#i don't even remember how i tagged asks

[thresholdbb]

Do we think Seven can feel all of her face and body?

The Borg know when things happen in the collective and can arguably feel them, but when an individual is severed from the Borg, that expansive collective consciousness is violently narrowed down to a pinpoint. We know Seven has pretty good proprioception because she agrees that her shoulder hurts when the EMH finds that her biradial clamp is off by 0.3 microns. Because of this, she arguably has a very good understanding of how things in her body feel. That said, she doesn't really complain about physical pains, and we really only see her struggle when things are emotionally difficult.

Since she had been in the collective since she was 6, she wouldn't necessarily know that certain sensations are not normal. If there were any issues that happened as a result of her assimilation, she wouldn't necessarily know they are unusual after she was severed because that's what she has always known.

So back to my original question: can she feel all of her face? Looking at the placement of her facial implants, they are both on the trigeminal nerve. The cheekbone implant is right around the root of the nerve, and the eyebrow piece sits right over another branch. Trigeminal neuralgia is crazy painful, but she could have trigeminal neuropathy and think it's completely normal because she doesn't have a typical baseline to compare it to. I imagine the Borg implants must interrupt some nerve functioning to ensure that the drones move as they are supposed to, and the nano probes would repair any damage that would affect their functioning. But the Borg would consider physical discomfort irrelevant, so relatively minor issues like neuralgia, pins and needles, or any other unusual sensations would not be considered an issue.

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

Hey there! Hekate has pointed me toward your blog and I just wanted to say hi 💞

I do have a question though, have you ever had deities help you with motivation and executive functioning skills? I've got ADHD and the "laziness"(🤢) or what I call "going slug mode" (staying in bed all day, no motivation to shower, etc) really commands my life.

My periods of deity work tend to coincide with my periods of productivity and energy, but I often fall off when, well, everything else falls off. So I guess I'm also looking for advice or at least to connect with someone who's had similar experiences.

(I've also connected with Aphrodite and Loki! Other gods I've worked with in the past are Mother Hathor and Brigid)

First off, I may or may not have had so many feelings upon seeing "Hekate has pointed me towards your blog" because the idea that my blog can be useful enough that a deity would go "go look at what that dude has to say" just brings me so much joy.

Second off, OH THIS IS ABSOLUTELY SOMETHING I SHOULD SCREAM ABOUT THANK YOU. I can't believe I haven't already made a post about this!!

I, too, am an ADHD motherfucker and I have always had so many issues with keeping up with my craft. I will absolutely be calling it "slug mode" from now on, that's the best fucking way to put it. I've had deities help me with executive function at times, but if I'm honest I've forgotten lately that I can ask them for help with that. More often than not it looks more like nudging me towards a task than giving me the energy- but that doesn't mean you can't ask! It just means I forgot I could, lol.

This is gonna be a chonker post, so I'm breaking this post up into two parts; 1, why accepting "falling off" was the best thing I could have done for myself and 2, how to still connect with your craft (and deities) through those times anyway.

So for one, you're not broken or a failure, and your deities fuckin' love you.

Call me philosophical, but hear me out; I've always worked in cycles. Cycles of insane productivity, cycles of tiredness, cycles of hyperfixation on one thing, then another, then another. I'm just someone who works that way, and I've always viewed it as a problem to be fixed. I've always viewed MYSELF as a problem to be fixed, which really started with the school system but that's an unrelated rant. So, apologies for getting a bit intense especially since this may not apply to you personally, but just in case:

You're not a problem. You don't need to fix yourself. The world works in cycles. Seasons, reincarnation if you subscribe to that belief, the water cycle, and a billion other things I've forgotten- working with cycles is just a natural way of going about life that I think shouldn't be forgotten. I have intense periods of growth in my craft, and I have periods where I don't do much and instead play my favorite video game for eight hours straight- and that's okay! One of the best things I did for myself and my craft was give myself permission to do that. I, and you, are not failures as witches for "falling off" and our deities love us anyway. Not in spite of it, either, because of it. They know how to work with the cyclic nature of things; people are no different.

So honestly, there's a chance that none of this will make sense to you- but there's a chance that you, and maybe others seeing this post, might find that giving yourself permission to go through cycles might be the best thing you could do.

Okay, now that I've yelled about that, here's ways that I keep myself connected to my craft and my deities during my less witchy periods.

I give myself permission to use witchcraft for "dumb shit." I have at least one post on this, but witchcraft can BE childish, playful, "dumb-" it doesn't need to be serious all the time. So I'm learning to let go of what I think it should look like and recognize that sometimes the way to stay connected is to lay in bed and draw a sigil on my phone as a mini-spell to manifest a nice little treat or a thing I want in a video game.

This isn't deity work, but it had been huge for me: SIGILS. Sigils my beloved. I don't often have the time, energy, or supplies to do what most people think of when they talk about spells. So instead, if I'm feeling like I could do a spell for something but that's just too much, sigils can be done on my phone or computer while just chilling. Also, if you're like me and a writer, I just write spells too. Literally the same way I write statements for sigils, but a bunch of 'em.

Personally I just talk to my deities. I would like to do this more, actually. You don't need to have a big reason for calling them in, just ask them to sit with you and talk about your day or infodump about a special interest. They're not going to deem it unimportant; you're important to them.

Turn anything into a devotional activity if you want. Any self-care. Not just the typical stuff; I mean food, meds, literally any sort of "maintenance" to keep your body and mind running! If you can't do those, play music you associate with them, or watch a show/play a game and invite them to just sit with you. Whatever you're already doing, you can just ask them to do it with you. If that's literally just laying in bed doing nothing but feeling crappy, I can assure you I've asked them to sit with me during those days too and they've been more than happy.

Literally most of my offerings are just random food. As we speak, I have a little tiny thing with a few sips of soda because I give Loki some when I drink some. If you don't have the time or energy to put it on the altar, literally just drink it with the intention that you're drinking it "for" them. When I did a reading and Kali visited for it, she asked for a graham cracker of all things. It doesn't have to be associated with them. Virtual offerings too! If you can, I've seen people just scroll through pinterest/google images and pick images to offer to their deities.

This might not be something you struggle with, but this is definitely something I would need someone to tell me so: ASK. PLEASE. ASK FOR THINGS. They're not going to riot if you ask for things!! Let them help!! Ask for things, unapologetically if you can muster it!!! I am using excessive exclamation marks for a reason, I swear. My deities are in a constant state of telling me to just ask for things.

Be gentle with yourself. Genuinely, I think one of the best ways to honor your deities doesn't even require them to be there at all; just try not to hate on yourself for being the way you are, because they wouldn't want you to.

Overall, my only advice is just... throw away what you "should" be doing and find out what you LIKE doing. What works for you? It's a hard question to answer, but it gets a lot easier when you start looking away from what "should" work. Your deities are working with you, they wouldn't be working with you if they didn't accept every single part of you. That includes slug mode.

As always, my DM's and asks are open if you have any more questions/just want to connect because being a neurodivergent witch sometimes just feels isolating at times! If you actually read this whole post thank you, I hope some of it helped!!

[blindmagdalena]

hii!! hope ur good and ur asks are open!! if not you can ignore this bug i was wondering if you think homelander would ever get bored of his s/o? is he like the type to be kinda a lover bomber in the beginning but further down the relationship he would find his s/o boring ?

thanks lovely! i hope you are too. and yeah, always happy to answer asks!

to put it simply, no. people canonically tend to assume he's more fickle and shallow than he is—Becca being told to 'wait until he gets bored' is a great example—when in reality, he is rarely (if ever) the one to end relationships of any kind.

Becca said he wouldn't get bored. Homelander confirmed this. he also never really let go of his relationship with Maeve. he certainly didn't let go of his relationship with Stormfront. the ONLY reason he terminated Madelyn, after years upon years of her, was because of the sheer maelstrom of nonsense that was going on at the time. had any one thing been different, he would not have killed her. I feel confident about that. even when she's gone, he doesn't actually let go of her. he does his damnedest to keep her with him.

Homelander craves commitment. he's so fucking sick of being alone. he wants romance and stability. I really do believe that if someone committed to him 100%, he would reciprocate. the only hurdle being... well, him. he is so maladapted, paranoid, insecure and downright homicidal. the only way he's going to find someone is if they're either as unhinged as he is or if they can rein him in and put him on a very, very tight leash.

in either instance, he will need to be kept feeling deeply loved. that's really all he's ever wanted, after all.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[oh-meow-swirls]

i think this was funnier in my head.

[uncanny-tranny]

So I saw this show I used to watch as a kid on a streaming service, Hoarders, and it's about, as you'd assume, people who compulsively hoard.

When I watched that show as a kid, I remember how you were invited to almost... judge these people, "Oh, how could you live like that?! I'm glad that's not my house..." and I remember this shock factor that sunk you into the episode, at least in the early seasons.

I think it's a product of the attitude we have about these sorts of things. When I look at that now, all I see is trauma, people who are suffering, and then essentially being shamed on television, no less. It just feels like watching somebody at their lowest for an hour, recounting trauma, disability, loss and grief, mental illness, and so many things.

[skrunksthatwunk]

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

haruka is watching all of this unfold.

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

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

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

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

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

kiwami stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

then echoes yumi's advice to haruka:

which makes an impression on kiryu:

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

after the dust has cleared,

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

so, what's our takeaway from kiwami?

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

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

okay. now we get to kiwami 2.

if you forgot, the context is basically:

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

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

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

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

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

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

here's the scene itself:

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

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

before someone else in the helicopter tells date this:

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

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

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

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

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

it's about choices.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[blackberryjambaby]

oh my god i walked to get something from a drawer & it's dark but i didn't bother turning a light on because it's two steps in my bedroom what could possibly go wrong?? well i stood on something soft-ish & cold, i jumped back in shock/horror/surprise & turned my torch on to see the withering tail (& ONLY the tail) of the gecko that lives in my room. so that's great i feel fine & not like throwing up at all

[the-tired-commander]

i did promise cursed thoughts about sylvari this is way messier than my normal way of writing about sylvari cause its partially made up of messages i sent to a chat Also most of these thoughts are nsfw so keep that in mind (if you're in that chat, hiiii i am back on my bullshit <3)

thoughts detained under the cut where they belong

I'm starting with the least cursed and things will only get worse as it goes on

Sylvari being plants raises questions about how they experience feeling, like actual physical sensations Plants are very much aware of different temperatures and they do "feel" things in a different way to us And there are very specific areas in which plants are more sensitive to sensation For example: tree trunk, not feeling much. venus fly trap hairs? absolute sensitivity, same with the growing tips of plants such as ivy which grow way faster when they realise they're touching something So I think sylvari are sensitive but only in specific places, and they're really sensitive there It might even very depending on sylvari type, maybe leafier ones are more sensitive than bark based ones? Or at least in a broader range of places

I would also raise the question, do they have more feeling in the places they glow? Because that depends entirely on what makes them glow If its thinner areas of "skin" then i think I would be (but it could be an entirely different way of the bioluminescence showing, i'm still working on that one)

Since sylvari are plant and flower based, I am putting forward the information that very few (if any) flowers have only one stamen. Do with that information as you like :)

And the most cursed thought I had

Most plants do not bloom for the entire year. Would sylvari go into "bloom", so to speak?

Oh a bonus edited thing that maybe 2 people will get at most: Please consider xandrian/luminan junk for sylvari

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

doctors: try to remember the depression is not you

me, internally: so do you want me to end up psychotic or

[neurotypical-sonic]

I remembered that blog who called me a whore unprompted.... checked on their blog and suprise they're being a freak about the rottmnt turts

[front-facing-pokemon]

[synonymroll648]

my dude you are like. the god of gender. you scream some song lyrics and it confirms your gender. i live in awe of you. save some gender realizations for the rest of us please.

LMFAOOOOOOOOOOO we envy each other's gender-related powers <3

you are the guide that's like 'idk what's up w/ my gender really but i've done enough experimenting that i might be able to help you figure shit out' and then you give us a tour of Transmasc Territory within Transgenderism 'Topia (u is dead for the sake of alliteration) and we're like whoaaaaa ok and then i'm the final boss that gives you an 'official' gender certificate for doing some bonkers thing that shouldn't affirm your gender but does for some reason. you list the side quests and i give an award for picking the 'correct' one at random. or something cooler idk

[fox-guardian]

MAJOR MAJOR

You gotta share the danny elmo thing

KAJSHDLAJKDH OKAY??

no one's getting context for this btw

[ID: A messy digital sketch of Danny Stoker in an adult-sized Elmo costume taking up an entire doorway while holding a basket and saying "trick or treat". None of Danny's own features are visible. Only Elmo. end ID]

[worldwhampion]

I just found an archive did u kno vy'keen evolved from

p r e y a n i m a l s

!??!?!?!?!?!?

i somehow completely forgot about this so this ask made me try to recall everything i ever knew about the vy'keen. THANK GOD i have like every piece of nms lore locally on my laptop. okay now to the vy'keen lore bc i've got some thoughts on this.

the vy'keen being originally prey brings another layer to their weirdly deep lore iceberg. i'm calling it weird because i think their lore is more based on implications of what is told (?) hence why people tend to overlook them.

i do think it's very interesting how fear is a major aspect of their ideology, and how largely it's connected to their aggression. You'd think that fear would be highly looked down upon in vy'keen society, but fear seems to be in fact their prime motivation, fuel and cause for being aggressive. They've made a weakness into their strength. this is rather oxymoronic, and it's not the only oxymoron related to the vy'keen. there is a second one (and you're the one who told me about this!): they're militant pacifists. now i guess you can call them fear-strengthened as well.

i remember the armorer having a raw quote related to weakness, something of: 'you can be weak, but you cannot stay weak.' For a society that's based on hostility, that is some amazing advise right there.

also i just had a WILD realization. humans are actually quite similar to the vy'keen. it's even safe to say that out of all the races, they're the most alike. hear me out: humans were once prey too in prehistoric times, and it was through cultivation of technology (or weapons!!) that they got elevated to the top of a figurative food chain. and the fact that human history is literally littered with war. Now this is making me wonder what the vy'keen exactly do with their aggression, like do they wage war the same way humans do or is there a difference in motivations? like what's their key goal for war.

all of this is proof for why the vy'keen is highly underrated. maybe one day i'll write something to spread the good word of the vy'keen.