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#i know this stories are a bit. violent.

eldritchazure · 1 year

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i’m out of school now so here’s part 2 ((:

by the second year, stralka was fourteen and the oldest, and therefore the de facto leader.

ven and stenet went, then skyv. it became clear to stralka that they could not stay at the outpost, and that no one was coming. the forest protected them from the enemy’s sensors, but it also blocked and federation ships scanning for survivors. at that point, twelve-year-olds t’miva and vantik, ten-year-old sava, and eight-year-old sekal remained, and they were all too exhausted and numbed with fear to offer any protest when stralka proposed his plan. the next time a supply ship came to drop off resources to the soldiers manning the stolen outpost, they made a run for it, sneaking around the armed guards who weren’t actually paying all that much attention and hiding in the ship’s cargo hull. stralka didn’t know where the ship was going, for he had not yet learned rihan, but maybe they’d have a better chance at survival there. desperation was illogical, but at this point, stralka was fourteen and willing to take any chance he could get to ensure that they’d live.

they slept through most of the journey despite themselves, jolting awake and freezing in fear whenever footsteps passed their hidden corner.

when the ship finally docked, they scrambled out like rodents as soon as the coast was clear. they hid behind some crates as they took stock of their situation. they were at a spaceport in a city. cautiously, stralka stepped into the light, and to his immense relief and slight surprise, no one started shooting at him. slowly, the others followed him, t’miva coming to stand beside stralka with her best impression of a brave face, sava bringing up the rear, half-hiding their face behind stralka, and vantik carrying the silent sekal who hadn’t uttered a word since t’svai died. there were other children hanging around the spaceport, stralka mentally signaled to the others (because children needed a strong mind to lean on in the absence of their parents, and who better to fill that role than stralka?) that they would pretend to be one of them. and just like that, they went from fugitives to young street urchins, hanging around at the spaceport with nothing better to do.

and that was how they stayed for a while. slowly but surely, they picked up bits and pieces of rihan until they could hold a short conversation (for the most part). they figured out where they could scavenge for food and where to avoid so they wouldn’t run into law enforcement.

and then sekal got sick.

they had no access to medicine, and they couldn’t exactly forage for it because people didn’t just throw away perfectly good medicine. the only visible option was to steal it. but stealing was illogical. stralka paced in their chosen alleyway for the night, trying to look for other alternatives, as sekal’s coughs grew weaker and weaker. stealing was illogical. but if they didn’t steal, sekal would die, and letting sekal die was illogical. stralka huffed in frustration, having long since forgotten that frustration wasn’t something he was supposed to experience. everything about this situation was illogical! the violence was illogical, the killing was illogical, the fact that no one even looked twice at scrawny, starving children was illogical.

so maybe the solution to their current predicament would have to be illogical too. after all, the teachings of surak hadn’t saved v’elak and t’prill and sejik, and they were adults! surak wasn’t going to save sekal from succumbing to sickness, and it wouldn’t save them all from dying of starvation in the future. at the moment, logic was effectively useless, and continuing to abide by it and would be foolish and would likely cost them all their lives.

stralka stole the medicine and got a phaser burn just under his left eye from a glancing shot, and he thanked the unfeeling stars that it hadn’t hit his eye and hadn’t been set to kill. still, it had certainly hurt. but sekal would live, and that was all that mattered. so now they were not only street urchins, but petty thieves as well.

stralka had gotten lucky that time, but that wasn’t always the case. there were multiple close calls with local law enforcement. it was during one of these close calls when he ran directly into another young street urchin about his age in an alleyway, who seemed to be having the same problem if the shouting and footsteps that were following him were anything to go by. stralka didn’t know what possessed him in that moment, but he told the other boy to follow him and scrambled up a pipe attached to a building to get to the roof. seemingly against his better judgment, the other child had followed, and from there took the lead, running across rooftops until they reached an abandoned building. the other boy jumped through a smashed window, and after a moment of hesitation, stralka followed. so there they were, two strangers sitting alone in a dark abandoned building. they stared at each other in silence. having gotten a better look at the other boy’s face, stralka thought that he could’ve been vulcan. he didn’t have the brow ridges that most romulans did. it wasn’t rare to find a romulan with a smooth forehead, but it was an uncommon gene.

“my name is stralka.”

silence. the other boy frowned in what stralka was fairly certain was confusion and a healthy amount of suspicion.

“oh. right. ro- people do not use first names with strangers. apologies. i do not possess a last name,” stralka murmured, cursing his blunder.

“… stralka’s a weird name,” the other boy said finally, his tone still heavy with suspicion.

“i… know that,” stralka said unsurely. “my parents were… creative.”

“you talk weird too,” said the other boy. “you’re also a really bad liar.”

“apologies?” said stralka, because what else could he say without digging himself a deeper hole?

“you’re not from around here, are you?” the boy asked.

“n- no,” stralka replied.

“i’ve never heard an accent like yours before. where are you from?” this was becoming a bit like an interrogation, and stralka had no idea how to answer that question without raising further suspicion. so he opted for silence instead.

“are you an alien?” the boy asked bluntly, now leaving forward with a new fascination in his eyes, almost replacing the suspicion. almost.

“and if i am?” stralka asked, now suspicious as well. his eyes narrowed and his tone was just shy of hostile. he could not allow this stranger to endanger the others. he would do whatever was necessary to keep them safe.

“how did you make yourself look rihannsu? what species are you actually? are you spying on us? are you planning an invasion?” the barrage of questions was… unexpected, to say the least, and stralka found he was having difficulty keeping up.

“i… did not make myself look… rihannsu. i look like this normally,” stralka said honestly, unsure of what else to do. “i am vulcan, which is why we look so alike.” he wondered if telling the truth was a mistake. after all, the romulans and the federation, specially the vulcans, were not exactly the best of friends. but the other boy did not show any animosity, nor was he especially alarmed.

“so the lloann’mhrahel is using kids as spies now?” he asked, brimming with curiosity.

“i- no. the- the ‘lloann’mhrahel’ is the federation, yes?” the other boy shrugged. “well. we are not federation spies, nor are we part of an invasion. it is… a long story. why do you care anyway? i thought romulans- or, um, rihannsu did not like vulcans, regardless of whether or not they were enemy soldiers.”

the other boy shrugged again. “i don’t care too much about politics. even if you were here to mess with the government, i don’t think i’d care too much.”

stralka furrowed his brow. “why not?”

the other boy stared at him with narrowed eyes, the suspicion back in full force. after a moment of silence, he said, “you tell me your story, and i’ll tell you mine.”

perhaps if stralka were a little older and a little wiser, he would’ve said no. he wouldn’t even be entertaining this conversation. he wouldn’t have spoken to the boy and climbed onto the roof without him, and they wouldn’t even be in this situation. but stralka was fourteen with four mouths to feed and four minds to keep steady and yet he felt so, so alone and this boy seemed nice and maybe they could be friends. so he told the boy his story, from start to finish, and decided that if the boy tried to run to the guards about it, stralka would just have to kill him first. when he was done, the boy looked shocked.

“wow. that’s… horrible. although, i can’t say i’m surprised. we’re known for our ruthlessness for a reason,” the boy said with a sigh, and the sympathy was surprisingly… nice. it was nice to be able to vent about it to someone who wouldn’t start crying or staring off at nothing or pointing a phaser or disrupter at him about it. it felt like a weight was lifted off his chest and he could breathing became just a little bit more easy. talking to this boy was easy.

stralka nodded. “now it is your turn,” he reminded.

the other boy hesitated for just a moment, but nodded.

“my family name is xoral,” he began. “but you told me your story, and i’m going to tell you mine, so we might as well be friends instead of just acquaintances, so you can call me cavair,” he said all at once, before taking a breath and continuing his story. the boy, cavair told the tale of an empath. (he had to take a moment to explain that empaths were taken as infants by the tal shiar to be trained as agents. cavair shivered involuntarily and stralka nodded in sympathy.) his mother, a retired tal shiar agent, had decided she didn’t want a life of danger and secrets and loneliness for her son, and so she took him and ran. cavair grew up all over the empire, his mother teaching him the tools of her trade as they went, despite the fact that they were on the run in the first place because she hadn’t wanted him to have to learn to be like her. and that was how it was for a while. though they were constantly looking over their shoulders, lived in relative safety, because the only person who could protect you from the tal shiar was the tal shiar, and that was what cavair’s mother was, even in retirement. however, cavair’s mother was only one person, and she was not a young woman. it took them a decade and three years, but finally, about a year ago, tal shiar agents had caught up with them and cavair was separated from his mother in the ensuing firefight. he barely escaped with his life and hadn’t seen any sign of his mother since. but he remembered what she’d taught him. he was fourteen now and had managed to survive on his own.

all throughout the story, stralka listened attentively. when cavair was finished, all stralka could say was, “i grieve with thee.”

the two sat in silence for a time, watching the other. finally, stralka mustered the courage to speak first.

“you… you could come with us, if you wish? making allies is logical. there is safety in numbers, and we could pool resources. also, you have more experience with ro- rihannsu than us, and that could prove useful.”

cavair was still suspicious. “how do i know i can trust you? how do i know you won’t turn me in for some kind of reward?” stralka thought for a moment.

“we both have leverage on each other. i have your story, you have mine. that way, one of us cannot betray the other without risking his own secret being exposed,” stralka explained. cavair thought on that for a moment, before nodding.

“that’s agreeable.”

the two nodded at each other.

and so, by the end of the second year, there were six instead of five.

#tw child death #tw death #again sorry if it’s bad and sorry for any sorting mistakes!!#at this point i’m too lazy to proofread #what matters is that you get the gist of it!!#also #cavair makes an appearance!!#so that’s fun (:#also btw tell me if i missed any tws #i know this stories are a bit. violent.#so it’s very possible i missed something #star trek ocs #vulcans #romulans #star trek #lt. cmdr. stralka #cavair

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esterigermaine · 2 months

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You can all blame @animentality for this because their posts got me into durgetash (thank you!!!!!) and now I want to torture the villian couple. Probably won't make much sense because I drank enough caffeine to kill a horse today and my brain is going a million miles a second.

You know that scene where Orin shapeshifts into durge and tells them what she did to them? What if Gortash found out about it the same way and had Orin rub salt in the wound by then showing him the prayer for forgiveness?

She is cruel enough to do it and I can't think of any worse way to find out about what happened than for the attempted-murderer to shapeshift into their victim and describe what happened to them in explicit, gruesome detail. The attack itself, the tadpole, how they were abandoned to die alone like trash, how Gortash wasn't there to protect them, all of it. Only to show grieving Gortash the note

#orin the red #enver gortash #dark urge #the dark urge #durgetash #they were both doomed from the start the least we can do is make things even more painful #bonus points if she leaves it at leaving durge for dead so he has quite a bit of time to think durge is dead until reports start popping up #the pain of losing one of the few people you actually liked violently and having that act described to you by someone wearing their face #and the addition of then seeing a note praising you like that? not knowing untol after?#that has to be somewhere in the top few most emotionally painful things Gortash could possibly experience #regarding my note at the top #i seriously cannot thank them enough #because at first I was ehhhhh about Gortash in general then after playing Durge I was like oh they got along #and then after seeing their posts in the dark urge tag I was like damn now thats a love story how can I make their fates even WORSE #and I never would have even considered this ship and the opportunities it provided without them #seriously good stuff

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skrunksthatwunk · 4 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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dontgofarfromme · 2 years

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[ID: Eight screenshots of highlighted text.

Image 1 reads: "And you know that I love you, Fool. As a man loves his dearest friend. I feel no shame in that. But to let Jek or Starling or anyone think we take it beyond friendship's bound, that you would want to lie with me, is--" I paused. I waited for his agreement. It did not come. Instead, he met my eyes with his open amber gaze. There was no denial in them."I love you," he said quietly. "I set no boundaries on my love. None at all. Do you understand me?"

Image 2 reads: "He did mean you, did he not? Well of course he did, though you may not know it. I doubt you know the custom of the people he came from; how they exchange names to denote the lifelong bonds they form? Did you ever call him by your name, to show him that he was as dear to you as your own life? Or were you too much of a coward to let him know?"

Image 3 reads: "Not by me," he replied decisively. "If you insist we must both take different names now, then I shall call you 'Beloved." And whenever I call you that, you may call me 'Fool."

Image 4 reads: "There it is. Plainly, Fitz, I told you I set no limits on my love for you. I don’t. Yet I never expected you to offer me your body. It was the whole of your heart, all for myself, that I sought. Even though I've never had a right to it. For you gave it away ere ever you saw me."

Image 5 reads: Just as I opened my eyes, the Fool's thought uncurled in my mind like a leaf opening to sunlight. And I set no limits on that love. "It's too much," I said brokenly. "No one can give that much. No one."

Image 6 reads: He lifted his hand. "Did you feel that?" I asked him. He smiled sadly. "Fitz, I have never needed to touch you to feel that. It was always there. No limits." Some part of me knew that was important. That once it would have mattered terribly to me. I tried to find words. "I will put that in my wolf," I said, and he turned away sadly.

Image 7 reads: I bent and kissed his brow in farewell. And then, grasping the rightness of that foreign tradition, I named him as myself. For when I burned him, I knew I would be ending myself, as well. The man I had been would not survive this loss. "Good-bye, FitzChivalry Farseer."

Image 8 reads: "Take your body back from me," I bade him quietly. And so we passed, one into the other, but for a space we had been one. The boundaries between us had melted in the mingling. "No limits," I recalled him saying, and suddenly understood. No boundaries between us.

End ID]

We are one

#rote #fitzloved #realm of the elderlings #i dont know if im ever going to be over this series lol #also i just have a lot of thoughts about how #like idk if its universally true that this is specifcally a queer theme #or if its just something ive seen several places #but i feel like ive come across this thing in a lot of queer stories #of like #loving someone so much and with such violent intensity that you want to be them #not like just be them like you wish you were them INSTEAD of them #but like be them as though you were both them and you were bot hyou #as though you were one person #like KNOWING someone so much and them knowing you so much that you become a part of each other #wanting to consume someones soul and have them consume yours etcetcetc #anyway for this whole series fitz is turning that idea over in his mind #wanting it so desperately but being afraid of letting that last bit of himself go completely #and the culmination of the series when they go into the stone wolf together is him finally fully giving that up #and idk. thats just very gay of him.#also spot the quote i had to jankily rig together myself bc i couldnt get the book back from the library lol #everyone has fools errand out for some reason #my dumb ass writing the final quote wrong whoops lol

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lucydonato · 1 year

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You are exactly the kind of person who is a nightmare to have in class, aren't you? Not like in a hateful way, but the way you talk about college, always getting As, reminding teachers about homeworks, being mad that people don't take everything as seriously as you, doing everything way ahead, reporting on people and things, being in your own world of being super intense?

silly answer 1: um I'll have you know all my report cards said I was a PLEASURE to have in class

silly answer 2: yeah

serious answer: I mean I guess to an extent?? I work really hard and it bugs me when people goof off (only if it causes a distraction during class, idc what they do in their personal time) but it also [italian voice] e Bugs me when people feel the need to show off and dominate discussions because I feel like that's denying everyone else the chance to learn and as a science girlie specifically it bums me out when I'm surrounded by people (on either end of that spectrum) who don't care about the subject matter and are only there because they and/or their parents think STEM is a ticket to a big salary, both because I'm really passionate about what I'm doing and want to be around similarly passionate people and because I think everyone else deserves the joy of finding and doing something that they love so. idk man I play nice with my classmates and try to work with them (especially if it seems like they're struggling with something I understand) and I try to get my stuff done ahead of time but only for my own benefit and I don't remind teachers about homework and I don't care if anyone else cheats and yes I do share some of my grades on here and with my friends and family because I'm excited and proud of myself when I do well but I never ask my classmates for their grades or volunteer mine because I'm not trying to compete with anyone else. I just genuinely want us all to be doing what we want and doing it well

#also idk if it was my t*tle ix posting that prompted this message but for the record #the context is that a 43 yr old evangelical outside agitator w/a violent criminal record takes advantage of so called free speech zones #to talk about how gay people are going to hell #and yesterday he started singling out female students (including me) referencing our genitals #and talking about how we're subservient to men and should keep our mouths shut #so like. I didn't spend this afternoon crying in the student affairs office about how my school refuses to protect me and other women #just because I get smug satisfaction out of ''reporting on people and things''#it's because I'm doing what I'm forced to do in order to keep my home safe #I'm not mad @ you tbc because I realize you may not have realized this or known the full story #I'm just letting you know that this ask and that bit in particular did kind of hit me in a sensitive place at the moment

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mxalmighty · 3 months

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i have ideas for stories but zero writing skills bahaha so take this idea dump just for posterity sake;

Crash Landing - Raph x Reader - Originally conceived for 2012 but more fun with Rise tbh, plus more believable overall; Raph crashlands in the middle of nowhere in a northern area where Reader, an off-grid runaway just trying to disappear, happens upon the wreck site in time to rescue his very stuck and maybe impaled ass. Literally tarzan / jane vibes as Reader, the strange wild person who doesn't speak but definitely can, nurses Raph back to health and through winter with just the land and a cave to work with. The plan is, if they both survive until spring, to guide Raph to the nearest road or rail and part ways there. Except, well, it's an xreader fic, so obviously feelings happen, and when the time finally comes that Raph can leave the cavesite in whatever way i'm not revealing but definitely isn't according to plan

well raph is like no you come with me and reader is like fuck uh um but my hard earned feral freedom and raph is like yeah but pizza and also i love you and junk but just when reader is about to make the decision, DISTRACTION, they're gone and raph thinks he's doomed to leave without them oh nooooo whatttttt

obviously i'm not a monster reader goes back to new york to live happily ever after with their giant turtle boo bear or do they

#'what do you mean crashlands'#you may never know tbh #i know but it's spoilers if i actually decide to draw or write this #and by draw or write this i mean think really hard about maybe sketching important parts or writing more prattle like this #but who knows maybe #every time i do anything to put this idea on paper so to speak i get a little bit closer to writing an actual story it's almost scary #what if i start actually #shudders violently #w r i t i n g #turtleposting #ROTTMNT Crash Landing #raph x reader prattle #and by prattle i mean letter vomit #bc half of that probably isn't even real words

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rassilon-imprimatur · 2 years

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I’m rewatching Resurrection of the Daleks on a whim, and every time I revisit it I’m always surprised how much of the Hartnell and Troughton Dalek stories are frothing in it. The duplicates are both The Chase and the Robomen, the time corridor and the Daleks setting traps and snares in past/present/future is from The Evil of the Daleks. The Doctor putting aside his usual self and care for his companions in the crusade against them, again, Troughton’s duo. It’s a fun contrast with Davros’ presence, he bringing a nastier Re-Animator bite to Genesis canon vs the Daleks gradually realizing that, no, he and they genuinely cannot occupy the same space without destroying each other.

It’s also funny to me how relentlessly bullied so much of this plot and the mistakes the Daleks keep making have been over the years and according to fandom wisdom, as if.. it’s not… the point? As if the script isn’t completely aware? They’re absurd, hateful, monstrously violent little idiots, so blinded by their ego and paranoia that, yeah, they keep making major mistakes. Their plot has too many steps bound to collapse, the Supreme watches everything and everyone wandering around the prison station as if he controls everything, too cowardly to leave his control room, and then panics and blames everyone else the moment things being to spiral to the gory finale. I dunno. This is a nasty little serial, but it’s my nasty little serial. Warriors of the Deep is much the same way for me.

#I know Saward actually did quite a bit of extensive homework on all the Dalek stories #so I think that’s why there’s a fascinating continuation of Davros and the handling of the 70s Daleks with so much 60s rolling around #it creates a nice dissonance?#resurrection of the Daleks #Saward really deserves to be picked apart but in a way that’s much less This Is Grimdark Crap that writes him off #there’s plenty to criticize especially when Peri came into the scene and he shared that with JNT #but to act like the very intentioned grisly absurdism isn’t completely aware of itself is… pretty insulting?#i mean there’s a reason he vibed with Holmes so much #they’re differently approaches and dark/violent flourishes of the same sense of humor #also I think the bomb disposal squad being so clearly a UNIT proxy and then all brutally slaughtered is really fucked up lmao #I love it #it’s the same with the Earthshock dudes

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