#i've covered all my bases

[invinciblerodent]

Ngl, some people's "I wasn't allowed to be an irredeemably evil shitbird, ergo Veilguard is not an RPG" argument is extra funny to me, because I don't actually think there is a conceivable narrative in which, if your Rook did something as objectively amoral as selling people into slavery, they wouldn't wake up the next morning floating untethered in the raw Fade with Neve's bootprint on their ass, and the Lighthouse no more than a distant blip on the edge of their vision.

Like there is a lot to get into here that I just don't have the time or the spoons to go through, but I'd argue that one of the biggest strengths of Veilguard's writing is that the main cast are all very well-defined characters with their own sets of morals, ethics, and goals, and they collectively have more than enough of a backbone that if Rook did something that proved them incapable of leading the team to the story's climax and/or proved them to be of no benefit to them, they wouldn't fail their quest: they would just swiftly and efficiently get rid of Rook.

[cloudinal]

Happy Valentine's! Have some yuri

[kenzan-brainrot-mp4]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(see:

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

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

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

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

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

Pirate Yakuza -> *gestures at the entire game*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, still just a dream in the end"

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

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

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

[quatregats]

Thinking a lot of thoughts about Hornblower's relationships with Barbara and Maria as a metaphor for his larger relationship to social mobility and ambition, and I think there's actually a lot there - not sure if it was intentional, but I do think that whether intentionally or inadvertently, Forester did an interesting job with the parallels.

Quick note beforehand that some of this is based on my constant brief paging through C. Northcote Parkinson's Hornblower "biography", which, while I absolutely abhor his interpretation of Hornblower, gives even more food for thought on this point. I'm also leaning more into his interpretation of Hornblower's background and childhood, as opposed to the TV show's, so it might not work if you're coming from the TV show's perspective.

Parkinson takes Forester's comment that Hornblower was a "doctor's son" to mean that he was the son of an apothecary, rather than a physician like in the show. I'm not a historian of the period, so I would be hard-pressed to actually try to fit Hornblower's father within the 18th-century framework of medical practice, but either way, given his awkwardness around upper-class life and that he seems to have grown up in rural Kent, I think that Parkinson's claim that he was the son of an apothecary, rather than a physician, does have some reasonable foundation, or is at least equally plausible (to me) as the show's.

Hornblower struggles with poverty through most of the series, especially the first half, but even when he is barely scraping by, such as at the start of Lieutenant, this does not seem to be an abnormal state; and when he finally arrives at wealth and success, he constantly wishes to go back to the days when he was a penniless lieutenant, so from this we might also surmise that he did not come from wealth. (I'm also comparing especially to Jack Aubrey, who, while he admittedly makes a hash of coming into large amounts of money, and who also lives perfectly happily on very little, is clearly quite comfortable being the "lord of the manor" by comparison.)

One of the biggest changes in the second half of the series (from The Happy Return/Beat to Quarters onward) is that Hornblower's career comes into fruition; he becomes a decorated Captain, a member of the landed gentry, a Knight of Bath, a Peer, and finally an admiral, and marries into an enormously influential family. He's constantly in conflict about this, until he isn't: he wants to become someone powerful and important, except that he doesn't like the role once he gets it, and constantly wishes about the old days, then feels guilty for wishing for them. Most importantly, he seems to become less and less himself, his mental narrative getting more and more distorted as he tries to mold himself into the person he thinks he wants to be.

I don't think this is a particular novel interpretation, but I think that in light of this, the contrast between his marriage to Maria and his marriage to Barbara is very interesting. If he was an apothecary's son, his and Maria's marriage would make a decent amount of sense - they'd be from similar social backgrounds, and probably a reasonable match, if Hornblower's career had continued as expected. Hornblower feels comfortable around Maria at the start of their friendship and the very beginning of their marriage in a way that mirrors his comfort with the life he's living at that point - which is to say that he clearly knows and understands what's expected of him and how to interact, in clear contrast with later books. But on the other hand, for all that he originally does love Maria, Hornblower comes to find her to be coarse, unrefined, and boring, and feel that she is not good enough for the person he wants to become. It's at the point when he starts to feel that he's moved passed Maria that he begins to take on his new, ambitious, performative persona.

On the other hand, Hornblower feels stiff and uncomfortable around Barbara from the beginning of their relationship, notably for reasons of class, and even in later books, consistently sounds intimidated by her poise and upper-class untouchability. With Maria he doesn't feel enough for her; with Barbara he feels too much, an almost uncouth sentimentality. He craves Barbara's status like a man drowning, but can't hold up under the weight of what it would mean. They have very strong intellectual chemistry, but socially they are a disaster of a couple, and yet nonetheless, Hornblower continues with the marriage because it feels to him like the thing he ought to do, just as he ought to become squire of Smallbridge. He's so viscerally uncomfortable with his position in the later books in a way he wasn't even at the height of his earlier miseries, but he refuses to let himself admit that his ambitions might have led him astray.

I think it's also interesting that the relationship which Hornblower arguably finds the most fulfilling (or rather, it was written very poorly if Forester wanted to make it feel fulfilling for the reader, but nonetheless it was clearly meant to be the most fulfilling for Hornblower) is his relationship with Marie, who sits at a similar odd juncture to him. In the text, Forester says outright that Marie fulfills Hornblower's interest in upper-class women (ambition) while not intimidating him, yet still being a satisfying intellectual partner. Nonetheless, just as Marie and Hornblower can never actually end up together, Hornblower can never actually be comfortable with his position, and no matter how many times he tries to find solace in her, he is eventually forced to continue down the path that he began, making up with Barbara and fully taking up the mantle of Admiral and Peer of the Realm.

In short, I think that watching the way in which Hornblower's relationship with Maria evolves over the course of the early books and the way in which his relationship with Barbara takes up after that ends up being a very neat parallel to his own ambitions and class identity. With Maria he is at home, but bored and restless; with Barbara he gets everything that he wants, but feels like a fish out of water. I think that particular parallel is part of the particular tragedy of Hornblower - he can't ever be satisfied with the person he was, or the person he's become. But I think that adding in aspects of extreme class difference - even more class difference than the general trends of social mobility during this period - also helps to elucidate the fundamental tension which drives Hornblower forward as a character. The world he came from was too small for him; the world in which he moves now is far too big; but there's no in-between option. He has to choose what he wants to be, and sacrifice some part of himself in order to do that, and in light of this reading of him, I think that there's a lot of interesting dilemmas to be raised.

[inthebestcasescenario]

I know only like two Hermitblr people follow me on here these days, but. Does anyone have the Hermitcraft S8 fic with a bunch of the Hermits talking to people outside of the server for the last time right before the moon hits? Like Pearl talks to SlicedLime (I'm pretty sure), Grian talks with Jimmy, etc, plus Mumbo saying to Boatem that he doesn't have anyone outside HC to talk to. And then after the news of the moon spreads, there's reactions, like Scott and Noxite saying that MCC would need to take a break. The fic might've been Tumblr-only, but I'd love an AO3 link too if it had one!!

[ducktracy]

(OBLIGATORY "i thought of something funnier than turning 24. turning 24 in 2025" JOKE HERE)

and, once again, this is stuck in my head. i'm going to take Daffy's very true-to-his-character advice and "study hard in school" and "live by the golden rule"

[sidmack17]

freepracticedes this, freepracticedes that, GEORGE RUSSELL IS ON POLE!!

bonus: wtf lol

[catboy-cabin]

sleeptober day 5 - symmetry

yet in reverse you were all my symmetry / a parallel i would lay my life on

on today's installment of Lyrics That Make Me Fucking Insane

yes i know this isn't actually symmetrical but if you mention sleep token and symmetry to me i will immediately think of these two. sorry i don't make the rules

this isn't gay but it could be

alt version bc the colored line art makes some parts hard to see:

[bookwyrminspiration]

im curious—keepblr, what’s your favorite book? not your favorite book in the series, but what’s your overall favorite book or book series?

im curious what percentage of peoples favorite is keeper vs not

keeping the options simple--if I missed one, put it in the tags :)

bonus: if you tell me what your favorite book/book series is, I'll give you a good grade in Tumblr Poll, something both normal to want and possible to achieve

*if you are not part of keepblr, please do not vote so as not to skew results. thanks!

[astraldrake]

another raid, another set of day one screenshots!

[liketwoswansinbalance]

A sketchy thing that sort of turned into something? It's not exactly a card design, but I could call it that. The shading was more a shot in the dark and the resolution is low because it started as a really tiny drawing without a plan or anything.

[caus34concern]

more filipino bmc. if anyone cares.

[kalosian-woods]

So, one of the things i noticed while watching XY is how attentive everyone is when it comes to Bonnie, and its not just the Kalos Gang, its their pokemon as well. This was shown to us pretty early on too, in episode 3 "A Battle of Aerial Mobility!" with Froakie and reinforced multiple times as well! Mostly with Pikachu and Clemont's pokemon team,

And I was kinda wondering if you will be showing this in your au? This part of the series is probably one of my favourite little details of the series, since it shows a different side of the whole group.

(and sometimes, it plays into the story as well! like in episode 36 with Fletchling! this episode is so dear to me)

-⚡ (im sorry if this was sent twice, my wifi decided to be silly)

Oh, that's one of my favourite details of XY for sure, nonnie, how did you guess /j But yeah!!! Definitely something that I'll dig into in this AU, because it shows so much care and love and just,, my heart <3

One think I really do love about that particular aspect of XY is that it's not an overbearing part of the series in and of itself, balancing with moments where Bonnie herself goes on to support the others in their endeavours too, while also having that touch of vulnerability and helpfulness that is present in everyone (and goes a long way in strengthening bonds). As you said with EP36 'Battles in the Sky!', she bonds with Fletchling over being small and considered weaker for it, and that helps give the birb the spirit to go up against that Talonflame. And I would go so far to say that Ep45 'Splitting Heirs!', no matter how painful it is to my heart, does support how Bonnie goes on to treat Tyrunt in EP88 'The Tiny Caretaker!' by being strict at times while also still having her caring charm.

But also ugh the way the whole gang just look at her and think 'yep, that's my sister too now' is so 🫠 to me. It's definitely very prominent when Clem was absent, where Bonnie basically dubs Serena as her emotional support person when it comes to sleepytimes heh, but also it's everywhere in XY! We've even got the Rival Trio helping out the gang in finding her with EP41 'Foggy Pokemon Orienteering!' and especially Tierno being an absolute sweetheart chilling with her in EP66 'Good Friends, Great Training!'. And we don't get started in XYZ, that's her season :P

Even with the Pokemon, which makes sense because she's so happy and open with them! And they're all friends here! When Froakie helped out it was to perserve her joy, just like with Bunnelby trying to support her search for Squishy in 'A Cellular Connection!'. They all just want the best for her and the fact that she isn't their trainer just makes it more deeper, to me. The Pokemon choose to help others just as much as people do, and it is the strength of her heart and her will that also helps bridge that connection as well. That's how even an uber-OP mon like Pikachu can crawl into her lap and purr just as much as nuke TR on her behalf lol, or how a standoffish mon like Froakie can work with her interests in mind, even if he does add his own twist (revenge) into it.

[killjoy-prince]

I just sent what was essentially a business email to my aunt about taking my cousin to a convention next month

[pieces-by-py]

In an effort to convince myself to use this blog as the creative hub I intended, here are some character thoughts I had lately!

I have been thinking about my character Taylor Kit: an idol android that started existence as an automaton.

In my original concepts from 2008 Taylor had wings and I had likened her to a moth in a drabble I wrote about her, but now I really want to go all into that association and I think it would be interesting to make her more robotic build look like a human skeleton and a bug's exoskeleton all rolled into one.

I realized that a lot of robots do have that kind of skeletal framework and then some of them get padded up like they've been given a skin of sorts.

The way this design comes into the story is that Taylor goes through certain eras that reflect her physical and mental development. One of her earliest albums, 'Titania' is the era when she first obtained sapience and being robotic was part of the gimmick. The whole album and the tour associated with it had this very etheral feeling to it, where the robotic timbre of her voice was part of what added to that otherworldly feeling. She was outfitted with a pair of fairy wings and at that point in her development she had more of that exoskeleton sort of appearance going on.

Since then, the production team that controls almost every aspect of Taylor's existence had aimed to make her more human so that they could boast about it, but Taylor misses the way that she was. She doesn't really understand why she has to conform to human standards for her appearance or why they thought her previous form was anything to be corrected.

I've seen a lot of stories where robots seek to be more human, but I think in Taylor's case it's almost completely opposite and the irony is that giving her a will of her own and self awareness means that she becomes more and more resistant to what they've done to her and can look back on times where things were simpler and yearn for that but although obtaining the capacity to yearn for better things was against her will, she cannot shake the longing for a future where she can finally decide things for herself.

She doesn't feel like she can go back, to the point where even when that is offered to her, she can't take it because it will destroy who she has become and she will cease to live.

But maybe in her future she can find a way to consolidate all that she's become and find herself and a body that befits her...I think that's going to be an important part of her progression in her story.

It's also been a fun exercise for me to design more android designs myself! I haven't quite figured her out but I had a breakthrough last night about her mouth parts, which felt particularly difficult to figure out before. I'm kind of building her piece by piece and thinking about the different mechanisms in her and how they'd work..

[confines]

apparently there is a limit to how long you can rant for in an original post. 😑 exactly the wake up call i needed to stop typing, shove it in drafts, and mentally dismiss it.