#to events having to play out a specific way

[rena-lily]

Yall I was playing the event for twst today and OMG WHY ARE EPEL AND SEBEK SO CUTE??? LIKE HELLO??? Bro they’re literally besties! Trust🤞LIKE HELLO NOT THEM SMILING MISCHIEVOUSLY AND THEN PICKING IDIA UP

Bro I’m just saying I feel like their friendship should be talked about a bit more!

Anyways I was thinking so imagine after the Harveston event, they all go back to NRC but there is a visible shift in their schedule. Before Sebek would spend a lot of his time with Dia 3 while Epel would mostly be with Vil But then now they always seem to be missing throughout the day!

Malleus doesn’t notice how often Sebek is gonna until like a week passes and this is starting to become a common thing while Silver also notices Sebek isn’t with him as often anymore so now Dia 3 is curious as to where Sebek is going throughout the day!

Next thing you know they see Epel and Sebek just running around near the woods or just hanging out together at Ramshackle and they’re just like when did those two get so close??? But obvs they’re glad Sebek is interacting with more people now! And from then on everyone can visibly see how close Epel and Sebek have gotten!! Like you can always see them walking in the halls together(Sebek is taking turns with Silver to escort Malleus now that Sebek started walking with Epel) and you can always see Sebek smiling so widely now:3 and you can always catch him talking to someone on the phone with Epel(hint:it’s Epel’s Grandma). All the other first years also note how Epel and Sebek are starting to become sort of a duo now obvs not as chaotic as Adeuce but they’re still chaotic. You can see Epel trying to throw an apple at someone while Sebek is just gripping onto Epel so he doesn’t actually throw it!

Now this would be fine for Dia 3 BUT NOW SEBEK IS LEGIT JUST ALWAYS GONE! They can barely find him anywhere and yes he still guard Malleus but not as often as before! Now they’re all starting to feel his missing presence and it just feels so WRONG…. He’s also started having sleepovers at Pomefiore which would be fine…IF LILIA AND SILVER DIDNT CATCH VIL SAYING THAT HE WAS TRYING TO CONVINCE SEBEK TO JOIN POMEFIORE INSTEAD!

You can’t convince me that Sebek would not fit in Pomefiore, like we know how strict he is with himself and he always works hard for everything he does! And I bet you that Vil atleast respects that part(And also Vil caught Sebek with his hair down when he was at Pomefiore and he can’t just let that POTENTIAL be wasted). So now Dia 3 is just tweaking trying to get Sebek to hang out with them. They try so many ways but everytime Sebek always has to decline because he either has plans with the first years, Epel, or somehow he gets roped into a trip with Vil! THEY EVEN GOT MALLEUS TO INVITE HIM BUT HE STILL DECLINE(Don’t get him wrong he was absolutely overjoyed that his liege invited him but sadly he already made plans and he would stick with it) At this point if they want to hang out with him more they’re gonna have to reserve a time specifically for what day😭

Each failed attempt is just making Sebek slowly drift away from them without him even noticing! They’re so desperate now😭 Anyways while all this is happening, Sebek is living his best life now hanging out with his friends, having a specific friend now(Epel) and going around more places and being accepted!!! He’s so happy:3

They’re also so silly for this🤣 like plz why did Sebek look so aggressive at first LMAOO gotta love the team spirit tho!!!

[sgtpeppers]

Okay so the quick version of this is: saw Two Of Us today, adored it even more than I adore the film, the choice to keep them in John's building worked really well to further highlight the mental health message the director talks about in his little note in the programme, the rooftop scene is somehow even more intimate and lovely in this version and the ending is even more painful! I'm gonna write down more under the cut about it all:

Playlist: The playlist before the show/during the interval is everything you would want it to be and it includes Monkberry Moon Delight which I feel like I never hear in public! 

The overall experience was also just super wholesome, one thing I always love about Beatles events is the range of people there it just makes you feel like your part of such a special thing, so shout out to all the old women talking about Paul near me, the middle aged men in their Beatles shirts, and the girl behind me who was sooo excited to be there and I hope she got to meet the cast after like she wanted to! ALSO the Beatles drinks are so funny, idk why Ringo’s is just earl grey tea 😭

Performances: OKAY let’s get into it. So one of my only real complaints about the film is that although I think overall Jared Harris and Aiden Quinn do an amazing job but I do find the quality a little inconsistent (especially the accents) but Richard Short and Barry Sloane are soooo so good, the accents, the little verbal quirks (which also, kudos to the writer as well) and the physicalities are jarringly good at points, especially Barry Sloane’s John. I also feel like a lot of Get Back was watched in preparation because there were so many little things, like the way John plays with his hair that just took me right back to that. Sometimes with fictional Beatles things I’m constantly thinking about how you’re watching two people try to portray these real people, but I definitely found that they were convincing enough that I wasn’t thinking about it too much. 

Outfits: I did find it kinda weird they went for the Get Back looks rather than how they looked in 76, I feel robbed of the New York City vest tbh but they did look great 

Changes from the film: basically they cut out them going for the walk to the park and to Luigi’s and instead John sets up the table for them like they’re in a restaurant in his kitchen. I think it works really well because they play into John not wanting to leave the building, which just adds into that whole mental health thing, and I think it actually makes the rooftop scene more poignant when they get there, because it feels more like Paul has broken through a bit and coaxed him outside, even if it’s baby steps. Anyway, they still have all the same conversations really the script is just chopped up a bit. 

One interesting thing is that the conversation that happens with the fan in Luigi’s still happens, but John sort of pesters Paul about whether he really thinks silly love songs should be number one, and it’s a nice extra layer to Paul’s insecurity which I enjoyed 

Mental health conversations: I think going into it knowing that the director wanted to make this because of the mental health themes, specifically men’s mental health and how having someone to reach out to is so important, is really interesting. They definitely amped up John’s anxiety from the film, his fidgeting and little moments to himself where he’s trying to get himself together were just so palpable, and Paul talking about his depression after the Beatles broke up was even more raw and upsetting seeing it in front of you. My absolute favourite line in the film is ‘I’m thirty-five years old and I still feel like I’ve done something wrong’ and god, my heart just broke seeing it on stage, I think that’s such a common feeling, just that sense that you’re in trouble for something but you’re not really sure what? Anyway, I just loved Sloane’s delivery of it. 

The Kiss: Okay, look I actually don’t care that much about the kiss in the film, I’m glad it’s in there as a little nod to John’s queerness but it really isn’t anything imo, but I liked it a lot more in this! For one thing rather than coming after a little play fight (which is still cute, don’t get me wrong) they do one of their silly dances where they’re spinning each other round etc, so the scene already feels more tender, and then John just kinda grabs him and it goes on a little longer than in the film. I still think it’s far from one of the most intimate moments in the show, but I do think they made it into something more here. 

Rooftop scene: It’s just. It’s everything. They sit right at the front of the stage, facing each other, cross legged and Paul gives him the whole ‘I see a beautiful baby boy speech’ and it’s PERFECT, this was the moment I was most worried about them screwing up and it was perfectly delivered and they have this lovely big hug after it and it made my heart ache in the best way. And idk, if seeing some guy dressed up as Paul McCartney saying that we should focus on fun and get out our own heads and how we don’t have to stay stuck as the kids who were just scared and trying to survive, doesn’t do something for you, then we’re just very different people. 

SNL scene: okay it’s pretty much the same but the way John is sleeping on Paul was everything, it wasn’t just a head on the shoulder he was fully laying back against Paul!! 

The ending: this is just so brutal because Paul doesn’t leave the flat to get his guitar, he borrows one of John’s and so when Yoko calls and John starts doing the whole ‘I wish you were here, you’re the only one who stops me disappearing’ it’s literally…. In Paul’s face. And it hurts. Then at the very end they cut between John on the phone to Yoko and Paul on the phone to Linda, and so Paul says ‘I love you’ to Linda, then John says ‘I love you too’ to Yoko but it sounds like they said it to each other, and then Here Today plays. The fact most people didn’t appear to be crying baffled me quite frankly. 

Yoko: They decided to have Yoko be the one who actually invited Paul, which felt like an odd choice and didn’t really add anything for me, but there we go 

Okay I’m gonna shut up there because this is way too long and I doubt anyone’s read it but ahhhhhhhhh it was so good and you’re just all lucky I can’t text you because my friends have had much more incoherent versions of all this

[youhideastar]

WujiWatch: CQL Rewatch Episode 23

Long time, no WujiWatch! But I’ve been reading Catching Chen Qing Ling and it’s put me in an analytical mood about The Untamed again. Picking up where we left off...

Episode 23 has at least two iconic Wangxian scenes: Lan Wangji’s visit to a recovering Wei Wuxian’s sickbed to play Clarity, and the “I am not Wen Ruohan” conversation on the same clifftop where they will meet again in the last moments of Wei Wuxian’s (first) life. One thing I didn’t realize until this rewatch is the way those two scenes are tied together; that the second one picks up, thematically, where the first one left off.

The Clarity scene is interrupted by the screams of Wens being rounded up (and perhaps killed on the spot) and the shouts of their pursuers. Wei Wuxian immediately looks disturbed and asks what’s going on; Lan Wangji says, “they’re hunting down the rest of the Wens” and looks not disturbed at all. I am very good at interpreting Wang Yibo’s microexpressions by now, and this dude is 0% bothered. That is especially striking since the very next scene is all about (among other things) Lan Xichen being very disturbed at the prospect of murdering Wen civilians. By this point in the drama, Lan Wangji has made some progress toward moral nuance—but it’s all specifically Wei Wuxian-focused. His view of the rest of the world is still very black and white. The Wens are bad, so it’s appropriate for bad things to happen to them. End of story.

That’s how the Clarity scene ends, and then, as mentioned, we have the scene where 3zun and Jin Guangshan debate the treatment of the surviving Wens. After that, we have the clifftop scene—and what I’d forgotten is that the first line of dialogue in this scene is Wei Wuxian asking Lan Wangji, “What do you think of the people here [in Nightless City]? Who is good and who is bad?” The fate of the defeated Wens is still very much on Wei Wuxian’s mind. And it’s still a matter of no concern for Lan Wangji: he ignores Wei Wuxian’s question. He doesn’t want to talk about the larger events happening in Nightless City – he only wants to talk about, and help, Wei Wuxian. This foreshadows the scene in the rain at Qiongqi Dao – the moment when the hero of the common people looks at a group of starving, abused civilians and says to Wei Wuxian, in effect, Let them die—because otherwise, I’ll lose you.

(One other note from this episode that passed me by in every prior viewing, although maybe everyone else knew it: Lan Wangji knows the Yin Tiger Seal is made out of Yin Iron, very early on. In the clifftop scene, Wei Wuxian admits the sword he found in the Xuanwu Cave was made of Yin Iron and that he refined the Yin Tiger Seal out of it (albeit in one of his bullshit “What if I told you…” phrasings), and Lan Wangji confirms that he knows by asking, “Since you knew it was Yin Iron, why did you use/refine it?” While everyone else in the drama is resorting to innuendo and suspicion—and while Wei Wuxian is denying it to everyone else—Lan Wangji knew the truth all along.)

[harksness]

Agatha Reader Insert Blurb (SFW)

Ok idk how many ppl are gonna read this but pls I would love for this to be a bit of a discussion for how people would apply this to themselves/their little pleasures.

Agatha is really good at staying up to date with things as the times change. She needs to make sure she fits in so she doesn't rouse any suspicion, right? So she has to, for survival. Fashion trends, politics, current events, and so on she's on top of.. But she's not good at staying up to date with music. She's horrible about it. You needed to explain everyone from Nirvana to Britney Spears to Billie Eilish to her.

When the 70s hit, she fell in love with that era and hasn't left it. The Cure, Elton John, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, (heavy on Fleetwood Mac), and she just hasn't really kept up since. She's listened to Rumors on repeat since it was released. (Just from vibes alone I feel like she'd love Dreams and probably crushed on Stevie Nicks.)

When you two start dating and you realize this, you think it's so cute. You listen to all of her favorite albums and songs, and love to listen to her stories from the concerts she's gone to. She ends up being a bit of a music dork, she loved going to concerts back in the day but as her favorite artists grew older and slowed down with touring she stopped going to shows.

So you introduce her to more music to bring that love back out of her. (Going off of my favorite musicians) she loves Weezer (Only in Dreams!!), Green Day (LAST NIGHT ON EARTH??), Bastille (Icarus, The Anchor, Warmth??) Chappell Roan, and unexpectedly, Britney Spears!! Also specifically Dragula by Rob Zombie. ("Dig through the ditches and burn through the witches" it should be her badass theme song lmao) (Feel free to add on in the comments w your favorite artists + songs you think she'd like!!)

She'll always go back to her old music taste, but you do notice her peppering in some songs you introduced to her and humming Pink Pony Club to herself.

You bought general admissions tickets to see your favorite artist and surprised her with them. And she's so excited, a wide smile on her face and eyes scrunched up in the cutest way. She looks up the set list to make sure she knows every song.

Because even though she's really good at staying up to date with most things, some stuff slips through the cracks. Or she doesn't have time for all of it. But it's easy for you to see just how much she enjoys discovering things she's missed out on, curiosity seeping through her voice as her wondering eyes light up with interest and it just really tugs on your heart. So you're always trying to find little things she doesn't know about yet.

Poptarts? She's like tf are those let me try them now. She loves the cookies and cream flavor but can only eat one because she thinks they're too sugary. You show her your old DS from when you were young? She gets addicted to Animal Crossing, Agnes is her favorite villager and she loves having you sit and watch her play. Tik Tok? She gets weirdly into Reddit stories. She tries to deny it and calls them stupid while she goes to find part two. Then continues to gossip about the story with you. Then points out everything that makes it obviously fake. (Add any more in the comments that relate to you or you'd just see from her!)

I just feel like Agatha has devoted over three hundred years to magic and big, huge things and adventures that she never gets to really indulge in the little pleasures in life. She has a lot of them to catch up on. While she tries to deny having any interest in it, she really does love when you show her the fun, pointless little things she's missed out on and just a sweet way the two of you really bond.

[cody-writes]

Harpy hare x gravity falls because this shit is taking over my life. Have my thinks

(Longer post)

I’m not super into Yaelokre but my partner is and the one song that I really love from this does have to be Harpy Hare the vocals are delicious and with my quickly resurfacing gravity falls hyperfixation I’ve been thinking about the two together.

The song harpy hare by Yaelokre is a very gravity falls coded song in a lot of different ways. Mainly the build up in the music to “harpy hare where have you buried all your children tell me so I say” with the longer note and the lower music. (Exactly 2 minutes into the song is where I’m trying to describe)

The song could work really well for either of the sets of twins. the older og pines twins. All I can imagine in that moment of the song is Stan being so fed up with the clues and madness of the journals, trying to figure out where the other journal might be so he could figure out where his brother is and how to get him back finally.

That part of the song could also work for dipper as he tries to figure out the journal as a whole, trying to find who to trust and how the weirdness in gravity falls really works. The image with him specifically that plays in my head with those lyrics is him exhausted, trying to figure out what’s happening with the computer and finally reaching his breaking point and falling asleep but that lyric is screamed at the top of his lungs before Bill finally makes his appearance and “reveals what is buried”

But other parts of the song work especially for the younger twins, specifically Mable the lyrics “forest walls and starry ceilings, between curtains that you’re weaving, like the stories that you keep inside your head” is a very Mable Perspective. She’s going through these events and seeing them as not a threat and sees them in a very different light until her brother begins to spiral and Bill becomes a threat to her family.

The drop in music really gives me the chills and feeling of betrayal from her brother joining Ford and abandoning her to go home alone and giving everything up to Bill to live in her own little world where everything’s perfect and she can go back to “the stories you keep in your own head”

Also “she can’t keep them all safe they will die and be afraid” is also Mable you can’t convince me otherwise.

I could go on and on about this.

[journeytothewestresearch]

As someone who’s Chinese w/ a degree in social science + (art) history regarding East Asia I’m always super intrigued and interested to how others interpret changes in new titles on older religious texts- but I will ask in particular if you have any personal ties to Buddhism/Taoism/Confucianism (and Chinese culture) when you find yourself interpreting BM:W’s change in allegorical use of Buddhism as contemporary political adherence! BM:W’s religious and soul mechanics follows their previous game without much overt linking between the two.

Overthrowing Gods in East Asian media is a very common trope in videos specifically due to player involvement (contrast to books where you are separate as the audience) and often is used as an allegory for the system/recent events we exist in. In such it does shift a lot from the original text in base but I think it’s not supposed to relay the same allegory due to the time period in which the writers exist! Wukong’s story changing to him still being chained by the principles that envelop life is far more relatable to late-stage capitalist environments viewers and artists exist in- as such he fulfils the contemporary variant of his original role in JTTW!

I think the change in purpose the Buddhist mythos serves in this game is decisive by nature due to inherent bias present in the original text as a religious piece, and such is core to the allegory. However I don’t think BM:W is supposed to relay that allegory, I think it is supposed to branch off on its own as an alternate contemporary extension of the foundation JTTW set out (plus with the 2 DLC’s on the way, there is plenty of time to extend the universe in game to validate a shift in religious purpose compared to the cut 7 chapters planned during development). And such i think attributing it to the CCP can be a bit of a touchy statement (especially if one doesn’t have long standing ties to East Asian culture or Regional religious practice!) and can accidentally play into sinophobic phrasing and attitudes.

Buddhism as a practice and way of life has a very different presence in writers centuries ago compared to now, as well as how we use religion in audience-involved stories. And such I find it an interesting shift regarding a game made with an international and widely multi-religious audience (that isn’t consuming it as a psycho-socio poem compared to a much smaller and more culturally homogenous readerbase. I think the friction caused by thematic changes is more due to how the game relays the physical journey so closely with reusing characters and having to shift them according to the foundational changes- if it was closer to other written “sequels” that created characters connected to the original cast through descending from them etc, the changes wouldn’t grate on completed arcs or how we compare the experience to wukong’s parallel one

No, I do not have any direct personal cultural connection to Buddhism, Daoism, or Confucianism. I live in Asia, though, and beyond my research of JTTW, I do study religion here (with more of an emphasis on folk religion as it pertains to the Great Sage). My negative view of Black Myth: Wukong is colored by my deep love for the original story. In general, I don't like adaptations.

Thank you for your explanation of the game.

[cloud-somersault]

AU where Wukong didn't kill macaque (i know, hear me out) and it was a long play by LBD to get Macaque on her side or smth. And Macaque fell for it despite being a master of illusions himself...maybe LBD used the shadows against him? 🤔still playing around with that

anyway, Macaque eventually realizes this after LBD dies and now he's awkwardly got to apologize to wukong about it, but Wukong wants nothing to do with him because he's deeply hurt that Macaque thought he did that.

then: Macaque awkwardly hanging around Wukong and trying to get back into his good graces only for Wukong to blow up at him and vent his hurt and frustrations and macaque is just...really regretful

they eventually make up or whatever, but i saw someone mention they like the flavor of "macaque hanging around wukong, and wukong wants nothing to do with him" and i was like yeah, that'd be easy to make an AU for because there's nothing too complex going on LMFAO

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Smile And Be A Villain

queer character-driven historical fantasy, reimagining Hamlet before the events of the play

follows prince Hamlet who has been sent away to Wittenberg after being caught in a compromising position, meeting new people and discovering magic

and Ophelia, back in Denmark, dealing with the rise of the corrupting by-product of magic

while a war is brewing, and they have to figure out how much they are willing to sacrifice to save their country

duology

bi hamlet, aspec ophelia

[batsplat]

casey also talks about sepang 2015 what do you think of that

oh in that podcast? uh... lemme listen again...

yeah idk it's not really anything new I'd say? he's said basically all the same stuff in more interesting and extensive ways elsewhere. I think casey inevitably has a very 'well feuding is bad and helps nobody' point of view, has expressed that before in the past, does it here again, and he's also drawn a parallel between himself and marc on several occasions. which... well, of course there's similarities in terms of public discourse or whatever, but the parallel really falls apart whenever casey argues the feuds cost valentino. like, I do think it's sometimes important to just. keep in mind. it's interesting that casey draws this comparison in his mind but that doesn't necessarily means he's right about this. I'm not sure how you'd argue that starting a feud with casey cost valentino anything competitively? you can argue it didn't help him I guess, and then we can have a debate about the ins and outs of the 2008 season. we can also have an argument that in a hypothetical world where casey isn't ill in 2009, valentino doesn't break his leg and casey isn't on a piece of junk in 2010, and valentino isn't on a piece of junk in 2011-12, then actually maybe valentino sparking open animosity with casey COULD have cost him. but we don't know that! didn't happen! I wish we could have found out, but we never got the chance! as it stands, the tally on this is pretty straightforward: casey won the title when things were reasonably civil between them in 2007, and valentino took control of the following season at the exact moment he worsened the relationship between the pair of them in 2008. obviously, it's all more complicated than that and casey would of course argue laguna didn't negatively affect his subsequent performances... but it certainly didn't help them. like, at the very worst valentino escalating tensions in 2008 is a complete net neutral. after 2009, them being bitchy to each other every other tuesday was completely competitively irrelevant beyond maybe affecting how they approached occasionally fighting for a podium position. hey, maybe casey used that feud to fire himself up through sheer spite throughout the later stages of his career, but that doesn't actually support his anti-feud stance - it's basically the exact same thing as what valentino does. they're both quite similar in that regard! always so hungry to prove a point, to show how someone else is wrong. kinda half the point with this feuding business is to get yourself going, get yourself motivated, yeah. he straight up openly admits to using yamaha's repeat rejection of him as a way of giving himself motivation, and at the end of the day that's really not all that different?

anyway, what else does casey say... oh yeah, that him and the other aliens were already kinda prepared for this and had learned vale's tricks. that valentino had only been able to get into the minds of the previous generation. welllllll *wiggles hand* sure, I mean, he did clearly have to change his approach... he couldn't just use the exact same playbook to get to them, either on-track or off-track. but that's why he did change up the playbook... again, whether you want to believe valentino won his final two titles 'in the head' rather than just through pure pace kinda depends on how you assess the evidence, but it is at the very least a debate. and, y'know, it's always worth remembering that valentino's most important mind games with casey didn't happen in a press conference... it was on the track. and the on-track stuff really is just embedded in how valentino approaches winning. speaking of aliens, this is what dani and jorge have said:

like, valentino's entire approach to his riding, even to the way he's setting his bike up, is deliberately about directly fucking with you... he's not actually always trying to be faster than you as much as he's trying to give himself the tools to make your life miserable, to pressure you into mistakes, etc etc... and again, especially with casey (if anything because he was so mentally sturdy), the off-track stuff was really just window dressing. (I know they bicker a lot after 2009 but it's just so fundamentally irrelevant to actual on-track competition.) so you can be aware of those tricks, but it also doesn't necessarily help you when someone's being nasty to you on-track in a way you just fully do not enjoy. which is what it was like for casey! for casey, a lot of this comes back to the truly unpleasant context of how he was perceived by the public, how he was treated as mentally weak or 'broken' or whatever partly because he had the misfortune of coming up against a bloke who had the reputation for breaking rivals. I think it's quite natural to end up with a bit of a hardliner 'actually I've never been mentally affected by a result in my life' stance - and of course casey is a lot tougher than a lot of people give him credit for. that being said. sometimes your rivals affect you, shit happens, it's part of the game. it's fundamentally a nice idea to think that valentino's tactics weren't just morally wrong but also ineffective, which is kind of the appeal of this narrative, right? you want to believe you're above that, you want to believe you were adequately prepared and wise to valentino's tactic. it's unsurprising and understandable that casey does tend to tell the story that way, but again it's *wiggles hand* also hard to describe it as completely factual

uh. what else. oh I'm thrilled casey does canonically know valentino and marc were friends, he has said he wasn't following motogp too much during that time period so you couldn't be sure of that. does this mean anything? does it tell you anything? well, no, but it's just a pleasing thought to me. I like that. oh also 'provoking particularly aggressive riders isn't a good idea' is kinda a funny take from casey? like, he of all people would hate the idea of being cowed by someone's reputation like that... casey's right that provoking fast riders can potentially be dangerous, but y'know I do think that's probably not news to anyone almost nine years later. um. that's all I've got I think

[sysig]

Incomplete exchange (Patreon)

[crescentfool]

going to keep this vague on purpose but playing reload has reactivated brain chemicals in me that i forgot i had.

i think i'd want to make a more thought out post later, but i think my favorite thing about reload (aside from seeing minato in full HD glory) is how much it's made me think about video games as a storytelling medium- specifically with what mechanics and game design imply for characters.

there's a lot of quality of life features added to reload that help players easily enter a flow state and get immersed in the gameplay (most notable with tartarus)! which is so dope! reload has been such a nice blend of the mechanics from both FES and portable and it feels like a love letter to persona 3 fans.

there are definitely mechanics i miss from FES (minato's ability to wield multiple weapons being one of them). i can't deny that FES has some dated mechanics that don't necessarily feel fun for the player experience... but!

i think i mostly miss things from FES because i feel like so much of minato's characterization (for me) was informed by the gameplay experience and mechanics (e.g. fatigue system). obviously there's still other ways you can put together his personality (his dialogue responses), but i think game mechanics are a bit part of it, for me.

but in spite of that, i think reload is a really nice introduction to persona 3, it's so much more accessible and has a bunch of things to help make it more fun :) so far i think i'd recommend it to people :D

[unproduciblesmackdown]

reading the end of hiagb made me realize that when following along live i'd read a lot more of it than i thought and it's fun that it's overarchingly how a nut and a bug launched into space b/c of being sick of the world & into a temple at the edge of time & not-actually-infinite versions of themselves re: every [alternate timeline based on different choices/possibilities] can coexist in the same world with every bug tasked w/launching every nut back to the temple for reasons re: maintaining things and all the looping is disrupted by one bug who dated their nut and another bug whose quantum leap error was rectified by being teleported into another nut. the One System Error in an iterative process, one organic Idk Things Just Went Differently This Time As They Always Could've But Maybe Otherwise Virtually Never Did And That's Enough "that's / [one is] all it takes" vs "it's all the same / what's the diff" loops. no rules

[isekyaaa]

this is like. a fun question. the gala boots reminded me of my school's own booths during festivals and i was wondering which activity do you think you'll realisitically be good at? or not good at? if the booth activities were done irl, i think i'll probably flunk Haravatat's booth LOL. i'm so bad at riddles and puzzles. -- @milkstore

Aaaaaa I wish we had school festivals here. That sounds like really fun. ;A;

But realistically looking at this? I think I would be the best at Kshahrehwar (Project Connectivity) and Vahumana's (Antiquity Hunt) booths. Definitely, Ksahrehwar would be the easiest. With things like that, there are so many loopholes you can exploit to just make getting from beginning to end work. Although I kinda learned how to fight dirty from my dad HAHA. As for Vahumana's.... well, honestly academically speaking I absolutely hate history and politics LOL. But I do enjoy scavenger hunts like that.

As for the worst? I'm absolutely terrible at Rtawahist's (Gathering of the Stars) booth. I kid you not I'm just trying to randomly move the stars around to get things to hopefully match up. LOL Irl, I would be terrible at Amurta's (Mimetic Replication) booth because me and biology just don't get along. I am simply Not Observant enough to understand plant and animal behaviors. LOL

In the middle would be Spantamad (Concocted Reaction) and Haravatat's (In Truth's Steps) booths. I'm not much of a fighter, but if I were, I'd probably find the potions intriguing. Not to use, but to see how it works in other people. I'd like to know how they're made. But I don't think I'd be too bad at the fighting part either. And as for Haravatat... Well, I'm honestly terrible at riddles as well, but I do enjoy riddles and puzzles. Escape rooms are my favorite. So I'd hope I'd know what questions to ask haha. I think I'd just be average overall.

But what about you? Which would be your strengths and weaknesses? *eyeballs emoji*

[bfdifan26]

burner fear garden

[hirokiyuu]

hinge sol/dys/sym w/dys as the center is sooo interesting to me bc imo sym is like. still definitely super in love with sol. i dont htink sym is ever Not in love with sol its jsut abt what he chooses to do w/it u kno. so it’s fascinating to me that theres a world where hes dating dys and its fine but also he is definitely Still Super In Love With Dys’s Partner That Isn’t His Also

[ghostprinceiii]

"You're going to need a compelling reason to gain entry to Inazuma..."

My compelling reason is I need wood from there to make a purple bed for my teapot house.