#poor poor poor aigis

[mymp3]

can I put up a sticker on my blog that says "I don't like the p3 movies. they were fine but they're not my definitive everything and also I think the art is way worse than the cutscenes of the game."

[crescentfool]

it's mochizuki monday! have some old doodles because i miss him 💛

[eru-iru]

i need more aus where makoto lives and he has a palace coz smth fvcked up happened when he gets brought back. ryoji also gets back too coz he's connected to makoto teehee

[sleeps-au-bag]

so my theater teacher was playing the lightning thief musical sountrack in class and it gave me an idea.

persona 3 x percy jackson but somethings up.

kotone and makoto take the place of percy, they're the twin children of poseidon. don't mention how they both seem fond of the myth of orpheus and eurydice.

junpei is a son of hermes who doesn't seem to trust luke. don't mention how many times he's almost said trismegistus instead of hermes.

yukari is a daughter of aphrodite who often butts heads with her own siblings. don't mention how she feels closer to isis than she does to her own mother.

fuuka is a daughter of athena who's never really seen outside of campfire time. don't mention how she feels a call to juno, not during this time of hatred between greeks and romans.

akihiko is a son of ares who sides with the twins during clarisse's welcome "ceremony". don't mention how he whispers caesar before each fight.

mitsuru is a daughter of hecate who commands battles as though she's a daughter of ares instead. don't mention how she searches all she can about information over artemisia.

aigis takes the place of annabeth, daughter of athena. don't mention how she feels as though something should come when she says her own mother's name.

ken is a son of nemesis who doesn't feel as vengeful as he feels his mother would like. don't mention how he feels much safer under the protection of kala-nemi than other gods.

shinjiro is an unclaimed son who wanders around the camp with koromaru in tow. don't mention how he feels like castor, not truly feeling like a half-blood.

chidori is a daughter of hypnos who claims to be on luke's side. don't mention how the longer she stays, the more she feels like medea.

don't mention the extra hour in the day, don't mention the room beyond dream and reality, don't mention how mechanical aigis looks, don't mention how shinjiro and ken wander off from camp during the night, don't mention anything at all. don't mention.

who knew they'd all grow close enough to be friends?

[p3ta]

[princekirijo]

Katsuro: Hey, why do Aigis and Labrys's leg prosthetics look so weird

Yuna: THOSE ARE THEIR HOOVES YOU BITCH

HELPPP SO CANON ACTUALLY 😭

It's really funny to me that Katsuro has just like. Never realized Aigis and Labrys are robots I love that 😭 this is conversation is even funnier because like Yuna very much knows. No one told her she just figured it out by herself 💀 she also definitely knows Katsuro doesn't know so she's just messing with him now 😭

[gentlyouttatime]

everyone: omg that's an extra tough shadow 😰

me, overleveled and with overleveled personas, already attacking it: huh what was that i wasn't listening

[epitomees]

Me figuring out there's a full moon battle on my birthday, 11/3, in game: YOOOOOO LAST FULL MOON BATTLE ON MY BIRTHDAY!? LET'S GO!!!

Me fighting through Strega and the last Full Moon Shadow on 11/3: ...well...if I know Persona this isn't going to be the end of it....

Me arriving on 11/4:

[probablynotcaptainbritain]

The ending of Persona 3 was really good but fuck if that didnt hurt

[kitukun]

sumi for the au i occasionally think about while taking the bus

She takes the place of aigis, after the poor bois "escape" from the lab things happen and now she wants to protect ren in every way she can.

[mymp3]

I've been trying to listen to the new mass destruction, because apparently it doesn't play naturally in battle. And it's taking me a while to get used to it. I really do hope there's a way to switch it back to the original, almost like the p2 remaster in a way.

[ragecndybars]

Persona 3 Characters Ranked By How Good of Hugs They Give

kotone/hamuko/minako. best hugger in sees. she's a hashtag empath, so she always knows when you need a hug, too. will tug your head down to rest on her shoulder and start rubbing your back and everything. the technique? perfect. 10/10 no notes.

shinjiro. he's a lot less likely to hug anyone but aki, but when he does, it's big ol bear hug and he's not letting go until they feel better, period. he feels slightly awkward about it, but once he's holding on, he's committed. he's got that weighted blanket swag. (he doesn't smell the best though which holds him back from first place)

ryoji. hug will be a bit awkward at first but then he'll find his stride and suddenly he's a good hugger for all the same reasons as kotone. he had to get it from somewhere, after all. loses some points because he can be a little overly familiar, so he might employ back-rubbing in situations where it's unneeded.

fuuka. she's a little shy and less likely to hug, but if she does, she'll do it with all her heart!! a very gentle hugger who will try to console you as you're hugging. she might also start crying if things get emotional tbh but she won't get your shirt too wet. she also isn't likely to let go until you're smiling again.

aigis. she may be made of metal but i think we know from the ending of the game that she will cradle her loved ones so gently and with all the love and protection in her whole body <3 probably hugs a little tentatively because she doesn't want to crush the recipient of her hug. she's surprisingly warm, not cold, and her arms are less rigid than you would think.

i HAD to put koromaru this low because he technically can't hug you. but you can hug HIM and he is soft and warm and loves you so much.

yukari. she has good hugging technique, like fuuka's, but she's much more hesitant to actually hug and is more likely to pull away prematurely because she suddenly gets bashful. if someone else hugs her, she might even freeze up rather than hugging back, even if she wants to. her mind is racing with other thoughts as they hug, which makes her hug a little awkward and distracted.

theodore. gives an excellent gentle hug but he has no idea what to do next. he'll just stand there totally still indefinitely, and you have to kick him to get him to let you go.

elizabeth. hugs very enthusiastically but she will be saying some weird eccentric shit into your ear while you're trying to enjoy the hug. you could be on the verge of tears and she'd be like "oh my, is this what you humans call a 'bear hug'? should i summon a bear persona? ohohoho."

akihiko. he will hug with reckless abandon, but he is very awkward about it and hugs way too tight. like, a firm hug is nice and all, but akihiko please i cant breathe you'rE CRUSHING ME AKIHIKO--COUGH COUGH HACK--

minato/makoto. very stiff and wooden while he hugs you, so the hugging technique itself is pretty poor, but he has good awareness of when a hug is and isn't necessary and knows exactly when to squeeze a little and pull back. a quiet, slightly awkward hug.

ken. would be higher up on this list if he could just accept that he is Small but whenever he hugs someone he has to attempt to hug them in a Big Boy way which means he'll be trying to pull you down so he can hug you from "above", like with your head on his shoulder, and your back is gonna hurt like hell afterwards because he is just way too short.

junpei. gets self conscious and jerks away in the middle of a hug, just like yukari, but his technique is also awkward and wooden like minato, and if he's emotional enough to hug without feeling awkward then he'll be squeezing too tight like akihiko. worst of all worlds.

mitsuru. oh god. you're hugging her. why are you hugging her. what does she do with her arms. where should her face be. oh my god you're still holding on. are you saying something? she is not listening. she is too busy standing completely still like you're a t-rex whose vision is based on movement and if she just stays perfectly still you'll forget she's there and wander off.

[fuubee]

Aigis Was Always Human: P3 Analysis

Major P3 Spoilers Ahead!

Aigis may not have the original “robot developing human feelings” storyline, but hers is my favorite. There are aspects of her character that develop her so naturally as human, not just when P3’s story calls for it.

The first hint: her Persona even existing. Palladion is a statue meant to guard a Greek city as the imitation of Athena. Also, the ‘aegis’ is a shield carried by Athena. Carl Jung’s psychology is important to the game, and to have a Persona, you need an ego; a self-concept. Ikutsuki stated that Aigis is a weapon designed to fight Shadows, but her Persona is a protector. Therefore, she had developed a self-concept of being a protector from the beginning. 

However, Palladion is presented as an artificial Persona because Aigis views protection as the role she is programmed to fulfill. Protecting Makoto is her mission because he carries the Shadow threat inside him. Ikutsuki was surprised that she even had this long-term goal, hinting that Aigis is more complex than assumed.

Throughout the game, Aigis’ narrow commitment to her role is the barrier between her connecting with others. The text prompts the player to wait until Aigis is more human-like to form a bond—indicating that Makoto sees her potential. Still, we can’t say that she doesn’t try to relate to S.E.E.S., as we can see her open up with her strange humor and her interest in humanity. She’s just imitating, but she’s learning, too. 

I loved that P3R added scenes where we read and garden with Aigis. She shows childlike empathy for plants and animals and even insects, and she talks about things involving her ego. Reading the yakuza series makes her want to imitate that coolness (“that ass better not crack under pressure!”) because she wants to be seen as strong and intimidating. She’s even dejected that she looks too ‘cute’ or like a ‘normal high school girl.’  

A robot just following orders would not want to create instead of destroy, or become insecure about how she’s perceived. She could defend it as practical, like, “growing vegetables assists the team, and being cool makes me strong against Shadows.” But hold on—Makoto could garden alone, and whether you project confidence or not is about your ego, not your efficiency, Aigis!

These small moments culminate in her major arc of defying her programming, changing how she speaks, and evolving Palladion into the real Athena. The goddess Athena is not just in the role of a protector. She is also wise, brave, and innovative. Aigis can see these traits in herself and admit that protecting Makoto, and S.E.E.S, is about caring for them.  

Her social link poignantly tackles loneliness and grief. Aigis does everything she can to reunite the old woman with her cat, despairing that she cannot. The cat is dead, and the old woman will die too, with no one to keep her company. Aigis’ strong empathy for both animals and humans is shown, and so is her grappling with fear. 

Now that she had seen Shinjiro and Kirijo die, grief must be in the back of her mind. She’s paranoid that, now that she’s attached to S.E.E.S., she will lose them. This poor girl has only recently conceptualized death, and she experiences all the joys and sorrows of being human. Worse, we bond with her in January, so Makoto doesn’t have much time left. 

I decided to romance her, and she talks about the sensitivity of her Papillon Heart. ‘Butterfly,’ in French, and symbolizing transformation, the Papillon Heart always foreshadowed the humanity inside her. She wants to be attached, even if it means being hurt. The game itself rejects apathy as the loss of humanity, as does Aigis reject being unfeeling.

[aloyiouis]

elaborate on the motherhood

regarding motherhood and p3? Sure. I’ll use minato as a name, typing hero for too long gets annoying. general p3 spoilers as we continue.

first, we’ll seperate motherhood into two concepts. childbirth and maternal presence. childbirth is the process of becoming a mother. maternal presence is the aftermath. sometimes both can fit under the word, sometimes only one exists. it’s interchangeable. keep this in mind.

let’s skip to our awakening. to my knowledge, every persona awakening so far has only resulted in one being summoned. this is an unspoken rule of the world, so when minato presses the evoker to his head and calls to orpheus, things seem relatively regular.

until, minato starts to scream.

something is inside orpheus. and it wants out. the embodiment of minatos soul twists and contorts to fit this Thing inside of him. and then, it rips out, tearing orpheus to pieces.

orpheus’s head lurches back in a screaming position as the rebirth of death occurs.

“birth” isn’t just a means of granting life. it weighs heavily on the mother, irreversibly changing her entire body structure. you can never be the same after giving birth, you tear upon a wound that cannot be stitched together. birth is painful and life altering.

but, surely this is ridiculous. childbirth, seriously? there’s something missing here. the child in childbirth? where is the child? that thing is a strange and terrifying monster, where on earth is the-

oh, right. hello pharos. he arrived along with this being. it probably means nothing. they’re totally not the same fucking guy.

afterwards, minato passes out from exhaustion, and takes a long while to recover whilst in the hospital. for minato, carrying death was painful and life altering. since now, he can never be the same.

(this is personal input, but due to the mature appearance of mituru’s persona despite being 8 years old at the time during summoning, i think it was subconsciously filling in the lack of maternal presence. again, personal interpretation.)

moving on. we first meet minato, yukari, mitsuru, junpei and akihiko. minato had a mother, but she was slaughtered in an accident. yukari has a mother, but complications exist between them. mitsuru and junpeis mothers also seem to be out of the picture. i presume they’re dead, but i could be wrong. akihiko’s adopted, and his current ‘mother’ doesn’t seem very relevant in his life. either way, they’re all clearly lacking parental supervision in the dorms.

after speaking to the chairman (the only present adult currently) minato is now part of a group fighting against shadows, referred to as SEES. in other words, you’re a child soldier now. congrats! usually children with more stable support systems and family dynamics would be less vulnerable to such things. maybe if minato had a mother, she should see through the chairman’s lies. maybe he would’ve been protected. but he doesn’t. but he does now have a child that now visits him every full moon. maybe with enough love, pharos could grow to be unlike minato.

we are further introduced to other members of SEES. fuuka. her home-life exists behind closed doors, and she can’t wait to be rid of it. she does not speak of her mother, and that says enough about her. aigis. she was created by scientists. ken, a presumably bastard child with a single mother. he was orphaned after she was killed in an accident. and shinjiro is another orphan. Mother’s Day must be a blast for this mob.

the first death of the series to due to maternal presence. well, more like a lack of it. after shinjiro killed his mother, ken has been left alone. suicidal in primary school. poor thing. he would be happier if she was still here. he devises a plan to avenge her. in the end, shinjiro dies. but he is instead killed by strega.

strega is in a similar boat to SEES. if they had mothers, perhaps they could’ve been spared from this mess. instead they were experimented on, and implanted with beings that destroy them from the inside. hm. sounds familiar.

time passes. shadows of the arcana are defeated as something else grows. tartarus is described as a nest of shadows. it’s like an anthill. but we are yet to the see the mother, the queen. pharos leaves, says he’s remembered what he has to do.

we are then introduced to ryoji.

ryoji. he’s a masculine ladies man. bit odd at times, but well adjusted. sweet thing that seems to be made with pure love. a glaring contrast to the current state of SEES. but let’s not kid ourselves here. we know what ryoji really is. but he doesn’t.

death is a constant throughout the narrative. you can sort it into two categories. the death of a loved one and Death. the Death that Tartarus is built to host, the Death is the part of the moon, the Death that tore apart orpheus, the Death holding the contract. The Death extracted from Nyx.

Death calls himself ryoji mochizuki. and she is the avatar for the maternal being.

Nyx, the planet eater. referred to by feminine terms since a deity that caused creation of humanity and all cognitive beings can’t be masculine. men cant be mothers. according to the scientists, at least.

either way, this Death that has plagued the narrative has a label. and she is introduced as a mother. it’s contradictory combination. so far, hasn’t this discussion surrounded motherhood being the giver of life? but, persona 3 is about living as much as it is about dying. if you to say to live is to die, wouldn’t you say the same about birth? to be born is to die. you come from Her, and you will return to Her.

ryoji wears a scarf. it’s often joked to be random, but i think it’s supposed to look like a nuchal cord. for those unaware, a nuchal cord is when the umbilical cord wraps itself around the babies neck during pregnancy. although rare, it can result in strangulation. i think this is meant represent the only way he can be killed. which is by the being that created him.

the fact ryoji can only be killed by minato speaks for itself. minato had a entity that placed inside him as a child, and that thing will kill everything on this earth. Death ruined his entire life, placed a limit on his lifespan. Death is a parasite that makes him weaker by the day. nonetheless, minato holds no ill will to Death. so he spares him.

the final boss battle. the final cry. we meet ryoji, or what’s become of him. or her. you cant really tell anymore.

one unspoken point ive held though this entire post is pregnancy is a form of body horror. motherhood is a form of body horror. it can still be a beautiful and nurturing thing, but it all falls down to what you make of it. sometimes it is a role you do not want.

ryojis body is contorted and twisted into something barely recognisable. nyx avatar is primarily referred to as a she. although, she still has a flat chest and a deep voice. we see a character that was introduced to us as a child, now be fully ‘grown’ and now called Mother.

the inside the moon, you’re met with a being labelled as pure “Death”

to match the avatars avian appearance, the final fight of this game is between minato and an egg. it’s a perfect final form. i don’t have to explain to you what an egg means at this point, it’s the representation of birth of all life.

i could end it there, with the primordial mother of all life and death herself being presented by an egg. but i still have some things to about minato. as i keep repeatedly stating, by holding death minato was forever changed. and finally by the end of the game, he dies.

and he becomes a massive door at the ends of the universe, with six massive eyes. again, he will never be the same. if he had never created Death, if he had never held Death inside him, he would’ve lived. but in the end, like a loving mother (and The Universe, now protecting the world that nyx created), i don’t think he regrets a thing.

[crescentfool]

i've been doing a bunch of tartarus runs in reload lately, and it got me thinking about how i miss certain ways FES's clunky gameplay can characterize minato… (ramble about the great clock mechanic + leveling up party members in reload vs fes under the cut)

when i got to yabbashah block in tartarus (block 3), i remember commending the developers for adding the great clock mechanic. it's a much more convenient way to keep party members at the protagonist's level- so when you think about p3 from the perspective of trying to make it easier for people to play, the mechanic succeeds in this respect.

but now that i'm in adamah block, and that i've done lots of my once-a-month tartarus runs… i think that i got a little too dependent on it, and the way that i played through reload feels like a vastly different experience from how i played FES.

in reload, my party's levels are very lopsided. minato, yukari, akihiko, mitsuru, and fuuka are all level 90+, meanwhile junpei and aigis are at level 79, and then… poor ken and koromaru are at 71 and 64 respectively. (i never got to have a great clock for them…)

meanwhile, in FES, my party's levels were much more evenly distributed and were at least level 90. i did all of this manually for every monthly tartarus run because i enjoyed having options available for the taratarus guardians and monthly operations.

with how i perceive minato, i feel that the way i played FES feels more in-line with his character than me dawdling around waiting for the great clocks in reload.

FES's gameplay loop left me with the very strong impression that minato has to work twice as hard as everyone else in SEES does. it makes sense because, yeah, he's the leader, but something about having minato run through tartarus multiple times with different groups of people just to make sure that they are adequately prepared speaks volumes about his character, to me.

and while the tired mechanic is present in reload to some degree, most notably with allowing you to freely raise your courage stat when you visit edogawa after school… the tiredness system doesn't hit the same way that FES does, i think.

the way your party members in FES will call it quits when they return to the entrance floor at tartarus when they're tired, versus minato, in spite of all his tiredness and sickness, still pushes through tartarus because it's his responsibility…. idk!!! i miss that! i feel like this really hammers home the difference between minato and the rest of SEES, how minato doesn't really see himself as a human with needs worth respecting as long as he's useful to someone.

i don't think that tartarus being tedious (in FES especially) is not what most people would describe as fun, and i can respect people thinking it's a slog. but, regardless of how it feels to play, it doesn't change that FES's gameplay loop is a fundamental building block in how i perceive minato…

of course, i do recognize that you can just opt to NOT use the great clock in reload (and it's great when players are offered the choice to not partake in mechanics)! i definitely think that if someone really wanted to, they could manually level up party members, but i do feel that kind of playstyle isn't necessarily "incentivized" to the type of people who are into playing games for Having a Good Time. it's kind of like… "why would you do that when there's a much more convenient option available to you."

in any case! despite my woes, i do want to emphasize that i'm glad that reload has a much more smoother gameplay loop than the original P3 did, because it does make the game more accessible to people. having played both FES and reload, it feels very strongly apparent to me how the core gameplay formula of persona has really been refined in the past 18 years (to think og p3 was 2006 and reload is 2024.. time flies!). and reload has made revisiting a story that i love so dearly much, much easier because the gameplay just bops!

at the same time, due to my "i miss characterization informed by weird and dated FES gameplay quirks" woes, i still think that playing FES is worthwhile. (really, i feel this way about all iterations of p3! i think it's worthwhile to see what each version and side media has to say even if it doesn't Land™ for you.) but i also understand why people wouldn't want to play it, so i will keep writing posts about things i liked from FES's gameplay because i'm still very fond of FES (especially in respects to minato. these mechanics are so telling about him!!!) 💪

[werewolfcave]

Here's my concept as an evolution for Orpheus, named Eurydice.

So I based this Eurydice off of my favorite telling of Orpheus and Eurydice which is the musical Hadestown which doubles also as a commentary on the treatment of the poor within the Industrial Revolution and Great Depression periods of America which I feel is fitting with the exploitation of children by the Kirijo Group.

In this musical, the Underworld is a mining town. Something important to know is that in the actual Underworld in Greek Mythology a good 98% of people who die go to the fields of Asphodel, where they are forced to drink from the river of Lethe and forget who they are and wander as a ghost with no identity. This is then directly translated into a soul-sucking job where you forgo your identity in the eyes of your boss. Thus, a mining town.

So because of the mining town theming I based Eurydice off more heavy machinery, I made her colors more washed out and darker like they're stained by coal dust. The metal on her parts are all rusted and worn away. I felt that really fit together with the fact that protagonist is wearing down, getting closer to the end of the story. Orpheus' original scarf is now torn up and worn like a bandana, this is a direct callback to Orpheus within the musical who wears a red bandana which fits together pretty well. There's a drachma in Eurydice's mouth because a common tradition for the dead in Ancient Greece was to put a Drachma on someone's tongue so they would have money to pay the ferryman in the afterlife.

When the Wild Card is passed to Aigis the Persona reverts to Orpheus.