & Dissaya & the Architecture-Engineering rivalry and whatever other hurdles stood in their way never really stood a chance against their love.

TLDR; The bet era played an irreplaceable role in their lives helping PatPran pick up and refine the tools that were going to prove invaluable in their eventual relationship with each other but also with their relationships with everybody else around, but they did that while having (for the most part) the time of their lives where for the first time since they realized their feelings they were getting to act on it, each attempt at getting the other to confess a declaration of their own love, without the pressure of a relationship and...and despite whatever anxieties or worries they may have had during this time, we also can't forget that it ended up in the biggest most content whipped in love smiles known to humankind and a relationship for the ages <3

The work they put in this episode thus laid the foundation for the rest of their relationship and their lives and I'm so glad it worked out in the best way for both of them, that they worked for that together and even more that they grew up and beyond the versions of them that got together and then stayed together as the better versions that they made together.

47 notes · View notes

sideeffectsofhavingnolife · 5 months ago

Text

IPKKND S:1 EP-4

I don't know why but I feel strangely exhausted today. Eh! Just one of those days.

Fourth Episode of Iss pyaar ko kya naam doon, here we come

"Maine tumse pehle bhi kaha hai, apni aukaat me raha karo" Sir, what?!

We just started and he's got her beat again. Let my girl vent once. I want her to say some real ugly stuff, he deserves it.

"Kyu... Kya kiya maine? "This bitch! Look at his smug face.

Girl, stop clutching your Kurta and try to snap back at least.

There he goes, Score 4:0

Yeah, sure! Follow him and preach about God. Definitely the next best course of action.

Look at him talking about dard, you're not the only one who has endured pain in life, buddy, it doesn't give you the right to be an asshole or to harass women.

I thought the speech would be about him being a dick the last time they met and possibly a threat of lodging a harassment complaint.

But go off, Khushi, tell him how big and universal God is, whom Arnav doesn't even believe in. Seems like it should work.

Damn! I was just being sarcastic but looks like it actually worked, he looks pissed.

Where are you even scurrying off to? Oh right! She has to apologize to a lot of people.

Fuck! I knew that the fashion show footage would be on the news but I didn't predict that Arnav would do it to take revenge.

Lol, he cares more about a girl who made a lousy speech than his own company's reputation.

I can't say this enough, the sister and the dad are the most sweetest.

Who was the groom, anyway? Are we ever gonna meet him?

Oh, she mentioned the missing pearls.

I feel bad for my girl, sexual harassment is not a joke, it can be so traumatizing.

Yay! The return of 'Laard Governer'.

Did this man just called him 'bhai'

"Bhai, navratre chal rahe hai" same here dude, perfectly matched the timing.

Let's not oversell, Khushi.

You barely made a dent and it still made him mad.

"Chote log aksar aukaat se bada mooh kholte hai" There's no end to this shit.

This guy seems really close to Arnav. Wonder what's their deal?

We are in for a dance sequence, I guess.

Or more like casual fun.

The mother saw, she is gonna be even more upset.

Not the freeze with the broom right in her face.

Mom! Come be a part of this.

Yes, coax her in. I want to spend some good moments with the mother, I feel like she has been sulking from the very start.

That's right! collective Bua slander is what we live for in this house.

"Aap hi ki beti hu na?"

Let's go! Be the wholesome family you all deserve.

I already know the dad's gonna be a part of it. So stop with the tense music.

Aghh this Bua needs to shut the fuck up and get out of the house.

Why is your head aching Bua? Aap ne hi to sabke sar me dard kar rakha hai.

Thanks Dad! Keep your daughter away from this poisonous bitch.

What's with this nosy caterer? I guess we are not done with our toxicity quota of the day yet.

Somebody shoot this motherfucker down, please.

That's your signal, Khushi. Tear this man a new one.

Nice, so that's her thing, she is good with accounting stuff.

The dad is so proud of her as well.

I wish the sister was here too but she is stuck making chai for the Bua at home.

What a weird shooting set! The fake stars, disco balls, and a backdrop that looks like someone upscaled a screenshot of a Google image. Not to mention the bad lighting. Like what exactly are you even shooting for?

Are those the dresses from the Runway? Because they look just as terrible.

He basically called him a kutta and I am not surprised.

But I don't understand why won't he just throw money at his face if he is so rich.

Are padaaa!

He shouldn't have challanged Arnav's childhood trauma.

Don't talk about people's mother disrespectfully in general, though.

Another one!

2 Crores for two slaps. I wish I got a deal like that. I'd be a billionare by now, if only my mother beating me counted.

Back to Bua ji. 🙄

Fuck! she'll discover the footage first. That's not gonna end well.

What the fuck is this news reporter?

No but why are the needless arrows and circles so absurdly accurate, I've seen it in real news channels.

The sister showed up as well.

Nah! There's no way any cameras were taking those close ups.

How did these people even saw this news?

Somebody in the crowd literally said "Dekh dekh, kaise chal rahi hai?" like what?

Of, course, they are standing in front of a television store but also how did they recognise her so fast? Am I the only person in the world who won't be able to tell even the most famous celebrity apart from a crowd. If they were not surrounded by a crew.

Holy shit! The reporter's voice over just scared me.

"Pakke hue aam ki tarah tapak jaati hai" Please! 😂I am guessing they paid the reporter or he has a personal vendetta against her because why would you deliver these statements with such intristic passion if not for money?

Okay, so it reallly picked up at the end. Excited to see what happens next. I mean I am sure this would lead to some sort of inciting incident but at the same time, it would reallly hurt to see Khushi's parents' dissapointed faces.

But let's not act like I didn't wish for more drama.

#ipkknd episode liveblogs #seriously who was that groom though?#Khushi better apologize to that man #Arnav! I also want 2 crores thrown at my face please

2 notes · View notes

cosmica-galaxy · 2 years ago

Note

A continuation on this monster of a text, https://www.tumblr.com/cosmica-galaxy/719001034780000256

Me while reading this: Ohhhh celestial castle, very nice, dawww and they put Deimos and Sanford close together? In like a small bed, did they make a doll house for their resting vessels? That's so sweet, I would have ne- wh… w what do you mean “if he ever woke up from his slumber”.

Would this mean that others could potentially wake up too… heh, live footage of Jeb checking if Hofnarr is dead or alive https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YtSPQIK15uc

But seriously though THAT'S SO COOL, when i read the line “That once the employers confront the false moon, the “moon” is revealed to be one of Player’s eyes” i hit my table i was so pumped. This character started off so sad then it turned so wholesome, i love it.

Also, I think :Mothra's Theme (Queen of the Monsters Suite): would be a good fit for their character.

But another thing that's been bugging me, wouldn't the vessels notice something wrong, first they are engaged in combat and the other second they aren't, you can't tell me that they wouldn't notice.

Like a siad in the previous post maby it comes to a point where Doc wants to find out about this god. I mean if the employers are so perturbed by it and it's affecting his mercenaries (the exception being Hank). Then what could this mean… Listen, I just want one, ONE of the madcom characters to meet the moon god face to face in all there glory, is that so much to ask for?

Originally I imagined the god to have flesh, but now that I have a better understanding of their character I think it would be more suitable if they were made out of solid rock, or at least appear to be. It's hard to see their real form through the misty light that's covering them, but when they're scaled down a mock version of their form appears.

The gods body and clothes are made out of chiseled marble yet the garments that they wore moved with their body as if it wasn't. A shadow forever masking the left side of their face, the only glimpse to what's beneath it is a crimson stream dripping down their chine. It's hard to think that a statue could ever bleed, or for that matter feel pain, but how are one supposed to know if they are not one in the same. Cracks oozing with blood seep into the desert sand. The only indicator that they were ever there, despite their superiority they can not stay in that form for long.

I've been puting of how I envision their clothes to be or what they wear and ehh… they are very see-through. But then again I can't imagine the moon having any genitalia since they are a celestial body, their whole being is covered up by their mighty aura.

For referens

Here's a short little doodle dump to show what would happen during the confrontation. : )

#long post #shegairownmyamo #haxorus imp #hax speaks #cosmica galaxy #my doodles

25 notes · View notes

stevenbasic · 2 years ago

Text

GITJ Post 320: Friday Morning, Alone

That’s strange, right? I thought to myself, as another series of videos cued themselves up on my computer, from the news sites. It was Friday morning and - like what was happening more and more these days - I had a few empty slots in my schedule so here I was in my office, killing time. I’d been thinking about Melissa but she was busy out doing something with the construction in the new wing. I missed her and kinda wanted to talk to her but I understood there was a lot to do. Supposedly the work was going well, they were ahead of schedule, and we’d be opening sooner than they’d planned. When, exactly, Melissa wouldn’t tell me. She also wouldn’t let me over to see the new wings. She wanted it to be a surprise.

Anyway, yeah. The headlines, since the election, had obviously been strange. It was unavoidable, the news coming from Washington, across the country and, really, all around the world. These women and their new political party - which, I was starting to figure out, was more than just a US organization but had a structure of international leadership - had really taken some major victories and were running with them already. Congress was - even before the new class of Senators and Representatives took office - already preparing and in some cases moving on new legislation to make headway into New Woman campaign promises. Yikes! If I didn’t know how slow and ineffective government normally was at making actual change, it might be kinda scary! Because some of the planks of the platforms these women ran on were kinda out there haha. No way they’d ever be more than promises, of course, with the way government worked. Besides, there were enough checks-and-balances built into the system to keep anything weird from happening, right? Our Democracy was strong. Or so they always said.

Anyway, what was really strange was how these videos kept popping up on my screen, everytime I went someplace new on my browser. Some sort of virus? They were like little news clips about the election results, or campaign pieces from one victorious candidate or another, pushed out by someone who really wanted me to see them. Some kind of computer virus? Whatever it was I actually just gave up trying to be productive with work and found myself watching a few of them: at least our new overlords will be pretty attractive haha, I joked to myself. The new President-Elect, in fact, was featured in a bunch of them and yikes before today I really had no idea but she was, uh…vavavoom…

I found myself watching excerpts from a bunch of her speeches, a couple interviews, and some old fluff footage that had been put together giving some background on her, Marlee Martin. Mom of three, ex fitness- and figure-competitor from North Carolina, self-help guru and entrepreneur/business owner: even if she was surrounded by notoriously strong women and hardcore female empowerment advocates, she had obviously swept into office in no small part due to how unthreatening she could make herself appear. She had a strong but certainly feminine, flirty and accessible nature on camera. Though she was tall and physically fit she seemed to revel in her femininity and in all those old-fashioned habits that have always been so disarming to men. She was just enough of a Southern Belle to appear benign and wholesome, but obviously quick on the uptake and aware of her strengths. In short she had not been above using sex appeal on the campaign trail. I shivered thinking about what some of the pundits were voicing: who knows what will happen now, from the Oval Office?

The new President-Elect was decidedly on the side of female empowerment, though, and never presented as a bimbo. She was likable but resolute and she herself never spoke too militantly on the goals of her party. She never flaunted her intellect either. Instead she shrewdly identified as "a friend of the common woman…and man". A cliche platitude, maybe, and now I realize women voters had obviously seen that for what it was, an empty bit of retail politicking. Even now, as I speak, I can recall that after she was in office you could see her continue to be the cute public mouthpiece of "fighting for the rights of men" just as everything eroded at warp speed unimpeded in the opposite direction, with her foot secretly on the gas pedal. Ultimately, if I remember, she presided in a calculated and effective way over the historic transformation of a nation into one more and more dominated by female leaders. While she continued to promise vaguely and ominously that "I'll never let our men and boys be forgotten", in the end she pivoted hard with the rest of the free world and took more and more credit for all the gains made by women on her watch, while men came out on the short end of the stick.

But at this point in history she was, yes, a bit of “America’s Mom,” or more “America’s Soccer Mom,” just walking the finest line between cute and pretty and down-to-earth accessible but gorgeous when she needed to be.

Speaking of gorgeous…

It wasn’t just in politics. Women had been casually gathering more power everywhere these days and when Melissa stepped through my office door that morning, in six-inch heels and a short skirt, it struck me hard. I sat up straight, and felt immediately like I was in the presence of my superior. I’d recognized the feeling, and tried to shake it off. This is my girlfriend, I reassured myself, not my boss haha.

Girlfriend, yes, right. Our relationship, such that it was - me the older guy, she the hot young thing with the borderline-disabled IQ - had been up until this week plowing ahead full steam. The election results had cast a funny shadow, though, and things since our Tuesday evening together had seemed…off. I’d been privately stewing on the feeling that she’d taken physical advantage of me that night. Plus, she’d not only known that Lakshmi had recently, uh, eased me through a tough time but even encouraged the intimacy. That was weird, right? For a girlfriend to be that, um, magnanimous? I shouldn’t be complaining, I guess, but it made me uneasy. Melissa was probably here for our Friday morning coffee meeting, and maybe it was a chance for me to clear the air.

“Hiiiiiii sweetie,” she sang, stepping in towards me. As she walked into the room with that million-dollar smile, there was just enough jiggle under her buttoned-up silk blouse to stop my words in my throat. She brightened and seemed to stand taller as she saw my eyes take in the dramatic spectacle of her figure. “I’m so sorry I’ve been so busy,” she purred, beginning to come around my desk, “but I wanted to drop in for a good-morning-kiss.”

My heart fluttered. “…a-and our Friday meeting?” I stammered, expectantly.

“Oh, pumpkin, I’m sorry,” she cooed with a pout, leaning down and gently taking my chin in her hand, “but I don’t have time this morning. There’s a meeting with the city inspectors about permits that they want me to be at.” Her eyes sparkled with affection as she watched my eyes try for a glance down her top. “I don’t really know what we’ll be talking about, honestly,” she giggled in admission as her free hand charitably undid the topmost button of her blouse, “I think they just need me for eye candy.”

“Oh, uh, okay,” I stammered, caught in a wave of perfume that seemed to ease my mind and catching a generous glimpse of cleavage, “I was kinda looking forward to sitting down with you for a couple minutes?”

“Awwww that’s sweet,” she purred, her smile redoubling upon itself, cocking her head at me, “but how ‘bout we do it tonight? Instead of going out, let’s stay in. I’ll show you my new place, where I’m staying at my mom’s. I’ll get dinner and we can talk then, have our…meeting.” She watched my eyes take it in; she had plans for our date night and I was excited for the idea already. “Does that sound nice?” she asked, her voice sweet but full of promise, “Maybe I’ll leave work early, get ready for you?”

“Y-yeah, sure,” I agreed, heart already racing.

“Good boy,” she smiled and then, finally, leaned in for our good-morning kiss, a big one that gently smeared my face red with her fresh lipstick. After a big, final <MUAH!> she saw what she’d done, giggled girlishly and licked her finger to wipe me clean with her warm saliva. “We’ll have our Friday meeting date tonight,” she purred, “I’ll make sure I warm some milk up for you…”

===============================================

Thank you to TopographicSociety / @societytopographic for a good bit of inspiration and copy on this one

#growing into the job

43 notes · View notes

marimayscarlett · 11 months ago

Note

Hi 😊

1., 8., 38. for movie game

Thank you 💜

Thank you for these questions! 😊

It's hard to pick just one for the first two, so I'll do my favourite and an additional 'honourable' mention 🤍

1. what is your favorite film of all time?

It was and always will be 'The Matrix'. My uncle introduced it to me when I was 13 and it stuck with me ever since, I'm still obsessed with it and the whole Matrix universe almost 17 years later 💚 (and I mean OBSESSED. I even know the behind the scenes footage by heart)

Honourable mention: 'Papillon', fantastic movie and based on real events. Steve McQueen is marvellous in it 👌🏻

8. what’s your comfort film?

'Gone with the wind', reminds me of comfy movie afternoons with my mother and I love the book which the movie is based on 🤍

Honourable mention: 'The adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the desert', absolute wholesome and unhinged road movie 🚐

38. in your opinion what is the most overrated movie?

Hm, that's a tough one...after some thinking, I would say 'Titanic' (way too overrated for it being essentially just a romance movie) and 'The Irishman' (watched it and did not see the appeal of it in the slightest. Way too long for it being just meh in the storytelling department as well as not a good pace of events). Just my opinions though.

#movie ask #the matrix #Papillon #gone with the wind #the adventures of priscilla queen of the desert

4 notes · View notes

wandering-words · 2 years ago

Note

prompt 25 for avanine 🤭

(We talked before and you know I already got this one so thanks for sending in a backup request!)

This fulfills prompt 27 - humming/singing.

Set after 2x09 Sick Day.

~~~

Janine talked to the camera crew more than most of the staff at Abbott Elementary did.

Even Ava, the one who invited the camera crew to film the school in the first place, had a picture-perfect mask to present to the camera. She was a showman first and foremost, it was how she’d survived and gotten to where she was now, but Janine wasn’t used to projecting a personality to the camera.

She could barely find people who saw her for her and didn’t tease her for it. Even Tariq, the man she dated for nearly twelve years, didn’t really know who she was. Janine was so used to giving and giving and giving to the people around her, her boyfriend, her mom, the staff, the school, and no one seemed to give back, just sucked her energy out of her like a clew of leeches without wondering how she was doing.

Maybe it meant she projected too much of herself. Maybe people were too quick to dismiss her trauma, her cries for help, all of it. And maybe the camera crew weren’t really her friends, but at this point it was her only outlet to express herself, though a part of her knew logically that the camera crew were listening to her so that they could also extract knowledge that would better their Abbott Elementary documentary.

The camera crew was meticulous, filming them from 7:30 when school started to when the kids were let out at 2:30. There were also other extraneous filming times when some of the staff members interacted outside of school, but generally the filming schedule was largely the same. Janine was impressed at how they were able to find the most dramatic moments of the school day and compile them into 25 minute episodes.

Janine was one of the staff members that did talking heads the most, who shared her stories the most, who they painted as the protagonist despite Ava’s protests.

Part of Ava’s TV persona was hating Janine, but Janine couldn’t help but feel like it was personal.

The camera crew was suspiciously protective of their camera footage (the teachers saw the documentary as episodes were airing), but Janine was able to pull some strings to change that the day she got sick and couldn’t make it into school.

She knew Ava liked sabotage—even if she didn’t, she performed it flawlessly—and Janine wanted to make sure that it didn’t affect her class’s learning.

When Janine returned to Abbott that Monday, she asked two of the crew members if she could see some of the footage of Ava being a substitute teacher, just to make sure that everything was running smoothly.

Members of the camera crew shrugged, picking out pieces of footage they’d collected from the day and showing Janine the parts they planned to air.

What Janine didn’t expect was the lump that rose in her throat when she heard Ava playing her coloring playlist for the kids, singing along softly to “Pick Up Your Feelings” by Jazmine Sullivan. Janine couldn’t help the shy smile that spread over her face when she heard Ava attempt the vocal run, not doing a half-bad job at it.

It was a surprisingly wholesome moment. Watching Ava’s tough exterior go slightly softer for the kids made an unrecognizable feeling travel through Janine’s veins and she felt a smile tug at the corners of her lips.

Ava was genuinely trying, and even though it was likely for the kids’ benefit rather than Janine’s, Janine couldn’t help but feel as though she’d seen a vulnerable moment from the taller woman, watching the showman mask crack just a bit so that the kids could be comfortable learning from her.

Janine was a bit too good at forming unhealthy attachments to people. Barbara was the closest to a mother figure she’d ever had, Melissa was the hard-assed aunt she never had, Gregory was… a great friend, and now she was feeling some type of way about Ava.

She just knew that her affection wouldn’t be reciprocated because Ava had made it pretty clear that she hated Janine’s guts.

Janine came back her usual sunshiny self, and she was pleasantly surprised when Melissa and Barbara welcomed her back. Not quite with the most open of arms, but Melissa’s small smile and Barbara’s fond gaze were more than enough.

The more surprising reaction was Ava’s: she walked into the lounge with her usual swagger, but she was quiet. As she poured her usual mountain of sugar into her otherwise black coffee, her eyes were glazed over, a victim to her own thoughts.

What was even more surprising was that not only was Ava quiet to everyone in the staff room, but she usually had a few petty insults ready to snark out before she left, and she didn’t even look at Janine before she was swinging open the door and heading back to her office.

Janine looked directly at the door, not realizing she was lost in her own mental world of wondering where Ava was, what she was feeling, why she was even wondering what Ava was feeling, when she heard Melissa’s smug voice break through her thoughts.

“You’ve been staring at the door as if Ava’s coming back.”

Janine felt her face flush and she looked down demurely, but not before she heard an “mmm” from deep in Barbara’s throat, agreeing with the redhead. It was then that Janine tentatively moved from her chair, opening the door and making her way to Ava’s office, feeling her throat constrict and her entire body growing more and more tense with each step.

She also felt the faint bass and heard the soulful voice of Jazmine Sullivan, though muted, coming from inside Ava’s office. Janine noticed Ava humming along as she flipped through paperwork, and Janine felt some of the tension in her body melt when she noticed Ava being so… unconstricted. Free from her usual unaffected, snarky mask.

It made Janine’s heart constrict with a new feeling, adrenaline pumping through her veins and making Janine feel a way that she’d only before felt when in the presence of Tariq or Gregory.

But why Ava?

“What the hell are you doing out here, Janine?” Ava said, opening the door to her office and looking at Janine with an unaffected expression, her mask effectively slipping back into place.

“Uh…” Janine wracked her brain for an excuse, “I wanted to thank you again for watching my class. You didn’t have to do that.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “Actually, I did. I’m not having the superintendent try to fire me again.” Her words were hard but her eyes were soft when she looked at Janine. She looked back at the documentary crew, the one she hired, before snapping at them to cut the cameras.

To Janine’s surprise, they actually did turn off the cameras. Maybe it was because Ava was ultimately paying them to do this and she would likely try to cut their wages if they filmed her without her consent, but either way, Janine watched the tension seep out of Ava’s shoulders.

“Thanks, Janine.”

Her eyes were still soft when they looked at Janine, and Janine felt as though her entire body had been set on fire.

Janine was so tempted to throw her arms around the taller woman, hear her heartbeat thumping in her chest, feel the comforting weight of Ava’s head resting on top of hers, feel safe, but before she could destroy any sense of self preservation she had, Ava was gone.

#abbott elementary #ava x janine #ava coleman #janine teagues #avanine #I am a jazmine sullivan stan #so referencing that moment was just right #also loved exploring the camera crew’s role #I imagine the staff watch the episodes the way we do #also to everyone who's sent in requests #thanks for your patience

29 notes · View notes

your-divine-ribs · 7 months ago

Note

omg that was so hot 🥵 I loved it so much. I hope they didn't give the camera back to Van's mum after that though 😆🫣

Glad you enjoyed it 🥰

I thought exactly this when I wrote it, like what happened if Van inadvertently taped over some old family holiday footage then somehow didn’t erase the mucky stuff? Mary and Bernie settling down to watch what they’re expecting to be wholesome family memories one evening 😬😂

#smile for the camera #asks

3 notes · View notes

masschase · 2 years ago

Note

chase, i am once again in your ask box begging for lore.

18 and 23 for the ask meme if you haven’t done them and i hope you have the best day today :3

I'm so sorry this took 2 days! My brain just didn't seem able to finish 🥲

Ask me about muh girlie

18. What was your character’s presidency like? How did they campaign?

OOH THIS QUESTION IS SO EXCITING :D

OK I'll start with her campaign.There were huge calls for the person who disabled the nuke to be the President at first.

The tv cut to news footage of the Boss on the screen, still in her suit in the slightly destroyed Oval Office being hounded by press. "I'm sure you'll get to know me soon enough. For now, just know this. I'm the leader of the Saints. If you've ever doubted us or our brand in the past, remember this: I just saved the BLEEP world BLEEPs. So you better show us some BLEEEEP respect.". The news cut to footage of crowds chanting while the anchor spoke again. "People are calling for the leader of the Saints to enter the running as President- if we can only get a hold of them..."

Pierce, Shaundi and Kinzie meet Casey in DC the following day and set up a press conference for the day after that. Funnily enough they do discuss the possibility of Pierce posing as the leader but he declines for personal reasons mostly regarding his sexuality and his overall safety. Casey decides she's just going to have to go for it and they talk about the angle they're going to take.

She thought for a second. "Is there any chance they're gonna buy that I'm a sweet wholesome Michigan girl?" Pierce raised an eyebrow. "Absolutely zero." he confirmed. "Yeah, I thought so..." she mused, thinking to herself again.

They decide they have a better chance at going with strength. Power. The fact that the Boss is not afraid to get her hands dirty to get shit done.

Unfortunately, the media manages to dig stuff up before the press conference. Kinzie was very thorough at encrypting Casey's name and real age (now 25) when she discovered them back in 2014. However there are pictures of her various aliases, her fake age (28, still too young to be president) and some of her exploits all over the news.

Pierce calls in a favour (he seems to "know a guy" in every city and I think we all know why) to makeover the Boss while he tries to persuade her to dress with a little more class, and eventually they give her a new image (something she mostly managed to swerve when the Saints hit fame by encouraging Pierce into the limelight.)

At the press conference they focus on strength, security, defense, and most importantly, finding ways to appeal to both sides. Overall the Saints policies are fairly left-wing, some more radical than the Dems but they pay lip service to the right too. I'm actually planning a post on this press conference soon; initially I was going to write it as a transcript but I find it way, way more interesting as a fully written piece because Casey's thoughts and feelings during in make it far more interesting. Here's a snippet.

"Yeah, sure, maybe I have been a little intense at times. But I'm not a violent person.". Hoo boy, that was hard to say with a straight face. All politicians lied though, right? She bit her lip a little but managed to compose herself a little. "I am not an attacker. I'm a defender, and I will stop at nothing to defend my country. I will kick terrorism's ass. I will beat poverty into submission. I will put a bullet in the gun violence in this country.". Ooh, she still really liked that part. She looked around at the approving crowd. "As for the most marginalised in our society... if you are downed... I will Pick. You. Back. Up. Again."

It's all ridiculously cheesy to be honest, but what else did you expect? The speech was written primarily by Pierce but with input from the other three (a bullet in gun violence was Shaundi's idea which means it was actually iamkinzie's idea in our rp) and Casey did ad-lib the odd part. She manages to deal with questions fairly well at the end, though the final one basically refers to her being spotted with women so she makes the decision to come out as bi and takes a clear pro LGBTQ+ stance (I can really see this appealing to some of the disillusioned Bernie Sanders fans). She relies on more platitudes to balance this out.

"If you have any kind of issue with this, I urge you to try and remember what country we are in. I want to ask you what freedom-" she emphasised. "'-means to you. Because the last I checked... this was America."

Cringe cringe. Yes a lot of this probably wouldn't work in real life. But c'mon guys she's a fucking Saints Row IV Boss. At times her tumblr version reaches full cartoon character. She had to win somehow, I'm just rationalising that the best I can. 🤣

The Saints were doing well for an independent, but overall it wasn't enough to swing things, even as late as mid-2016. They also still needed to do something about the age on the constitution. This is where the 4th July party came in. This is where the Saints manage to gain much of the support and investment needed to get the age changed as well as step up their campaigns for a greater share of votes.

This is also the same time the fake relationship for the media between Casey and Pierce began. The idea was to present it as a "we can't be public with this because of our work but awww we're secretly in love 👉👈" thing to cover up Pierce's then-closeted queerness and Casey's promiscuity, and they had relative success with it tbh.

I think it was never a dead cert, but once the amendment passed, it sent a very clear message they were likely to win. There was still a little uncertainty right up until Novemver. But they just about scraped the win.(woooo fuck Trump!)

The actual presidency? I think she was competent enough actually, at least with the team she had around her. I don't imagine the promised vision came around overnight, but they were getting there. Trouble was, she stopped giving a fuck about her public image. She started dressing more like herself, giving less of a fuck about speeches, put less effort into covering up the drinking, drugs and sex. Kind of leading into what we see in IV with the really low approval ratings.

Casey would not have gotten a second term. In the unlikely event she did, Pierce had already resigned effective then (he's already made it clear he's not her second in command anymore, and Kinzie and Oleg would've probably would've left together too.

If anything, this was why she had to spend much of Saints Row IV earning back her friends' respect.

23. How did you structure the series’ timeline for your character?

Ooh so I don't know if this means what is the timeline or why I chose the timeline? I have answered an ask on this before but I can't find the link and I love my timeline so always happy to talk about it 😊

2006: Saints Row, spread across the summer probably June-Aug/Sept? Obviously SRIV says "the Saints made themselves known to the world in 2006" or something to that effect, obviously the game came out in 2006 and I just think it is mostly agreed that's when that took place

2011: Saints Row 2, July/Aug to Oct. I can't see the coma being exactly 5 years and this too seems to take place over the summer. Fairly easy decision, I didn't use any particular dates from the game I don't think.

2012-2014: Saints rise to fame.

2014: Saints Row the Third: September-December. In-game news reports span autumn/winter.

2015: SRIV Zero Saints Thirty/disabling of the nuke. Probably around September/October time. This is when the presidential campaign starts. I decided on the date because SRTT dlc stuff is apparently the first half of 2015, and just to make the other dates work.

2016: Main past section of my fanfic in June/July. Casey elected President, November obviously. I think maybe it's implied in a jokey way that the Boss just fell into the job but then it's also clear they're still in their first term 5 years later so... really this makes sense and is in line with actual election dates.

2020: Main bulk of Saints Row IV. March-May. Obviously it needed to be before November and I'm not quite sure why I settled on March but yeah, earth was invaded by the Zin on the 3rd March. Just for fun, some of the character's rescue dates: 6th Mar-Casey 9th Mar- Matt 17th Mar- Shaundi 25th Mar- Pierce 15th Apr- Johnny So again it's not actually a full 5 years, but I feel like it's close enough that one would term it "5 years later"

2021: Gat out of Hell. Idk I felt like placing Kinzie's birthday in May and it fit for story reasons and stuff. I'm not the biggest fan of GOOH. On balance it does add some important stuff to my story but... meh.

2022: Start of my fanfic future section. (February) I feel like I could add more and more dates but as time goes on, the reasoning for where they're placed becomes more and more of a case of "because I said so" 🤣

#sr boss: casey clark #asks #thanks for the ask!#saints row

10 notes · View notes

eyedelater · 2 years ago

Text

yakuza like a dragon post

i went to a store and bought neo TWEWY, and then instead of playing that, i bought Yakuza: Like a Dragon (yakuza 7) on steam because it was on sale and started playing that. now it seems like i'll be playing this game for the rest of my natural life because the amount of stuff to do is simply limitless. so that's bad news for my copy of neo TWEWY, but good news for me?

naturally, this post is going on my anime blog because the game is originally in japanese. i have the audio set to japanese, and it's very educational. the japanese voice actors are all quite good. kasuga's voice actor is fantastic. and at first i didn't have that many thoughts worth recording about the game, but now, several have built up, and i need somewhere to put them. i should note that i've never played any other yakuza games, but i understand that they are generally well-loved by everyone… maybe? i've only ever seen tiny snippets of gameplay footage from the other yakuza games, so i have no idea what their gameplay is like. if you have to aim a gun with your joystick, i'll never play them.

good first impressions. i LOVE a minimap. i LOVE a minimap that is set to north-up and is always on. if i ever got some stupid shit like google glass to put a GUI on my everyday life, i would put a north-up minimap corresponding with my GPS location. (ok maybe i wouldn't want it tracked constantly. but still.) on my in-game minimap, kasuga is a big arrow, and his party members are little arrows, just like a duck and ducklings. i'm running around leading my little ducklings all around yokohama. because i'm trying to make kasuga the best man he can be, i usually make an effort to have him navigate the sidewalks in a polite way. i want him not to crash into other pedestrians even though he is tall and imposing and his hitbox is very wide. so i skillfully dodge between all the pedestrians to avoid making them shout. but despite my best efforts, i hear all my little ducklings behind me crashing into every pedestrian i managed to avoid. my little ducklings are so clumsy.

i did the side quest where you lead the bubble man to a clothing store. i didn't like that duckling.

the hitboxes on items and vending machines are Absolutely merciless, and because the interact button is also the run button, i keep breaking into a run and crashing around instead of picking up the item. there's just no way for kasuga to look cool when trying to interact with something.

you might not know this about me, but in my view, the best video games allow you to run fast and jump high regardless of the circumstances. so i can't deny that my heart sank when i found out that this game has no jump button whatsoever. i will do my best to see past this obvious deficit.

this game has such a good sense of humor. it's ridiculous and not overly negative despite some terrible things happening. i laughed out loud at the cheerful little tune when someone joins your party. i love the wholesomeness of kasuga just trying to be the best man he can be and become a real-life hero. the way side quests always devolve into violence and then the problem is always solved by a beatdown is too funny. the absurdity and good humor puts it on a level that is not too far from golden kamuy, in my opinion. i'm not especially far along as i write this (saeko just joined my party), but i really think this game might be a treasure. and i have to say that if i hadn't been really into golden kamuy immediately before playing this, i might not have been in the right mindset to appreciate cute ossans like this. i like the audacious decision to make your party primarily out of down-on-their-luck 40- and 50-somethings, and i love the audacious decision to have them do cute things like become best friends and earn vocational school certificates and plant little gardens. (if i apply the COCK test to this game, it passes 3 points with flying colors: completely unhinged, offends the church, kicks ass. it might be deficient on the Creatures point unless you count the catchable bugs, which barely count due to their pure normalness, or sujimon, which barely count due to their humanity.)

i've learned that these vocational school certificates don't fuck around. however, i'm determined not to cheat or look up answers. (eventually i decided to savescum, but only a little.)

i was thinking it's really hard to do anything to improve kasuga's personality, but then i finally unlocked the part-time hero quests and like 50 achievements hit at once and he became 5 times the better man instantaneously.

i love nanba. he's the best. i love his frown and his slouch. his deadpan voice is the best. i love his finishing attack that knocks him flat on his ass. i'm trying to get lots of side quests done in between main story points because i don't know when i might lose access to this map like i lost access to the kamurocho map, but i can't get emotionally closer to nanba without advancing the main story more. i need that, and that's why i'm advancing the main story. (the fact that getting closer to him is tied to story progress might indicate that he's going to be an especially long-lasting member of your party…)

nanba has the highest of whatever stat makes you go first in battle, but he seems to be the slowest of my ducklings when it comes to keeping up with running kasuga, so it happens over and over and over that kasuga aggros the enemies and then nanba is like "all right, it's my turn!!" but he's like 30 feet behind or around the corner and has to run a little while everyone waits for him.

i work with homeless people in my day job, and i think this game portrays them somewhat cruelly… i have really mixed feelings about it… like the narrative puts in effort to be like, "everyone has their own reasons for being on the street and it's not as simple as going and getting a job," which is true! and it includes the obvious fact that not having a home is a gigantic obstacle to getting a job. (hot tip: you will have trouble getting a normal job if you don't have somewhere to take showers and do laundry, because otherwise, you will stink too much for anyone to hire you. and if you have a very small income, are you going to spend it on doing laundry often enough at the laundromat, or are you going to spend it mostly on food? and are you going to spend it on thrifty foods like dry beans and pasta to boil up at your nonexistent stove, or are you going to buy more expensive fast food and gas station food that is immediately available? it all comes together into a big vicious circle that is incredibly difficult to escape without outside help, no matter how badly you want to work. yet many people fail to consider any of this and act like homeless people are some kind of mess to clean up.) but despite that, the game also implicitly and explicitly makes fun of homeless people a lot ("battle bum" and "hungry hungry homeless," "homeless guy" as a job class, nanba's bad breath attack and pigeon attack [even though i love his pigeon attack], weird implication that there's a Leader at the homeless settlement that everyone respects). and it does seem to completely ignore the fact that drugs and mental illness generally factor into homelessness in a major way. (maybe it's different in japan? i don't know a single thing about the drugs situation there. but i can't imagine the mental illness situation is too different.) i don't know. you can't expect every depiction to be perfectly respectful, especially in a very silly game like this. but i think it's not good to ignore the disrespect. this is something i'm still chewing over. all the outfits are exactly right though.

is there a mod where you can give kasuga a giant white cravat so we can acknowledge how much the color of his outfit reminds me of miles edgeworth

i noticed that sometimes kasuga has nothing in his unbuttoned shirt except his cleavage and other times there's a red scarf thing there. what's up with that? oh, is it when he transforms into a Hero and that means his outfit changes slightly, just like how nanba puts his hood up? [note added in later: yes.]

i have unlocked many things such as gardening and part-time hero quests, but i still don't have anything to do with the extremely burgeoning pile of crafting materials i have been amassing this entire time. i could build a hosue with all this shit.

classifying other humans as sujimon is interesting. it's true that if you're out in the real world you may come across someone and it's like, "have i seen this person before? no… i've just seen another of the exact same Type of Guy." i myself am of a certain Type that old people mistake for their niece. of course, it's kind of bizarre and messed up to classify sujimon as if they're something other than human. but it is funny. (and in this case, the "mon" isn't short for monster but rather for mono 者, which can be a word describing humans.)

some of these cutscenes are incredibly long. i like to listen carefully to the japanese lines as if it were a listening exercise. based on my listenings, i would say they did a good job with the translation, though it's clear they decided to lean very much in the direction of "getting the connotations across and making it sound good in english" and away from "translating literally exactly what they are saying." because of my personal taste, i tend to be a stickler for leaning toward the latter (with allowances for making it sound good in english), but that's just a matter of poetic license. there are some lines i would have translated quite differently, but that's only a result of my own oversized ego. overall, they did a better job than i could have. obviously. i also noticed in the cutscenes that there are often unnaturally long pauses between the lines but that you can make them shorter if you press the A button? maybe to give you, the viewer, time to process? seems weird though. [note added in later: i think that was my computer struggling to load the cutscene. so instead of having huge loading times in between cutscenes, they have little tiny loading times in between all the dialogue? seems like something like that. this is the most demanding game i've ever tried to run on this computer.]

adachi is constantly saying, "koshi ga haru ze." i think it's "haru," but i'm not sure. "koshi" means "hips," and he's an old guy, so it's probably something about his hips aching. but i can't quite figure out the verb. is it haru as in "to stretch or strain?" i guess that would make sense. or is it a different verb and i'm mishearing? my auditory processing is somewhat notoriously poor. anyway, whatever he's actually saying, i kinda want adachi to shut the fuck up about his hips.

i basically never play games where the characters are meant to be photorealistically rendered. there is not one such game that i have played through to the end. i just prefer cartoonier stuff for various reasons, not the least of which is the uncanny valley of almost-realistically rendered human faces. this game definitely, absolutely has that uncanny valley factor, but i can overlook it. it's refreshing to see character designs that are just people.

i can't believe there's DLC for this game. how could i possibly ever run out of stuff to do. how could i possibly ever run out of stuff to do (a second time for emphasis)

crashing into people on a real-life sidewalk "sorry ma'am, my hitbox is just-- oOF, excuse me, i'm so sorry, it's my hitbox--"

i'm not pumped for this business management minigame. i saved right after we set things up with nick ogata and then stopped playing for the day. i'm too exhausted today to try it… i hope there's an easy way to do the necessary part and then i can forget about it because it doesn't seem fun… can't i just pawn this off on nick ogata right away? by the way, i had to check if nick ogata's name used the same kanji as That ogata, and it does. so i guess it's a name that exists and has the "tail" kanji in it for real, rather than noda-sensei unusually spelling an existing name with a "tail" kanji for hyakunosuke because he's a cat.

they had a moment of minor fanservice after everyone took a bath and saeko was sitting with her cleavage out. but then in the same scene was kasuga's entire boobs. that's balance.* no one can make complaints on any side there. maybe the complaint is that we didn't see nanba's. though i'm quite sure his torso would be unexceptional. but that's why i want to see. look, this is not for my sexual gratification. i just think it's funny how showing a man's entire boobs is totally allowed, and i want to see. (golden kamuy got me used to being allowed to see.)

(*is it?)

i don't want to see adachi's boobs.

i was like "it's so hard to find bugs :( they only spawn on a tree once every 5 hours of play" but then i went to hamakita park and ran around in a field catching bug after bug!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

do these various chinatown bun vendors know that their prized proprietary recipes are so similar to each other's offerings that their buns stack together in my inventory

playing in fullscreen, having various thoughts, but this .txt is behind the fullscreen so i can't click away to it. finish playing for the night. forget everything i was going to write.

i historically spend most of my computer time in the web browser without minimizing and may go weeks without looking at my desktop. but when i do rarely play a PC game, i open it by going to my desktop where i have plonked the game's icon. so lately, i'm seeing my desktop much more often. my desktop background is that color page of tsukishima and koito from volume 24, and lately i see it every day. my boys are here to ground me with their serious looks.

right before we got access to the romance workshop, it was like, "this is a great way to repurpose our old items instead of shelling out huge amounts of cash on new ones!" but i have to shell out monster amounts of cash to upgrade the workshop.

one of these days i have to give nanba a new job. i think kasuga will remain a hero, and i don't know about the others, but nanba needs a job other than homeless guy because he needs a new outfit. maybe he'll have more good attacks too. his flame breath is a little frustrating because it's really hard to get him and the enemies in the right position so that it hits more than one enemy. when i feel like i have them in a good position for his flame breath, he decides on his own to run 20 feet closer so that he can only hit one enemy after all.

i want to appreciate the game for all it has to offer, but i'm not very interested in learning how to play all these real-life card games and mahjong. i mean, i know how to play blackjack. knew. it's somewhere in there. i've tried the darts, baseball, and golf minigames. they're fun enough. haven't downloaded the slots minigames. but i don't really want to play cards.

ichiban calls saeko "sacchan (さっちゃん)," but they romanized it as sa-chan. that's fair, given that "sac" is an english word that we don't especially like. and romanizing "sacchan" as the also-phonetically-accurate "satchan" would mean the T appears out of nowhere, so it's not a good option in this case.

i'm SO glad this game doesn't run on real time or abbreviated time or any semblance of realistic passage of time (unlike persona 4). i don't have to ration my side quests or relationship growth based on how much time is left in the day (unlike in persona 4). i won't miss out on important things because i ran out of time or accidentally missed a deadline for that particular date (unlike in persona 4).

my dear nanba killed me once. he can save me, and he can kill me, but only the saving matters to the narrative; no matter how many times he kills me, it is erased. that is his conundrum as a character in a video game with a predetermined plot. anyway, i bought him an expensive weapon, and he killed me with it. it was already somewhat late at night in real life when it happened, so after that, i spent the rest of my time before bed upgrading my weapons and grinding a little in preparation to kill my dear nanba. the game didn't want me running all around ijincho in between fighting the wrecking ball and fighting nanba, so it disabled the taxi service, but i can't be stopped. i ran all the way across town and back to get vegetables so the master could make me some bentos. and i came across hiro's missing cat at hamakita park, so i got a million yen to upgrade my weapons and armor. and now, the next day, after thinking about it all day, it is just about time to kill nanba. but he'll be okay, and then he'll rejoin my party where he belongs.

i killed nanba very easily. i didn't need to use any of the master's bentos. nanba was okay, but he still didn't come back to my party yet. but that's okay. he'll keep gaining XP in the background, and in the mean time, we have a new little duckling. i really wish joon-gi had some attacks that affected the whole crowd of enemies, since he has the highest agility or dexterity or whatever makes him attack first, and when you attack first, the enemies haven't had a chance to spread out yet, so that's when you want to do a broad attack… maybe if he levels up a bit…

i've been watching someone play paper mario lately, and i keep thinking, i wish i could put my party members in my pocket so i don't have to worry about my 2 or 3 incredibly clumsy ducklings constantly crashing into everyone and everything and me as i navigate the crowded city.

nanba came back sooner than i thought. he didn't even have time to get a new outfit like i thought he might. but i guess when you're a level x homeless guy as your job, you can't just get a new outfit even if you meet your brother off-camera and solve your emotional difficulties. also, when nanba came back, sacchan got put in my pocket! so they can be put in my pocket while i run around! but then they won't help me fight.

when i first started playing, i thought the danger level indicators were like the wantedness indicators in GTA, like that's how hard the police are going after you and it's based on how many crimes you commit. but it turns out that there are no consequences and in fact many rewards for beating up endless chinpiras in broad daylight.

joon-gi's voice actor is quite good. i enjoy his polite speech. and despite his calm demeanor, when he attacks, he often lets out a very powerful TSERYAAAA!!!! that feels kind of uncharacteristic but very amusing

i got sick of trying to be nice walking on the sidewalks. now everywhere i go is a chorus of UWOs and KYAs and WOTTOs. it's not my fault my hitbox is wide and my ducklings are so bad at pathfinding. when i break into a run, they also break into a run and loop around to run directly in front of me from a 90 degree angle. i keep getting t-boned by my own ducklings. and then they make a complaining noise.

i'm gonna go to isezaki ijincho just to visit the several large SEGA-branded arcades that definitely exist there in the real world. oh wait, this area itself doesn't quite exist in the real world. i guess that makes sense.

i maxed out my relationship with nanba. i was very annoyed that there was the whole thing of "oops now we have to actually give nanba a surprise party because he's expecting it and he's excited about it!" and then we maxed out his hearts without actually having a surprise party. give me a break. when is he gonna get his goddamn surprise party. he told you that he always wanted one since he was a kid. that girl coming in and lying to him was not a surprise party; it was a misguided gesture that half landed, half flopped. WHERE is nanba yu's surprise party!!!!!!!

han joon-gi finally got an attack that hits many enemies and it's sooo useful. it's also an insane move that would definitely wreak havoc and cause chaos in real life. probably not even an american would risk double-handgun sweeping crossfire on a busy street like that. he does it indoors, too.

(sweating) kasuga ichiban is going to be a MUCH better person than i am by the end of this…

it's fun to have zhao in the party. he sure has a lot of martial arts moves. his painted nails are cute. i like him, but his little mustache is the kind i hate. also is it just me or was there just a little more sexual tension between him and kasuga than expected? when they're having heart-to-hearts at the bar, i mean. well, if i got behind any ship in this game, it would be kasuga/nanba, i suppose.

i don't like the shareholder meeting minigame or the business management minigame as a whole. feels like a swing and a miss to me. i mean, i can tell love went into it. it just doesn't feel intuitive, for one thing… it doesn't seem fun. it is kinda funny how the pacified shareholders settle into a state of dreamy nodding and clapping.

none of the ladies ichiban can woo seem especially interesting as characters. i guess sumire is the best one. maybe you have to be into women for that aspect to land with you. maybe i'll try wooing one or two of them a little more to see if we get any interesting cutscenes or anything. also iroha doesn't care to hear any followup about how i found the secret weapons dealer we were talking about. what's up with that? or am i somehow failing to tell her properly?

with the part-time hero quests, i have to fight x number of a certain kind of enemy, but they have to be new kills since that particular quest appeared. it's frustrating to have to go find 10 more of whatever kind of guy i've already killed 80 of. anyway, they're fellow humans so these aren't kills; they're One-Piece-style defeats, where you get the shit knocked out of you so bad that you change your outlook on life and stop being a sujimon.

i got to the sotenbori arena, and some of the rules are like, "no switching party members during battle!" buddy i didn't even know i could do that.

i wonder if new game+ will be significantly harder or something. as it stands, the game isn't hard enough for me to need to use advanced tactics like swapping out party members during a fight. either way, i've never been much of a new game+ person, preferring to have as much fun as possible the first time playing. i mean, i'm not especially good at video games in the first place, and i haven't played that many games all the way to the end. i think the only games i've new game plussed were okami and hollow knight. except i don't remember if hollow knight actually has a new game+ or if i just played it a second time.

i know just from my tumblr dashboard that majima and saejima are important characters from other yakuza games. i could also kinda tell from the loving way they were depicted and how they had their own special fight music. i loved how they had an unavoidable tag-team attack. i beat every floor in the battle arena, most of them twice, before the fight with majima and saejima, and they still almost murdered us. if i hadn't called in the masochist poundmate to make us nigh-invulnerable, i probably would have lost to them. and it cracked me up that they were added to poundmates just like that.

more weapons should be upgradeable. it doesn't make sense that there are just a few. and you can't even tell from the start which ones you will be able to upgrade. and you can't tell in advance how far you will be able to upgrade them or when you'll hit a dead end. [note added in later: i finally looked it up and found out that there's basically 1 upgradeable weapon per class that will be upgraded into that class's most powerful weapon. but i was unable to glean that just by playing the game.]

is the joke with the empty cough drop tins supposed to be about how, in real life, you know rationally that empty tins like that are essentially worthless, but you can't shake the feeling that they could be useful, so you hold on to them? because if that's the joke it's really funny. i have one such tin right in front of me on my desk. they just seem so potentially useful. of course they're useful if you want to store little stuff. but there's a limit to how much little stuff anyone really needs to store in old tins. and i think almost everyone has reached that limit and doesn't need any tins.

i kind of wish there were more interesting jobs for sacchan... instead of only Very Distinctly Feminine jobs. i dunno. strong binary gender roles in this game.

i'm kind of feeling like i need to finish up this game before may 12th-ish because at that time i will inevitably shift my focus to the new zelda game. but i doubt i'll make a post about that game. i've never had enough thoughts about the story in a zelda game to take notes about it, not in my life. yet i've played almost every one of them.

if it's one of the special fights where kasuga takes his shirt off first, then he's also shirtless in the specials and tag team animations. that's love.

we had a fun fight with kiryu, who i know is the protagonist of at least one other yakuza game. (are all the other guys protagonists too? majima doesn't seem like a protagonist, though.) kiryu's tattoo strikes me as significantly cooler than ichiban's. and when they're standing right next to each other, their outfits clearly mirror one another.

i've played for 100 hours and i'm almost out of things to say about this game, as i've gotten used to all the fun and exciting things and now they just seem normal. if i ever play a game less exciting than this, i'll fall asleep. i'm on chapter 14. i wonder if i'll get any side quests ever again. no new ones have shown up in a while. and none of the side quests have been as funny as the one about the public urinator where you come across the 4 guys standing at the edge of the river. that might have been the peak.

for the past several weeks, i've been busy and very tired and distracted reading the works of junji ito, so i haven't played as much of this game as i had intended to, and now my plan to finish playing this before the new zelda game comes out has been thrown out the window because the new zelda game came out today and i preordered it so i have it and it's right here!!!!!!!!! so do i want to not play the game on its opening day and risk spoilers, which i have heretofore avoided? or do i want to set yakuza aside to play the new zelda game? and poor neo TWEWY gets pushed even further aside. considering how long breath of the wild kept me busy, i can't see far enough into the future to know when i'll get around to neo TWEWY.

but after writing that paragraph, without consciously making a choice, i started reading more junji ito stories, even though i'm not in love with his stuff… i just have a compulsion to read all of it… so i can finish the other text post i'm working on…

...

…i finished the other text post i was working on. time to play on.

ICHIBAN SURVIVED AN EXPLOSION AND SHOWED UP WITH ONE (1) BANDAID AND A SMILE ON HIS FACE!!! THAT WAS THE BEST. i'm reinvigorated.

i was like, "ok we're in the final chapter. let's finish this up (with love and care) and be done with it." but we're back in kamurocho, which i have not thoroughly explored. what can i do but comb every street and alley for mcguffins?! it's only fair! to the developers who put so much loving detail in the game! and while i'm at it, i should upgrade all my weapons so much more! it's telling me to prepare for the final battle! i have to prepare by upgrading everyone's weapons a lot! and in order to do that, i need lots of money! so i'll play the last 10 levels of the sotenbori battle arena 5 times! and then i'll taxi back and forth between the materials cart in the park and romance workshop and make everyone's weapons OP! and then i'll forget what i was doing! and then i'll learn that ichiban has to be a foreman in order to unlock various things! and then i'll get ichiban to foreman level 21 so he won't be so weak! and then i'll learn that ichiban doesn't actually need to remain a foreman to have the demolish ability so i'll switch him back to hero! and then i'll learn about the three secret shops and go unlock them with my demolish ability! and then i'll buy a bunch of gold safe keys from the secret shops! and then i'll look up a list of gold safes! and the list unexpectedly tells me what's in the safes, and i don't really need any of it! so then i'll decide i don't need to open gold safes and forget what i was doing! IT'S HARD TO FINISH THE GAME!!!

the tendo fight, which took forever, didn't give me even half as much XP as the invested vagrant.

i didn't expect nick ogata to stick his neck out like an MVP and grill masato at the press conference like that. mostly unrelated note: i really like masato's aoki ryou politician voice. it's very cute. it's a 100% perfect match for his aoki ryou face.

i'm fighting masato. i love how he's got his swaggery chinpira body language animations but he intersperses it with glasses adjustments. genius touch. i was loving this battle with him. i didn't want it to end, but i didn't want to artifically prolong it by using health items. so i just punched him a lot and then it was over.

...

arakawa masato has passed away. now we're in the epilogue. time is running out for them to give nanba a birthday party before the game ends all the way.

…

okay the game ended and i can't complain about it. even if they failed to give nanba a birthday party. it was good.

ah, the story was good… the confrontation between ichiban and masato at the lockers was a strong ending scene… they wrapped it up neatly. ichiban finally got through to him. even though i know that when masato said he never liked ichiban, he wasn't lying, either. but it's like ichiban said: they have a connection, like brothers. i'm just glad masato didn't kill himself. i'm surprised kume souta didn't show up in the epilogue. i guess we can safely assume he's in prison.

i started this post by extolling the fact that this game has endless things to do. but although i did really enjoy doing most of those things, in the end, i feel like it had a significant detrimental effect on the momentum of the story. by stretching out the gameplay between story segments, the earlier story developments came to feel very distant, and by the end, i didn't feel as close to nanba and saeko and the others as i did earlier in the game… i got too used to everything, got too absorbed in grinding, became obsessed with tying up loose ends, started taking things for granted. the magic faded. how much of that is my fault for getting distracted from the story, and how much is the game's fault for distracting me from its own story? i can't tell.

probably the best way to play this game would be to rampage through the main story as enthusiastically as you can, then go back to unearth and subsequently tie up every loose end on a new game+.

despite all that, i will say conclusively that the game is good and i recommend it wholeheartedly. the combat system is very satisfying. i love the omnipresent, excessive, dramatic particle effects. the animations are great. the voices are great. it's so fun to run around the extremely detailed city and go eat realistic foods at restaurants and have fights for no reason. the story is a strong backbone for the game. and i'm glad you aren't penalized for leaving certain loose ends untied… like the business management minigame, which i neglected until the very end. i know i could have unlocked a new party member through that minigame. it just didn't seem worth it. maybe i'll watch a bunch of youtube videos of all the things i missed. and maybe i'll revisit the game for my new game+ someday.

#yakuza: like a dragon #yakuza 7 #yakuza 7 spoilers #yes this post spoils the whole game.#i had a busy weekend compulsively finishing my 2 long posts about what i've been doing for the past 3 months #i remember a long time ago readmores didn't work on mobile. god i hope they fixed that. for y'all's sake.#thinking about the nature of writing lately. AI can write things but it can't write based on an uncontrollable urge to write. so i win?

9 notes · View notes