#maybe i will when i'm more coherent

[sampegger]

just saw a tiktok claiming that sam has a severe victim complex. i think it's time i delete that app maybe

[odessa-castle]

I'm bouncing around a larger post about Nishiki and the mortifying ordeal of being known, but in the meantime I'm thinking about Nishiki and Kiryu and how the clothes make (or don't make) the man. Like, beyond my visceral horror that Kiryu begged Nishiki to pick out a safe and boring suit for him in Y0 and then said he was envisioning something purple with gold stripes.

I'm thinking about Nishiki's incredible sensitivity to image and his need to control how he's perceived. I'm thinking about Kiryu's inability to let go of the past. I'm thinking about how KIryu dresses like who he thinks he is, and Nishiki dresses like who he thinks he wants to be.

There's some interesting incidental dialogue between Nishiki and Kiryu in Y0 while they're en route to the men's suit store. I wish it wasn't so easy to miss, because there's a lot to unpack here. (I'm just transcribing the English in-game subtitles here; I don't speak Japanese so I have no idea how loose vs. direct the localization is in this part.)

NISHIKI: …now that I think about it, you've been dressing like an old man since we were kids. KIRYU: Have I? NISHIKI: Yeah. The few times we got to pick our clothes, it was always like, "you're choosing THAT?" NISHIKI: I wouldn't say you're a plain guy…You'd pick shirts with weird prints though. KIRYU: Guess I forgot all that. It's weirder to me that you haven't. NISHIKI: Well, confession time. You're why I started caring about fashion. I swore I'd never go out dressed like you. KIRYU: Come on, I'm not THAT bad. [we have already discussed why kiryu is, in fact, that bad.] NISHIKI: [laughing] Aww, did I hurt your feelings? NISHIKI: Well, this time you've got me with you. I'll see my bro gets taken care of. KIRYU: Heh. What an honor. NISHIKI: Leave it to me.

Nishiki doesn't bring up Sunflower Orphanage much; when he does share memories of his childhood, those memories are kind of painful (see: "do orphans not get to dream?"). Kiryu's surprised that Nishiki remembers how they dressed as kids, but it makes sense that wearing a limited selection of hand-me-downs stuck with Nishiki so strongly. His clothes announced his poverty, and they weren't even his -- he had to share them with the other orphans, so what he wore showed he belonged to yet another stigmatized group. And I'm sure people picked up on those visual signals, especially other kids. Kids can be vicious, and appearance is an easy and immediate target! We don't know for sure how young Nishiki interacted with his peers and teachers, but given what the Morning Glory kids go through in Y3 (and given, like, everything about Nishiki), he probably didn't have a great time.

Kiryu frames his childhood as poor but loving, and places much more emphasis on the latter. There might be some rose-colored glasses at work there -- let's look at the flashback where Kazama tries (and fails) to violently dissuade Kiryu and Nishiki from joining the yakuza.

KIRYU: I owe you everything, but this isn’t about that. [...] We’ve looked up to you for all this time. Your car. Your confidence… The way everybody bows to you. We idolized you. I want that life, too. Is that so wrong!?

Nishiki doesn't really speak in this flashback, but like, Kiryu uses "we" enough for us to draw some obvious conclusions about Nishiki's own motivations. That being said, I don't think Kiryu's being dishonest or disingenuous when he describes his childhood as happy, and himself as well-loved. He's not ashamed of his upbringing, and he doesn't hide where he came from. Nishiki seems to have the inverse view. It's not that he doesn't love (at least some of) the people he grew up with, but what comes up first for him is what he didn't have. He didn't have money. He didn't have respect. He didn't have a cure for his little sister. He didn't have a lot of choice, right down to the clothes he wore.

(There's a whole other essay here about why Kiryu's and Nishiki's perspectives diverge on this, but I'm trying to limit the scope of this post. Suffice to say that, while I don't think game canon gives a timeline, I do think Nishiki was a little older when his parents were killed -- old enough that he actually remembers them, at least.)

The same mindset fuels Nishiki's interest in fashion. Yeah, part of it is that he's ribbing Kiryu, but I think it goes deeper than Kiryu wearing ugly shirts. Nishiki doesn't want people to look at him and see what's missing. Fashion isn't a means of personal expression for him, really. It's a message. It's the interplay of knowledge and resources and presentation: knowing what clothes read as successful and trendy and expensive, being able to afford those things, and convincing people that your successful important outfit makes you a successful important person. And he's not wrong about the social dimensions of fashion.

NISHIKI: Try sporting a suit that runs 500 grand for once. Trust me, you’ll see the world in a whole new light. KIRYU: Fashion’s not my thing. Besides, Kazama-san never wore flashy clothes. NISHIKI: You do realize he’s the family captain, right? Number two in the whole Dojima operation? You get to that level, you can wear whatever you damn well please. But for the rest of us, “flashy” is part of the business. KIRYU: So that fancy new car you bought was just “business”. NISHIKI: Yeah, and that fancy lighter of mine, too. Which you still haven’t given back. KIRYU: You want to play the rich guy, quit being so stingy. NISHIKI: But you get what I’m saying, right? People see the expensive car, the designer jacket, and the gleam of that little Dojima pin, they pay attention. A yakuza’s only as good as his image. [...] Take your buddy today. These squeaky-clean idiots, borrowing money just to blow on tits and booze… Nobody in this town gives a crap about substance. What you see is what you get.

That's our first take on one of the major themes of the game: what does it mean to be yakuza? Again, there is truth to what Nishiki's saying here, particularly in terms of the ethos of the eighties. I'm not an expert on the bubble era, but the worldbuilding in the game speaks for itself. People hail taxis with 10,000-yen bills. You punch money out of punks during random street battles. Nishiki keeps a personal bottle of high-end booze at a bar he's visited twice, mostly because he "can’t stand being taken for a bum." The act of spending is important, not what you're spending it on.

Nishiki's outfit in Y0 is perfectly suited (heh) to that outlook. And look, I might be inviting controversy here, but in context, I think it's a werq. Yes, it's loud. But the silhouette -- squared shoulders, single breasted, thinner peaked lapel -- is right on trend for the time period, and it fits him well. The colors look good on him. The bold pattern (no, it's not animal print) under the solid maroon is a risk, but he pulls it off. And excess aside, he knows when to pull back on the accessories. It's bright and confident and memorable, and boy would Nishiki like to be all of those things.

Also -- and importantly -- Kiryu would never go out dressed like that. Because we can't talk about Nishiki and Kiryu without talking about Nishiki's Mt. Fuji-sized inferiority complex. Mastering image doesn't just make Nishiki stand out; it makes him stand out from Kiryu. Let's go back to the beginning of the game.

NISHIKI: I’ll admit, though, you’re finally starting to look the part. You make a pretty convincing yakuza. You’re done with collections today, right? KIRYU: Yeah. NISHIKI: Good. That should put Kazama-san’s mind at ease a bit. KIRYU: Heh, dunno about that. But he always knew all I could do is fight. You’re the one who’s good at the dance.

Nishiki then calls attention to the "rags" that Kiryu's wearing, which...is not an unfair assessment. (TUCK IN YOUR SHIRT, KIRYU. HEM YOUR PANTS.) As the two of them walk around Kamurocho, Nishiki offers Kiryu plenty of hot tips, from meeting girls to making big bucks to cozying up to the brass. But even when Nishiki's opining on his area of expertise, there's a competitive edge to it. "You asking me to pick out clothes for you means you admit you have terrible taste," he tells Kiryu on the way to the suit shop. Kiryu tells him to shut up, but there's no actual hurt behind it. Kiryu doesn't really care that his taste in clothes sucks. Fashion isn't important to him. Most of the things Nishiki knows so much about don't really matter to Kiryu. And that makes Nishiki feel more insecure! Because if Kiryu rolls out of bed looking like a yakuza, if Nishiki's image counseling sessions aren't helpful or meaningful, if Kiryu can skip the dance and get to the top on the strength of his fists and convictions, then who cares about Nishiki's 500 grand suit or his hourlong hair care routine? If image isn't what makes a yakuza, what does that make Nishiki?

At the end of Chapter 6, Nishiki tries to look out for Kiryu again -- this time, by granting him a merciful death before the Dojima Family drags him to the Hole. It's one of my favorite scenes in the game. Nishiki's crying too hard to aim the gun properly; Kiryu tells him to man up and shoot. Finally, Nishiki collapses.

NISHIKI: Can’t do it… How could I shoot you!? Without you, I’ll always be nothing. Can’t make it as a yakuza… No. I wouldn’t even still be alive now if I didn’t have you beside me! I’m just… If you’re not with me, I’m useless! Nothing means anything!

Mastering image hasn't granted Nishiki anything of substance. At the end of the day, Nishiki's playing dress-up, and he knows it.

And I'm almost certainly getting into overthinking-this territory now (if I haven't gotten there already), but I kind of like the spin this puts on Nishiki ripping his expensive suit off in Chapter 14 when he decides to fight the Dojima Family at Kiryu's side. Like yes, ripping off your outer layers to get at the naked (so to speak) truth -- your irezumi, and what it represents -- is just Yakuza Storytelling 101. It's decisive, it's kind of dumb, it's great, it gets me hyped every time. But I like that Nishiki's honest answer to "what does it mean to be a yakuza?" isn't about looking the part. I am genuinely trying not to end this paragraph by saying that Nishiki must become like a dragon, but like...you get where I'm going with this.

Of course, Nishiki's back to playing dress-up in Y1/Kiwami. I'm not the first to call the Patriarch Nishikiyama look a glow-down (though I like the patterned white tie). Like, fashion-conscious Nishiki would look good in a Hedi Slimane/Tom Ford-esque skinny black suit. But he picks a silhouette you'd expect to see on a much older man, torso-swallowing pants and all. The slicked-back hair doesn't help. He's just so transparently trying to look bigger and broader and older, and he doesn't pull it off. Big Bad Patriarch isn't a good look for him, in any sense of the phrase.

A final thought: Kiryu's clothes, and Nishiki's commentary on them, are the subject of their first conversation in Y0 -- and of their last. Kiryu's costume progression in Y0 is a pretty obvious commentary on his journey, to the point where Kiryu and Nishiki explicitly call attention to the color connotations in their final exchange. As a Dojima grunt, he wears black, and it doesn't look good on him because "brutish thug who keeps his head down and does what he's told" isn't a role he's comfortable with. He wears white when he works in real estate, but the change in color isn't enough to sell anyone on his transformation into a civilian. Although it's a little rich for Oda "Red Clown Shoes" Jun to chide someone for not wearing a proper suit. At the end of the game, Kiryu's in his classic grey suit, and well, the game spells it out:

KIRYU: I’m not feeling black or white these days. This is where I’m at right now. I chose it myself. I’m making it a fresh start. NISHIKI: Fine, fine. See if I care! Wear it the rest of your life!

Nishiki, dismayed, tells Kiryu that the grey suit already looks dated, but for Kiryu, "fresh start" doesn't mean "on trend". His image might be out of step with how other yakuza view themselves, or want to be seen, but if he's always going to look like a yakuza, he might as well stake his claim on what being a yakuza means. Still, it's telling that, even as a young man, Kiryu looks like a throwback to an earlier era. As the series progresses, the games hammer this home more and more. How many antagonists tell Kiryu that he's out of touch with the modern world, that he represents a version of the yakuza that no longer exists, that it's time for him to make way for the next generation?

"Wear it the rest of your life!" is a funny little in-joke, yeah, but...it's a little sad when you think about it, isn't it? Kiryu gets new outfits from Y3 on -- and in every game, he ultimately puts the suit back on and heads to Kamurocho. It's exactly of a piece with how Kiryu views being yakuza. We, and he, can debate the exact extent of his retirement from the Tojo Clan's affairs, but the yakuza isn't a career for Kiryu, it's a set of beliefs he carries with him. He wears the suit the same way he wears the dragon on his back: as an indelible part of his self-image.

[vacantgodling]

I'm sorry but did I miss something ?? Noble ?? Hello 👀👀

OOOO NOBLE MY BELOVED

so i've actually had noble as a story for a LONG time. a long long time. however i've been extremely intimidated to write it and plan it out because scifi isn't really my... forte? i feel like it should be easy to make a scifi or a space opera but my brain just gets caught up in all the details and i never end up moving forward with them HAHA. but i'm trying to get out of that because writing is supposed to be FUN.

anyway tho, onto noble. just gonna stick this under a cut bc its LONG to ramble and spoilers or whatever bc i never have an excuse to talk about this story and ahhhh i love my son

firstly its called noble because (1) its a story about fuck the government and doing whats right and (2) its a play on noh's name, which is literally pronounced 'noble' (for the most part) when you put it all together.

in this universe earth has kind of been fucked; no one is really born on earth anymore bc the planet has gone to shit and the radiation is so bad and people who still live on the planet are usually sent there as prisoners (so earth is space australia but literally) or they're unlucky enough to be born there. noh was born on earth (though he doesn't remember this) however, he was taken in by the overarching... uh idk space police state government thing. i haven't thought about what it is too much lmao. anyway, babies are usually taken from earth if they have a good aptitude (aka they survived lmao) and since they're abandoned anyway they're indited into our FAVORITE super soldier program.

this program is called JACK and JILL.

the jack and jill program is an elite super soldier police force program where jacks are the brains and jills are the brawn. they go around enforcing laws, doing drug busts, keeping the "peace" around the galaxy etc etc. however, they always go in pairs just like the nursery rhyme jack and jill, and most jacks and jills are trained together from infancy to make sure that they're 100% in sync.

again, this is all shit noh doesn't remember, but he used to be a JILL. his JACK was a woman named amelia rottney. however something happened and he, amelia and some of their other companions (two other jack & jill units comprised of ethan summers (the jack) and iodine mary evelyn (the jill) and neso/neon (so technically speaking and i have to do more research into this to make sure that i am portraying this correctly but neso/neon are a DID system, but bc both the alter (neon) and the host (neso) operate together p well for the most part, they're the only "solo bodied" jack/jill unit. also speaking of representation, noh is mute! he mainly communicates with sign language but he does have implants; which got fucked up when he was first initially found but he eventually gets new ones but this is off topic).

but they all discovered some fucked up shit about the government and wanted to bring it to light obvs (i mean the fact that none of them knew that they were all p much stolen orphans is Bad Probably) however the government got to them first and sought to eliminate them. they all scattered p much, but noh p much sacrificed himself to let the others escape so they tortured him and erased his memory and then left him adrift in space to die. however in like a weird ass ploy to keep power they basically painted noh & co as terrorists that were trying to disrupt the peace of the cosmos, so they offered a reward/bounty for noh & co dead or alive-even though they knew they set him adrift and for all intents and purposes the government isn't looking for him he's dead.

until he's yknow. not dead. since yknow. he was found by a cargo vessel adrift and was able to be saved. tm.

so the whole story is kind of noh being on the run/trying to stay on the DL while he tries to figure out what in the sam hell is going on and then eventually reuniting with his friends and fucking this government up the ass in a bad way.

he also ends up befriending and eventually getting into a relationship with a space pirate rouge thing (i have so much worldbuilding to do its not even funny lmaooooo) named emerion jackson and idk i love their relationship a lot i rotate them in my head LMAO.

but yeah so that's the Extended Cut of what noble is about, maybe i will make this into a coherent wip intro one day LMAOOOO

[byanyan]

endearing myself to my own oc tonight thinking about lil baby 13 y/o byan who's finally switched to using only they/them pronouns and finally able to experiment more with feminine clothing and makeup, and they're really excited about it but don't really know what they're doing yet? they're learning most if not all of this stuff on their own with no real guidance, so they're clumsy and they stumble a lot while they're trying to get the hang of it all - there are a lot of poorly blended makeup looks done with an unpracticed, heavy hand, a lot of messy attempts at hairstyles as their hair grows out for the first time ever, and a lot of outfits that are too much or the colours clash or the styles just don't quite mesh... they look pretty messy a lot of the time, but they're having so much fun.

[yuelun]

Have I stated that I love Guizhong (Haagentus) of Liyue yet today? Because I do, more than I can say in normal and coherent words. I don't know why adding 'of Liyue' got me feelings extra things, it's okay.

[meownotgood]

I wanted to get much further than I actually did today, but this is still good

[running-in-the-dark]

(:

[daz4i]

see i can't even call nikolai morally bad or smth bc he's just. so interesting and so complex in that regard. and i love it sm

he's not morally grey. he's not completely ethical. he's not evil. he's so beyond morality to me

he does evil THINGS but not for moral reasons. this isn't quite a greater good type of situation. nor is it entirely selfish. his loyalty lies in the hands of an abtract concept, and so his morality can only be defined by that. free will doesn't care if you're good or evil. freedom doesn't make you one or the other. the whole point of it is that it lies beyond these confines and definitions. morality, ethics, guilt, redemption, these are all chains that hold him back from what he wants. and so he will go against them in whatever way he can, but unfortunately for him, he can only do so externally, while these chains still weigh on his heart.

[t3tr0m1n0]

internet brainrot by tdstr is part really cool interesting hardcore techno and part memefest. and as someone who, i feel, has really engaged with meme-heavy musical compositions that still take themselves seriously, i kind of prefer the memeless side of music. i think the point of dariacore is to heavily use obnoxiously memetic samples on top of the general intense hardcore sound. i seriously like the high tempo, varied melodies, heavy bass & intense percussion- all the hardcore side of it. i like hardcore edm that uses lots of samples. and i like music that is just memetic samples into music (see neil cicierega's mouth albums). but with this album i kind of think that the hardcore edm side would stand better on its own or with less of the meme Culture bogging it down. it's when it starts leaning into irony stylings or reveling in some subculture/fandom's iconography that i think it loses me. another station was a really great track but then when damn right came on and i heard familiar sample after familiar sample bring me into something with no hablo americano as its leading sample i got pulled out. and damn right is a pretty good track, i like it a lot! it's just the swing of the focus kind of prevents me from getting into the right mindset to enjoy self-serious hardcore edm or bite-sized high-effort melodic shitpost-inspired music. in short, this album lives up to its title, and it's almost disappointing for that. it's like i went to someone's house and in order to make me feel comfortable they had their computer open to tumblr with my account logged in. like oh i wasn't aware that's how you decided to do things around here

[araneitela]

My apologies for being absent!

/cracks knuckles, but I'm in the midst of typing about fear and with it, hope to make it up to you guys a little. I don't remember the last time that I've been so motivated to write meta of any kind, but Kafka makes me never want to shut up, and honestly— I feel bad when I'm sitting in Discord, with someone's DMs open and I'm sitting on my hands to prevent myself from hypothesizing, because when I don't, it's twelve paragraphs at least. So here we go, let's take my hypothesizing to the dashboard.

Can I also just... say how much two instrumental tracks scream Kafka to me and I lose my mind? I need to stop losing my mind. But this character is just everything I've craved to write for much too long, her premise, dynamics, her goal, the references and symbolism, it's so delightful and thrilling and absolute chef's kiss. Any way, in case anyone may want to know what's playing over and over and over again without stop. The romanticism of Kafka: — Table for Two — The Field

[piplupod]

there was a very nice stranger at bus stop yesterday and he showed me concern and kindness in a way my own parents haven't so that was nice. also i am beating back the "he was only doing that in a creepy way, he wasn't being genuinely nice", so i know that's a possibility but i am choosing to believe that wasn't what it was otherwise i will not leave the house for an entire week.

i hope he has a nice day today and that he's doing well

[kuiinncedes]

700 more words TT

[silasbug]

i've been feeling a little weird lately. not quite real. reality seems fuzzy.

my head, ah. it feels like it's been stuffed into a pillow. everything is soft and muffled in this strangely oppressive (but comforting) way.

i keep having this thought that "i've been such a different person lately". i think i have. i've.. not quite felt like me. it feels off. it feels strange. but in a good way.

it feels like i'm gently floating along a river and, despite the usual pitfalls of depression (a snag of a branch or the nibble of a fish), it's felt fine.

the water is luke warm and normally i would be shivering, but i am too tired to shiver. it's that point where your body stops convulsing and gently eases into the cold. where you're glad that it stops trembling, because it became exhausting.

i just keep noticing it. (the change). i'm painfully aware of it sitting on the edge of my consciousness. it's gently waving at me. it doesn't feel malicious, but it feels out of place. (thinking about it in tangible terms like a being helps).

i feel light in the way that i feel when i no longer care about something. when i can let it go. send it off into the fog. let it fade. that sounds positive, but it's just been nothing. neither good nor bad. it's indifference.

and maybe there are some things i have stopped caring about, or have finally (subconsciously) decided to just leave and accept. "it is what it is". and for once, it just is.

the.. ache that usually accompanies that statement isn't there. it's not the *sighs hopelessly, wishing it could be different*.

i reckon i'm not making sense but my thoughts rarely do and i don't care. my brain is tired and i think it's done thinking. it's acknowledged that it is done thinking.

it's allowing for a strange sort peace. i feel calm. i wouldn't exactly call it content (but isn't it content, in a way? it is), but it feels like i could fall off the face of the earth right now and be fine. be okay. or feel nothing at all.

i could.. become a drop of water and join the puddle as a whole.

i'm buried beneath the leaves and i am happy to stay here.

it's closure.

i don't know why it feels that way or what caused this and i'm sure it'll stop feeling that way soon (hello darkness, my old friend, anyone?), but this is.. fine. for now. it's.. ah. certainly better than the alternative.

i'm sure the need and the will to struggle will arise again once the anxiety and the fear settle back in, but it could stay like this for all i care.

and i think i just realized that maybe i've just been basking in the feeling of fear leaving my body for the first time.

it's literally felt like i've been able to dislodge the metaphorical fear-stick that is constantly up my ass. just a little.

who knew not feeling afraid for once would feel like a dream? like unreality? all soft and fuzzy.

it'll be back something fierce. be nicer if it didn't.

i'd even give it a kiss goodbye if that meant it would leave me be.

anyways.

[starberry-skies]

this squid (me) is literally (figuratively) dying from sickness (throat hurty) and my boss is still making this squid (still me) work its (my) million hour (eight hour) shift. i'm literally () going feral

[tenderjock]

does anyone have a pic of oscar isaac in a sweater vest its for science

[blastburnt]

bathroom inspections