#AND YEAH BUT SPENDING $20 AWAKENED SMT IN ME AND MAKES ME WANT TO SPEND MORE ITS SO BAD

[k9zuha]

DUDE ONLY $20 IS RLLY GOOD FOR THE AMT OF 5* U HAVE AND UR HIGH AR OMGGGG BUT STOP I THINK THAT TOO 😭😭😭 like i price things in terms of boba 2 determine their value

AAHHHH I STILL HAVENT GOTTEN DOWN 2 DOING HER QUEST YET but apparently there r spiders and a trippy time loop which . I am not rlly down for 😭😭 but that’s fr so hu tao

YEAHH FEEL THAT LIKE I need a pyro coz xinyan is not cutting it but I wanted xiao Sm more than hu Tao so I’m glad I got him even though I have 2 anemo now LMAO

Her butterfly trail IS THE ABSOLUTE CUTESTTTTT n the way she has the flame blossom mark enemies... love her

YEAH I HEARD AB THE CAMERAS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR but I just checked this article on cb testing procedures n apparently they got rid of the clause w cameras but the “no returning to prev answers” is still there 😭😭

RIGHT but the tests r just as hard as normal years rn and my memory retention is SHIT for online class

BUT DUDE LMAOOOOO THATS NOT JUST “headed easier” u have to be rlly good 2 just prep a week b4 the exam I think I’m “self studying” I@ng this year except i actually haven’t done shit so 🤔🤔🤔🤔

PLEAJSNNES I WILL GLADLY SAY THAT IM A H8R like if ur offended by it that’s ur problem 😕😕👎👎 but YEAH OMFG I watched 2 eps of hq before getting bored even tho I was so hyped for it in July or smth 😭😭 same w bsd wan

HELPSPSPLSKS IK WHAT U MEAN BY THE PRESSING INSTEAD OF SCROLLING I LOVE THE WAY U DESCRIBED JT

RIGHT 😭😭😭😭 like idgaf about everyone else I just want SHINYA back 😕😕😕 so I might just read catastrophe n that’s it LMAO

Dude the biblical allusions 😭😭 reminds me of that one tweet that was lkke “I snuck into my m*m’s room to steal her bible so I could make ons theories but she came back n saw me reading the Bible and got so excited she almost cried bc I haven’t touched the Bible in years” 😭😭😭 OVER ONS THEORIES IS WHAT MAKES ME LAUGHHGGG

DW AB LENGTH BAE ITS A LONG FUN CONVO HEHEHHE But dude omg UVE ALWAYS WON THE 5050 WTFFF UR LUCK >>>>> ive only had the 5050 once and lost it LMAO hoping I hit it early for hu Tao 🤔🤔

YEA I ALWAYS USE BOBA i used to use shirts but they’re like $20 and boba is better it’s in increments of 5

PLEASW SLFKDDLF I WAS STUCK IN HER QUEST FOR LIKE 10 MINUTES BC I DIDNT REALIZE THERE WAS A LOOP i was like god this quest is a bit repetitive huh 😕 when am i going to be done

i wanted her so bad but i hate using healers like my xiao team has no healer he’s always on life support =_= AND TWO ANEMO IS GOOD i also have that i play xiao venti albedo and zhongli so usually he has a shield and there’s no room for a healer i want jean so bad

THE BUTTERFLY IS LITERALLY SO CUTE LIKE WHAT THE HECK and when she disappears when she runs like foskfkflwlrn they really went off with this character design

thank god cameras are off i hate having my camera on for anything but i turn it on in class bc i feel bad for my teachers 😭😭

cb literally needs to be abolished like why are the ex@ms hard this year 🤬🤬🤬 makes me angry

AND MAYBEEEEEE tbh l@ng essays are kinda easy bc even if ur claim is wrong as long as u defend it u can get the points and my class only did mcqs and i always got high scores bc mcq is very intuitive just like i be guessing on that it’s all abt context and stuff that is my advice to u 👍🏼

I AM A HATERRR but one time i was talking to my friend and i said i didn’t like kou from blue spring ride and she said i was a hateful person and that i didn’t understand kou bc im not a decent person who feels an obligation to be kind to others i was like 😦 so now i am wary of being a hater ☝🏼

EDIT:

I ANSWERED THIS BY ACCIDENT LOLL let me finish what i was saying 🙄

STOP I READ SO MUCH MANGA NOWADAYS ITS SO EMBARRASSING I NEED TO GO OUTSIDE

i read catastrophe it might be the only book i’ve ever read in the past 6 years... kidding i actually like to read I DONT RLY REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED but FRRR SHINYA BAE COME BACK the religious allusions confuse me i don’t even bother i just read other people’s theories 😭

[raguna-blade]

Getting Closer to actually daily rambling

So, I am, slowly, quite slowly, achingly slowly, working my way to doing a big ole analysis of Persona 5 Because that’s the exact kind of nerd I am but one thing has kind of stuck out to me in Persona 5 as a weird problem.

Like, in a game that starts out with a PRETTY FUCKING DIRE stance on sexualization of young women, what the fuck is going on with Ann?

LIke, it’s weird that the game starts off so strong on that front, and then from that point forward in regards to Ann drops the ball like a lead weight into a blackhole.

Seriously, the statement is made rather objectively and clearly, Don’t Sexualize the young lady and then...proceeds to kind of do that the entire game right? Unless I’m misremembering things rather badly which is quite possible.

And I got a little mini essay thing of notes hidden away elsewhere right now looking at it, but this one thought came to mind semi recently and well...

Ok, let’s talk about themes in the persona games, at least in the last three mainline ones alright? And specifically, we’re gonna talk about said themes in relation to Shadows which are of varying levels of importance throughout the series. Honestly, I should one day do the first couple of games to get a full picture of it but...

Still before we go further, Quick definition. Fans will know, unfan’s won’t, but either way I want to be clear of the definition I’m rolling with here. What the flip fuck is a Shadow? In series, a Shadow is basically an embodiment of well...You. It’s all the stuff you repress about yourself, and in series that’s pretty universally negative.

Thing is though, the thing about that, Shadows in Jungian Psych aren’t. As I understand it anyway, they’re not inherently negative. Shadows are basically just whatever you repress about yourself, good or bad. It’s whatever you refuse to acknowledge, either because of trauma, danger, ignorance, actual refusal, whatever. Anything and everything about yourself that you don’t ever want to deal with and you shove off into the negative space of your mind halls so you don’t have to deal with it ever again becomes a part of the Shadow.

Got it? Cool.

Now themes though. Persona 3 has a pretty cut and dry theme (more or less, and drawing from rather old memories at this point) involving Death, Mortality, and the fact that you are absolutely positively going to kick the fucking bucket one day so you better live up and be the best you you possibly can be of yourself. You see it in all of the Persona’s and how they evolve going through the game’s story line. Inevitably, as they have to deal with things that they’ve struggled with in a unvarnished and straightforward way, they have to integrate these new truths into themselves and basically become better people, more whole. And in doing so, their persona’s grow up and become stronger.

Now as far as shadows go, they never really make an appearance in the game formally (in the sense of specific shadows relevant to the characters themselves. You spend the entire game putting foot to shadowy ass, much to your detriment) EXCEPT FOR, Strega and those who use the drugs to control their personas. Which is weird, because they’re still personas right? Except that a Persona is EXPLICITLY a tamed shadow, yourself put under your control more or less, so for Strega and the other drug users, They haven’t actually done the proper actualization that the rest of SEES and them do to get their persona’s under their control. They haven’t exactly confronted themselves and overcome it, thus why, occasionally, their Persona Flip out and try to kill them because YOU STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN THIS SHIT UNDER CONTROL YOU NINNIES.

Make sense? Cool, we move forward to 4.

Four has a rather explicit and subtle theme about reaching out to the truth and cutting through ignorance to find the heart of things, and as regards shadows and self, acknowledging your true self. The more you do it, the stronger your persona becomes etc etc, but unique here is that everyone (and I include MC here because I am DAMN certain that Teddie is his castoff shadow but that’s a whole other story) literally confronts their shadows before making them into their personas, and what we see universally is that their shadows are...Kind of raging assholes yes, but also none of them are exactly you know...EVIL. Kind of dickish, and playing up fears and such, but that’s kind of what happens when you don’t deal with your shadow. Let it fester and you start getting weird neuroses about things and start tearing yourself up about such minor things as you know, hating the town you live in, the distinct possibility that you’re nowhere near as straight as you thought you were, the disquieting thought that you’re basically whoring yourself out to make a living, or that you’ve got a distinct and actual problem with Gender In Regards to your desired profession and/or yourself.

You know. Minor Teen things.

But Inevitably, you confront yourself, you confront the situation, you integrate, and your shadow becomes your persona. Cool Story.

Now I’m going to pause here and mention something that only explicitly becomes a thing here in four and that is that Shadows are shown universally to have bright yellow GLEAMING eyes, and that’s going to become SILLY important in about 20 seconds.

SO WE MOVE ON TO PERSONA 5, with it’s themes of rebellion and freedom, and being your own authentic self all times everytime, anytime. Symbolized, rather explicitly, by the outfits each and every one of the Phantom Thieves wear when they enter a Palace.

Which is cool, but I hear you asking, but what of the shadows? WHAT OF THE SHADOWS MAN.

Where the fuck are they? I mean, yeah their persona but...

Hey.

Hey buddy.

You remember every single time the characters transform for the first time their eyes turn into that gleaming yellow color in their eye spaces?

Why it’s almost like they’re...Almost like they’re becoming their shadows?

Why yes, that is exactly what I think is happening here, because TO A MAN, every shadow summon we see has them saying some frankly OMINOUS SHIT. Like...One second let me just rip from the SMT Wiki right quick.

Listen to this shit Arsene Says when he’s summoned.

"What's the matter...? Are you simply going to watch? Are you forsaking him to save yourself? Death awaits him if you do nothing. Was your previous decision a mistake then? Very well...I have heeded your resolve. Vow to me. I am thou, thou art I...Thou who art willing to perform all sacrilegious acts for thine own justice! Call upon my name, and release thy rage! Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself!" 

Now if Persona Are Shadows, an established fact in canon, the fact Arsene is saying this to Akira is KIND OF FUCKING CONCERNING, and as I realized like yesterday pretty explicitly foreshadows the bad end. Because well...Do what I want for my own justice? yeah no way that can go wrong it’s not like anyone else in the game is doing that no sirree.

But this is about Ann right? And her frankly kind of weird sexualization that’s going on throughout the game?

What’s Carmen Got to say?

"My... It's taken far too long. Tell me... Who is going to avenge her if you don't? Forgiving him was never the option... Such is the scream of the other you that dwells within... I am thou, thou art I... We can finally forge a contract... There you go... Nothing can be solved by restraining yourself. Understand? Then I'll gladly lend you my strength."

That’s...Actually relatively tame. Stop restraining yourself. Uh...ok. Guess that has nothing to-

WAIT A FUCKING SECOND WHO’S CARMEN?

Hey now, short story, Carmen is the heroine of the titular play, and she is a woman who is rather handily in control of her sexuality even when it ends up destroying her (admittedly, because two idiots couldn’t stop being you know...dumb. But anyway). Critical thing though, Carmen is basically a femme fatale, and as Ann says in her Social Link, those were always the kinds of characters that she wanted to be like. Those sexy, kind of devilish lady villains from kids cartoons and you know what, that’s pretty cool. That’s a level of absolute self confidence and such that cannot be denied I think so fair’s fair.

But uh...Have...have any of you seen Ann seduce anyone in the game? She’s....She’s really fucking bad at it guys. She’s actually, consistently awful at it. And yet, Ann is also consistently, continually, stated and shown to be the hot one of the group, such as it goes.

Which, fine, but still...Why the ball dro-

Have you seen her social link? The one where she more or less throughout finds that things she’s been doing on automatic require real genuine effort more than what she was doing? Like say, consistent diet and exercise, skin care, etc etc etc if she wants to be a model? Things she was absolutely not doing? Things she was, in fact, kind of really stunningly, amazingly ignorant of?

I...I almost feel...I almost feel like there’s a parallel here, something something...

Well, Their Shadowverse costumes are explicitly their idea of rebellion, and transforming into it, at least for the first time, has them apparently transforming however briefly into their shadows.

Which says to me, that functionally she, and the rest of the Phantom Thieves, are TRYING ON their shadows. That is to say, they are actively, knowingly, willingly embracing their Shadow Selves, in opposition to the previous groups who more or less suborn the shit out of their less repressed halves. And why wouldn’t they?

I didn’t bring up themes for no reason you know, ramble though this is. The Story is obssessed with being free, breaking the chains that bind you, and outright rebellion. How could they POSSIBLY keep on theme with that, if the first thing that happens upon awakening your persona you shove your shadow in a box and never talk about it again because Hey Y’all, it’s under control, no need to deal with that den of horrors and things I don’t want to think about.

Ann is, effectively, just as everyone else is, trying to directly integrate her shadow self into her. And for her, that involves sexuality rather explicitly. Which is probably even more of a problem for her (for all that it’s not explicitly brought up again ever by anyone else in the game because you know...Rape/Sexual Assault, whether threatened or actual is kind of stressing? Especially if it’s by someone who’s an authority figure and you were supposed to respect and was supposed to protect you? Just...Yeah.)

I mean I’m not an expert by any means, but holy fuck would I think repressing thoughts of myself being sexual in any way shape or form especially when I really wasn’t trying to be and up until that point wasn’t consciously aware of how I was would be absolutely understandable if not justified especially given proximity to the event.

But with that said, She, and the rest of the cast for all of their less than stellar attributes as expressed by their outfits and persona, are actively trying on those parts of themselves, rather explicitly being the version of themselves that they don’t feel they are, or don’t exactly want to be, and have hidden away for one reason or another.

And for Ann, that’s well...being a sexual person. Which notably, no one else at all seems to struggle with save perhaps Makoto but that is arguably a different story (her blanket lack of understanding of love does lean towards inexperience in relationships, which I absolutely get, but on the other hand, her first action upon awakening is to put on a full leather outfit, call herself queen, and immediately mount and ride her [female who pretended to be male] persona out of the mind bank ufo of a dude who kind of threatened making her with prostitution(not strictly in that order), not to mention that her Arcana Card has a lady checking out a questionably clothed model but uh...It’s a different sexual issue shall we say? Although, now that I think about it, does raise some curious questions if my Makoto is the other actual protag thing ever bears fruit.)

Now mind, this doesn’t exactly excuse the camera antics involved, that’s something else entirely, but otherwise, it’s actually pretty consistent from what I recall of it all, So you know...There’s that.

Still mostly a ramble, as there’s a lot missing here but still.

Gotta get into the habit if I’m gonna make a right and proper daily ramble yah?