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queen-ofsunflowers · 2 years ago

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Lives on the Line; Winner Takes All - Chapter 4 Preview

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Unfortunately, as the entire team soon found out, neither scouting team that had been deployed were able to find anything. There was no other exit from the dorm, no connections to other places. No way out.

“So, we’re kind of screwed, aren’t we?” said Junpei bluntly. That wouldn’t be the way that Aigis phrased it. Perhaps Minato would agree if he was in charge, but he was currently unconscious in a hospital bed and didn’t have much of an input. Even so, Aigis could practically hear him say it.

“Not even we move quickly,” said Mitsuru. With her order, Junpei, Ken and Koromaru would be joining the rest on the front lines to search through the Abyss of Time. Aigis felt a little relief. Having more members in her squad would lead to more manpower, as well as more pairs of eyes to help in the investigation.

“What about Shinji?” asked Akihiko. Shinjiro Aragaki was one of the heaviest hitters on the team. Emphasis on the was.

Which would be why Mitsuru’s reply was: “Shinjiro is staying here. He won’t be fighting.”

Shinjiro looked at Mitsuru with wide eyes and genuine surprise. “What?”

“May I remind you that you’re still recovering from being shot with silver?” Shinjiro opened his mouth to argue with her, but a single red-eyed glare from Mitsuru was enough to get him to clamp his mouth shut. “Metis brought you down fairly quickly just by using that injury against you. You were also discharged from the hospital only a few days ago. You’re staying here. End of discussion. You’ll be able to help me search.” Shinjiro grumbled something under his breath, but there was no arguing against Mitsuru. It was a losing fight.

And so, the group was split. Shinjiro stayed behind with Mitsuru and Fuuka to search through the command room. Those that remained dove back into the Abyss of Time. Like before, all of the doors in the desert area were locked. All except one. And that was the one that they entered.

Junpei let out a yelp as something rushed past him as soon as they entered. He stumbled back into Yukari and Aigis, nearly knocking the two over in the process. It was because of that that Aigis couldn’t get a clear read on the figure. All she could pick up was that it was feminine in appearance, and a blur of auburn and pink as it ran down the hall.

“What was that?!” Junpei exclaimed as he was righted and the rest of the team flooded into the new space behind him.

“It’s… I don’t think it’s a Shadow,” said Akihiko, “but we’ve been chasing it for a while.” Aigis kept quiet. Should she really say something about it…? Before she could make up her mind, Koromaru let out a bark. He dashed off after the Shadow without a care or an order.

“Koromaru!” Ken called, but the familiar didn’t come back. The werewolf boy chased after him, and the rest of the party followed with Junpei taking to the air to move faster.

“If that thing isn’t a Shadow, then what the heck is it?!” asked Junpei

“Why are you asking us?” said Yukari, offended. “We don’t even know!”

“It’s just a question!”

“It’s a…” Ryoji began, beginning to slow and fall behind the rest. “I think it might be a Shadow, but…”

Junpei stared down at his friend, confused. “Ryoji?”

“I just…” Ryoji groaned, dragging a hand down his face. Was he frustrated? Confused? …possibly both?

“It does not seem to be the same one that we saw before,” said Aigis. While her scan wasn’t exactly clear, it wasn’t hard to piece together the similarities to one person she knew with what she had. “This one looked more like Kotone-san.” Behind her, Akihiko stumbled and nearly fell on his face.

“So there’s more than one of them?!” Yukari exclaimed. When Aigis nodded, the harpy groaned and dragged a hand down her face. “Well, that makes me feel better…”

“Y’know, being sarcastic doesn’t suit you at all, Yuka-tan,” said Junpei. “That’s more Mina—”

“Shut up.”

The full chapter will be up on Ao3 on July 29th!

#persona 3 #persona 3 au #monsters and magic au #queen's previews #fic: lives on the line; winner takes all #junpei iori #misturu kirijo #akihiko sanada #shinjiro aragaki #ken amada #koromaru #yukari takeba #aigis #ryoji mochizuki

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theoneprecioustome · 6 years ago

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Aikoto Moments Masterlist: P3 Manga

PAnd with this, the Masterlists are complete! You can see the entire list HERE.

This one gathers the most relevant interactions between Aigis and Leader’s manga adaptation, aka Arisato Minato.

Special thanks and all of the credit goes to to @pengy-pop at the Aikoto Discord, without whom I wouldn’t have been able to make this list!

Illustrations:

2 Moonlight Bridde Trio + 1 Aikoto

Volume 1:

Chapter #1:

Aigis (and Yukari) are the last thing Minato sees as he falls unconscious.

Aigis catches a falling Minato in her arms, assuring him that she will protect him.

They trigger the all out attack on the enemy.

They look at each other as the team gathers around him.

Chapter #2:

Aigis cover.

They can be see sitting together in class (just like in the game).

Volume 2:

Perspective #1:

Aigis comes looking for Minato at the arcade and pulls him to herself to keep him away from Ryoji. Her hold is so strong that he almost passes out (LOL).

Aigis, Minato, Junpei and Ryoji go eat together (much to Aigis's chagrin). She and Minato share one stool.

Volume 3:

Perspective #1.5:

Aigis is looking for Minato, worried that he might be hanging out with another idiot (Ryoji) aside from Junpei.

Perspective #2:

Minato and Aigis are sitting together, asleep, on the train to Kyoto.

Volume 4:

Plot #3:

Minato calls out to Aigis, who is controlled by Ikutsuki, and makes her halt.

Perspective #3.5:

"Steam and Murder".

Volume 5:

Chapter #22, Part 1:

Aigis watches over a sick Minato and confirms he’s back to full heath.

Volume 6:

Chapter #29

Aigis is unsettled to hear Minato is hanging out with Ryoji and Junpei. Fuuka jokes that she’s a little jealous Minato’s spending so much time with him, but Aigis explains it’s not “about frivolous things like love and hate” and that Ryoji is dangerous.

Volume 7:

Chapter #30:

Before going to face Ryoji, Aigis visits Minato's room and conveys her thoughts to him through the door. She explains that she believes she understands the concept of loss, and that "Your existence is special to me. I wish to remain by your side forever. That's why... I want to protect you. For now and always." Then, she apologizes for interrupting his studies and leaves before he can open the door. Left behind, a thoughtful Minato can only stare at the empty hall.

Plot #4

Their Yakushima meeting. Aigis hugs him and says that the most important thing to her is to be by his side.

We see the moment Aigis was under Ikutsuki's control, but from her own perspective this time. She thinks that as a machine, she is not able to understand things like "painful" and "sad". Still, if "being by [Minato-san]'s side weren't possible...".

Minato comes to check up on her, and kindly smiles at her.

Last Plot

Aigis vs Ryoji. She has flashbacks to the fight they had 10 years ago, and of young Minato.

Perspective #12

Minato runs to hold a collapsed Aigis in his arms and furiously asks Ryoji whether he did that to Aigis or not.

Volume 8:

Aikoto illustration.

Perspective #14

Aigis comes back to the dorm and apologizes to Minato for what she did 10 years ago. He thanks her instead. "No, Aigis... it is because of you that we are still alive today."

Minato can be seen smiling when Palladion transforms into Athena.

Perspective #15

The start of Aigis's S-Link. She and Minato take Koromaru out for a walk to the shrine. She also tells him that "By being with you, Minato-san... Before I knew it, my behavioral principle changed."

Perspective #16

We see a flashback to the Moonlight Bridge Trio together, and Minato smiling as Aigis tries to push Ryoji away.

Perspective #17

Minato compliments Aigis in her kimono: "It suits you well, Aigis." Surprised, Aigis blushes a little and thanks him.

Perspective #18

Aigis’ S-Link Rank 2. Aigis and Minato have a conversation on the school rooftop about Tatsumi port island, and Aigis monologues about how she is confused by the changes taking place inside her recently, and wonders if its a result of being with Minato.

Aigis S-Link Rank 3. Aigis begins to agonize about not being human. At the end, she looks at Minato and tells herself: "I... If I hadn't been created, I would have never met you all... I would have never met you. If I can stay by your side, then nothing should faze me."

Perspective #19

Aigis S-Link Rank 4-5. When Aigis asks if Yukari and Minato will help her search for the missing cat, Minato says “If that’s what you want to do, I’m willing to help” making Aigis smile brightly.

Junpei references the Yakushima ‘babe hunt’ and says that Minato ‘technically won’ (meeting Aigis) .

Volume 9:

Perspective #21

Aigis realizes she has feelings for Minato.

When she gets back at the dorm and he meets her eyes, Aigis is overwhelmed by her feelings and runs off to Fuuka.

While talking to Fuuka, she confesses that she has discovered "emotional pain". And that simply living and becoming more human is not enough, because she "wants to be with Minato" (or "needs" him, as the English translation put it).

Aigis doesn't quite understand her feelings just yet, but she says the same stuff about couples that she says in her S-Link. And that she has a desire just as important as her desire to live: being with Minato as a human girl would. So basically, her monologues from ranks 7 and 8 of her S-Link Rank are adapted.

Fuuka advises Aigis to let Minato know how she feels.

Perspective #22

Mixture between Aigis's Rank 9 S-Link event and their canon January conversation. Aigis tells him that even though Death is gone, she still wants to stay by his side. That she may not understand what it means to "live" yet, but she feels she will be able to with him.

Then Aigis tries to confess to Minato but struggles to convey her true feelings. So, Minato steps in to reassure her that "I'm only living now, the way I am... thanks to you, Aigis. So I'm... really grateful. Thanks." with a smile.

After that, the scene goes back to their canon January scene. Aigis asks Minato to take her with him because she'll fight with him to the end. Minato tells her "Don't be silly. Of course I'm counting on you." and Aigis laughs happily.

Later that night, Yukari (who eavesdropped) comes to Aigis’ room to tell her she's planning to confess to Minato after the final battle, and hints that Aigis should do the same. When Yukari complains about how Minato is, Aigis says that "Minato is a wonderful person."

Perspective #23

They charge at Takaya together.

Volume 10

Chapter #47 (Part 1):

When the Aeon arcana is shown, a some of Aigis's moments with Minato are also displayed.

Nyx destroys Athena's weapon. A worried Minato turns to the defenseless Aigis, and has Thanatos block a hit to protect her.

When Aigis sees Messiah, she remarks that she "somehow understands." We then see a flashback to Minato and Aigis on the roof, where Aigis has some of the dialogues from her Rank 9 Event. "It is sad to think about, but we will part ways one day, too, Minato-san...".

As she watches the fight, we continue to be privy to her thoughts, all from her Rank 9 Event. And also: "You leave, and I am left behind... all alone...". Aigis eventually breaks down, grieving, and all of SEES come together around her to comfort her.

Volume 11

Chapter #47, Part 2:

Aigis sees Minato falling from the sky after taking out Nyx, gathers all her strength and goes to catch him in her arms (parallel to the first chapter): "Thank goodness, I... could... still be useful to Minato-san..."

When she realizes the state he's in (unconscious), she cries out his name.

As Minato leaves to take on Nyx by himself, Aigis screams at him not to go.

When SEES are sending Minato their Power, Aigis declares: “This world produced you. I will not allow it to be destroyed!”

Aigis laments that she was not able to protect "the one precious to me."

Then, she cries out for Minato to let them hear his voice.

When she sees him again, she breaks into tears and is surprised by the fact that she is crying. Minato smiles at her.

Chapter #48:

A memory-less Aigis sets out for the school, because "Something tells me that that is where that which is most important to me awaits..." (x)

Minato and Aigis come face to face, and their chance encounter triggers the return of their lost memories. (x)

A shocked Aigis drops her umbrella as she takes off running (parallel to their first meeting), and we see Minato pick it up.

Aigis looks worried and anxious as Minato acts like everything is fine around the others. Sure enough, afterward we see him collapse on his bed.

Just like in the game, the next day Aigis knocks on his room to let him know she remembers, and to make sure he won't disappear like after the battle.

Minato is too weak to stand and he falls on her. Together, they leave the dorm and head to the rooftop to wait for everyone.

Instead of laying on her lap, Sogabe has Minato lean against Aigis so they're sitting back to back. Aigis reminisces about seeing spring for the first time, and gives her monologue from the game.

Aigis tells him “I will live, too. In order to protect you...” and Minato thanks her.

Then, Minato explains that he is anticipating what the future of the world will bring because it’s the future they all will choose. Holding back tears, Aigis reassures him that “Please be at ease. For I will protect it all, by your side...”

END

#persona 3 #p3 #aigis #minato arisato #aikoto #p3 manga #MOMENTS MASTERLIST

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paulisweeabootrash · 6 years ago

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Followup on Evangelion

This post was supposed to happen quite a while ago, but stuff happened and I forgot to do stuff so here we are. Like I did with my Re:ZERO followup, I just wanted to come back to look more broadly at the rest of the series here instead of getting into individual episodes. I previously talked about eps. 1--8, so this encompasses everything 9--26.

Before we get to the actual review, though, I need to tell you something bout my background, and consequently one of my biggest pet peeves. I’m an engineering psychologist by training, and so although I’m not remotely qualified for the clinical side of things that people always associate with psychologists, I do know a fair amount about normal thought processes. And you know what I am absolutely certain of? Freud was wrong. I don’t understand why we give him so much attention in intro-level psych classes, and I suspect that people often come out of those classes knowing less about psychology than they would if they hadn’t taken the class at all because they’re required to learn about Freud. Freud was influential, sure, but that’s mainly a bug, not a feature. He tried to develop an all-encompassing model of normal development and cognition based entirely on psychiatric patients (maybe not the greatest approach?) and ended up with a body of work so ad hoc handwavy that philosopher Karl Popper used it as an example of something “unfalsifiable” -- that is, one could not even in theory run an experiment which would prove Freud wrong, because there are no specific observable results that Freud’s theories couldn’t produce an explanation/excuse for like some kind of game of research Calvinball. He maybe deserves to be mentioned as one of many “founders” of psychology, but really, unless you’re in a class on the philosophy of science or the early precursors to actually scientific mental healthcare, I cannot understand why we think he’s worth discussing in any detail. Do we start chemistry classes with a week on the ancient Greek elements of earth, water, air, fire, and ether, and test students on the final on the theory of how those elements interact? No? Then why do we start psychology classes with a week on Freud’s theories and test students on the final on defining the id, ego, and superego or the psychosexual stages of development?

Why is this relevant? Because the second half of the series gets frequently and intensely Freudian. Some people draw parallels between Asuka, Rei, and Shinji and the Id, Superego, and Ego, and yeah, okay, I guess so, but I’m willing to accept that as a character dynamic that works well. Then, in the backstory episode about the establishment of NERV, we get exposition about the three-part Magi computer system being different aspects of its creator’s personality, which is pretty hard to not see as another id-superego-ego set. My real issue is with the psychosexual angle. Misato, for example, can’t stay way from her ex Ryoji, but also repeatedly compares him to her father, including immediately after an off-screen (but voice acted) sex scene. There’s an entire out-of-body experience episode where Shinji, temporarily merged with his Eva, directly experiences his own subconscious desires for sex and praise that all boil down to “he misses his mother” (who is filled in for, in a way, by Misato here, as she is the person who brings him back out of the Eva into the world and the first person he encounters when “born”, if you will... and of course in true Freudian fashion, she appears as one of his possible sexual partners in the out-of-body experience). And I just... hate that aspect of the show and need you to know it.

That is not at all to say I haven’t enjoyed and appreciated the rest of Evangelion, though. The angels, varied and bizarre, are one of the best uses of the monster of the week format I’ve seen in any show. Their capabilities are poorly-understood even to those shown to be experts in-universe, and they are a genuine threat to the characters. Serious injuries to pilots and Evas alike are common, and the number of implied or explicit civilian deaths and the amount of damage to Tokyo-3 and NERV HQ escalate dramatically. They are, ludicrous technobabble explanations aside, a truly and horrifyingly alien opponent, whose motive is not even revealed until about halfway through the series, and whose potential impact (ha!) remains hidden to the main characters. Those revelations come up organically in dialogue that establishes how secretive and how deep into mad science NERV truly is. Blah blah spoiler spoiler, suffice it to say that Misato is not well-filled-in on what exactly NERV is doing, and learns some things from Ritsuko and Ryoji that have pretty disturbing implications about the capabilities and direction of their technology. All the while, the “Human Instrumentality Project” looms in the background, mentioned but not explained until the very end when it is put into action.

Our main trio of pilots experience some character development that, again, I find very believable for teenagers thrown into a level of both danger and responsibility that they can’t handle. Asuka’s arrogance and competitiveness turn from quirks into tragic flaws as she recklessly tries to prove herself to be the best Eva pilot, and are also revealed to be part of a more complex and general need to prove herself to be serious and mature. (Not to mention, she is infuriating precisely because, again, she’s realistically written... her mixture of resentment and longing for Shinji and her wildly age inappropriate crush on Ryoji both remind me of people I used to know.) Rei, who has never known anything but NERV’s single-minded dedication to making her a pilot (and who, like Shinji, is a victim of Gendo’s abusive parenting), starts to have the first vaguely normal human relationships of her life. And Shinji tries to run away again, but I promise, it’s different this time.

No, that last one’s not in there as a joke -- I think this is an important turning point. In ep. 18, Gendo remotely takes control of Shinji’s Eva to force it to do something Shinji refuses to do. Shinji is understandably horrified by this, not just because of the violation of his autonomy or something but because of the terrible thing he has now experienced doing (remember, pilots are neurologically connected to their Evas and share their sensations), and in the next episode, in a burst of sheer hatred for not just his father but all of NERV, he quits again. Most of the other characters still treat him as running away due to weakness or indecision, like they did earlier in the series, but he has a reason now. They are falling victim to a “boy who cried wolf”-like problem, reacting to what they have come to expect from Shinji rather than to his actual motive. He is persuaded to return in order to protect his fellow pilots who have become his friends, and then the next episode is that infuriating out-of-body thing, but the fact remains that this shows Shinji has grown across the series, from acting out of fear of and/or familial obligation to Gendo to acting out of a desire for praise (see ep. 12) to feeling like he has an actual role and mission to play.

Meanwhile, it becomes clear that Gendo really is the sinister mastermind he appeared to be. While his colleagues in the shadowy council -- called Seele -- attempt to rein him in, and he theoretically is responsible to a chairman of that organization, the real power is with Gendo and the sheer amount of mad science he can muster under secretive or outright false pretenses. And... wow, there’s not much I can say about that, because there’s not much I can say about episode 19 and beyond without revealing backstory the show wants to keep secret until this late.

What I can say, though, is I think the show fumbles hard on its late episodes, even before the notorious original ending. Up to this point, I thought the show had been improving in general in its ability to tell an interesting story, but it dives back here into the same problem I had early on where it’s difficult to tell how much time has passed within or between episodes, and that creates more of a problem this time around for the basic ability of the audience to empathize with the main characters. Perhaps this explains why there were alternate Director’s Cut versions of these specific episodes? (I don’t know because I haven’t seen them, and they’re apparently only available to English-speakers on the 2004 “Platinum Collection” DVD release, and I am not paying the $120+ that eBay sellers want for them.) I suppose it’s possible that the unsatisfying endings of our main cast’s arcs are intentional, and reflect how pessimistic Anno himself, and his initial description of the show, were, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with a downer ending per se, but episodes 21-24 don’t manage to land them for me. Asuka fails at the only thing that makes her feel valuable, Rei has her tenuous human connections and her means of maintaining them if anything happens to her taken away, Misato realizes maybe NERV has been the bad guys all along, Shinji finally shows agency and makes an important decision for himself but immediately regrets it... all of these clearly should be tragic, but they just didn’t make me feel as sad for those characters as I know I should’ve.

Asuka’s brief and mostly-offscreen abandonment of NERV in the face of her plummeting confidence, the introduction of the Fifth Child, Kaworu, and Ryoji’s sneaking of secret information to Misato all are great plot points that could have had dramatic conclusions, but they all fell flat for me. The episode focusing on Rei at least makes sense in tying together many things implied by previous episodes, and fills in or confirms some things we’ve already seen. For example, it confirms the existence of literal souls in this narrative universe, so now we know to take certain aspects of Shinji’s out-of-body experience -- the loss of sense of self, and the feeling of having recontacted his mother’s soul -- as literal rather than just a storytelling device to display the Freudian subconscious, and the angels’ ability to make direct mental contact with people by this point certainly seems to be literal magic, not some sort of exotic biology.

But episodes 21-24 in particular feel like a rapid-fire dump of partial ideas with the dramatic pauses in all the wrong places -- exemplified by the minute-long still shot as Shinji decides whether to stop the final angel from [spoiler] that changes the scene from tense to absurd. It is, in other words, paced poorly, and this isn’t just bad news for individual episodes, but for the ability of events to matter to the audience. I also expected to have something to say about the gay content in ep. 24 that the professional internet commentators are obsessed with talking about (specifically, talking about how much Netflix screwed it up with a very small translation change), but that aspect of that episode in particular was overshadowed for me because the show just failed to show enough of a relationship building between Shinji and Kaworu for it to mean anything. Even with the “love” to “like” change, I end up coming away with the impression that Shinji has a crush on Kaworu (whether Kaworu feels the same or just doesn’t get how normal people interact), but that doesn’t mean much when their entire series of interactions seems to be over less than a day(?).

And so we come to the two-part finale. With no more angels to interfere, the Human Instrumentality Project begins. We first see our pilots suffering separately in their own despairs and doubts, Shinji and Asuka both suffering from needing to be needed, Rei wanting to die permanently this time but afraid now that it’s finally an option. The Project apparently forces direct contact between everyone’s souls, though, and we see how the exposure of feelings we do not wish to express or even think about can be even worse than isolation. Misato and Asuka both totally break down upon directly encountering Shinji’s soul and involuntarily sharing their most upsetting and embarrassing memories with him.

Or, well, that seems to be what Shinji’s getting from them, anyway. We don’t actually know what they’re experiencing, I guess, since we quickly learn this is only Shinji’s personal experience of Instrumentality. He, and implicitly everyone else, is stuck in his own personal incorporeal world having an internal argument and trying to navigate an entirely new way of existing not constrained by the physical world. The visuals themselves meanwhile regress to sparsely-detailed still images, then to storyboards, then sketches, before suddenly popping back to full animation as Shinji experiences another “possible world”, a frankly hilarious couple of scenes reimagining the show as a school life comedy. Shinji begins to untangle what he thinks of himself from what others think of him, and is instructed by visions of his friends and colleagues that, among other things, conventional associations between concepts are just that -- conventional associations -- and they don’t need to mean to him what he thinks they’re supposed to mean. Then this fascinating mindfuck of an ending, which up to this point I have been genuinely enjoying enough to forgive its Freudian jargon, crashes to a halt with the resolution that he just suddenly accepts himself, abruptly. And then everyone clapped. The end.

I feel let down, because it just sort of feels like Anno wanted very badly to resolve Shinji’s misery, but just whiffed on how to pull it off. “Just stop hating yourself”, even given some sort of amazing supernatural opportunity to do so, is a bit too “have you tried not being a monster?” of a resolution for me. I’m not asking for realistic therapy in my anime, but maybe there was some better way to show him changing his entire outlook? And then I feel let down again because I finally remember that we cut to this abruptly and are totally ignoring what Instrumentality is doing or will do to everyone else, something that is such a wild shift that it is certainly the end of the world as we know it, to zoom in on just one person’s inner conflict in a very surreal way for two entire episodes. So... yeah. That was Evangelion. Yup. It was a solid sci-fi (or... sci-fantasy, I guess) premise that went in interesting directions, although not always executed well. I appreciated it, and I would be interested to see how it has been repeatedly remade by its own creator. Just, uh, not right now.

Come back soon for a third post about Evangelion, which will be a headcanon and/or questionable interpretation that probably nobody wants or needs but which I feel compelled to share.

#weeaboo trash #neon genesis evangelion #anime review

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theteenagetrickster · 5 years ago

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Stefan Goldmann on the Institutional Weight of Techno Popular Music|Telekom Electronic Hammers

" Electro-acoustic doesn't limit your creative imagination the means 'background' or 'speculative' do," mentions Stefan Goldmann. Operating in between the dancefloor and high art companies, the techno revival guy toes the line in between worshiping nightclub music's past history as well as fearlessly pressing its types right into the future.

Goldmann is similarly relaxed DJing as well as launching his very own manufacturings on traces like Perlon, Ovum, Innervisions, Mule Electronic and also his own Macro tag, which he co-founded with Phone call Super in 2007, as he is actually talking in amphitheaters and also penning the 2015 book on audio-communication idea, Presets-- Digital Shortcuts to Audio. He's likewise the creator of the fabulous Elektroakustischer Beauty parlor at Berghain, an area which looks into a more vast technique to electronic popular music and also has become a component in the speculative digital setting. As Goldmann puts it, "The popular music offered there often tends to observe its very own policies."

Goldmann's interdisciplinary strategy to arrangement, creation, and also presentation has actually led him to comprise and also conduct site-specific commissioned parts at Kyoto's Honen-In Holy place, the Los Angeles County Gallery of Fine Art and the Centro Cultural Kirchner Buenos Aires. Modified to the spatial disorders, these performances offer an unique, irreproducible listening closely knowledge-- one that damages the listener out of passive paying attention behaviors.

Along with his expansive work as music academic and techno manufacturer, he was an evident front distance runner to curate Strom, the 1st ever before celebration for electronic popular music that occurred in the age-old Berlin Philharmonie this previous weekend break February 7th as well as 8th. In the site's pentagonal Grand Venue created through German engineer Hans Scharoun, lead-in artists like Kruder & & Dorfmeister, Cristian Vogel, and also Ryoji Ikeda performed real-time, while Deena Abdelwahed, TWIST, and Nina Kraviz participated in out under the futuristic entrances in the foyer. After the landmark celebration, our experts asked Goldmann to dig much deeper into the capacity for cementing digital music in to time-honoured music institutions and heritages.

Electro-acoustic. functionality and also composition participates in an important part in your work. What about it. especially fascinates you?

Part of the interest is in freeing on your own coming from conference. outside demands, like creating popular music danceable or even beat-matchable by DJs. Dancing. music producers in some cases silence the beat to examine exactly how various other elements seem on. their very own, aiming and also dealing with details. However then very most unmute the drums. again, so you do not reach experience this outside the studio. Coming from time to. opportunity, I opt to maintain the beat low-key as well as let those various other coatings blossom on their. personal.

What are actually some pivotal. seconds that opened that whole sphere up for you?

A great deal of 1990s drum 'n' bass possessed excellent audios below the drums which I always kept observing. Individuals like Source, Optical, and also Source Direct wrote stunning introductions but hardly ever bothered building these parts into their personal kinds.

Later on, I discovered techno in which the bass drum was additional of a. endorsement than a prevalent audio-- or it was missing out on entirely. Jeff Mills' Center. things, Plastikman's Consumed,. Wolfgang Voigt's work as well as Mika Vainio's albums Onko as well as Oleva were actually all. eye openers, as well as I consistently desired to travel even more down this roadway. Don't obtain me. wrong, though; I really love beats.

Just what pulls your. rate of interest to commissioned musical pieces as component of craft tasks in contrast. to your very own much more club-oriented developments?

I make money. Laughs aside, ever before given that I've been actually creating music, I. can have taken any sort of monitor as a master plan as well as turned out one more fifty. " soundalikes". If you've been helping make songs for a while and don't want to. receive tired, you start to look right and correct.

Now, if you make songs that falls under an operational category like techno, there is actually normally likewise an infrastructure in spot that takes it to individuals. Tags, DJs and also nightclubs do that. If your songs doesn't suit there certainly, that structure is overlooking. Commissions deliver accessible setups where you are actually devoid of professional specifications, where you can easily advance other facets of the popular music. They provide frameworks for popular music that does not fit a preconceived form.

Generally, there seems to be. to be a continuous discussion within speculative digital and avant-garde. popular music regarding its intersection along with conceptual fine art as well as its own presentation in more. " highbrow" atmospheres. Why perform you presume this is?

I presume highbrow and lowbrow are a misleading set of conditions when we are actually referring to popular music that's. either digital or even generated predominantly for the audio tool. Historically, the variation in between higher as well as low utilized to be one. of social course. That is actually zero longer the scenario. With audio recording, every person has. equivalent accessibility to the repositories, as well as it depends on what folks desire to pull out that. establishes what remains therein. And that usually becomes one thing. instead different coming from what cultural companies had visualized.

That could likewise help clarify why aesthetics are actually spilling over coming from one set of companies right into an additional. Clubs, labels, distribution stations and the related push are one set of institutions and performance halls, art universities and institutes are yet another. There utilized to become a present-day continuance of timeless popular music referred to as "brand new songs", which dwelled these companies more or less only regarding contemporary popular music was concerned. For some time, that new music remained in lockstep along with innovative advancements in the various other fine arts. Stanley Kubrick made use of songs by György Ligeti in his movies, Gerhard Richter performed art work referencing John Crate, Pierre Boulez used verses by E.E.Cummings.

This network of common referencing has actually altered totally with the final number of productions. There are actually practically no considerable visual performers, article writers or even dramaturgists under fifty who had actually still consider the individuals at the neighborhood sunroom as their peers. The companies developed familiar with this switch, and the upcoming thing you recognized Kraftwerk went to the MoMA, Tate Modern, Neue Nationalgalerie and the Kremlin. Twenty years ago it seemed to be extremely not likely that a person like Robert Henke will be an instructor of music at a German sunroom, however my assumption is our company'll observe far more of the rather soon.

What have been actually standout. ventures of that kind for you recently, as somebody that is an onlooker of that. industry?

Musicians like Robert Henke, Ryoji Ikeda, or even Carsten Nicolai have linked the gap in between electronic as well as scholarly songs for a long period of time, opening up doors for many to observe. There is still quite little score-based popular music for acoustic instruments and also formation where I believe the amount is actually greater than the components, however one significant exemption is actually Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto's cooperation along with Ensemble Modern, utp _.

Meanwhile, just how. typically do you observe such concepts failing, and what will be trainings to be actually attracted. for a job like Strom!.

?.!? There seems an unavoidable impulse to produce combination. Individuals wish to put a DJ as well as a drum equipment facing a band. Create people team up for the purpose of. beating cartons of exactly how lots of media styles you can potentially stuff right into one task. There has been an unrelenting circulation of beginnings where pair of artists. discover themselves on phase together so a festivity can easily write words "beginning". on its program-- while both would certainly come back on their personal and on their personal terms.

The quite revolutionary service for Strom was actually to move toward the Philharmonie as an area as opposed to as an affair to communicate. along with provided social web content. Electronic songs. musicians seldom reach function with a space like the Philharmonie's Great. Hall. I find this pretty shocking, considered that experimental electronic. music celebrations and also gig halls both exist in Berlin, but they rarely seem to be to. converged. Rather of handing out compensations for. blend works, our company handed the performers the tricks as well as let them pick how they. desired to handle the setup.

There is this. normal assumption that the situation of creation is crucial or at the very least. influential to the outcome. Concerning your parts that include a particular. paying attention atmosphere, what creates the context thus necessary to the viewers's. experience?

If you view it the. various other technique around, it would certainly look somewhat weird that the same ought to work every bit as. well throughout significantly various settings. Then the inquiry is to what degree you. want to take this right into account. Since many of our team operate in the recording tool. and also then make an effort to translate the noise of that completely fabricated area right into real. globe brick as well as mortar setups, it is actually certainly not most individuals's priority to customise. the only thing that much. Simply the existence of common tech riders informs you good enough in. this respect.

When I began getting options to carry out site-specific projects, I may have turned it a bit right into an action to the commodification of audios as a result of to digitization. While many artists I know chased every stations available, getting rid of their popular music in the chance of recording some evasive audience, I believed I needed to provide something exclusive to those that worried about showing up at some spot to hear me.

That's a qualitative. technique to discussion that definitely calls for a high amount of commitment.

You can not put in that volume of time on research as well as modification when you play 120 gigs a year, so it's additionally an issue of top priorities. Yet it really felt worth my time to place in the initiative. As for I understand, I participated in the 1st ever before electronic performance at LACMA, and I'll participate in the first at the Philharmonie's Great Hall. I wasn't the initial to play Honen-in, however I had over a month to look at the place and determine what to carry out there prior to executing. On Alif, we had over a year to structure the efficiency space in addition to Chiharu Shiota, Samir Odeh-Tamimi and also Jeremias Schwarzer. Our company performed pair of models: one for Berlin's Radialsystem, and another for Nuremberg's St. Lorenz Religion. This time frame allowed for an entirely various deepness matched up to appearing at 6 PM for soundcheck as well as attacking show business at 8.

Existed a trick. experience that sparked your passion in the relationship in between popular music and also the. uncommon rooms it exists in?

I had actually listened to that there had been actually gigs at Honen-in. One day I. used my bike up there and wound up devoting 5 hours simply sitting in the. garden. It was actually obtaining darker, and I had actually prepared to use back considering that I had no. lights. The soundscape was actually altering therefore rapidly and intriguingly that I. couldn't could not receive on my own leaveLeave behind By coincidence, I complied with a fella that had contacted. several of the musicians that played there certainly, as well as I inquired him if he recognized who could probably mention if. there is actually a chance to perform one thing there. He generally secured. his schedule as well as resembled, "Can you perform June 29?" And also was actually that.

Just how performed you usually. strategy these site-specific commissions before? What's the operations like,. coming from initial theory to completion?

Looking at the area as well as taking it from there is most definitely the. better strategy for me. Some payment demands are all pre-determined for. every thing yet the room. They'll state, "Our experts possess author X's wedding anniversary, and. our team will like a real-time remix where you have fun with the ensemble over a harmony.". That's usually where anyone that is actually not entirely determined for work must state. thanks yet no many thanks.

I just like the ones that begin along with the room somewhat than with a marvelous perspective of the material. It is actually also kind of a cheeky knowledge, like a kid's hope for slipping in to a museum past shutting opportunity and also walking around without oversight. Plus it is actually a reason to accomplish points in the studio that you can not when you are actually producing something Ben Klock's expected to play.

In the plan information,. it notes the musicians you've selected have built their noises off of the. extent of Western Europe as well as North The United States. Why was this significant in your. curation process for the Philharmonie, a clearly Western side site, to highlight. these abilities?

Berlin is a city where, in phrases of digital songs, everything. there is to hear has been actually listened to. There's no requirement to take on the metropolitan area's. nightclubs, festivals as well as various other establishments by duplicating what they currently. work with. Therefore the major emphasis isn't on some market, style or even creation. On performing what I assume the venue stands up for, which is actually offering peak. achievement at the personal level that is actually additionally applicable to Berlin.

There are artists along with all types of backgrounds involved. our team've additionally been actually observing a switch to where never mind where you're from. any longer. If you wished to be anyone in drum 'n' bass in 1998, you required to be actually. in London or Bristol. Currently you can show up of Dnipropetrovsk or even Kwazulu Natal. or anywhere more and also create an actually considerable payment to virtually any. genre.

I assume this is actually where the planet should be actually headed anyway. Considering that. electronic songs's development tools have actually come to be widely easily accessible, our team observe even more. and also much more diverse backgrounds represented currently, giving their personal tackles a. mutual lifestyle. A number of this very first production of performers coming from locations beyond. Western Europe and The United States And Canada have actually "grown" to a level that their. influence has actually been supplying back in to the primary, and also that's definitely great to reveal right here.

This meeting has been actually revised as well as condensed for clarity. Strom Event took location at the Berlin Philharmonie this previous weekend 07.02-- 08.02.

This content was originally published here.

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buttonholedlife · 5 years ago

Text

Stefan Goldmann on the Institutional Weight of Techno Music|Telekom Electronic Hammers

" Electro-acoustic does not confine your creativity the way 'background' or 'experimental' carry out," states Stefan Goldmann. Working in between the dancefloor and also high fine art organizations, the techno revival man feet the line in between respecting nightclub songs's past and also fearlessly pushing its own kinds right into the future.

Goldmann is equally pleasant DJing and also discharging his personal productions on traces like Perlon, Ovum, Innervisions, Mule Electronic and also his very own Macro tag, which he co-founded with Telephone call Super in 2007, as he is actually lecturing in amphitheaters as well as penning the 2015 publication on audio-communication concept, Presets-- Digital Shortcuts to Audio. He's also the creator of the famous Elektroakustischer Salon at Berghain, an area which explores a more limitless method to digital music and has come to be a fixture in the speculative electronic scene. As Goldmann puts it, "The songs showed there tends to follow its personal policies."

Goldmann's interdisciplinary method to composition, creation, and also presentation has led him to compose as well as do site-specific commissioned parts at Kyoto's Honen-In Holy place, the Los Angeles County Museum of Craft and also the Centro Cultural Kirchner Buenos Aires. Tailored to the spatial problems, these functionalities give a special, irreproducible listening adventure-- one that cracks the listener out of passive paying attention habits.

With his extensive work as popular music scholar as well as techno manufacturer, he was an evident main runner to curate Strom, the very first festivity for electronic music that took area in the venerable Berlin Philharmonie this past weekend February 7th and also 8th. In the place's pentagonal Grand Venue developed by German designer Hans Scharoun, pioneering musicians like Kruder & & Dorfmeister, Cristian Vogel, and Ryoji Ikeda executed live, while Deena Abdelwahed, TWIST, and also Nina Kraviz played out under the advanced entrances in the foyer. After the milestone event, our experts asked Goldmann to probe deeper right into the capacity for cementing electronic popular music into time-honoured music companies and also traditions.

Electro-acoustic. functionality as well as composition plays an important part in your work. What concerning it. especially fascinates you?

Portion of the attraction remains in clearing yourself coming from conference. outside needs, like making songs danceable or beat-matchable by DJs. Dance. music manufacturers in some cases mute the beat to check out how other aspects appear on. their own, focusing and working on information. But then very most unmute the drums. once again, so you don't receive to experience this outside the studio. From time to. opportunity, I decide to maintain the beat muted and also permit those various other coatings bloom on their. personal.

What are some essential. moments that opened that entire sphere up for you?

A great deal of 1990s drum 'n' bass possessed excellent audios underneath the drums which I kept seeing. Folks like Matrix, Optical, and Source Direct created stunning guides however seldom troubled building these components right into their very own forms.

Later, I found techno in which the bass drum was actually additional of a. referral than a prevalent sound-- or even it was actually missing out on completely. Jeff Mills' Center. stuff, Plastikman's Consumed,. Wolfgang Voigt's work and also Mika Vainio's cds Onko and Oleva were all. eye openers, and I constantly intended to take a trip even further down this roadway. Don't get me. inappropriate, though; I really love beats.

Just what attracts your. interest to commissioned music parts as component of fine art jobs in comparison. to your very own a lot more club-oriented creations?

I earn money. Pranks aside, ever considering that I've been actually generating music, I. might possess taken any sort of monitor as a master plan and also rumbled out one more fifty. " soundalikes". But if you've been actually making songs for an even though as well as don't would like to. obtain burnt out, you begin to look left as well as best.

Right now, if you create songs that comes under a practical style like techno, there is actually generally additionally a structure in position that brings it to the people. Tags, DJs as well as clubs do that. If your music doesn't suit there certainly, that commercial infrastructure is skipping. Commissions offer accessible setups where you're devoid of professional criteria, where you can deliver ahead other components of the songs. They supply structures for music that does not accommodate a preconceived type.

Typically, there seems. to be an ongoing chat within speculative electronic and progressive. songs regarding its own intersection with visionary craft as well as its presentation in much more. " highbrow" environments. Why do you think this is?

I think highbrow and uneducated are actually a confusing set of terms when our team're chatting concerning popular music that's. either digital or generated predominantly for the audio tool. Historically, the distinction in between high as well as reduced used to be actually one. of social class. That is actually no more the scenario. Along with sound recording, everyone has. equivalent accessibility to the archives, as well as it falls to what people want to draw out that. calculates what remains therein. And also that frequently turns out to be actually one thing. somewhat various coming from what cultural establishments had envisioned.

That could additionally aid detail why appearances are spilling over from one collection of institutions right into yet another. Clubs, tags, circulation networks as well as the associated push are actually one collection of companies and also opera house, art universities and institutes are actually another. There made use of to be actually a modern continuance of symphonic music called "brand new music", which populated these establishments essentially specifically regarding contemporary popular music was actually regarded. For some time, that new songs kept in lockstep with innovative developments in the various other arts. Stanley Kubrick utilized songs through György Ligeti in his movies, Gerhard Richter carried out art work referencing John Cage, Pierre Boulez made use of verses through E.E.Cummings.

This system of mutual referencing has altered totally with the last couple of creations. There are actually nearly no notable aesthetic artists, authors or even dramaturgists under fifty who had actually still think about the people at the regional hothouse as their peers. The institutions developed familiar with this change, and the next factor you recognized Kraftwerk went to the MoMA, Tate Modern, Neue Nationalgalerie as well as the Kremlin. Twenty years ago it appeared very improbable that an individual like Robert Henke would be a lecturer of songs at a German glasshouse, but my assumption is our team'll see much additional of this rather soon.

What have actually been actually standout. jobs of that kind for you just recently, as an individual that is an onlooker of that. industry?

Musicians like Robert Henke, Ryoji Ikeda, or even Carsten Nicolai have actually tided over between digital as well as scholarly music for a long period of time, opening doors for a lot of to observe. There is actually still really little score-based music for acoustic tools as well as formation where I presume the amount is higher than the parts, yet one significant exception is Ryuichi Sakamoto as well as Alva Noto's collaboration along with Set Modern, utp _.

On the contrary, exactly how. often do you see such ideas falling short, as well as what would certainly be lessons to become drawn. for a venture like Strom!.

?.!? There shows up to be a tempting desire to make fusion. Folks wish to place a DJ as well as a drum device in front of an orchestra. Create individuals work together for the sake of. beating boxes of the number of media formats you can perhaps force in to one venture. There has actually been an unmitigated flow of beginnings where 2 musicians. locate themselves on stage all together so a festivity may compose words "premiere". on its own course-- while each would come back by themselves and also on their own phrases.

The rather radical option for Strom was actually to come close to the Philharmonie as a room instead of as a celebration to socialize. with provided cultural content. Electronic popular music. performers rarely acquire to deal with a room like the Philharmonie's Great. Hall. I locate this pretty surprising, provided that experimental digital. popular music celebrations as well as auditorium both exist in Berlin, yet they hardly ever seem to be to. come together. As opposed to handing over percentages for. blend works, our team handed the artists the tricks and also let all of them select just how they. desired to cope with the setting.

There is this. prevalent expectation that the circumstance of development is necessary or even at minimum. important to the end result. Concerning your parts that include a specific. paying attention atmosphere, what creates the circumstance thus essential to the reader's. knowledge?

If you view it the. various other method around, it will appear somewhat irregular that the same should operate equally. well throughout greatly various setups. The concern is to what level you. would like to take this in to profile. Due to the fact that the majority of our team function in the audio medium. and then make an effort to convert the sound of that completely fabricated space right into actual. planet physical environments, it is actually certainly not many people's top priority to personalize. the only thing that much. Just the presence of regular specialist motorcyclists informs you enough in. this regard.

When I started receiving opportunities to perform site-specific jobs, I might have turned it a little into an action to the commodification of audios due to digitization. While most musicians I understand chased after every channel offered, tossing away their music in the chance of catching some elusive viewers, I felt I needed to offer one thing exclusive to those who bothered turning up at some area to hear me.

That is actually a qualitative. strategy to presentation that definitely calls for a higher amount of devotion.

You can't put in that volume of your time on investigation as well as modification when you participate in 120 jobs a year, so it's also a matter of priorities. It really felt worth my opportunity to put in the initiative. Regarding I know, I played the very first electronic concert at LACMA, as well as I'll play the 1st at the Philharmonie's Great Venue. I had not been the very first to play Honen-in, but I possessed over a month to visit the place as well as number out what to perform there before conducting. On Alif, our company had more than a year to structure the performance area in addition to Chiharu Shiota, Samir Odeh-Tamimi and Jeremias Schwarzer. We carried out pair of variations: one for Berlin's Radialsystem, and also yet another for Nuremberg's St. Lorenz Congregation. This timespan allowed an entirely different intensity reviewed to appearing at 6 PM for soundcheck and also striking the phase at 8.

Existed a trick. experience that sparked your enthusiasm in the hookup between music as well as the. unique rooms it exists in?

I had heard that there had been shows at Honen-in. One day I. rode my bike apex and also ended up spending five hrs merely resting in the. backyard. It was actually getting dark, and also I had actually planned to use back since I possessed no. lights. The soundscape was actually transforming therefore rapidly as well as intriguingly that I. couldn't get myself to leave. By coincidence, I satisfied a man that had been actually in touch along with. a few of the musicians who played there certainly, and also I asked him if he recognized that could potentially state if. there's an odds to carry out one thing there. He essentially applied for. his calendar as well as resembled, "Can you carry out June 29?" Which was actually that.

Exactly how did you normally. method these site-specific compensations in the past times? What's the operations like,. from initial idea to completion?

Considering the area and taking it from there is definitely the. well technique for me. Some percentage demands are all pre-determined for. every little thing but the area. They'll mention, "Our experts possess composer X's anniversary, as well as. our company will like a live remix where you enjoy with the orchestra over a harmony.". That is actually generally where any person who is actually certainly not entirely determined for work ought to state. thanks however no thanks.

I as if the ones that start with the room as opposed to along with a huge perspective of the information. It is actually also kind of an audacious knowledge, like a kid's imagine sneaking in to a museum past closing time as well as walking all around without direction. Plus it's an excuse to perform things in the workshop that you can not when you're creating something Ben Klock's expected to play.

In the system details,. it keeps in mind the performers you've selected have established their noises away from the. extent of Western Europe and North United States. Why was this crucial in your. curation process for the Philharmonie, a noticeably Western location, to highlight. these talents?

Berlin is actually a city where, in regards to digital music, everything. there is to hear has been heard. There is actually no necessity to contend along with the area's. clubs, festivals and various other establishments through redoing what they presently. stand for. Therefore the major concentration isn't on some demographic, design or even generation. On doing what I assume the location stands up for, which is presenting height. accomplishment at the private amount that is actually additionally appropriate to Berlin.

There are actually performers along with all kind of backgrounds involved, yet. our team have actually likewise been seeing a shift to where it matters not where you are actually coming from. anymore. If you intended to be any person in drum 'n' bass in 1998, you needed to have to be actually. in Greater london or Bristol. Now you can easily show up of Dnipropetrovsk or Kwazulu Natal. or even anywhere else and also make a truly notable contribution to almost any. genre.

I think this is actually where the world must be moved in any case. Considering that. digital popular music's creation devices have come to be extensively obtainable, our experts observe even more. and also a lot more diverse backgrounds exemplified now, providing their very own tackles a. shared society. A number of this first creation of musicians from locations away from. Western Europe as well as The United States And Canada have "matured" partly that their. effect has been nourishing back in to the center, which is actually great to present listed here.

This meeting has been edited as well as short for clarity. Strom Event took place at the Berlin Philharmonie this past weekend 07.02-- 08.02.

This content was originally published here.

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artificervaldi · 8 years ago

Text

Velvet Apartments [1/?]

Characters (this chapter): P3 MaMC(Minato Arisato), P3 FeMC (Minako Arisato), Akihiko Sanada, Margaret, Theodore, Teddie, Shinjiro Aragaki, Ryoji Mochizuki

Ships (this chapter): Barebone start to Minato/Akihiko, Minako/Teddie, and Shinjiro/Theodore if you squint

Summary: The Arisato twins just wanted to get away from their cousin and live on their own. A strange man's offer leads them to the Velvet Apartments and gets them involved with something inhuman...

Ao3 Link | Next Chapter

A/N: I’ve been posting this fic to Ao3 for a bit and thought why not crosspost it? Better to have backups, right? All warnings are included in the link, but I will warn as I slowly post this to tumblr for each chapter. Expect a lot of weird ships with a few less-weird sprinkled in. I’ll only tag the Personas characters in the chapter appear in originally, so don’t expect a P5 character in a chapter tagged only P3 and P4, that type of thing. It does include characters from P3 to P5.

Minato Arisato wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking at when he looked up at Velvet Apartments, but he wasn’t sure he liked it. How he’d ended up here, he wasn’t sure, it had all happened in a blur, really. He and his sister had been living with their cousin Ryoji and it’d gotten to be too much, so they started looking for their own place. A man had approached him and told him about this place.

He’d found it kind of odd to start, but Minako was this close to killing Ryoji that he didn’t have much choice. Minato didn’t want to be in charge of hiding a body for his sister, that would be...troublesome, to say the least. An apartment was a much better idea.

“Minato, earth to Minato!” Minako waved a hand in front of her brother’s face, pulling him out of his thoughts. “You were doing that spacing out thing again.”

“You say that like it’s all I do.”

“Have you seen yourself when you have headphones in? You’re dead to the world.”

Minato rolled his eyes a bit, but there was a small smile on his face. “You’re just as bad, though.”

“I am not!”

He shook his head and looked away. “Whatever you say.”

“I know you’re smiling.” Minako frowned, watching Minato carefully.

“I am not.”

The twins seemed to carry on with this, bickering the way most siblings do, for quite awhile. At least until someone came out of the apartment and made their way over to the moving van.

“New tenants? Need any help with all your things?” The man who’d come out smiled at them, casual as could be despite the bandage on his face. Either this guy got himself injured through a lot of fighting or he was clumsy, that was the only thought that passed through Minato’s mind.

“Well, I’ll be able to handle most of my stuff, but feel free to help my brother,” Minako sent him a grin, “he’s very frail.”

“I am not, but help wouldn’t be turned down.” Minato decided now was not the time to quip back. He would do that later, when he wasn’t in the middle of a first impression. Unlike Minako, when he said something that was meant to tease, it sounded kind of rude.

“Great! Well, I’m Akihiko Sanada, nice to meet you!” When he smiled Minato had to note that it was a nice one. It could give almost anyone a warm, fuzzy feeling (though it was odd, it was kinda...different than the feeling his sister’s smile gave him).

“I’m Minako Arisato, and this is my twin brother, Minato. Pleasure to meet you!” Minako sent Minato a grin and he grimaced. He knew that look, that was the look of Minako doing all in her power to set him up with someone.

“Minato and Minako, should be easy to remember,” he flashed that smile at both of them and Minato looked away. He couldn’t give his sister any satisfaction in all of this. If he did, he’d never hear the end of it.

“Let’s get going, then.” He made his way to the back of the moving truck and pulled out a few boxes, only for Akihiko to take them from his hands. Why did he have a feeling he believed Minako saying he was frail over his denial of that? That was totally the case.

Minato just shook his head and took some other boxes and started for the door. There was a lot to get up to the apartment, so there wasn’t time to pout about it. There was more important things to pout about, anyway.

He watched Minako make her way to the front desk and chat with the woman behind it for a moment. There she was, in her natural habitat, becoming friendly with just about anyone she met. It was always helpful when she did that, but Minato had to think now was not the time. They had so much to get up to the apartment…

“So,” Akihiko made his way over to Minato as Minako finished up her chat, “you’re twins, right? Which one of you is older?”

“That doesn’t really matter, does it?” Minako gave a laugh, “I mean, we were basically born at the same--”

“I’m older.” Minato was always too happy to tell people that, wasn’t he?

“Really, Minato?”

“Yeah, he asked, so I told him.” He shrugged his shoulders and pressed the button for the fourth floor on the elevator.

“I’m sorry,” the woman behind the desk smiled at Minato, looking him over with oddly yellow eyes, “the elevator is out of order, I’m afraid you’ll have to use the stairs.”

Minato sighed. Alright, that wasn’t the best news, but it could be worse. They could be on the sixth of seventh floor instead. It might just take a while to get everything up there, was all.

“Thank you for the information, well, let’s get to the--”

“One moment, I’ll call down some more help.” The smile was still on her face, but Minato couldn’t help but be a bit put off. She was so professional, so… unhuman. The eyes didn’t help kill that vibe, either.

“Alright, thank you!” Minako smiled at her and punched Minato in the side, as if telling him to stop staring. “We’ll wait right here, then.”

The woman smiled and turned away for a moment, picking up the phone and seemingly calling someone. All that could really be caught was “quickly now” and “I’ll be waiting,” it seemed she was talking as quietly as she could then? It was hard to blame her, Minato wasn’t too keen on others listening in on him, either.

Soon enough, a man who looked a lot like the woman behind the desk came running down the stairs. His hair was slicked back in order to look neat and he looked like a bellboy or door greeter or something like that. Overall he looked like any average employee, if it wasn’t for the fact he had the same yellow, inhuman eyes.

“There you are, Theodore. Do be a dear and help them carry their items to their apartment, seeing as you weren’t at the door.”

“I’m sorry Margaret! Elizabeth was asking me to--”

Margaret held up a hand and shook her head. “Just go, Theo. They seem to have plenty of things they could need help carrying, we don’t want to make them wait any longer.”

“Yes sister, of course.” He turned to face them and smiled. “Hello, I’m Theodore, but you may call me Theo. Could I take some of those boxes for you?”

“Oh, sure!” Minako dumped her boxes in his hands as if this was the most normal thing to happen to her. After living with Ryoji, though, Minato could see why this wasn’t affecting her much. “I’ll go grab some more boxes and we’ll be done a lot faster!”

“Should we wait for her?” Akihiko raised an eyebrow and looked to Minato for an answer.

“Yeah, if we don’t I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Do you two not get along?” Theodore frowned and tilted his head to the side, as if Margaret didn’t have a look on her face like she wouldn’t be letting Theodore hear the end of something after he was done with this.

“Oh, we get along great. We’re best friends, really.”

“So it’s that kind of sibling bond!” That seemed to excite Theodore, for some reason, as he nodded with a huge smile on his face. Odd, but hey, whatever made him happy.

“Alright!” And there was Minako, carrying way too many boxes for her tiny body. “Let’s get going!”

“Need some help?” Akihiko rose and eyebrow and Theodore reached for one of the boxes.

“Nope, I have this under control.” She smiled at them from around the boxes and stepped out of Theodore’s reach.

“Are you sure, you seem to be having some trouble--”

“I’m sure!”

Akihiko turned to look at Minato. “Can you...say something about all of this?”

“She gets her stubbornness from me.”

“Not what I was looking for, but alright.” Akihiko seemed to already know there was no point in arguing with such a statement. One twin being stubborn was enough to deal with at once.

About two flights of stairs up and things went wrong, fast. Minako was stumbling, the boxes stacked way too high for her to even really see ahead of her. It was a miracle that she only tripped when they made it to the last step up onto the second floor. That didn’t make Minato feel any better about her falling though.

Minato was just about ready to throw the boxes and move to help her up when a blond man came bolting down the hall. Guess he’d seen her fall and wanted to be helpful, that or he was looking for a chance to flirt. Maybe both, but Minato found people who wanted to do both of those things far and few between.

“Are you alright? That seemed like a beary bad fall!” He held out a hand to Minako, a smile on his face.

Minako blinked a few times before laughing at the (really bad) bear pun and taking his hand. “I’m fine, it wasn’t unbearable or anything!”

The blond’s eyes lit up, catching onto the stress she’d put on bear. “I-I’m Teddie, it’s nice to meet you miss!”

“I’m Minako Arisato!” She smiled at him and shook his hand, seeing as she was already holding it.

“A pretty name for a pretty lady!” Teddie kissed her hand and Minako blushed a bit. “Are you moving into the building?”

“That we are! My brother and I!” She pointed over at Minato and smiled at him, her eyes bright.

“What’s going on, exactly?” Theodore leaned over to Minato, confusion clear on his face. Oh, that was right, Minako hadn’t been that excited around this guy before now, huh?

“She just found her soulmate, probably.”

Theodore blinked. “Really?”

“That’s my best guess, at the very least.” His sister was an enigma sometimes, you know? He didn’t know everything about her.

“I see…”

By the time Minato looked back over at his sister, she’d gotten Teddie to help her carry some boxes. Well, she liked the guy well enough if she was letting him help her out, right? She usually would’ve brushed anyone trying to help off… Maybe the fall scared her, actually. It was hard to tell why she was accepting help.

Oh well, she seemed to be having a good time and that was all that mattered. Minato would just check for injuries when they made it up there. He couldn’t help but be worried, even if he was sure deep down she was alright.

“Minato…” Minako moved over to him and bumped against him. “Minato, are you okay?”

He blinked a few times and shook his head. “I’m fine, don’t worry about it.” They just needed to start up the next set of stairs already.

Too bad for him, Akihiko had ended up noticing when Minako walked over to Minato. He was totally going to take the boxes from him, wasn’t he? All because he let his guard down for a split second…

“Let me take a few of those.” At least Akihiko only took about half his boxes. Anymore than that and Minato would have mirrored his sister’s insistence about how many boxes they could carry from earlier.

“Thanks…” Minato sighed, shaking his head. If there was one thing he hated, it was being treated like this. Akihiko didn’t know that, though, so he’d let it pass for now. If Minako had anything to say about it, they’d be chatting a lot more anyway.

Speaking of Minako, though… This Teddie guy was going to help him distract himself right now. Minako wanted to set him up with Akihiko? Fine, but he wasn’t going to let Minako do that without having some fun of his own.

He made his way over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, watching for her reactions carefully.

“Minato? What are you--” A gentle push towards Teddie cut her right off and Minato knew he wouldn’t be hearing the end of this later. Did that mean he would regret the choice? No, no it didn’t.

“Whoa,” Teddie caught Minako easily with one arm, “I’m the luckiest guy around today!”

Minako blushed and cleared her throat, standing up. “Don’t be silly, Teddie!” She turned to Minato. “You are so dead.”

“I know I am.”

Minako sighed and shook her head, steadying herself fully. “Let’s just get going, there’s still more down in the van!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“So this is what it’s like when both siblings participate in the teasing…?” Theodore titled his head to the side for a moment before nodding. “Interesting…”

“...Is that guy okay?” Minato just had to ask now, leaning over to Akihiko.

“As far as I know, mostly? His sisters are just the type to bully, I guess.” Akihiko shrugged and started up the stairs. “Most of the residents don’t think about it much.”

“I see…” Then he’d just try and follow that example. Getting caught up with too many people wouldn’t be good for him. It never was.

“Minato!” How did his sister always know when he was thinking something negative? Was it a sixth, twin-related, sense or something? If it was, why did his never seem to be as good as hers was?

“What is it, Minako?”

“You keep over thinking like that and you’ll fall down the stairs!” She paused before giving him a smile and fluttering her eyelashes. “Unless you want Sanada-kun to have to catch you!”

“You know that’s not what it is, you brat.” He frowned, or maybe it was more pouted, at her.

“It was a joke, you brat!” She stuck her tongue out at him and kept moving up the stairs. “I mean, come on, you know it was!”

“Yeah, doesn’t mean I have to like it. Besides, weren’t you the one who just had to be caught by Teddie…?”

“That was your fault!”

Teddie blinked a few times, peeking around Minako at Minato. “Whoa, your relationship bearly seems healthy.”

“You just haven’t seen us when we’re not tired and in the middle of a move, I promise it’s usually much better than this.” Minako gave an awkward laugh and looked back at Teddie. “It’s been a long day, is all.”

“Besides, some bickering between siblings is healthy, isn’t it?” Akihiko looked behind himself, only to lose his footing and fall.

Minato, without even thinking about it, dropped the boxes in his hands and caught Akihiko at the last moment, barely keeping himself on the step. That could’ve been really bad, if he hadn’t kept his footing, ugh. Minako and Teddie would’ve gone down too--

As if the world was against him, though, he slipped back just far enough that he went falling down. Soon enough he was hitting into Minako and they were falling further, Teddie trying and failing to catch them. Next was going to be Theodore and then there would be injuries and pain all around. Just what Minato had wanted to avoid with this move.

He closed his eyes and decided if he couldn’t stop the fall he’d at least brace himself as best he could and try to lessen the injuries to Akihiko (Minako and Teddie being under him made it basically impossible to help them without more quick thinking than he had at the moment). He took a deep breath, throwing his hands in front of himself to try and push Akihiko up the stairs, away from the fall and--

And they never hit the ground. In fact, they stopped moving, as if they’d all been caught by something or someone. Cracking an eye open, he glanced over his shoulder and there was Theodore, having not budged an inch, holding Teddie up with one hand. How in the hell could he support them all with one hand? No one could be that strong, could they.

“Are you all alright? That seemed like it was going to end badly!” And he was acting so casual about this too, was this normal here? Judging by the look on Teddie’s face, it wasn’t.

“W-Well!” As if realizing a huge mistake Theodore stumbled back a bit and fell over in such a way that no one really got hurt. “We should hurry up and make it to your apartment, before someone falls again!”

Finally they made it to the apartment and Minato sighed. That had been an adventure, to say the least, and something about Theodore was really off to him after the incident on the stairs. Was this apartment really a good idea?

“Minato, you’re doing it again…” Minako sighed and shook her head. “How to deal with this…?”

Before he could ask what she meant, she gave him a push of her own, right into Akihiko. Unlike Teddie, though, he wasn’t able to prepare himself to catch Minato and went stumbling back himself. Soon enough it was like a bad snowball effect, hitting into Teddie and then into Theodore, who happened to have his back turned this time.

“Oh, you guys…!” Minako paused and jumped back a step, seemingly in fear of something.

“What is it, a monster?” Minato hoped his joke helped Minako calm down about...whatever it was.

Akihiko looked behind him and laughed. “No, it’s not a monster, just Shinji. His face is kinda scary, though.”

Minato peeked over Akihiko’s shoulder and blinked. Looked like someone had stopped Theodore from face planting, and that someone must’ve been that Shinji guy.

“Oh, Shinjiro, thank you very much!” Theodore straightened himself quickly and took a step back.

Shinjiro shrugged a bit and looked over at Akihiko, a frown on his face. “Aki, new friend of yours?”

Akihiko blinked a few times before both he and Minato realized they were pressed up against each other still. Well, that wouldn’t have mattered if someone hadn’t pointed it out, right? Minato told himself that that was the case.

“Wow, Sanada-kun, your face is really red right now!” Minako just had to note that as she moved in front of them to help Teddie up, didn’t she?

“Don’t know who this lady is, but she’d right Aki, your face is about the shade of a tomato right now,” Shinjiro seemed to say that with a laugh held back.

“Like you can talk, Shinji!” Akihiko seemed raring to go now, yet didn’t move to push Minato away. “Did you not notice the new addition to your arm?”

Shinjiro glanced over and shrugged when he noticed Theodore standing very close to his side. “Doesn’t he always do this to people?”

“I mean, fair enough, but still. Seems to usually be you.” Akihiko rose an eyebrow, as if he was challenging Shinjiro to deny it.

Shinjiro, however, just shook his head (though Minato was pretty sure he could see a glint of Shinjiro thinking about saying something before that) and turned to look at the twins. “So you two are moving in, huh?”

Minako, still looking at least a little putoff by this all, smiled and nodded. “Yep, yes we are!”

“...I see.” Shinjiro nodded a bit and looked around at the people nearby. “Quite the group you have helping with the move, huh?”

“We just kept getting more and more help, I guess.” Minato shrugged, moving to stand next to his sister. She had the key right now and needed to open the door…

“I see, well--”

“Minato! Minako! I knew I’d find you two here!”

Minato wasted no time taking the boxes from Minako. If he hadn’t done that, he was sure they’d be smashed into almost nothing from Minako’s anger. Of course, of course this was going to happen.

“Ryoji…”

#persona 3 #persona 3 portable #persona 4 #minato arisato #arisato minato #minako arisato #arisato minako #not gonna tag all the characters #just the main characters of each chapter #mutuals please feel free to rb/read

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queen-ofsunflowers · 3 years ago

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Make Every Moment Last - Chapter 31 Preview

Getting Closer

The Shadows that the team of three was facing were… well, pretty underwhelming in Minato’s opinion. Especially considering what they had to face only a day ago.

Ryoji sliced through the last of that group with his scythe, and Minato followed up with a quick slash to the next group, which was easily destroyed by a volley from Aigis. Minato took up using a bit of magic for himself, wind whipping around his feet. He turned on his heel, swinging his sword and creating such a powerful gust of wind that it sliced right through the Shadows that had been trying to creep up behind them, destroying them rather quickly.

They were fighting these things and the ball was picking up so much speed that it wouldn't stop rolling. Ryoji had gotten fairly stronger than Minato expected from that last fight.

...how the heck did that happen? THe only faced the Full Moon Shadows yesterday.

He kept that question in the back of his mind as they moved onto the next group of blobby Shadows ahead. They were pretty weak, falling to simple swipes of blades rather quickly. The next group was the same. It was one of those moments that Minato could appreciate where things were just… easy. Especially since after yesterday, Aigis had been a bit more… keeping her distance. She wasn’t forcing her way between Minato and Ryoji anymore so they could actually spend time together now, and she had even agreed to be a part of this team to go into the tower tonight.

He liked this change. ...even if she was still abrasive towards him. It was a start.

“Minato-san!” Aigis’s shout snapped him out of his thoughts just as another group of Shadows — this time raven-esque and brimming with cold aura — came at the team in a swarm. On reflex, Minato swung with a flame-riddled blade to try and keep them away. Aigis and Ryoji both stood their own ground as wind picked up around them and tried to knock them off of their feet.

“Son of a…!” Minato said through his teeth. What happened to Shadows rolling over at letting them just kill them?!

“Look out!” shrieked Fuuka’s voice over their communications. It took Minato a split second to realize what was going on and why she was yelling. A purple-black glyph was forming underneath the three of them.

Shit.

“Garu!” A sudden bout of wind blew Aigis and Minato back out of the circle, leaving Ryoji behind. The glyph itself erupted into a bright, condensed dark purple light as it burst and dissipated around the remaining witch. Shit!

“Engaging,” said Aigis. Her wrist twisted around as Ryoji crouched down to his knee, and she unleashed a hail of bullets upon the Shadows in front of them. It wasn’t going to be enough.

“Aigis, get back!” Minato called to her. Aigis glanced at him for a moment before leaping back to the boys’ sides. “Zio!”

Lightning crackled in the air as it charged up Minato’s blade. He drove it into the ground, sending a cavalcade of electricity flowing through the Shadows in front of them. They shrieked before dying off and fading away. Minato sighed as he stood up, pulling his sword out. Bunch of assholes in masks… Why did they even need to wear masks anyway? It was weird.

“Targets eliminated,” said Aigis with a whirl of her gun gauntlets. She turned to Ryoji, who was still on the ground. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine… surprisingly,” said Ryoji, groaning. “And you?”

“Thanks to you,” said Minato. He held out his hand and pulled Ryoji back onto his feet.

“I suggest we make our return,” said Aigis. “You are still weakened from yesterday’s operation.” That was a fair point. Why they had decided to come out to the Tower at all after last night’s mess was a mystery. That… and...

Minato turned to Ryoji. “And you just took the full force of a dark spell.”

“I feel just fine,” Ryoji huffed.

“Don’t argue with me. You will lose. Especially after we tell Kirijo.” Ryoji grumbled something under his breath, most likely ‘I'm feeling fine’ again. How he could be after taking a hit from one of the strongest combative spells known to Non-Mortalkind, Minato had no idea. “We were exposed to poison gas last night. We should take it easy.” Aigis nodded in agreement with him.

Minato was just trying to look out for them. After last night…

The whole thing shook him more than he wanted to admit to. And Ryoji did just take the full force of a dark spell that had a chance of killing him. The other witch sighed, but complied with Minato’s wish. The small team of three sent a message to both Fuuka and Mitsuru as they started to make their way down from the tower. When asked why they were heading down so early by S.E.E.S.’s leader, Aigis thankfully took charge and explained.

“Sometimes, I swear,” huffed Kirijo once Aigis’s explanation was done. “It feels like you have a death wish.”

“Which one of us?” Ryoji asked.

“Both of you.” Minato rolled his eyes, grateful that Kirijo couldn’t see it. “Aigis, keep an eye on them.”

“Understood,” said Aigis with a short nod.

Minato huffed as the crystal’s connection was cut off. “I do not have a death wish.”

“If anyone has a death wish, you’d think it would be Akihiko-senpai,” mused Ryoji out loud.

The full chapter will be up on Ao3 on February 12!

#persona 3 #persona 3 au #monsters and magic au #make every moment last fic #preview #minato arisato #aigis #ryoji mochizuki #mitsuru kirijo

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