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skrunksthatwunk · 5 months

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yakuza: dead souls - american vibes, bigass guns, and why zombies are super weird to have in ryu ga gotoku thematically/ideologically speaking

so i've been playing dead souls recently (hell yeah hell yeah hell yeah) and although i'm having the time of my life with it, there was something about it that kinda felt off to me, and i think i've figured out what it was, but i'm gonna have to walk you through a bit of my thought process to get there.

my first instinct was that it felt... american? and upon further examination i think that boils down to a couple of things:

everyone suddenly has lots of guns and also way way bigger guns

high emphasis on individual heroism (this itself is quite typical for rgg, but it manifests differently here; more on that in a bit)

military/government incompetence, which must be solved by the right individuals having the biggest and bestest guns

[for the sake of transparency i will note that my experience with zombie media is pretty limited and skews american (and i myself am american), so that may create bias. however, the 'this feels american to me' instinct is a rare one for me even in genres where i have seen little/no non-american media, so i think the fact that it did occur to me is notable. what about dead souls triggered that response when little else has? that's why i examined it and, truthfully, i think there's merit in the idea itself.]

the first point is pretty self-explanatory. america's got more guns than it does people, and its gun worship is infamous. japan's ban on guns (aided by its being an island state) means there's far fewer guns in the country, as well as far fewer people with guns (and likely far fewer guns per gun owner, excepting arms dealers/smugglers) than somewhere without such a ban. obviously, there are guns anyway. due to their illegality they are clustered within the criminal population, which explains their presence within organized crime within the series. very few guns will be sitting around in the homes of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

and yet, when the zombie outbreak hits kamurocho, plenty of civilians suddenly have access to quite an arsenal. everyone has the knowledge they need to aim, fire, and reload smoothly and quickly; ammo is infinite for certain guns. characters we've never seen using firearms before suddenly have shotguns under their couches (looking at you, majima). it's not only very different from reality, it's very different from guns' place within the series up until this point, when they were limited weapons used primarily by the enemy.

and they're making a zombie shooter, so of course they would have to do this. it has to be unrealistic to be simultaneously in this setting and in this genre, in the same way that yakuza solving their problems with bareback fistfights instead of guns is itself both unrealistic and necessary to being the kinds of games rgg are.

my point is that this is a kind of focus on and valorization of gun ownership and competency unusual for the series and setting. further, it serves as an argument for why an armed, competent populace is crucial typical in american media.

which brings us to the third point (we'll get to 2 in a minute). guns are often marketed as self-defense weapons. the implication is that the government's defense of the individual (via law enforcement or the military, but particularly the former), are insufficient. this is objectively true. if someone pulls a gun on you at the gas station, will a cop manifest out of thin air to intercede? no. that's impossible. but if you have a gun, or if some bystander has a gun, you or they may be able to do something with that gun to stop the armed person. thus, there is an undeniable gap in the effective immediacy of such responses.

many gun advocates also point to the incompetence or insufficiency of law enforcement, even when they are present to stop an armed aggressor. the fact that law enforcement do not have a 100% success rate in protecting the citizenry is also objectively true.

so, when you are in danger, arming yourself increases your chances of being able to put down (or at least take armed action against) a present or potential threat. whether it is viewed it as a supplement to or a replacement for law enforcement, it is meant to make up for the shortcomings of the government's ability to completely protect all its citizens. it's a safety net for state failure.

back to dead souls. rgg has always centered political corruption in its stories, including politicians, the police, and sometimes even the military, though usually the former two. sometimes this is treated sympathetically (i.e. tanimura, a dirty cop, whose dirty-cop-ness allows him to work outside/against the law to help disadvantaged people, not unlike how kiryu views being a yakuza), and other times it's simply a matter of greed or lust for power (i.e. jingu).

however, something that's almost never touched on so clearly is government incompetence. when the government fails to help people or hurts them or does corrupt things, it's usually due to a competent, malicious bad apple who is removed from power by the end of the game. this implies holes in the system because it keeps happening all the time, but that's on a series-wide scale, a pattern ignored by the series in favor of the individual game solution of "this guy's gone now :) yay".

but in dead souls, the SDF's barracades fall, their men are killed, they are unable to help protect the people outside or inside the quarantine zone. they are weak in a way the government usually isn't in these games. and who is stronger than them? our individual good guys with guns. so we need to be armed because the government is weak and can't protect us. boom. america.

returning to point 2, i'd like to say that dead souls is not particularly more individualistic than any of the other games in the series (other than, perhaps, y7). rgg is an incredibly individualistic series, actually. its protagonists are usually men who defy, oppose, and skirt around the law as a way of helping others and doing what is truly right (with a few exceptions, like shinada and haruka). the romanticized view of the yakuza as a force for helping the community in the face of government incompetence is a real one, and one that tends to manifest itself most in kiryu and how the series treats him. it shows us yakuza who aren't willing to kill, yakuza who cry about honor and justice and humanity and brotherhood, yakuza who never dip their hands into less palatable crimes, or only do with intense regret (and only ever as part of their backstory). the beat-em-up style emphasizes this as well. i mean, what's more individualistic than a one-man army?

put more clearly, this series is about men defying legal and social laws and expectations to live in a way that feels right to them, and about making themselves strong enough to combat those who would get in their way. the individual is placed before the society in importance, (though generally in a way that benefits the community, because they are good guys who want to use that agency and power for good).

all of this is true in dead souls as well, technically. those who live on the outskirts of society are the ones who actually save the day, and the ones who go in there and save people rather than just walling them off and pretending like they don't exist. they have the guns, which are illegal and mark them as criminals, but this broken law is what gives them the power to save themselves when the government will not, and to save their community if they so choose.

where dead souls differs is in the nature of that strength.

rgg places a lot of emphasis on self-improvement, both of one's body and of one's character. do both of these, and you will be strong enough to back up your ambitions. what allows someone to carve their own path in life is the ability to put down ideological and physical resistance by having resolve and the ability to tiger drop whoever won't be swayed by your impassioned speeches. you make yourself a weapon. you make yourself strong. in dead souls, that strength comes from an external, material possession. strength is something you buy (or that you take from someone else). who is able to survive the apocalypse comes not from the heart, nor from rigorous training, but from who has the most, the biggest, and the most bestest guns. it's an intersection of capitalism, militarization, and individualism. simply, deeply american.

[when i was talking myself through this a few days ago, i spent a lot more time on the capitalism + individualism stuff, but i think i'll keep this moving. consider this aside the intermission]

dead souls also differs for a few other interlocking reasons. it can be described with this equation:

zombification of enemies + lethality of guns = loss of emphasis on redemption

if your best friend turned into a zombie, could you shoot them? or your child? or your lover? it's a common trope, but it's a damn good one. watching your family, your neighbors, your town, everyone turn into a husk of themselves, something that looks like them but cannot be reached, is deeply tragic. it's even more tragic when these husks are trying to kill you. unable to be reasoned with and unable to be cured, you must incapacitate them before someone innocent is hurt--or hurt, then themselves made dangerous; each loss adds to the number of threats surrounding you. your life is seen as more valuable than that of your zombified friend, not only because the zombie is attacking you and it's self defense, but because they are no longer a person to you. to be a zombie is to no longer be human; zombification is dehumanization.

and so in a series so focused on connection with one's community, on saving innocent civilians, often on saving kamurocho specifically, one would expect similar tropes to occur. even if one's friends aren't turned, perhaps the cashier at poppo you chat with sometimes is. it's the destruction of that community and of the members one has tertiary relationships with that i expect would occur most within a kamurocho zombie story, since they are likely unwilling to axe anyone more important than that, even if dead souls isn't canon. i'd especially expect to see that in the beginning, before the need to kill zombies rather than contain or redeem them becomes apparent.

this does not happen.

i cannot speak for the entire game, but i can speak of gameplay choices that affect this, and ones i think will not be subverted throughout, even if they are somewhat contradicted by plot events i am presently unaware of.

kamurocho is not a community to protect, nor is it filled with your fellows. it is a playground filled with infinitely respawning, infinitely mow-downable, infinitely disposable zombies. you are meant and encouraged to kill them by the thousands, and never to hesitate or consider whether they may be cured or who may be mourning them. who may be unable to identify their loved one because you were trying to reach a headshot goal from hasegawa. you are not meant to consider them as human, nor beings that were once human, nor beings that could be human again, in the eyes of the zombie shooter. they are merely bodies, targets, and obstacles.

the zombies are contrasted with the true humans, those barricading themselves within the quarantine zone or those living in ignorance outside it. humans are meant to be saved, zombies are meant to be killed. the player character is the only one who can truly help with either of these goals, because the other humans are cowardly, ignorant, or unarmed/helpless. you must be their savior. to be a savior is to eliminate zombies, who are less than human.

the black and white nature of this is also emphasized by another gameplay characteristic: the lack of street encounters. when you traverse the peaceful parts of kamurocho, you are never attacked. you are also never directly attacked by the humans within the quarantine zone. kamurocho feels very different without its muggers and hooligans, but it's because this is a zombie shooter, not a beat-em-up. in a normal rgg title, you'd subdue threats by punching, kicking, and throwing them. you'd use your body in (supposedly) nonlethal ways. dead souls does not have a combat system meant for civilians. you have your guns. you subdue threats by shooting them, preferably lethally. the game doesn't want you to do that to humans, so you never fight humans. this furthers the black and white divide between the salvation-worthy, noble humans and the death-worthy, worthless zombies. combat is only lethal, and only used against the inherent other.

this leads me to the part of dead souls i find most conflicting with the ethos of rgg broadly, and perhaps its greatest ideological/thematic failing.

because the enemy are incurable, dangerous, and inhuman, you must kill them to protect yourself and others, others who are still human. humanity is something that is lost or preserved, but never regained. once someone's gone, they're gone, and you not only must kill them, it is your duty and your right to kill them. you should kill them.

in dead souls, there is no redeeming the enemy.

and that's a big problem.

rgg is about a lot of things, but a key one is the ability of people to change for the better. its most memorable, beloved villains are those who see the light by the end and change their wicked ways (usually through some form of redemptive suicide, though that's another essay in itself). its pantheon of characters is full of those who come from questionable backgrounds struggling to be the best people they can be, to live as themselves authentically and compassionately. it's about the good and the love you can find in the moral and legal gray zones of life/society, and the potential/capacity for good all of us have, no matter how far we may have fallen. it is a hopeful series. it is a merciful series.

this is something bolstered by its gameplay. countless substories are resolved by punching a lesson into someone until they improve their behavior, either out of fear or genuine remorse/development. the games don't just discourage killing your enemies, they don't allow you to (yes, we've all seen the "kiryu hasn't killed anybody? umm. look at this heat action" stuff before, and while they've got a point, i believe it's the narrative's intent that none of this is actually lethal, based on how laxly it treats certain plot injuries (cough cough. y7 bartender) and the actual concept of taking a life, the gravity it is given by the text, particularly when it comes to characters crossing that threshold into someone who has killed. explicit killing is not an option open to you, even when you're being attacked by dozens and dozens of armed men. conflicts are resolved by simply beating up enough guys in this nonlethal manner.

but dead souls is a shooter. to avoid conflict with the series' moral qualms about letting its characters kill, the enemies cannot be human. furthermore, the zombie shooter genre can only fit within the series if its zombies are completely inhuman. this means their pasts as humans cannot be acknowledged, nor the possibility of a cure, nor the characters' own potential conflicts about killing them; or, at least, not in a way that impedes their or the player's ability to gun them down afterwards.

if you can't kill humans in your series, then it cannot be possible to save (in this case, rehumanize) zombies. this is especially true in a game where you are unable to fight humans, and thus human lives are universally more valuable than zombie lives. because if you kill a zombie that can be cured, you are, in a way, killing a human.

and so, in a series where you should always assume your enemies (and everyone, for that matter) are capable of reason, compassion, change, and redemption, and where they are always worth that effort, even if they reject it in the end, dead souls' enemies are irredeemable and only worth swift, stylish slaughter. there are only good guys and bad guys. good guys must be protected, lest they be turned irreversibly into bad guys. good guys are only protected by killing bad guys, and the only way to save good guys is to kill every last one of the bad guys. do not spare them, and do not ask whether or not it's right. only kill.

i love dead souls. it's a silly game. i like seeing daigo in decoy-drag and majima gleefully cartwheeling his way through zombies and ryuji with his giant gun arm prosthetic. it's fun. but when i was trying to figure out what felt off about it to me, one of the words that came to mind (besides american) was indulgent. that, too, felt odd, because i love indulgent media. i am not one to scorn decadent, hedonistic, beautiful high-calorie slop type media. if dead souls was just fan servicey, that wouldn't really bother me. i am a fan and boy do i feel serviced. it rocks. but i think my problem is in what dead souls is indulging.

i think dead souls indulges in the desire to cut loose, and to see these characters cut loose. thing is, they're cutting loose all over kamurocho, and all over the bodies of people they used to (at least in concept) care for. with lethal weapons. it is catharsis via bloodbath, not by pushing your body and mind to the limit in man to man combat, but by pulling a trigger before the other guy can hurt you, or even think about hurting you, for the crime of existing as the wrong kind of thing.

and i just don't think that's in line with rgg's beliefs.

yes, it's probably fair for dead souls' characters to kill zombies. i'm not against that. i'm also not against games letting you do purposeless violence. i spent a good amount of my elementary school years killing oblivion npcs for shits, like. that's not what bothers me about dead souls.

rgg as a series has always taken a hard stance in both its game design and narrative choices against killing and for the potential for redemption in its enemies. and i think the lengths to which it goes to promote that despite the probably-lethal moves you do and the improbability of a harmless do-gooder yakuza is one of the most endearing things about the games. so for this one entry to disregard that key theme for the sake of a genre shift that flopped super hard, well? i dunno. it feels weird i guess. it's out of place not just because it's a dramatic shift in gameplay and style and also zombies are only a thing here (and the supernatural/fantastical are thus only prominent here), but because of what those shifts imply.

so, uh. yeah. my pre-dead-souls thoughts that dead souls wasn't that out of pocket bc rgg's just kinda weird? turns out it was actually super weird to have a zombie shooter in there, but for way way deeper reasons than anyone gives it credit for.

(footnotes in tags)

#1) i deemphasized the physicality of shooting to emphasize my points about the viscerality and personal nature of rgg #brawls and the colder more detached nature of gun use relative to that but i do NOT mean that shooting has no physical component to it #obviously it takes a lot of skill to shoot quickly and accurately and lugging a bigass gun around kamurocho would tucker me out for sure #2) no i don't think all those things i said were american were usa-exclusive. it's a big world out there. i'm just saying those things #combined feel like a particularly american flavor of thing to me #3) there's probably more to be said about the connection between wanton killing and american styling or anti-immigration theming in zombie #stories or dead souls But i figured that was a bit too disconnected to the funny zombie game. this shit was a lot anyway y'know?#4) also i don't think most of this was intentional on the part of rgg studios. i genuinely think they just wanted to make a fun zombie #shooter and didnt really think about it all that hard. whenever you make smth there's gonna be implications you never considered. it happen #5) is it ballsy to write a giant essay on a game i'm like 1/4 the way through? yes. i've done smarter things. i'll revisit it when im done #if i'm wrong then i'll figure it out probably. but like. i don't think they'd set up the hasegawa objective stuff or have akiyama just #unflinchingly start shooting zombies and then later challenge that. we'll see but my hopes aren't high y'know? i know rgg #6) i should also clarify that violent catharsis is a) a part of all rgg games and b) cool as hell. it's the lethal bit that doesn't fit with #the series y'know?#rgg #ryu ga gotoku #yakuza #like a dragon #yakuza dead souls #dead souls #classic skrunk 4 hr middle of the night impulse essay hooorayy

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pokimoko · 4 months

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hiii--- i know you mostly post/write about other fandoms but i just want to say that graceful degradation is probably one of THE best fics ive read of all time and i love it so so so much, it had me screaming into my pillow at like 2 in the morning. its such a unique and creative take on his backstory and the ANGSSTTT. oh my god...u are a genius

Thank you so much!!! Portal 2 was something I never imagined myself writing for, but I'm very glad I did, because writing that fic was a blast. It came out of my fondness for 'Flowers For Algernon' (which I read many years ago but has been stuck in the back of my mind ever since) and my need for a Portal fic that suited my particular niche of interests (which included, of course, my dear old friend angst). I'm so glad to hear you think of it so highly! That really means a lot 🥰

#ask #wheatley #wheatly portal 2 #portal 2 #portal #my fanfic #my fanfiction #I'm pretty sure i know who sent this so thank you very much for reccing the story to others. that was delightful to see :D #and yeah unfortunately i am very much a throw a fic grenade into the fandom and then run off kind of writer #(with some exceptions)#i don't imagine I'll be writing any more portal fanfic in the future but i am very proud of the one that i did do :)#it was really fun writing in a more humourous style than usual (in what ironically is one of my most devastating fics)#(which i suppose is very fitting to the nature of the portal games themselves. a true comedy of horrors)#if you're looking for other great portal fics i have to recommend you the OG good portal fic: Blue Sky by wafflestories (fanfic.net)#if you haven't already of course. there's a reason it's famous (that is to say wow it's good)#it was big inspiration behind me writing my own portal story #anyway! thank you again 100× over! i truly do appreciate your words 💜

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paperconsumption · 6 months

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from the feedback i got in creative writing class today i’ve realized that enstars has improved the way i write dialogue like an insane amount

#like the stories are all dialogue only (mostly) so it shows a lot through the way characters talk #and reveal plot information that way too. sometimes it’s rlly clumsy sometimes it’s done well and it’s pretty easy to differentiate #btwn the two and see what works #also writing out the sound effects instead of smthng like [shriek] has changed my life a great deal #when i write enstars fic i try to recreate game dialogue to a degree and that leads me to a specific style but i still have a lot of freedom #so i’ve been writing dialogue in ways i’ve like never tried before #it is fun :)#writing tag

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compacflt · 1 year

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finally doing research about what the USNA is like so i can write my slider one-shot and uh what the fawk 😀 i guess you really have to want that commission

here i was with my first draft of my slider one-shot having ice & slider playing golf on the weekends & ice having a fake ID to get drunk in annapolis………. No. It Is Not Like Real College. I Understand Now.

#process poasting #sometimes i feel like stuff like this is common knowledge in this fandom & im out of the loop sometimes #ice as brigade leader 😚 but yeah damn there is a lot less room for fun here than i thought #& therefore as a writer less room for character developing details #you know my first indication it was not all fun and games should’ve been when I visited the USNA in october #and there were literal JAIL STYLE TURNSTILES to get onto the campus #hmmm those are there for decoration im sure #-me; october 2022 #20 year old midshipmen walking around buzzcutted and oakley sunglassed #idk. Depressing. Im ofc gonna take a moderated stance as i try to do in all my writing but #idk.#i know about airplanes not about naval bureaucratic shit like this #Maverick WANTED to go here? no wonder they didn’t let him in this is the LAST place he would fit in

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piedoesnotequalpi · 2 months

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🍄❄️🌿 if you want!! - @pigeonwit

(Writer ask game!)

🍄 (how did you get into writing fanfiction?)

This has...three answers, depending on how far back you want to go.

Answer 1: The first fanfiction I wrote was a cursed but hilarious Shakespeare mega-crossover that I've contemplated posting here based on a writing prompt on a sophomore year English final. I then proceeded to not write any more fanfiction (except for my Broadchurch-inspired poetry in creative writing), until...

Answer 2: At the beginning of the pandemic, I was rewatching Parks and Rec and was curious how, at one point, Ben knew about Leslie's favorite spot in City Hall. I wrote a short one-shot with my thoughts, made an AO3 account to post it, and thought I'd never use the account to post anything else, until...

Answer 3: A few months after I first watched Newsies, I thought I could fit the Newsies characters into a Much Ado About Nothing retelling pretty well--Javid as Ben and Bea, Spot and Race as Claudio and Hero, Katherine as Don Pedro, etc. My irl friend encouraged me to write it and helped with some plot stuff (Jack dressing up as Rapunzel was her idea if I remember correctly). I thought I wouldn't write anything else after that, but then I had ideas for one-shots and was kind of in a bad place mentally, so I kept going, and now here I am >140k words into the Bachelorette AU! What a time!

❄ (What's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?)

I thought about this in the shower, and I think I'd like to see a whodunit/murder mystery fic, which seems like the sort of thing @jack-kellys would be good at. I know I certainly would not be up to writing a proper murder mystery though (despite taking an entire English class on detective fiction in high school).

(Last answer under the cut because this got long, oops)

🌿 (give some advice on writer's block and low creativity)

I know I maintain the illusion of avoiding writer's block by having a semi-regular posting schedule for the Bachelorette AU, but I am very much not immune to writer's block. Here are some things I do, with the caveat that this is just my experience and my methods do not work for everyone.

If the block is coming from feeling like I'm not sure what I'm doing in the next few scenes, I'll take a bit to figure out and write down what the next few scenes will be. These won't be super detailed, but I'll sometimes specify the POV character and usually say "xyz happens." For example, right now I have notes in my bachelorette document about who's going in the hot seat when, as well as the scenes I want to have take place after the men tell all filming wraps.

If I'm just overwhelmed, I'll take a little longer and write a list of things, in order, that need to happen in a chapter (this is what I did for each chapter for the bachelorette au). In the Much Ado adaptation, I wrote down each scene number from the play and decided which POV(s) each scene would have and in what order, which served as a reminder of what each scene focused on.

If it's just that the words won't come, I look back over what I've read, go read a book, or I just sort of force myself to plod along (with the exception of these past couple weeks, where I've been really tired from work and haven't had much time to sit down and designate Writing Time). Brute-forcing isn't for everyone, but when I'm doing that, I try not to delete what I've written and I try not to think about whether it's good, since if I don't like the scene I can go back and edit or rewrite it later. I also do sprints sometimes.

After yet another abandoned novel attempt in 2022, I never skip ahead to the scene I really want to write. I'll write down single lines or bits of dialogue, but that's it. If I skip ahead, it makes it way harder to finish the fic.

#asks #ask game #pidge!#dubious life advice #writing #that first answer reminded me that i've spent a lot of time writing memoir-style stuff #both for fun and to help make sense of my life because i've had some weird/bad stuff happen #anyway these were very fun thanks for sending them!

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storybook-souls · 1 month

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"Book Worm" asks: 43 & 44?

thanks patch :D

43. Title of a book you own that's in the worst physical condition you have. Explain what happened to it. Post a picture if you want.

aslkdf i think it's this one, Freddy Plays Football by Walter R. Brooks. the Freddy books are a series about talking animals from like the 1920s-1950s that i was obsessed with as a kid mostly bc my library happened to have a ton of them. i don't own very many but one is this paperback that must have gotten SOAKED at some point--I don't remember how, but the entire thing is waterlogged. but it's dry now! and readable! and these books are a little hard to find and i'm sentimental about it so i'm not getting rid of it

44. The book(s) whose stories have become part of your very makeup.

man there's so many. the aforementioned Freddy series. Warrior Cats. The Boxcar Children, especially the first three books. Lord of the Rings and Narnia are both deeply in there. when i re-read Percy Jackson recently i was startled by how many times i was like "oh so THAT'S where i first encountered this trope." The Hunger Games series. The Mysterious Benedict Society. Ella Enchanted. A Little Princess. the Rowan Hood series. The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. The Penderwicks. From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler. The Westing Game. a lot of Eva Ibbotson's books, but especially The Island of the Aunts and The Star of Kazan. a lot of Andrew Clements' books, but especially No Talking and The School Story. i could keep going and i'm also sure there's some important ones i'm forgetting bc they're not on my shelves.

send me book asks to answer!!

#the thing is that not having a ton of time to read for fun in late high school and in college and then being out of the habit for a couple #years after college makes it feel weird to include anything i read SINCE then in question 44 #like. i JUST read those #but i think the raven cycle and the locked tomb maybe do both deserve to be in that category #it's also interesting that much of the way i define that category is like 'what influenced my current tastes in fiction #and my writing style'#mostly just bc i think that's much easier to define and come up with than 'your very makeup'. man i dunno all those books i listed and #also none of them #ask game

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 1 month

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"yuri lowell is a manly heterosexual"

yuri lowell:

#DCB Comments #keeping this off my tales blog/out of tags bc i know the heteronormatives will come for me LOL #with their heteronormative v3speria dub (yes the dub actually altered/watered down #his relationship with a man probably bc it was too undertoney for them and western media is allergic to that)#not pictured in this post: the way yuri is used in official artwork with other tales characters #and is often surrounded by men. or the comic of him admitting he's popular with guys #also not pictured: the way yuri's alts for gacha games often feature flynn's color coding #and/or both of their color coding mixed into his outfit or accessories #also not pictured: the way yuri's wedding outfit alt is flynn color coded #also not pictured: the way yuri's bouquet in the other picture of his first outfit on this post #is almost identical to flynn's ''joke weapon'' bouquet of roses in the game #also not pictured: the entire gacha game of rays (that's based off respective game canon). i can't explain that to you in just tags #also yes yuri has a metal corset in that fourth picture. i don't... know many men who wear a corset #and the only other one i know in this franchise is in fact also the other main m/m pairing in the franchise #i also don't know many manly straight men who the character designers dress and style like this #i just want you all to know. if you're looking for a non heteronormative man. yuri has you covered #just maybe not so much in the dub just ignore that LOL. also worth mentioning that #japan gets a L O T of extra yuri material thanks to gachas merch and other official side material #everything in this post is official artwork and the last one is from this year #it's merch up for pre-order for t@lfes so yes they're still playing with his hair LOL #and yes if you ever pick up his game i am here to advertise to you not to play the dub (even tho the text will still sometimes be wrong...)#i am in fact writing giant lengthy posts abt it on my tales blog so i will not explain to you here in these tags #but the dub sapped yuri of so much emotion to make him seem cool and edgy and more of a troll #instead of playful fun and silly and just a dork but who is emotional when it matters #woe is them to let yuri's voice shake with heartbreak when he's worried abt a man!#i bet the localizers didn't even realize the entire opening theme song was abt yuri and another man and their relationship #maybe one day i'll make a fun post with all of flynn's color coding slapped all over yuri #also i BET there's someone out there who will see this and be like ''she's reaching''#yeah i guess the official gacha game is reaching then too with how it treats yuri and flynn the same as the franchise's canon het pairs

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kindlythevoid · 4 months

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You write so that your favorite actor will one day star in an adaptation of your book.

I write so that an adaptation of my work gets featured on Film Theory.

We are not the same.

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kyouka-supremacy · 1 year

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I am totally pushing the aku top of the school agenda HOWEVER this mf would pop a vein before tutoring anyone (teaching math would end up in murder)

I swear I am extremely fascinated by and genuinely interested to understand what prompts this fairly spread perception of smart Akutagawa because I really can't see it.

Akutagawa is THE flawed character of the franchise. He has barely any redeemeing qualities. His being a ruthless, mindless dog, a beast, an animal is a central theme of his character: he's one of the most inhuman characters, no rationality, no emotions. It only makes sense he'd also be lacking in intellect, one of the most intrinsically human qualities, right? Let's also keep in mind that when it comes to intelligence, he was specifically trained since a very early age so that he wouldn't develop any critical thinking skill or wisdom. He was appositely built to be an executor, never a thinker. A killing machine, a mindless beast. He was made to be a tool, not a person. He is the very epitome of irrationality- and that much shows in everything he does! There's plenty canon evidence to support it. His actions are never guided by preliminary thoughts, he just acts on instinct, akin to an animal. He will kill his target in chapter 4 although his mission is specifically not to, he will barge into a building full of security guards right through the front door without even ordering his subordinates to offer support, he will go rogue and storm into the Moby Dick destroying everything in his path no matter the consequences, he will naïvely jump off a balcony to catch a repetitor just because his worst enemy said it had Dazai-san on the line- do I have to continue? His whole character is exclusively driven either by orders, or by instinct and irrationality. Guys, it would have been SO MUCH EASIER if upon seeing Ranpo's message Akutagawa had just took out his phone and gone “hey Chuuya-san, it's likely we've found the mastermind and the whole thing will be solved here at this place, can you come over one second?”. But he didn't, and it's not simply a matter of suspension of disbelief (in the way that the events are more satisfying this way). Was it for his pride then? Indeed, but Akutagawa's pride and irrationality are in a perpetual concomitant relationship of cause and effect, where one is constantly born from the other. I do think his very simple and straight-forward objectives (1. kill the Jinko 2. be acknowledge by Dazai-san 3. die) are themselves expression of his simple mindset, and so is a certain naïvety he has, that I honestly wish more people took into account when characterizing him.

It's funny because, the thematic relevance of it is the whole point- in reality, I don't think there's such a thing as a stupid person, I firmly believe everyone has their own kind of intelligence, a field each of us excells in. But it's exactly because Akutagawa isn't a person (well. in this context at least), but a character, that one can push a characteristic to its extremes in order to make it symbolic of something, in order to make an archetype out of his character. And Akutagawa at his core is irrationality, he is Dazai's failed trainee and ugliest foil, he is the ultimate pawn, he is the beast. The fact that Akutagawa is a character– it's relevant. He's not a person, he's a vassel for themes. I can dare to rudely talk about him like he was an animal because it's the narrative itself that before anyone else pushes the reader to see him in a dehumanizing way. Akutagawa once literally tore the skin off a man's neck with his teeth effectively killing them. It's quite not simple dog coding anymore lol. But he's just a dude from a book really, he's just symbolism: and that's why he can become a dog, or a pawn, or the stupidest person of Yokohama, as the author or reader pleases. It's really not that deep ahah

I can guess a possible counterpoint would be that perhaps, in a universe where he wasn't subject to the slums and Dazai's abuse such as high schools aus, Akutagawa would get his chance to be witty? But then I can't help but think, if you don't make Akutagawa stupid... Aren't you taking a fundamental trait of his character away from him? What's left of Akutagawa then? What would be the point of reading, let's say, a sskk high school fic if you can't recognize Akutagawa in it? But then again I guess this is exactly the reason why I can't bring myself to like most of alternative universe bsd fics (╥﹏╥)

Also, ultimately, there *are* personal preference components to it. In my headcanon Akutagawa has autism / adhd, and although those don't always have a negative impact on one's academic results, there is a chance they do. And I'd honestly lean towards that chance more when it comes with Akutagawa, because he is the pathetic man that has everything going wrong for him. There's symptoms in his impulsivity and scarce self-control, and I believe they'd make school life very hard for him, especially when it comes to focusing in classes and for studying- which is fitting tbh, can you imagine Akutagawa ever having a happy life? (I'm jk I swear I love him)

Besides, I must have mentioned how one of the main appeals of sskk for me is how despite being thoroughly flawed people they can still be loved. It's surprisingly comforting to think that even the most evil of people can be loved, and it's the same when it comes for stupidity. Stretching Akutagawa's flaws just makes him more symphatetic and enjoyable to read about.

#Blood of an intense dark red color starts streaming down against the blue Tumblr screen as I start writing this post again because–#Tumblr killed it. I know nothing but suffering in my life #*Very normal voice* ANYWAYS.#I hope I'm not offending Anon with this take‚ I just had fun writing down why I thought that way!!#And I just kept adding words and paragraphs and tags that became paragraphs that didn't fit in the tags #I'm sure Anon's reasoning to explain Akutagawa would have high scores at school is extremely insightful–#it just is in ways I can't see yet (╥﹏╥)#And let's not forget there IS an official high school au under development.#I'm curious to see how Akutagawa's characterization is going to change in it.#Pov: It's a new spin-off illustrated by Hoshikawa. Shojo school-setting manga except make it dark and grim and gory #(I'm jesting it's a game that most likely will be in the anime art style)#ryūnosuke akutagawa #bsd #bungou stray dogs #mine #people asks me stuff #As a person with probably more than one reading problem and also as a person who refreshes their inbox a lot–#I can tell you I've read the first sentence of this ask as anything from #“I am totally pushing the aku top agenda” to “I am totally pushing aku from top of the school”#gakuen bsd

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