#I’m allowed I haven’t actually played p4

[eggs-can-draw]

Is that Yu Narukami!! And the crowd goes wild

[leelreallylikespersona]

Decaying Godhood (Persona AU)

I've been rambling and throwing ideas for this AU for a good bit now, here's a much more cohesive post about it!

Shoutout to @the-squeege and @artekai for discussing ideas with me, it was super helpful o(*°▽°*)o

Spoiler warning for P3, P4, P5/P5R, P5S, and P5T!

So let’s meet the main characters and their arcana!

Nyx (Tower)

Ryoji (Death)

Izanami (Empress)

Izanagi (Emperor)

Yaldabaoth (Devil)

Satanael (Justice)

Emma (High Priestess)

Salmael (Lovers)

Azathoth (Hermit)

Adam (Strength)

I’m omitting Pandora, Nyarlathotep, Clockwork God, and Enlil since I haven’t played the games they’re from… I don’t know enough about them to include them properly.

I’m scrapping the usual typings and giving (almost) everyone new typings… mostly because I have no idea who I’d apply fire, wind, etc to, none of these guys scream any particular element. I’m still working out the typings but what I know for sure so far are the “typeless” ones:

Adam: Strictly physical attacks

Azathoth: He is strictly a healer in this, and has no offensive attacks

EMMA: Navigator, can occasionally use almighty attacks

I’m leaning toward making their typings relating to humans, somehow.

As for the plot, at least a quick summary of what I’m thinking so far… all of humanity has come to a standstill. As in, time has stopped progressing for them. However, effects of leaving a living thing out to the elements are still occurring. In other words, humans are kind of just rotting away. It’s a very slow, magic mixed with organic decay kind of process that’s going on here. The appearance of this rot becomes more and more obvious as our group of unlikely heroes progress.

The gods, with the exceptions of Nyx, Thanatos, and Izanagi are dead, so how does this work? For this AU, none of the final bosses really die… their physical forms are abolished and their concepts are left to wander a nothingness, endlessly reflecting on what they’ve done. For Adam’s case, he stuck with Maruki until he died, then he took on a human form and lived among people for many years. Now would be a good time to mention that this takes place years after the events of P5S, so any human characters are long gone.

Let’s start from the beginning of the AU. It focuses on Nyx, Ryoji, and both P3 protagonists. These four are kind of just in a white void. Ryoji is able to move freely, he can see, he could leave too, but doesn’t want to leave Minato and Minako. They’re depicted as statue-ish figures, with a few features a deity would have. Their positions after the events of P3 caused them to go from humans to some sort of gods themselves. They are still mostly human though, this is important for the start of the plot.

Nyx’s sealing is visualized here as having been chained to these two. Until now, she couldn’t move, she was paralyzed along with having actual restraints. Therefore she couldn’t see, her eyes were forced shut. She couldn’t speak either. She could hear though, and the only thing she could do was listen to Ryoji speak to Minato and Minako. Some days, he’d talk to them as if they were still around. Other times, she could hear him mourn. Initially, she didn’t understand it at all. Sure, that’s her kid, and she cared about him somewhat, but she didn’t understand why he’d cry about them so much. There’d be times too, where Ryoji would talk to her, usually it would be him saying he wishes she could understand humans like he did, or sometimes he’d yell at her. Over the course of years and years, Nyx comes to understand Ryoji’s feelings… somewhat, anyway.

This brings me back to the chains she has. Now, all of the sudden, she can see and move again. And these chains, which were once really short, are now much longer, allowing Nyx to walk pretty far from them. This happening is meant to show Minato and Minako’s humanity being affected by the Rot, which is causing them to lose their grip on Nyx.

Upon hearing some movement, Ryoji is quick to become aggressive, but Nyx is still disoriented from suddenly being able to see and speak again, so she doesn’t return any hostility. You can imagine the arguing taking place as they try to figure out what’s happening. After a while, they realize they are able to see into the human realm. That’s when they notice the state of humanity.

Of course, they don’t notice the Rot yet. These two are the first to venture into the human realm to investigate what is going on. It’s mostly Ryoji that wants to figure things out, he takes Nyx with him to keep an eye on her.

This brings me to the motivations of each of the characters… Ryoji going out of his way to help humans makes sense. He did live as one, and made a lot of friends who he cared a lot for. For others, they hate humanity (cough Yaldabaoth), so why’re they here? Simply put, after humans rot away, the realm of gods is next. Also worth mentioning, everyone now has a humanoid form (if they didn’t have one already), so this is something of a second chance for these guys too.

I’ll go through each character:

Nyx: After spending years only listening to Ryoji talk to the twins and voice his affections for humanity, she gains a better understanding of them and obtains a sense of self (much like how Thanatos/Death became Ryoji during P3). She feels like she owes it to Ryoji to help him now.

Izanami and Izanagi: After the events of P4, these two really didn’t feel like doing anything else… Izanami was unable to do much anyway. They are later dragged out of the realm of nothingness they were hanging out in. Izanagi’s time with Yu makes him far more inclined to help out, Izanami is a little heartbroken that after the Investigation Team proved humanity’s worth, they fell into this state.

Satanael: He ditches the Phantom Thieves after Yaldabaoth is taken care of, and left to go cause minor bouts of chaos, nothing too drastic. He doesn’t outright try to end humanity, he just likes “poking fun”, so when everything comes to a standstill, he’s alarmed. Satanael is more neutral compared to everyone else, he does care about mankind, not to the extent that Ryoji and Azathoth do, though. He doesn’t hate them either, so he (probably) helps them for a selfless reason.

Yaldabaoth: For sure is only saving humanity so he also doesn’t rot away. Perhaps by the end, he’s changed a bit, but now that he’s given a physical form again, who knows what he’ll get up to.

EMMA: Upon being defeated, she spent her time watching over Sophia and Ichinose. She chooses to help humanity because of how well the PTs treated Sophia.

Salmael: Toshiro’s anxiousness rubbed off on him a bit… As the god of stagnation, this halt in humanity seems like it’s his doing, but it isn’t. He ventures out thinking that he somehow accidentally did it, and is horrified by the Rot..

Azathoth and Adam: These two genuinely care for humanity, their motivations are completely selfless. While Azathoth can suspend his emotions, Adam spent more time with Maruki, living as a human for years, so he’s much more emotional over the whole situation.

None of these guys are able to have Personas, but are able to “summon” their deity forms as an extension of themselves (so there’s a split-consciousness situation happening). Awakenings are still required for them to be able to do this, though, similar to Persona awakenings.

This ability requires one to first of all realize that their status and power as a god is due to humanity’s perception of them, but then they also must accept that. Only then they can “break free” of their restricted humanoid forms to use their more powerful forms. These forms look similar to their in-game designs, but there’ll be some differences, as I want to give them fun new(ish) designs…

Acquiring this ability is much easier for some than others… Ryoji and Adam as an example, are really quick to accept this once they understand the idea initially, but then a few others refuse to accept that humans are responsible for their power.

As for enemies, Shadows are present due to humans being unable to pass properly. For major bosses, the Rot left some human bodies as empty husks that became aggressive. These husks are attracted to the power the gods have.

Some side characters I also want to include… Jose and Sophia run the shop that provides weapons and other equipment! There’s also the Velvet Room that has specifics I’m trying to figure out… I might make Yu and Ren the attendants.

I think that’s all I have for now! I’d still like to figure out the order in which each god joins the team… It starts with Ryoji and Nyx, Salmael probably second since he’s already out investigating (he can be the navigator before Emma joins), then it’s either Adam since he’s also around, or Emma. This is still a wip! So if anyone has any comments or anything, feel free to send an ask! I'm already doing some doodles for this so hopefully I'll have some art for it soon (❁´◡`❁)

[casualotptrash]

Fixes to the Persona Series

Oh boy I hope you all are ready to talk about this for the hundredth time!

My recent tirade about the FES vs Portable discussion started to make me think about what I think could be done in the next coming installments of the series to make it either feel a bit more fresh or just as an overall improvement. Now, I know many of the things I’m about to say have been said time and time again, but...this is my post so I’m going to give my opinion on this :)

Enjoy and feel free to vent with me about your biggest gripes with the series, because I’m always ready for a salt-fest.

(This post will pretty much have any spoilers about Persona 3, 4, and 5 (including Royal) so beware if you haven’t finished those)

To clarify right off the bat, anything I don’t mention in here as something I would fix I either don’t think it is a problem or I just happened to forget it.

1. Player Gender Options

(Royal Spoilers)

Starting off with a great one, I think that an improvement to the series would be to allow an option between a male and a female MC. I don’t think this choice would affect the story in Persona 3 or 4 very much (and we’ve seen that with Persona 3), but I have imagined and seen so many fanfics about how it would actually be a really interesting twist for Persona 5. For most of the story it probably wouldn’t matter too much, but it could impact the first palace so much. The first palace/story arc is already one of the best arcs in the game, so imagine if the player could relate to Ann and Shiho on an even deeper level? To be clear, I’m not saying the player has to be sexually assaulted or something, but I imagine Kamoshida would at least treat the player more like Ann rather than just a delinquent nuisance.

Also, and this just came to mind, but picture this: in the third semester Maruki actualizes things that he thinks will make others happy. Obviously, Joker and Akechi are against this. In the game itself there are a lot of clues to point that Joker does care about Akechi, and does want to see him again, but in the end they both agree that they need to fight for the real world that they worked for, not for a fake reality. If Joker was a female, they could still go the route of doing this (especially if romancing Akechi was an option? Or they just hint at them having feelings but Akechi doesn’t want to commit because he’s a self-loathing boi who needs to work on himself first).

Alternatively...what about a badass narrative of a girl, in a powerful position as the leader of the Phantom Thieves, fighting against a man who believes he knows what’s best for her and tries to appease her by just bringing back Akechi? Kinda like a “Yeah fuck what you did, you just need Akechi/a man and he’ll make you happy” type of thing. Obviously this would all be subtle, because I do think Maruki has good intentions, but he also blames himself for all of the hard things Rumi has gone through and may internalize that as women needing a “strong man” to protect them. Of course this might seem too preachy for people, but I thought it was an interesting idea to run with and that some people could relate to the whole “Woman trying to think and do things for themselves? Nah just sit in your little fake world and be happy, thanks.”

(Sidenote, Sae would be such a good role model...after her change of heart of course. You crush it girl.)

However, I do understand that this could be a lot of extra work, especially when the game is so long and tedious. That’s why I would also be fine with the strategy of “switching off” per say. By that I mean if Persona 5 has a male MC, then Persona 6 would have a female MC, and if a 7th game was made (in 2040 or whatever) then it could go back to a male. This would eliminate the issue of having to record all the voice lines twice or any other extra work that would come with having to make both genders an option. Honestly I know this option doesn’t matter too much to people, they just want an MC who is either a self-insert or actually a character (more on that later), but I do think it would be a very nice inclusion especially for the female fans of the game. It kind of sucks that three of the most popular games in the series all have male protags, and the female protag who was introduced often gets shafted for very dumb reasons. (Oh no, you have the option to romance a kid that most people don’t even choose or like, that means she’s a p*do! :I I know this comment is normally a joke but seriously it’s not funny).

2. Setting of the game (not transfer but also maybe involve the other games?)

(Spoilers for the Arena games and Persona 5/Royal)

So there are two main points to this suggestion: where the game takes place and how it relates to the other games.

As we all know, the three latest entries in the mainline Persona series have all followed a certain trend. They are all high schoolers, who transfer to a town, and know basically no one there. This formula has been repeated for the last three games, and while they are still great games, I think this trend needs to change. Any amount of switching this up would be better than nothing in my opinion. For example, the MC could be a new college student who goes to a new place for college (if they wanted the MC to move somewhere), and there meets the party members who are a mix of people who also don’t know the area (new to the college) and those who do know the area/some people there. This would appease people who have been really wanting an MC to not be a high schooler, while also giving the feel of meeting new people and seeing a new place.

On the other hand, the next game could take place in the MC’s home town, where plot stuff happens and they connect more to the people they already knew (aka party members) to solve the plot stuff. They could be in high school or college, either I think would work, but it would appease people who don’t just want to be a transfer student each time and also have some connection to the characters prior to the game. However, this would be difficult to do given the current “flow” that the games have, that is that the MC doesn’t know anything and has to ask a million questions. It would be very strange to go up to someone you have known most of your life and ask them a basic question, which is why that style of storytelling(?) would not fit well with this and other methods would need to be used.

Now, for the second point, I understand that they don’t make strong connections to the other games because they want each game to be able to be played as a stand-alone, and not to hold people back by forcing them to play the other games to understand this. Makes sense, but usually what happens is that people play one game in the series and then try another game, if they really like the one they started with. After playing through the ones they want to, and if they like them, then there is an appreciation for the series as a whole. Of course Atlus sneaks in little references here and there, like having the P4 gang go to Iwatodai or some TV news announcements on P5 that allude to Adachi and other characters, but those cant always cut it. One of the biggest letdowns I would come to know is the fact that the Shadow Operatives are not mentioned at all, outside of those small references, in P5.

Persona 5 literally has the PT’s broadcasting all of their heists, and includes major government officials like Shido. There are also the mental shutdowns/psychotic breakdowns, which also have people confused, along with how the PT’s steal hearts in the first place. I don’t know about you all, but this seems like the perfect opportunity to get the Shadow Operatives involved. This is like...literally what they were made for? Investigating persona/shadow activity and such, and we already know that the PT’s deeds reached at least Hawaii so it would be strange for the SO’s to have not heard anything. There are headcanons that they were blocked by Shido or something, which is pretty interesting to think about/develop, but it was only thought up to make an excuse for why they aren’t there. Persona 5 introduced a lot of people to the story, so yeah some people would probably be very confused about who the SO’s are and stuff, but it could payoff in the long run for long-time fans and those who play the other games after.

Depending on the story of P6, I don’t think it would be a bad idea to start including casts from the other games into newer ones...especially when each game introduces 8-9 new characters per game, and those games usually get made into spin-offs that include the characters made in the previous games! Counting only the characters introduced in the previous games (3-5), Persona Q2 has 33 characters (11 P3, 10 P5, 10 P4, and 2 P3P, this includes the velvet room assistants for each respective game). That’s a ton! Sure, having new characters each time is part of the fun, but I believe there is definitely a way to split them up. I don’t think it would be too much of an issue to have a smaller party member group (you can only have 4 fight at a time anyway), that way there is still the enjoyment of seeing new characters, while also filling up some of those spots with preexisting ones.

3. Characterization

This kind of piggybacks off of the second point, but personally I think they need to stop with the self-insert protags. First, like I mentioned earlier, it kind of messes up the “flow” of the game since they have to pretend that the character doesn’t know anything because the player doesn’t know anything (yet). For example, how many times did the option to say “Probation?” or “Expelled?” or something like that come up as a dialogue choice in P5? Too often, in my opinion. I assume anyone over the age of 15 would probably know what those things mean, but in case anyone doesn’t they have to make it an option to say.

Adding onto this, it also seems like people start to like the characters a whole lot more when spinoffs or movies/animations come out that really expand on the character, because in those games/mediums the player is taken out of the self-insert role. I would say out of the three games, the Persona 3 protags have the most characterization in game through their dialogue. I haven’t watched the movies, but I heard it fleshes the MC out a lot more. In Persona 4...well, I see what they’re going for but I also feel like Yu has the personality of a cardboard box. The animations definitely helped out this one, as did Arena, and I’ve seen other people agree that they liked Yu a lot more after playing/watching those things.

As for Persona 5, I think they tried to give Joker some characterization (and oddly enough “Joker” has a lot more to him than Akira/Ren, but he still fell more on the side of self-insert. P5 the animation is...of questionable quality, but I think Xander did a good job in the Dub (which is the one I watched) in trying to make him feel more like a human being. I haven’t played Strikers, but I assume it goes more on the route of P5 because you’re still controlling Joker. Oddly enough, I feel like the dancing game gave him the most characterization? Call me crazy, but his dance moves and voice lines just ooze of his suave, friendly, and supportive attitude. I wish that they took whatever those voice lines embodied and just put them into the game, because I would like Joker a lot more than I already do (which, to be clear, I do still like him a lot).

Although this doesn’t have much to do with the characterization, it would also be nice if Atlus could just put the “canon name” in the game while also still having the option to choose your own name. Again, this might add a little more work but maybe if someone chose the “canon” option then their name could be spoken in voice lines, but if they don’t then the names would be left out (except for text) like usual. Honestly this is mostly up to personal preference because I like some of the “not canon” names more so I would want to use those if I could, but I also don’t like having the characters just randomly cut off in the end of sentences when they’re saying your name. Just kind of breaks immersion, which is probably why I really like Joker because at least they say “Joker” quite a bit.

(Little rant, but why do the PT’s get like two group names? At first Morgana defaults to “The Phantom Thieves of Hearts” but then when you get to choose the name of your team, that name is what shows up instead. However, everyone still calls you the “Phantom Thieves” and the gang refers to themselves as that too! I get naming the group is kind of cool, but I would have preferred if they were just called The Phantom Thieves (of Hearts) and that way their name could be spoken in dialogue too.)

4. Choices matter...please? (romance and regular dialogue)

This might be easy or difficult to implement, I’m not so sure because I’m not a game developer, but I really wish choices mattered more in this game. I feel like most of these suggestions (especially later on down the list) are just little things that could be added to the game that would really amp it up, and this is one of them.

When I talk about choices mattering, I do not mean that dialogue should be so open that there are branching paths and that your choices affect the story. What I mean is that you could choose two different options and not get the same exact answer. I get that this isn’t always the case, but when it is it feels very strange. In this same vein of things, please stop with the illusion of choice because everyone sees right through it. I didn’t really see this as much in P3, and I still need to finish P4, but it was definitely apparent with P5. I felt that so many times in the game there were two options that were just “Option A” or “Synonym for Option A” as the choices.

Along the same lines, I think it would be great if romance choices were actually acknowledged. Again, there is a little of this in P3 and P4 where some party members comment on your relation to the other party members (Ex. Junpei saying to take care of Fuuka if you date, Yukari stating that Akihiko probably wouldn’t want FeMC going on a group date if they’re dating, and Yosuke coming to assumptions about who Yu spends the summer festival with), but they are very few and far between. I also saw no evidence of this at all in P5, which was pretty disappointing. In fact, in Persona 5 Royal if you are dating Ann and go on the Christmas Date with her, she makes some comment about not wanting the others to find out about them. Like...girl, considering someone can finish Ann’s social link as early as June or so on NG+ I’m pretty sure your friend group would notice if you’ve been dating for 6 months?? I know that romance is definitely not the focus of the game, but if you’re going to include it why is it shoved into the farthest corner and never touched?

Don’t get me wrong, it is cute to see the romances in the game play out and such, but on the same hand I can see how much better it could be. In reality it kind of sucks to romance someone in the Persona games because no one acknowledges it, and you only get like 3-4 small scenes in each game to spend with them (beach in P5, festival in all, Christmas in all, valentines except for 3, White Day in P5R). Just imagine if you could take a walk in Kyoto with whoever you romanced, or were able to take your partner to the Jazz Jin in P5R and they would get like special date dialogue or something? Very very small additions, but it would go a long way in making the romances feel a bit more connected.

5. LGBT Romances

I went into this in some detail in Part 3 of my FES vs Portable debate post, so I to save your eyes from reading more I’ll just quickly say that Atlus definitely needs to add in more LGBT romance options because it’s ridiculous at this point. The fact that you can’t romance any guy (because all of the MC’s are male, this is not including the FeMC stuff because that’s not typical in the Persona series) but can have a whole harem (despite what they may do to you) is just ridiculous. They’d rather let you date a fully-fledged adult than someone of the same gender.

Also they’re cowards for scrapping the Yosuke romance and that’s that :)

6. Fixing Social Links

Link to the stand-alone post about this section.

I literally was going to include this in this post, but this section alone (which I knew was going to be the biggest) was almost as large (a few hundred words off) than everything prior to this point put together. I’ll make a separate post with just this section soon, but this criticism of mine can basically be boiled down into the fact that the main growth of a character should happen outside of their social link in order to avoid tonal whiplash in the story, and that this will fix the problem of some characters feeling “one-note” if you do not do their social links/confidants. Essentially, go back to the P3 method.

However, something that needs to be fixed for all of the games is that you shouldn’t only get social link points for saying what the person wants to hear. I get the train of thought that if you say what they want to hear they will like you more, but that’s not how real friendships work? Obviously you shouldn’t be saying something that offends them and think it will raise your points, but sometimes people just need to hear things?

I can think of three standout examples: Nozomi in P3 (Gourmet King), Mishima in P5, and Shinya in P5. Nozomi’s link is a hot mess in of itself, but it was very frustrating to at one point just be like “Hey can you chill?” when he’s trying to induct you into a scam/cult or whatever, and it reverses the social link. Like ok buddy fuck you too, I was just trying to say no and that you need to stop scamming people?? For Mishima in P5 (I’ll go more in depth on him in a later post), it’s just kind of strange that you can clearly see him starting to obsess about the PT’s but you can’t really tell him he needs to stop until the social link demands it. Even then, the only way to get points is pretty much to go “Wow Mishima, you’re the best! You’re the reason we exist! We love you!!!” and it just feels kind of wrong. Shinya’s is very much along the same line as that, except you basically have to do something even worse and encourage him to keep being a bully? Thankfully P5 doesn’t reverse confidants, but I probably would have done so with Shinya because I kept telling him he shouldn’t bully others until I realized how to get points with him. It just feels wrong to encourage such behavior until the character suddenly realizes they’ve been acting wrong. No shit, I’ve been trying to say that.

I think social links need quite the fix to them, but this is definitely one of them. Strong, real relationships are not just built upon telling the other person what they want to hear.

7. Have Characters Hang Out

This is mostly a suggestion based off of P5′s downfall in this aspect. I think that P3 and P4 did a good job at showing the characters hang out in other aspects, or hang out separately outside of the MC. P4 had a lot of good group hangouts, but not many scenes without the MC. P3 had the opposite where members kind of hung out together a bit, but also showed or mentioned them hanging out without the MC. However, P5 didn’t have much for the group hangouts and also I can’t really recall a single scene of the party members hanging out outside of the MC.

Along with all of the problems I mentioned earlier with the cardboard cut-out personalities, I feel that this contributed to P5′s group feeling a bit less cohesive. Obviously when they all hung out they acted like a real group of friends, but it’s hard to see it as legitimate when 95% of their hangouts are just meetings for the Phantom Thief stuff. The only times they hang out outside of the PT stuff is the TV station, the fireworks festival, helping Futaba + the beach trip, and the culture festival. Like I said, I can’t recall them hanging out together outside of being with the MC/PT business, although I could have missed some stray text message if one was mentioned.

In this aspect, P5 feels like a small step down from P3 and a huge step down from P4. I think some of the events in P4 are a bit unnecessarily long, but at least they go through the effort of showing that the group is also a real friend group, not just people trying to solve the murder. Strikers may be a step up from P5, but I haven’t played it yet so I can’t judge that.

Also bring back school trips to prior locations of Persona games. Imagine P5 group going to Inaba and it turns out this is the small country town that Joker came from? And they sprinkle in references to P4? *chefs kiss*.

8. Remove/Change Certain Tropes

(Spoilers for the babe hunts, stupid ass hot springs scenes, and Ryuji abuse after certain palace)

By that spoiler tag, you can probably tell that this is the category I’m most passionate about. I can deal with social links feeling a bit disconnected. I can deal with the MC being a self-insert. What I cant deal with anymore? These. Dumb. Ass. Scenes.

Let me explain (insert Sojiro voice here)

Every game has three main tropes. One, the babe hunt scenes. Two, the hot springs scenes. Three, one character being dunked on by everyone else. I’ll go through each, scream about my feelings about them, and why they need to change.

First, the babe hunt scenes. I don’t have much of a problem with this trope to be honest, I just think it could be done better in some games. I actually think the one in P3 was quite funny, because the group treated it like an “operation” which added a bit to humor. Truth be told, I was just a bit disappointed in P3P FeMC route when you didn’t have your own version of the “babe hunt” thing. I know Yukari and Mitsuru aren’t the types to go hunt for boys, but perhaps the MC could have suggested it as a fun idea. In P4, this scene happens in Okina and largely remains the same as the P3 formula, but I think it lacks just a bit of the humor that the P3 one had. Lastly, in P5 this scene happens during the beach trip but compared to the others it’s pretty...lackluster?

It shows a montage of Joker, Ryuji, and Yusuke talking to girls but no actual dialogue goes on. After talking to three or so, Yusuke disappears and this is when Joker and Ryuji meet the two “flamboyant” men again. This time, the men either chase them down or call after them (?) depending on if you’re playing Vanilla or Royal. I don’t like how they use these men in the first place, but on top of that it kind of takes the “babe hunt” out of “babe hunt” if you don’t actually...hunt for babes? Like no actual dialogue is spoken when trying to convince the girls, which was most of the fun in the other scenes. You don’t even have free reign to walk around at the beach, and the scene is formatted in a more cutscene type of way.  It just makes P5′s babe hunt fall flat in many ways, and overall I finished the scene with a strong “meh.” The only good things about this was watching Makoto and Ann defend themselves and Yusuke with the lobsters.

Now for the hot springs scenes....hoo boy.

Simply put, in my opinion, these scenes suck ass in almost all of the games. P3 is the least egregious in my opinion, for a couple reasons. First is that it shows that Junpei and Ryoji were kind of trying to peep on the girls, and Akihiko and MC were just dragged into it. They have some funny dialogue, and in FES and Portable they even included the option to try and evade the girls. I found the little evade minigame to be really fun, even though every time I can’t help but fail because I want to say “It was a cat!” I find it interesting that there is the option for the men to get off scott-free, and that their dialogue after the trip is over changes slightly because of this.

On the FeMC side, I also find it fun that you have the reverse of the minigame and actually seek out the boys. My only letdown with this entire scene is if the boys are caught. I get it, it’s supposed to be funny with Mitsuru executing them and such, but as a reasonable person with a brain it seems really dumb to me that Mitsuru would just punish all of them when it’s just Ryoji and Junpei’s fault? This is nothing against Mitsuru, but her actions just seem so...exaggerated for some reason? Like Mitsuru is usually smart, and even if she is embarrassed I don’t get why she would punish innocent party members. A huge disappointment for me was that the FeMC isn’t able to stop Mitsuru from doing this either. Not even a choice to try and encourage Mitsuru or discourage her (so both options would be available). You just kinda sit there and watch, even after Akihiko say “It was a misunderstanding!” or something. For me it was especially strange because MC was dating Akihiko at that point, so why wouldn’t I try to hear him out? Just struck me as kind of dumb.

If I thought that was dumb, P4 and P5 were out to really make me roll my eyes and sigh in disappointment. Unlike P3, which has most of the scene being pretty good besides the very end where Mitsuru punishes the boys, the P4 and P5 scenes are all bad. This is not the first time anyone has said it, and won’t be the last, but they aren’t funny scenes in the slightest.

In P4, it’s actually the girl’s fault that they’re in the hot springs when the boys walk in. They stayed over their allotted time and into the time when boys are supposed to be in there. So what do they do? Get flustered, yell at them, and throw buckets at the group. Oh, and they don’t listen to the boy’s protests at all. Really.

Who thought this was a good idea?? The girls even realize after that they were in the wrong, say they should apologize, but I don’t think they ever show a scene of them apologizing after. This whole scene, like the hot springs ones in general, are just exaggerated (ie. throwing masses of buckets) to be funny, but they really fail in my opinion. It just serves to make the player kinda angry (since they’re usually on the receiving end) and make the girls look wildly unrealistic and dumb. I have never really thought that needless physical abuse is funny, so these scenes are just the bane of my existence apparently.

There actually isn’t a hot springs scene in P5, but they did add one in Strikers.

If they wanted to still do these scenes, maybe they could switch from making it “just beat up the boys” into something else. For example, the girls could try to peep, or walk in on the boys. Equality y’all, sometimes girls can do those things too (but still don’t beat them up. Just don’t beat anyone up). If none of that happens, or maybe that’s how the scene ends, the rest of the scene could just be a chill, relaxing scene between those involved. Essentially, how the scenes go before the whole “lets beat up the boys” thing comes in.

Lastly, on basically the same vein as why I don’t like the hot springs scenes, I’m starting to get real sick of the “let’s shit on this one character” trope. In Persona 3, I don’t think it’s that bad because they kind of do it with Junpei but they also give him a lot of character development, and eventually the sort of hostile shitting on him turns into just gentle teasing.

For P4 I still don’t think it is too bad, because Yosuke is kind of the one being shit on but he also does the same to the other people in the group? I suppose the only thing that really sticks out to me is how Teddie abuses Yosuke’s wallet (making him buy/pay for a lot of stuff with his hard earned cash), but I also don’t like Teddie at all in the first place so I may be biased about him. Oh well, he still shouldn’t do those things and I don’t really find it funny but to each their own.

However...this problem walks and rocks the fucking runway in Persona 5. Namely, this happens with Ryuji. The most obvious aggressor in this is Morgana, because him and Ryuji butt heads so often, but the other thieves kind of do it as well. Obviously they don’t do this all the time, but it’s extremely frustrating when they do. Morgana getting into arguments with Ryuji at the drop of a hat get old very quick, and the other thieves poking a bit of fun about how dumb Ryuji can be is also not that riveting. Despite all of that, the scene that highlights all of this is the scene after Shido’s palace collapse.

You all knew this was coming, but I couldn’t resist talking about it. The scene is so tone deaf in so many ways that it takes away all of the emotional impact that they were trying to build. Even the first time I watched this scene, in which I didn’t think they would kill off Ryuji, I could still sympathize with the group being concerned about him. Then when he shows up they...just beat him up and leave him unconscious next to a pole while they walk away? Wow.

On all subsequent playthroughs I just skip this scene, but I truly cannot understand why that was the angle they went for. Were they trying to insert some humor right after an emotional scene? That can be done in certain cases, but....why??? It’s so unbelievable it’s almost laughable. It’s not even like the bath scene where the the girls think the guys are trying to peep on them. It’s simply because he survived which I assume is what they wanted!

“Oh no you made us thought you were dead (even though he didn’t because he couldn’t control any of this), we’re going to beat you up!” Now you just make the characters look like irrational idiots.

Seriously Atlus, stop doing this. In most cases it just serves to make the player kind of frustrated, and in this case it it literally takes all of the emotional weight out of the scene and makes me think worse of the entire female cast. Please. Stop.

Well that’s the end of that. I don’t think I said anything too revolutionary, although my opinions about the social links and characterization might get me some flak. I just want the characters to be more than one personality trait... This was a really long post again, so kudos to whoever made it to this point!

Next time, on Dragon Ball Z Casual’s pointless posts: something Persona related :)

[hamburgerhelpersotherhand]

Infatuation P4

Joe Goldberg x Reader x Love Quinn

Warnings: Cant get away from the stalking and Joe is the cuck now question mark maybe?

Notes: This part is a little shorter, but I feel like its good enough to stand on its own.

Look at that, it’s a nice day today!

The air is fresh, there are thin clouds in the sky, and you’re walking right by Anavrin.

As expected, seeing this isn’t a day you typically have lunch with Love; there’s no other reason to find you in this particular grocery store.

I secure my baseball cap on my head and follow you from the other side of the street. You’re wearing a bright sundress and holding your usual bag. You know, the one with the little bell on it?

You bump into a woman and you two have a brief exchange. I can’t hear you, but I know you’re quick to dismiss yourself by the way you move those small hands of yours. Did you not want to discuss meaningless topics with people you haven’t seen in years? Yeah, me neither. Keep walking.

Surprisingly, I’m not here just to follow you around all day. I have something of yours that needs to be returned. I reach into my pocket and double-check the cellphone— your cellphone. It’s an older model, about 4 or 5 years old with no password restrictions. It slipped right out of your pocket when I was driving you home, a little surprise but a welcomed one at that. You’re making this too easy, Y/N.

As I looked through your recently deleted folder, I found something that peaked my interest. A single photo of a horribly lit photograph of Love and you. It’s pretty old, probably taken back when you first lived here. You’re both happily embracing each other at first glance, but I can see Love’s hand sneakily going up your skirt. You don’t seem to notice, but I do.

I take a moment to think this over again. Is it really happening or am I seeing things that aren’t there? Is this Peach all over again? Are you Peach or is Love... Peach? My brain is working overtime trying to rationalize this.

Love and you have exchanged texts but they’re all meetup times at Anavrin. The in between messages seem to have been deleted, because some of her replies don’t add up.

Forty’s number is in here too, but you haven’t sent him anything. If I’m to believe you’ve had this phone for at least 4 years, I’m more than certain you would have sent him something.

I cross the street when there are no cars driving by and continue to follow you a little distance away. You stop at a crosswalk and I take the opportunity to stand behind you. My heart is racing and I can feel my palms getting sweaty. We’re so close I could just grab you.

I think over my last thought. I could just grab you, huh?

By the looks of it, there’s nobody else on this street. I know better than to do anything in broad daylight, but you are starting to become more tempting the longer I stand nearby unnoticed.

Do you know I’m here? Can you feel me?

The light changes and you cross the street. I stay put and watch with an all-too-familiar stoic expression. My mind is thinking up ways to take you.

Love likes you, or I should really be saying she like likes you. Now I’m a little jealous, I’ll give you that, but over the course of the little week I’ve known you, I’ve learnt that Love adores you too much for you to suddenly disappear again. She likes to play the role of your protector and, in some cases, seems a little too physically affectionate with you. You accept it, though. Despite knowing that I am her boyfriend, you accept it all.

Dring, dring.

It’s your phone. I look down and am greeted by a message from Love to you.

Come over.

I can hear the bells again... It’s all coming together. You’ll get to see Love like you always do and she gets to pretend whatever affairs you may have are still your little secrets, but in reality, I know. I know and I allow it to happen because, quite frankly, you’re just a harmless little thing. You’re not Peach. Isn’t that right?

I don’t think you’ll ever trust me and I don’t think I ever want you to trust me, but I know you’ll trust Love.

I catch up to you at the next crosswalk and stealthily slip your cellphone into your bag.

You eventually find it after spending a good portion of your morning seated at a nearby park and reading.

I believe the book you had in hand was A Study in Scarlet by Conan Doyle. It’s a classic but, I didn’t quite paint you as the Mystery type. Actually, come to think of it, this is beginning to make a lot of sense. Though, I’m still left to wonder...between the two of us, who has the lead?

You’ve now gotten up, slid the old book into your bag and observed your phone. The park is a lovely place for you to spend your time, but I know Love now has your full attention.

As I watch you walk back in the direction in which you came, I begin to have doubts. You’re Love’s toy, but I can’t help but still feel jealous. She’s mine. And you... you can be... ours.

Maybe then it won’t hurt as much.

[charmed1998fan]

If you could create an AU which incorporated all four Charmed sisters, how would the story go? And how would it affect their powers?

Hi! Sorry it took me a week to answer yourquestion. And sorry about this, but while I was writing the answer, my handsslipped on the keyboard and I accidentallywrote a ramble that has 3K words… Oops?

TL;DR: Most of the show’s plots would be pretty muchthe same if I was too lazy to do more than incorporate the fourth sister intoeach episode—or very different if I was self-indulgent and decided to fixeverything I don’t like about the show while I’m at it. :D The girls wouldeither grow up together, or they’d learn about Paige’s existence as adults (Ithink the best time for this would either be the pilot episode or P3 H2O).Paige would be the only one who might have different powers (lots of optionshere), Prue, Piper and Phoebe would have the same ones.

Truth be told, this is not a topic I’ve thoughtabout too much before. Currently, most of my fanfic-daydreaming revolves arounda different fandom. At the height of my love for Charmed, most of myfanfic-daydreams focused on either A) my own season 9, or B) anythingChris-centric (had a huge crush on him back in the day).

Now here’s the thing: my season 9 was actuallya Power of Four story, but I’m reluctant to call it an AU because I was tryingto make it canon-complaint (albeit with a twist). It’s a sequel, not a rewrite.To be clear, when I say this story is canon-compliant, I’m only talking aboutthe show, not the comics. I actually started writing it a year before the firstCharmed comic was published. I never finished writing it, though. Iwrote three episodes and then abandoned it. :D

Although I didn’t really get around toexploring this in the fanfic, I still remember how I planned on explaining whythe Charmed Ones became the Power of Four rather than the Power of Three.Here’s where the canon-twisting comes in. Let me tell you the story I had inmind:

In AllHalliwell’s Eve, when Cole and the Charmed Ones time-traveled to the 1600s,they unintentionally altered history without realizing it (butterfly effect andall that). After they returned to the present, Angels of Destiny sensed thedisturbance, and they foresaw a powerful evil rising to power and taking overthe world in just a few years. Because this was not meant to happen and wentagainst the grand design they were protecting, they decided to interfere—bygiving the Charmed Ones, the most powerful good witches ever, even more powerso that they could defeat this evil being. How did they give them more power?By turning the Power of Three™ into the Power of Four™. But because P4 wassomething that also went against the grand design, turning P3 into it wasn’tthat simple. They had to work step by step:

Step 1: Magically create* Paige, a love childof Patty and Sam. Give her a telekinetic power like Prue has (albeit with aWhitelighter-y spin) so that she can replace the oldest and most powerfulsister of the trio.

Step 2: Make sure that Prue dies and that Piperand Phoebe meet Paige, creating a new version of P3.

Step 3: Wait a few years to give the new trioenough time to really consolidate this new Power of Three and reach the strengthand bond level that the first trio had.

Step 4: Make sure that Prue is revived. SincePiper and Phoebe now have an equally strong bond with Prue as well as Paige,the two P3s merge and become P4.

Step 5: Wait another couple of years to give P4a chance to consolidate, to give Prue and Paige a chance to form the samestrong bond they have with Piper and Phoebe.

Step 6: Now is the time when the evil tries totake over the world. Make sure the Power of Four™ find out about it, then stepaside and let them handle it.

Step 7: Congratulations! The over-powered P4managed to defeat the evil. Though the existence of P4 does go against thegrand design, it is not as bad as it would have been had the evil won, so justshrug that off and live with it. Things may not be exactly as meant to, but hey, good enough. Go back to wherever it isthat Angels of Destiny live, and relax. Your job is done.

* My original idea for how the Angels ofDestiny created Paige was that they time-traveled to November 1976. There they performedsome kind of magic that caused Patty to conceive a baby the next time she andSam… you know. I called this canon-compliant because everything we saw on theshow really did happen, the twist is just that the reason it happened is becausethe Angels altered history. I have to admit, though, now that I’m thinkingabout this, I can’t figure out why they would bother with a convoluted planlike this if they could have just time-traveled to the 1600s instead andchanged the thing that started the butterfly effect. I don’t remember if I hadthis thought-out back then or not, though I’m guessing I didn’t.

An alternative way of creating Paige that Ithought of now: the Angels of Destiny pulled a “last Thursdayism” on Paige.When you’re playing The Sims 2, you can’t turn back time, but you can alwayscreate a new sim, an adult sim, and that sim will have memories even thoughthey’re brand new in the game. The Angels of Destiny couldn’t time-travel, butthey could create Paige. So they did,and they gave her and the people she would’ve had relationships with fakememories as if she were alive the whole time and not a brand new person.

Backstory

Leaving aside the sequel, if I were to rewritethe show with the Power of Four™, if I were to make an AU that starts from thebeginning, how would the story of the show go? Let’s talk about how the wholething would begin, how P4 would get established. Like I said, I haven’t giventhis much thought before, so allow me to brainstorm here and see what I cancome up with.

*****

Version 1: Witch/Whitelighter relationshipsare not forbidden. Patty and Sam don’t have to hide their relationship, so theyget married and Sam becomes the step-father of Prue, Piper and Phoebe. ThenPatty gets pregnant and gives birth to Paige, who they don’t have to give away,so they raise the four girls together. Of course, not too long after Paige’sbirth, Patty dies.

Version 1A: After Patty’s death, Sam clips hiswings but stays with the family. He raises the girls along with Penny. Ofcourse, since the girls had their powers bound and Patty and Penny decided tohide magic from them until they are old enough, the girls don’t know that Samis a former Whitelighter. When their powers are unbound after Penny’s death in1998, Sam tells them the truth and becomes their guide as they learn tonavigate their lives as witches.

Version 1B: After Patty’s death, Sam ends uppulling a Victor and abandons the girls (poor Prue gets double Daddy issues).He tries to watch over them from afar, but doesn’t get too involved in theirlives, making only scarce guest appearances on the show like Victor does.

Version 1C: Sam dies with Patty. Or at somepoint after Patty, who cares? The point is he’s gone, the girls are raised solelyby Penny and there is only one Victor on the show.

Either way, in this version, all four girlsgrow up together. When Phoebe finds the Book in the attic in the first episode,they all get their powers together. They are all in the story from thebeginning to the end.

*****

Version 2:Witch/Whitelighter relationships areforbidden, but Patty decides to keep the baby anyway. She knows the Elders aredumb and useless, so she doesn’t worry about anything happening to Paige. If the Elders ever notice that Patty’spregnant or has a newborn, she just tells them the baby is Victor’s (says theyhad a one-night-stand or something), and they fall for it, so no problemo.

In this version, the girls grow up together aswell, just like in version 1, but there is one difference: Paige doesn’t knowthat Victor is not her father, doesn’t know that she’s only a half-sister ofPrue, Piper and Phoebe.

Version 2A:Paige doesn’t develop Whitelighter powers at the beginning, she only has awitch power. She starts developing Whitelighter powers later on and is veryconfused by it, until…

Version 2B:Paige has Whitelighter powers from the beginning, but none of the sisters haveany idea what a Whitelighter is at that time.

Version 2Ba: Later,the sisters meet Leo. They discover that he is something called a Whitelighterand that he has the same powers that Paige has. They’re all very confused byit, until…

Version 2Bb:Leo enters the story later on (or never?), or he enters early but the sisters don’tfind out that he’s a Whitelighter until later on. The Charmed Ones are notaware that Whitelighters are a thing until…

…the sisters learn about Sam, Patty’s Whitelighterfrom before she died. This is where Paige discovers that Victor is not herbiological father, and that she is her sisters’ half-sister. Cue some Paigeangst here.

*****

Version 3:Patty and Sam give Paige up for adoption like they did in canon. In the firstepisode of the show, Prue, Piper and Phoebe meet Paige, who has discovered thattheir mother was her biological mother. It’s like in the reboot, when Mel andMaggie met Macy in the first episode. Of course, Prue, Piper and Phoebe arereluctant to believe Paige at first, but later that night Phoebe finds the Bookof Shadows in the attic. She reads aloud a spell to unbind the powers of the“four sisters,” and she reads about Melinda Warren’s “Power of Four” prophecy.When all four of them start performing magical tricks the next day, Prue, Piperand Phoebe realize Paige might have been right. Cue them getting to know eachother and forming the P4 together.

*****

Version 4: Pattyand Sam give Paige up for adoption like they did in canon. Prue, Piper andPhoebe do not meet Paige right from the beginning. All the spells thatmentioned “three” in canon don’t mention any number in this version. MelindaWarren’s prophecy was some vague crap about three sisters (each with one of herthree powers) finding the light and together becoming the strongest witchesever. As it later turns out, this “light” is the half-WhitelighterPaige. But the sisters don’t know that yet at the beginning of the story.

At the beginning, the sisters feel that they’renot reaching their full potential. The spells meant to be cast by the CharmedOnes together aren’t fully effective. For instance, Charmed vanquishing spellsonly wound the demons; this is enough to let the sisters finish the demons offotherwise (like, with athames and offensive potions and stuff), but still, thespells are not strong enough to actually vanquish the demons as they’re meantto. However, the girls attribute this purely to the fact that they are new atthe craft. They figure they’ll get better in time, as they learn to controltheir powers better and get more practice.

Then surprise! Later on (I think the best timefor this would be the episode P3 H2O—ornot quite P3 H2O ’cause I didn’t likethat episode, but instead some good episode that also introduces Sam, Patty’sformer Whitelighter and lover), they discover that their mother had a baby withher Whitelighter, who she had to give up for adoption because it was aforbidden baby. This baby, now a young adult, is a fourth sister, who’s ahalf-Whitelighter. Prue, Piper and Phoebe look for her and find Paige Matthews.When Paige joins them, they can suddenly perform much more powerful magic thanbefore. Vanquishing spells actually kill the demons, etc. The Charmed Ones nowrealize what the prophecy really meant.

*****

Version 5:Patty and Sam give Paige up for adoption like they did in canon. Similarly to version4, Prue, Piper and Phoebe do not meet Paige right from the beginning. However,they don’t lack full power here, because in this version the Charmed Ones onlyhave the Power of Three. The Power of Four does not and cannot exist. MelindaWarren’s prophecy wasn’t vague, the P3 spells all work as intended, etc.

When the Charmed Ones learn about Paige in P3 H2O, she doesn’t add to the group andsuddenly make them stronger. Instead, what they discover is that Paige has theability to replace any of the sisters in the Power of Three. You can read moreabout how this works below, in the section Powers: version 4.

*****

Okay, I think that’s all the ideas I can comeup with now. If I were to choose just one of these versions… I don’t know, Imight go with Version 3, or maybe Version 1C.

Story

Now we’ve established how the story wouldstart—but how would the story go?

All right, if P3→P4 were the only change madeto the series, I imagine the story would go pretty much the same way, exceptthere’d be four sisters reciting spells together rather than three. :DObviously, one sister dying and getting replaced wouldn’t happen in thisversion, but I feel like in most plots there wouldn’t be a problem withincorporating the fourth sister into them, and it wouldn’t be necessary tochange them too much.

Of course, you could change how the storylineswould play out if you wanted to. For instance, when Cole becomes the Source inseason 4, I feel like Prue would also notice that he was acting weird, maybeeven sooner than Paige did. So then Prue and Paige could team up, and togetherthey could find some concrete evidence, which would convince Piper and Phoebethat Cole was evil (again). Then they could either A) vanquish Cole sooner,before Phoebe has a chance to get pregnant and join him as the Queen of theUnderworld, or B) save Cole before it’s too late, turning him into a mortal (again).

But I don’t think it would be necessary to makechanges like these. The storylines could play out more or less in the same way.For instance, Piper and Phoebe disregarded Prue’s concerns in season 3—whywouldn’t they do it again in season 4? I do think that, with Prue being alivethe whole time, Piper would keep more of her early-seasons personality lateron. Which means that when Phoebe becomes Queen of the Underworld, Prue wouldmore likely take the role that Piper played in that episode. Piper herselfcould be more of a hopeful peacemaker with Paige—or she could do her own thing,she could get tired of playing the peacemaker and try to stay on the sidelinesof this conflict, be all “I’m tired of getting stuck in the middle of your crapmy whole life, leave me out of this.” But this wouldn’t affect the storyline’sturn-out much. In the end, Phoebe would still vanquish Cole and he would comeback and they would vanquish him again and all that.

I could see it going either way, different orthe same. So now the question is this: if I’m creating this AU, do I want to tryand keep the show as it is, keep all the same storylines, with the only big differencebeing that all four sisters are there at all times (which would be the easierway to do this)—or do I want to take this opportunity to self-indulge and putin the work and change every single thing I don’t like about the show while I’mat it? :D I love Charmed, it’s been one of my favorite TV shows for thelast 15 years or so, but let’s be real, it ain’t perfect.

One thing I’d like to address before I move on tothe final section, the powers, is the question of Prue’s love life. If shedoesn’t die mere two years after Andy, that means something has to change.Obviously, Prue can’t end up marrying anyone other than Andy, which means thatA) Andy wouldn’t die in this story, B) Andy would die but would later bebrought back to life, or C) Prue would take a vow of celibacy and prove thatyou don’t need romance in your life to be fulfilled. Well, I feel like C) wouldbe out of character for her, so I guess it’s either A) or B). Either one worksfor me, just as long as the two of them get their happily ever after togetherand get married and have babies and stuff. :)

Powers

Now, in terms of powers, I see fourpossibilities.

*****

Version 1: (This option applies to Backstory: version1, 2 and 4.) All the sisters have the same powers they had on the show. TheCharmed Ones were prophesized to be siblings who are descendants of MelindaWarren and who, as a group, have each of Melinda’s three powers. P4 meet thecriteria, which makes them the Charmed Ones.

*****

Version 2: (This option applies to Backstory: version1, 2 and 3.) Melinda had four powers, not three. The Charmed Ones wereprophesized to be four sisters with the Power of Four. Paige, as the fourthsister, has the fourth power that Melinda had. This fourth power could reallybe anything: invisibility, telepathy, icy breath (like Prue’s past life), youname it. There’s countless possibilities here.

*****

Version 3: (This option applies to Backstory: version1, 2B and 4.) Paige only has Whitelighter powers. Of course, she is ahalf-witch, she is part of the Power of Four™, she can cast spells with hersisters and stuff, but she didn’t inherit any of the three Warren powers thather sisters have. She doesn’t mind, though, ’cause she has enough powers as aWhitelighter.

*****

Version 4: (This option applies to Backstory: version1, 2 and 5.) The prophesized sisterhood is a trio, not a quartet. There canonly be the Power of Three, not the Power of Four. Paige is an extra fourthsister. If she were to recite a spell along with Prue, Piper and Phoebe, theeffect would be exactly the same as it would be if only Prue, Piper and Phoebesaid it. Paige can’t add to the Power of Three—but she can intercept it andform the Power of Three with any two of her sisters.

In this version, Paige possesses all threeWarren powers: telekinesis, freezing, and negligib— I mean, premonitions.However, she can’t use them whenever she wants to. She also has Whitelighterpowers, which she can use at any time, but the Warren powers she can only useunder certain conditions. To give an example of the conditions I have in mind:

Let’s say Paige wants to use telekinesis. Inorder to do that, the distance between Prue and all three of her sisters has tobe bigger than the distance between Paige and Piper/Phoebe. Plus, it can’t justbe a centimeter bigger (that would be a total chaos), it has to be at least, say,100 meters bigger, or something like that, IDK. Therefore, if all four sistersare in a room together, Paige can only use her Whitelighter powers and shecan’t cast any Power of Three spells. If Prue goes on a vacation to anothercountry and Piper, Phoebe and Paige stay in San Francisco, Paige can usetelekinesis and cast P3 spells to her heart’s desire.

One more condition could be that, since thePower of Three was meant for Prue, Paige can only use telekinesis if Prue isn’tusing it at the same time, regardless of the distance. If Prue on her vacationdecided to move a bottle of water to herself from across the room, Paige wouldnot be able to use telekinesis in that moment. Alternatively, it could be thatthis condition doesn’t apply, but what happens is that Prue loses her powerwhen Paige is tapping into her place in the Power of Three. If Prue is away ona vacation, she can’t move the bottle of water across the room magically; shehas to get up and walk for it like a normal person.

These rules also apply with freezing/premonitions,wherein Paige replaces Piper/Phoebe in the Power of Three.

An exception to these rules would be unrelatedpower losses. If, say, a demon took away Prue’s powers through apower-stripping potion, Paige would be able to use telekinesis even if she werestanding right next to Prue. However, if two or all three of her sisters losetheir powers, Paige can’t use any of her witchy abilities. She can only betapping into the Power of Three from one side at a time, not two or all three.

Does this make any sense? I hope so, but I’mnot sure.

*****

Anyway, I’m done rambling now. Sorry for allthis. I’ll try to answer questions more concisely next time.

[yusuke-of-valla]

hi, are you accepting writing prompts? would you make numbers 1,3,4 and 10? i love the way you write ♥ ... and can be Bankita? please ;w;)

Thank you! And I finished this just in time since @ren-amamiyaa is back! 

TW for canon-typical violence, Spoiler Warning for P4. No spoilers for PQ2 or PQ1, I just think it helps to have at least played PQ1. 

And finally: I’m sorry for my French.

Prompts:

”You always smile like you’re about to cry

”You hear my heartbeat? Just focus on that”

”I’m going to protect you”

”Wait. Don’t pull away… not yet”

Minato slowly picks himself off the cobblestone road. Tartarus seems to have given way to open cityscape. The early morning fog means he can't see too far beyond his own general vicinity.

"Fuuka?" He calls. There's a sinking feeling in his gut the longer he waits for a reply. "Aigis? Yukari? Junpei?"

Minato sighs. "Great," he mutters. He knows next to nothing about where he is or what actually happened, so the best option is probably to just pick a direction and start walking.

There's a restaurant nearby that looks closed, but there's a menu lying on the table. Minato digs around in his pocket and pulls out a pen, making a note of where he's been. It doesn't take him long to realize that wherever this place is, it certainly isn't built like a normal city. Cities aren't littered with winding roads and dead ends like this place is.

They also aren't this empty. At first, Minato chocks it up to it being early, but the sun doesn't seem to be getting any higher. Nothing's progressing here.

Eventually, the monotony is broken up by someone rushing past him, quickly pursued by a group of what looks like police, and Minato follows them.

The girl is cornered by the police when she runs down an alley. Minato arrives just in time to see the policemen warp into shadows and attack the girl.

Minato wastes no time calling Orpheus to reduce them to ash, though it's a bit of a closer call than he'd like. He really needs to find his friends.

Minato turns to the girl. She's pretty short, and has long blonde hair that's decorated with white flower clips. "Are you alright?" Minato asks.

The girl sorts out her light blue cardigan and the yellow ruffles of her shirt, while replying in French.

Damn it, he should've paid more attention to Mitsuru.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand." Minato says. The girl repeats herself, then frowning when it becomes obvious Minato is completely lost.

She grabs his hand, looking very intently at his palm.

"Um, what are you-"

She ignores him and heads to the mouth of the alley, checking to make sure the coast is clear. After a minute, she motions for Minato to follow her, even grabbing his arm to make sure he keeps up.

"Where are we going?" Minato whispers. The girl continues talking in French, and guessing from her tone, Minato assumes she's pointing out that he wouldn't understand any explanation she could give him.

"Fine, at least tell me your name?"

The girl smiles. "Je m'appelle Rei."

*

Yu breathes heavily as he defeats the last of the shadows. His companion doesn't give him a moment to rest, charging forward.

"Wait!" Yu pants. "Zen, wait!"

"Hurry up. You're wasting time." Zen snaps.

Yu wants to laugh. Wasting time, doesn't he know it? He's in some sort of shadow-infested Paris, when he should be in the TV World.

The fog is going to come in soon…

Yu shakes his head to clear out his thoughts. Now's not the time. He has to focus on the task at hand, which is finding the rest of the Investigation Team. Hopefully helping Zen with the person he's looking for will help with that- or keep Yu distracted enough from the fact that he has no clue how he got here or where his friends are, no way of contacting them, and the fog is going to come in s-

Nope. Nopenopenope.

Yu steels himself. He's no use if he's panicking.

"How much further is this meeting spot?" Yu asks.

Zen pulls a silver pocket watch out of his jeans and glances at it quickly.

"It's not that far, and almost time. If we make a break for it-"

"And get the attention of more shadows?" Yu says. "Zen, I can't keep fighting these things on my own. I'm sure Rei cares more that you're in one piece than that you're on time."

Zen doesn't object, but he doesn't look happy about it either. He stares at the clock tattoo on the palm of his hand.

"Fine." He mutters.

Yu relaxes a bit.

They take the long way to the meeting spot, midmorning sun beaming down on them. They pass countless posters proclaiming Paris the "City of Love" and encouraging people to "Embrace their love." Yu hears the same snippets of conversation on repeat as they pass crowds on the way to work, almost like a scratched record.

"I love you so much, honey."

"They're perfect for each other."

"I'm so glad that relationships are so easy."

The whole thing leaves a bad taste in Yu's mouth, but he can't exactly put why into words.

They also pass the occasional policeman looking for "loveless outlaws," which Yu takes to mean himself and Zen.

To add a final cherry of weirdness to the top of a cake that's already pretty damn weird, "soulmates" are brought up more than once.

Yu doesn't know what to make of it all.

They arrive at the meeting spot, near a set of stairs someplace relatively free of shadows. Zen checks his pocket watch again. "We're early," he mutters, more to himself than Yu. "She'll be here."

"So why do you have to be so secretive?" Yu asks.

Zen doesn't reply. He just paces back and forth in front of the stairs, absorbed in his own world.

Yu starts folding the map he'd been drawing on an old receipt he'd found on the street into a crane to keep his mind from wandering too much when two figures come down the stairs.

"Zen!"

"Rei!"

The two embrace, but Yu's eye is drawn to the person who came with Rei. It's a boy in a Gekkoughan uniform and headphones.

"Rei, who's this?" Zen asks, echoing Yu's own thoughts.

"He can fight the police, Zen!" Rei says excitedly. "He helped me get here!"

"Hi. I don't speak French, so I can't actually understand what you're saying, but I'm Minato Arisato."

"She said you helped her get here." Yu explains. "Are you a Persona user by any chance?"

Minato's unobscured eye widens. "Oh thank god, someone I can understand. Yeah, I'm a Persona user. Did you lose your friends too?"

Yu nods. "It seems we're in the same boat then. Any clue what's going on?"

"All I know is I was in Tartarus one second, then everything started going crazy, and now I'm here."

"Tartarus?"

"Yeah, you know. Giant tower that appears during the Dark Hour, full of shadows?"

"Dark Hour? Sorry, I don't know what exactly you're talking about." Yu says. "But, the place where we go to fight shadows started acting weird too, before it spit me out here."

"This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder." Minato sighs.

"Then I guess we should probably try and stick with Zen and Rei. I've got a feeling we can trust them."

"Yeah, me too. But neither of them fight, right?" Minato smiles and sticks out his hand. "So looks like for now, we're partners."

"Agreed," Yu says, taking his hand. "My name is Yu Narukami."

*

"Your French is pretty good." Minato says after a battle. Shadows had jumped them at the stairs, so Zen wants to go somewhere more covered to explain. Time isn't passing normally here either, but at least now it's perpetually 8 AM instead of the crack of dawn.

"Thanks. My parents travel around a lot for work, and I picked up a few languages along the way." Yu says. "So, what do your parents do?"

"They're dead."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

Minato shrugs. "It's fine. Some people have 'em, some people don't. It's just how life goes. Do your parents know about your shadow-related extracurriculars?"

Yu bursts out laughing. "Oh my god, no. They're abroad doing business. I haven't heard from them all year."

"So the relationship there isn't great?"

"It's... strictly professional." Yu says after a minute.

"Oh."

"Nous arrivons!" Rei announces.

She and Zen gesture to a café, L'Horloge. There's an entrance in the alley next to it that they slip into.

"Finally." Minato all but collapses into a chair once they get inside.

"What I wouldn't give for some of the shrine fox's leaves." Yu says as he comes to sit down next to him.

"Is that a new way of saying weed?"

"No there's a literal fox that lives at a shrine who we take to the TV World and sells us these weird leaves" Yu explains.

"You buy weed from a fox?"

"It's not weed," Yu sounds annoyed, but he's smiling. "It just restores our energy so we can fight shadows longer."

Minato laughs. "I'm just messing with you. Think your fox is with your friends?"

Yu frowns. "No, I couldn't find her before we left so we went in without her. We don't have time to waste. The longer we take..." Yu trails off.

Zen says something quickly in French that rouses Yu from his thoughts.

"D'accord, desoleé." Yu says, then turns to Minato. "They're going to explain things now."

Minato nods, so Zen and Rei start explaining as Yu translates.

"This is a world where everyone is born with a mark on their palm." Zen says. He and Rei each hold out a hand, showing a clock face and a rabbit, respectively. "Each mark has one exact match, and that's the person you're destined to fall in love with and marry. But as you can see, ours don't match, which means we're not allowed to be together. I'm supposed to fall in love with a girl named Rhea- who I do love, but like a sister."

Rei slips her hands into Zen's. "The person who shared my mark, her name was Yuki. We were best friends at the hospital where we grew up, until she died. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, I'm not supposed to fall in love with anyone else. I'm supposed to die, alone."

"Is there anything we can do?" Minato asks. Yu translates the question with the same concern on his face.

Zen and Rei both say something at the same time.

"Uh... repetez, si vous-plait?" Yu asks.

Zen says something, and Rei looks at him angrily.

"What are they arguing about?" Minato whispers.

"Rei just wants to leave the city, while Zen wants to show us to the mayor."

"Why?"

"Apparently since we don't have soulmates, we can prove that the system is fallible. This mayor guy they keep talking about apparently just wants what's best for people, and thinks strictly enforcing soulmate pairs is the best way to spread peace and love. If he sees people without the soulmate marks, he'll realize those aren't the sole definers of happiness."

Minato crosses his arms. "I can see both sides, I guess. Is there any guarantee the thing with the mayor would work?"

"Doesn't seem like it." Yu says. "Still, I'm inclined to agree with Zen, if only because it might give us a chance to find our friends sooner."

"But it wouldn't be that inconvenient to help them get outside the city then find them. At least they'd be safe and we'd be able to move around more easily."

"Yeah, you've got a point." Yu sighs. "Either way, that's a lot of shadows we're going to have to fight our way through."

"Scared?" Minato says. "Tell you what, if we run into anything too big, I'll protect you."

Yu stares at him, then Minato bursts out laughing. "Oh my god, I'm sorry. That was so cheesy-"

"I liked it." Yu says softly.

"Really?"

Before Minato can really process that, there’s a bang at the door.

“Odds they just want to use the bathroom?” Minato asks.

“I’ve certainly never been that lucky.”

Zen moves in front of Rei while Yu and Minato prepare to fight. Sure enough the shadows break the door down.

He and Yu manage to fend them off, but then Minato's evoker gets knocked out of his hand. He sees the shadow ready for a second attack and braces for impact.

The hit never comes, however, and Minato opens his eyes to see Yu standing in front of him.

Yu collapses to the ground.

Minato grabs his evoker and rushes over to him. "Yu! Yu are you alright?"

"Y-yeah, I'm-" Yu winces.

Minato casts fire at the shadows, and puts a wall of flames between them. Minato kneels down in front of Yu and pulls him into his lap.

Yu's got a nasty gash on his head, and there seems to be a slightly purple tinge to his skin.

"Shit, you've been poisoned." Minato mutters.

"S-sorry."

"Don't worry about it. You hear my heartbeat? Just focus on that." Minato grabs a cloth napkin from a nearby bin and presses it to Yu's forehead. "Zen, Rei, you guys run."

They don't move.

"Guys, run! We'll be fine." Minato snaps.

Zen seeks to get it and grabs Rei's hand. They disappear into the smoke, just as more shadows break through.

*

Yu feels like he's been stuffed inside of Teddie's costume, rolled down a bumpy hill, and landed in a pile of weapons.

He opens his eyes slowly, and zeroes in on the man making a speech at a podium. Everything seems to freeze in place once Yu recognizes him.

"Namatame," he mutters. Yu pushes himself onto his knees. "Namatame!" he shouts. "Where's Nanako?"

The man looks annoyed to have his speech interrupted. "Who?"

Yu's nails bite into his palm as he crushes his card to summon Izanagi and forces himself to stand up.

"Yu!" Minato calls.

Yu finally registers that there are people here aside from Namatame. He has Izanagi attack the guards surrounding Minato, who in turn summons Orpheus.

With Minato accounted for, Yu turns back to Namatame.

"Now, where is Nanako?" Yu asks as he stalks over to the "mayor"

"I d-don't know who that is!" Namatame whimpers. He keeps repeating himself, and Yu is a second away from breaking the guys nose when he realizes that Namatame isn't lying.

"What the hell?" Yu mutters. The anger that was fueling him dissipates, and Yu stumbles backwards. What the hell is going on here?

"Yu, let's go!" Minato shouts.

Yu follows him in a daze and doesn't even pay attention to where they're going, until he all but crumples onto the street.

"'M sorry," Yu mutters, "I-

"Did not have the energy for that? I can tell."

Minato helps Yu sit up against the wall of a building. “Ok so what’s your deal with that guy?”

“My friends and I are trying to catch a serial killer.” Yu explains. “They kidnap their victims and throw them into the TV World, where the victim will be killed by their own shadow if we don’t rescue them in time.”

“And Namatame is that killer?”

Yu nods. “We managed to pinpoint him as the kidnapper and he… he ran into the TV World with my cousin.”

“So that’s Nanako?”

“Yeah. I only met her this year when I came to Inaba, but she’s become like my little sister. If I let anything happen to her-”

“This isn’t your TV world.” Minato says. “You said so yourself, and besides how would I have gotten here? So whoever that is, he’s not the Namatame you know, and Nanako isn’t here either.”

“I know. I know, I snapped when I shouldn’t have. If the others saw me like that-”

Minato sits down next to him. “Hey, you’re their leader, right? I’m sure they understand you’re under a lot of stress.”

Yu smiles “Yeah.”

Minato doesn’t return the gesture.

“You know.” he says, “you have this thing you do sometimes where you smile like your about to cry.”

Yu’s shoulders slouch. “It’s just I act as their leader, but I’m sure I’d be nothing without them. My friends faced their Shadows, and came out stronger for it, but I never met mine. To make up for that, though I’ve had my friends to help me mature. It’s my companions that I draw strength form in all this, and now I don’t know where they are or if they’re alright.”

“Well, I’m here. You can lean on me too.”

Yu doesn’t say anything, just leans his head against Minato’s shoulder.

Eventually, Minato hears a soft snoring. He moves to get up and leave Yu alone, but a hand grabs his sleeve.

“Wait.” Yu murmurs, “Don’t move away, not yet.”

[lokiarsene]

More PQ2 liveblog thoughts–this time with no salt!

Ryuji acknowledging that what Kamoshida did wasn’t just physical abuse, and that what he put Ann through was even worse than that, was really refreshing to see, especially since the base game did very little to actually show Ryuji understand and acknowledge and care about Ann’s feelings and what she suffered. Any hope of development he had once Kamoshida was apprehended just went out the window, so kudos, PQ2.

Akechi telling Ryuji and Ann, who are particularly vocal about how much they hate Kamoshida (with good reason!) that he understands how they feel is…. painful. Very painful. Especially since what set them off is how absurd it is to think of a whole city built around the idea that Kamoshida is a hero. Of course Akechi would understand how that feels: the entire country of Japan thinks his piece of shit father is a good man.

I painted a tile red by accident, and Ann chimed in by saying it was a nice color. Of COURSE she’d like the color red. ;_;

I can’t believe I forgot this, but the contrast of Akechi having Bless/Light skills, and Joker having Curse/Dark? I love it. I love it a LOT. To me this is the most clear sign that Akechi really did have the capacity for goodness in him, that if he hadn’t been mistreated and deprived, he’d be the true hero his childhood self clearly wished he could be (see also: Robin Hood). And with that line of thinking, I find it equally fascinating that Ren’s innate talent is Curse/Dark.

I don’t pay much attention to the P5 fandom, but from what little I’ve glimpsed, people seem to have this misconception that Ren is some uwu cinnamon roll, when this is so damn far from the truth I really wonder if these people like,,, actually,,, paid attention to the game they were playing. Ren’s ultimate persona is Satanael. It shoots the Demiurge in the fucking face. His whole shtick is a gentleman rebel intent on purging corruption and impurity from society, and he does this while being affiliated with Dark himself. I think a lot of people, even some Akeshu shippers, may overlook Ren’s own capacity for darkness and controlled viciousness in the name of justice. People who evade the law must be dragged screaming back to the rule of law. There’s a reason why his dynamic with Akechi is as compelling as it is, and it’s because they are absolute equals, cordial rivals with similar powers, motivations, and yes, even inclinations.

I’m just saying, if people are able to see Akechi’s potential for being different/better than what he was, then the same can be said for Ren in the reverse. And by some accounts he really is quite questionable, though I’ve previously discussed the moral ambiguity of forcing a conscience onto the minds/hearts of people instead of allowing them to go to it willingly. Personally I stand with Akechi on the matter–FORCING change on someone, no matter how corrupt they are, is a problem unto itself. But I also agree with Akechi in that some people are so corrupt they just need a good killin’ though, so… y'know. Grain of salt and all.

All-Out Attacks in this are ALSO adorable. God I’m enjoying the look/style of this so much more than I did Q1, weirdly enough.

Boy I did not in any way at all miss Justine and… what’s the other one. Christine? Something? Oh no, it’s Caroline. Whatever. I didn’t miss them, and they are by far the lamest of the Velvet Room attendants. Anyone have any ideas as to why Ren’s VR attendants would be children? Because as far as I know in the other games, except for 2, the VR attendants were some reflection of the Wild Card user themselves. The VR attendant was either someone who would be their peer, someone they could learn from, or, with Yu and Margaret, a guiding figure, stern but helpful. And then Marie showed up so… whatever, I guess. I guess Yu learned how to listen to terrible poetry from a tsundere goth or something? Not sure.

I haven’t quite figured out how/why Justine and Caroline–and then Lavenza–can in any way relate to Ren, and part of me wants to say they were actually meant to be Akechi’s VR attendants if he were a true Wild Card user. Children with two different personalities with a strong sense of justice that doesn’t yield no matter what? That fits Akechi quite well. Those attendants then merging into a gentle but determined, soft-spoken girl who only wishes to find the truth and reveal it? That fits Akechi too. It reflects a gentleness/softness, a purity that he lost too soon.

When I put it that way, I can kinda see how they would fit with Ren, who is also seeking the truth because of his muddled memories (which is so convoluted, oh my god, don’t get me started), but they make so much more sense if I think of them as leftovers that were meant to go to Akechi first. But since Akechi isn’t a Wild Card user…. womp womp.

Mona’s outburst that Ryuji should respect Justine and Caroline, then backpedaling to say no, he doesn’t know them, but [respecting them] “just feels right” is………….. really interesting. He says they have something “unwavering” within them, and when they look at him, he gets the feeling he just has to listen to them–“there’s something deep in my core, this feeling that screams ‘I have to do what they say!’ wells up inside me.” IN TER EST ING.

And FINALLY your whole crew can join you in the Velvet Room! Takes me back to P2 days.

Akechi: “Still, two Personas at the same time? I’m impressed. My hat’s off to you, Ren.” FDJSKLFDSLK AKECHI YOU BRILLIANT MOTHERFUCKER

!!!

AND NOW MY BUDDIES CAN HAVE MULTIPLE PERSONA

FUCK YEAH FUN TIME

And Justine/Caroline speculate that the power of the Wild Card is changing to adapt, since “another with the power of the wild card is here as well.” I’m guessing that refers to the P3 or P4 protag?

After playing other JRPGs, I realized something about the Persona series that stands out and that I really enjoy: how talkative your teammates are. They encourage you, cheer you on, compliment you for an attack, express fear if you’re hurt; they thank you for the help you give them, they comment on how much health or SP they lose–it all feels that much more engaging and exciting.  Plus it’s a small but really special way to show off their personalities and just how they work together as a team.

OH MY GOD

MY GAL MINAKO MAKING THE BEST FUCKING ENTRANCE

THAT’S MY GAL DSJKLAFJSDKL LET ME PUT HER IN MY PARTY DFJSKLFDaaa AND THE BATTLE MUSIC CHANGES TO P3-STYLED MUSIC WHEN SHE’S HERE JKFDSAJKLFSDAJFLSDJFKLSD OH MY GOD I WANT TO CRY

This is the kinda fanservice I live for, idc. The kind of fanservice that is fun and harmless, that just makes the story exciting. Because who doesn’t love a good crossover?

Oh my god hearing the P3 music again makes me want to tear up. Y'all don’t know how special P3 is to me ;_; It means so… so so so much. And seeing her again, and hearing this music, just fills my heart with so much painjoy that I want to cry.

I GET TO NAME HER? DFJSLAKFDSKL I JUST BURST INTO TEARS. I KNOW THIS IS RIDICULOUS BTIA FKJDSL SHE’S JSUT SO SPECIAL AND!! ATLUS IS FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGING HER!!!a

As a side note, I’m really touched to see Akechi interacting with others that aren’t in the PT. He is genuinely kind to them–a pleasant boy indeed.

“I watch the news pretty regularly, too.” Considering how many times you can check the TV in the dorm in P3, and that SEES would keep an eye on the Apathy Syndrome cases, she’s not lying. Good on Atlus for putting that in there.

Watching Minako bond with Futaba over headphones, and be so kind and friendly, just… warms my heart. THAT’S the P3 protag I know and love.

//THE POPCORN MAKER IS A TRANSPOSITION KILN, LIKE FROM DARK SOULS 3 FADSJKLFDS// THIS IS THE GREATEST GAME EVER MADE

Justine and Caroline confirm that the other Wild Card user they sensed was Minako, which I suppose makes it canon (sorta?) that Akechi is not a Wild Card user, and that his two Persona are likely a special case, caused by the severe split in his motives and in his heart thanks to Shido.

Persona fusion in this is really cute! Justine and Caroline slowly merge the film, do a dance, and butterfly wings sprout from their backs!

“But nothing’s certain in this world, and this problem isn’t going to solve itself.” I FUCKING LOVE YOU, MINAKO.

Watching Futaba struggle but still go through with trying to reach out to Hikari, to explain how difficult it was for her to socialize and share her time with others, also makes me look at P5 in a nicer light. I really did think Futaba had one of the better S-Links, it’s just that pedophilia bullshit that was a GIANT RED FLAG distracting me from the rest of it. If her S-Link had something like this instead–Futaba finds a girl who is like her, and wants to help her since she understands exactly how she feels, but she wants Ren’s help/advice with it–I would have been much happier.

YOU CAN PUT MINAKO IN YOUR PARTY OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Her Japanese voice is adorable by the way–so bright and friendly and warm.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Curious, who's your favorite Persona MC?

(sorry for taking so long with this too ;w;) Including spinoffs, manga, and anime (not dramaCDs cause I haven’t listened to all of them tho I should note I do like the P3P one, both male and female side, nor novels cause....they haven’t been translated....tho that’d really only apply to P1MC’s novel form aka “Jihei”). I also don’t know where to put Anime!Ren, probably after P1MC if “Ren is kind of just their” fan’s testament is anything to go by.

Hamuko/P4MC/Souji/Maya>Naoya/Tatsuya/Moive!Makoto>Spinoff!Yu/Spinoff!Makoto>P3MC/Minato/Akira>Raito!Ren/Daybreakers!P5MC>P1MC>>>>Anime Golden!Yu>>>>>>Anime!Yu>>>>>>>>P5MC

Under the cut for explanation

I should note main games (P1-5), I like all MCs except for P5MC. And Hamuko includes P3P and PQ2 tbh. Btw I think Maya and Tatsuya are equally great, at that point it’s just preference I like playing as Maya more, but I still love Tatsuya.

For the first quadrant (P2 I’ll just say Maya/Tatsuya are both well written with clear character as both silent MCs and side characters, but their MC form allows a bit of choice....not a whole lot cause they are pretty solidified characters, but their characters are great regardless): The reason I like Hamuko and P4MC is....because....they have a lot of personality and a lot of choice. Like....you can really form them any which way you want, make them consistent or contradictory, a good person or an asshole. Each dialogue voice is clear, they are also the two MCs that can effect their story the most (at least with their SLs). It’s a joy playing as them. As for Souji, I just really like the manga a lot, like he starts off pretty there but slowly he opens up and we see his past and he uses it to relate to people around him (and what little establishing perspective in the early chapters show something similar to an Adachi mindset and it’s just really nice to see that his character really DOES show how Adachi’s life could’ve turned out if he had a support system, it really does a good job just.....establishing just that parallel). Is the P4 manga perfect? Nah, nothing is, but I think it’s the better of the two Sogabe works.

For the 2nd quadrant (already talked about P2 above):  Naoya? Great, really good character, really gave him a lot of personality! P1 manga feels like it lacks in developing/completing arcs outside of Naoya and Maki, but Naoya and Maki? Great! Makoto Yuki? I really liked his character, while the movies can be a bit shaky in the middle (and I wish he was still a little more stoic in the 2nd one), I really like how he went from emotionless asshole to actually caring about his friends and his own well being!

3rd Quadrant: Spinoff Yu and Makoto, I think they are pretty solid, not super amazing (might put Makoto above Yu tbh but ehhhh I’m pretty even), but they are consistent. And when I mean spinoffs I mean where they talk not their silent forms in PQ1 (cause man they have two gears, nice and asshole....but then again PQ1 everyone is kind of an asshole for some reason 8U at least it’s consistent). Yu’s a bit of an airhead, but he feels like a capable leader and tbh feels very similar to Souji (not 100% Souji, but much closer to Souji than Anime!Yu is to Game!Yu, plus tbh Souji has some silly moments too so I can’t say he got it only from Anime!Yu).

4th Quadrant: So like I like Minato’s name more, but his manga is a bit all over the place. His personality is....hmmmm kinda just their? I mean I still believe him to be a capable leader, but he feels more just their (possibly commentary that...like....plot’s happening all around the P3MC off screen? which I’ll give some points for). That being said he does have some funny moments, and I do get a sense of “not really caring to caring about friends and his surroundings” journey from him (it’s not as apparent or drastic or interesting as Makoto Yuki but it’s there). As for Akira.....at least for the first two dungeons, I actually really like him? Like it took a bit to look past the.....expression....struggle art (it’s not great with facial expressions ok? I dunno what to call it), but after looking past it I saw something. He’s really a 100% just a giant freaking n00b. They all are! And.....I LOVE IT! I hate how P5 it feels like “oh yeah we’re so freaking cool! look at how freaking cool they are! gawd we just instantly get cool!” And like, P5 manga has it’s cool moments of course, but after the initial summoning it’s like “oh shit they actually are just winging it and they are owning the fact they don’t know what they are doing and aren’t really trying to act like they are hot shit” (cause PT aren’t hot shit but act like they are in every interpretation except for this one, and it’s endearing because of it). I mean I don’t like his name, I prefer Ren’s name, but I prefer Akira’s interpretation the most. As for P3MC, I do like him, and in all honesty I dunno if I should be putting Minato/Akira on the same level, nor P3MC/Minato on the same level. While I value P3MC, he is a bit boring to play as, mostly in part due to his SLs. He does have some funny moments, and I think while he might not be a total jokester, he def is a lot more fluid in interpretation than I feel a lot of people will allow him to be. I think he can be fairly open, maybe not as bombastic as FeMC might take it, or as extroverted as P4MC, but I don’t think he’s 100% grim dark emo boi everyone makes him out to be. But compared to FeMC/P4MC, he doesn’t have as much variety as them, on top of his lines being pretty generic (I mean he has a voice tho, but the dialogue isn’t all that crazy a lot of the times......well unless you went 100% asshole route, but you don’t want to go that route, you will screw yourself if you go that route cause of how his SLs work 8U)

5th Quadrant: Raito does a good job with Ren in both Mementos Missions and his anthology chapter in the first anthology book (tho he wasn’t called Ren or anything in that chapter I don’t think). Raito  gives him character, gives us some background regarding his issues with adults (not canon, and mostly in the anthology comic, but it’s something), and tbh it’s just all around better than the game. That being said.....he’s.....I like Raito, and I’m having fun, and I like their art, but I still just don’t.....really care about Raito!Ren.....I’m just not super into him. As for Daybreakers!P5MC, he has a bit of a different personality, a bit more of a “I don’t really care” personality....which I’d probably wouldn’t like considering how I feel about P5MC proper, but his “I don’t care” is more of a “Rip to me, cross that burning bridge when I get to it I guess. XP” than “I’m confessing to you but I’m like super checked out and don’t really look like I care” feel the P5MC game gives me. We don’t really spend a whole lot of time with him sadly, but what we do see is fun (in a similar vein to Mementos’ Missions). Him and his team are.....weird in personality tho, I mean I can’t say I hate it, but it’s not like the game or any other adaptation, and I wish we could see more of it expanded on. It’s just a weird dynamic and personality that I can’t just outright say I dislike cause it’s not really developed enough.....

6th/7th Quadrant: P1MC.....nothing really bad about him tbh, but from what I’ve played and remember from P1.....he is the most true and 100% blank slate MC out there. I think that’s the point of him tho (cause even the ending is “you come up with what happens to him”). And I can’t/don’t hate on it, but it’s not exactly super duper fun to play as him cause he doesn’t have a variety of options like FeMC/P4MC (or even P3/5MC), but he also doesn’t have a super duper defined personality like Maya/Tatsuya. I don’t hate him tho! Just.....eh I’ll stick to the manga or any other adaptation. Golden Anime!Yu.....From what I remember and seen of the anime, he was generally a good guy, uber goofy but nice. That’s....all..... I mean I can’t hate on him too much, his anime doesn’t allow him to do a lot of things cause it’s just a string of OVAs tbh.

8th/9th Quadrant: Sigh......oh.......Geez.....I really hate first anime!Yu....a lot, I mean the anime and Anime!Yu have....their good moments, they have some REALLY GOOD moments.....but they also have some REALLY BAD “this wasn’t in the game, this is totally conflicting with the game what are you doing????” Moments. The biggest is his personality, he’s an asshole. They have him choose a lot of asshole comments but instead of.....being treated as an asshole for saying it, everyone is like “Oh ok :P Lol you da best dude!” and moves on (and this is reflected in how they mishandle A LOT of the what should be serious moments in the anime, and I say should because they were serious in the game, sure characters might’ve been uncomfortable but they didn’t risk the lives of people to make jokes and such). I think he’s an asshole, I do not like him, I really hate this adaptation a lot. As for P5MC? I ranked him lower but tbh they could just be tied for all I care, the issue is I have to spend more time with this jerk than Anime!Yu (and at least Anime!Yu has a freaking voice and has some good moments). But I’ve already gone over my issues with P5MC.

I basically prioritize either freedom of a silent MC, or the quality of their personality if their personality is more solidified (both points are more aimed at the games, specifically silent MCs). And then how I like the character as a character in adaptations (aka if I think they are an asshole, and the context of that universe allows them to get away with it or they’re just really unlikeable.....then yeah I won’t like them....I bring up the extra explanation on this cause I DO like some asshole characters, but that’s usually cause they are 1) acknowledged as an asshole, and 2) there’s some other world building factor at play, maybe everyone in that world is an asshole ala MPGIS/Panty and thus equal and Stocking, or they get their just deserts for being an asshole ala Victoria in Life is Strange, still can’t explain why I’m fascinated with this jerk but I am, but Yu and P5MC don’t fit under those two exceptions and thus I do not like them), there can be other reasons I don’t like a character, it’s a case by case basis tbh. 8U

So there’s my essay, maybe it’ll change when I re-read the mangas or re-watch the animes.

Oh wait...I forgot Shin and Kazumi (PTS and P2 manga MCs)....uhhhh put them with Spinoff!Yu/Makoto, they’re solid from what I remember. Might move them later.

[panda-noosh]

ser•en•dip•it•y {part 6}{Matt Holt x Reader}

Words: 4725

Summary:  You and Matt used to be childhood best friends, but that hadn’t been the case for nearly four years now. Whenever your parents insist on going to the Holt family country home for the summer, you may be forced to face old feelings as Matt makes an appearance.

Pairing: Matt Holt x Reader

Notes: p1 - p2 - p3 - p4 - p5 - FINAL; yeehaw.

  Chapter 6

 You knew there was a definite sense of desperation in your system for you to have agreed to meet up with Keith Kogane during the summer. 

    You and Keith had never entirely had a friendship, per se. Both of you were well aware that the only time you two ever really spoke was whenever the other was in need of homework, or help with studying, and even then the conversation would be minor. Your relationship was based around lost library cards, college student mental breakdowns and passing pens to one another around the classroom after the teacher had already scolded you for not bringing one of your own.

    Never before had you met up with Keith outside of those circumstances, and the idea of doing so made you oddly nervous.

    You were a completely different person outside of the classroom. Whenever you were sat in front of the board, or crowded by books, you were focused. You had something to talk about. You could keep a manageable conversation up because there was a conversation to be had.

   Now, what if things went silent? You and Keith would meet up for coffee, and you’d just sit in an awkward silence, making dumb small talk until you finally realised how bad of an idea this was and left.

    That apparently hadn’t stopped you from agreeing, though.

    Keith had texted you the night after your conversation with Jamie, asking you if you’d like to meet up for coffee for a ‘quick catch up.’ You were puzzled by his choice of words - there was nothing to catch up on. You and Keith had never been caught up with each other, unless complaining about algebra equations was a suitable description of such a statement.

    You had sent back agreeing before you could argue yourself out of it, and now here you were - waiting for the black haired man to arrive.

    You wore a frilly, white summer shirt and high waisted, light blue jeans. It was fancier than you were used to, your summer wardrobe usually consisting of nothing but tank tops and shorts, but you felt like making an effort would be appreciated. Perhaps wearing something pretty would make your mood lift a little bit.

    You had to admit, being away from the house was helping matters much more than you thought they would. Finally being able to escape the non-stop tension that now brewed between everybody within those walls was like taking a breath of fresh air. 

    Keith arrived on time - it was you who had been early, insisting you get there before the acquired time so you could practice your greeting before Keith actually showed his face.

    But now here he was, his red jacket pulled on over a black shirt with a belted pair of brown trousers and boots; always the kid who wanted to be in the Garrison, and his clothing choice proved such a thing to you. He had once been a student at the Garrison, you were aware, but had dropped out shortly after and had gone back to public college to finish his degree.

    “Keith!” you exclaimed. He looked up from his phone and immediately his face brightened. He crossed the street with a light jog to his step before, taking you by complete surprise, he wrapped one arm around you and tugged you into a slightly awkward side hug.

    “Y/N! It’s so good to see you,” he said. You patted his stomach, unsure of what else to do. He pulled away and looked down at you, stuffing his phone back into the pockets of his Garrison gear. “Were you waiting long? I thought I got the time right, but my phone’s been playing up lately so I could be very, very late.”

    You chuckled, shaking your head. “No, no. I was a bit early, but I wasn’t waiting too long. Wanna go and get a drink?”

   He nodded an affirmative and the two of you waltzed back into the crowded coffee shop. It was a cosy place, leather sofas set up and candles lit on each one. Large, condensation-littered jugs of water had been set in the centre of each table, and you had to admit that they looked incredibly tempting.

    You ordered a hot chocolate at the counter, held it between your hands as if it was a cold winters day rather than scolding hot outside.

   Keith ordered a caramel mocha before you two found seats on the far side of the shop, away from all of the prying eyes that didn’t exist; nobody was looking at either of you, but you felt oddly scrutinised. Perhaps it was the reputation of Keith not wearing off just yet. He wasn’t exactly known for being the friendliest person in the school, though the time you had spent together - as meaningless as it was at the time - had shown you otherwise. 

    “Sorry for texting you so out of the blue,” Keith began, and you almost let out a sigh of relief at the immediate conversation. “My friend told me you wouldn’t mind if I texted you - Jamie. You might know him?”

    You took a sip of your hot chocolate to hide your laugh. “Jamie? It doesn’t ring a bell, but I’m glad he told you that. I was surprised, but it was nice. I haven’t seen anyone outside of my own family for nearly three weeks.”

     Keith frowned then, leaning back in the plush leather sofa. “Are you not staying with the Holt family for the summer like you always do?”

     You frowned. “How did you know?”

    “Everybody was riled up that Matthew Holt was back from the Garrison. He was the only one out of our class that passed the exams and managed to get in, so everybody wanted to see him, to ask him what it was like.” He shrugged. “Plus, you two were always so close. I just assumed that if anybody would have spoken to him, it would have been you.”

     Involuntarily, a blush crept along the edge of your throat and onto your cheeks. You wanted to change the subject, talk about anything other than the person Keith seemed to admire so much; looking into his violet eyes now, you saw that his opinion of Matt was nothing less than friendly. 

     “I am staying with him and his family, actually,” you replied. 

     Keith’s eyes popped open over the rim of his coffee cup. “Really? Did he tell you anything about his time at the Garrison?”

    “I’m surprised you’re so interested. Did you not spend a few months there?”

   Keith relaxed then, a lazy smile appearing on his lips as if he was happy that somebody had finally recognised his short time at the all-superior school of the Garrison.

     “I did, actually,” he replied. “Only a few months. It was a bit too - controlling for my taste.”

    You hummed. “I heard it can overwhelm people quite a bit.”

   “It wasn’t overwhelming,” he insisted, clearly trying to make himself out to seem a little bit tougher than he truly was. You found yourself amused by the way his voice rose an octave higher as he came to his own defence. “The teachers were assholes.”

    You laughed then. “Would you ever go back?”

    “I don’t think I’d be allowed back. I broke all kinds of rules whenever I left - it wasn’t exactly an organised departure.”

    “So the rumours are true? You just got up, stole one of their jets and left in the middle of the night?”

    Keith blushed, ducking his head down to look at his crossed legs. “Something like that. It was more difficult than that, but that’s the basic jidst of it.”

    You gawked. The rumours had been circulating campus for months after Keith arrived - or, reappeared would be a better term - but you had never believed any of them. The idea of somebody stealing from the Garrison - leaving the Garrison in general - was beyond your wildest imagination. The school was prestigious, one of the most difficult flight centres to get into. Anybody who had managed to get in didn’t just want to leave straight after. 

    And yet Keith Kogane was different, clearly, though you found yourself not entirely surprised. He didn’t seem like the type of guy who liked being pinned down to one thing, and by the sounds of the Garrison, it was an extremely difficult place to become comfortable in.

    “Is Matt enjoying his time there?” Keith asked, suddenly. You hadn’t realised that you had stopped talking, abruptly making the conversation end towards that awkward silence you were so adamant to avoid.

    You nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, he says it’s great. He worked hard to get into it, so I’m assuming he’s just taking every moment as he can.”

    “As he should do,” Keith said. “He was always passionate about flying, I remember. So were you at one point.”

    You blushed, remembering your thirteen-fourteen year old self, sitting beside Matt in the school playground, talking animatedly away about your dreams of overtaking the skies together. Your dreams of sitting side-by-side in a fighter jet, taking down enemies, saving the world.

    The mere idea of you in a jet made you cringe now, knowing your stance on the whole thing. 

     “Didn’t everyone want to be something stupid when they were younger?” you asked, a mild nudge in a different direction. You didn’t want to reminisce on your time with Matt, lest the truth of your and Matt’s strained relationship slipped through.

    Keith nodded. “I wanted to be a Galra.”

    You giggled, covering your mouth. “A Galra? Why would you want to be one of those?”

     “My mum was a big fan of the Galran lour,” Keith explained, nudging your knee slightly as you continued to laugh into your hand. “I read some of the books she brought home and thought they were just living the god damn life. It’s wild, I know.”

    “Such a boy thing to do.”

   Keith grinned. “Alright, Amelia Earhart. Going through space in your favourite rocket ship, or whatever way the song goes.”

    You gasped, flicking your foot out and kicking Keith in the shin. He laughed at the movement, pushing you back lightly. “A fighter jet, Keith. I wanted to pilot a fighter jet. A rocket ship and a jet are two very different things.”

    “You’d know,” he chuckled. “Nerd.”

  Your day with Keith went surprisingly well, you found. 

    Though the romantic air you had been worried would form had made no such appearance, that didn’t make the day any less meaningful. You realised, as Keith and you approached your front door, that a friendship could sometimes mean a whole lot more than any type of romantic relationship.

    The night air was settling over the two of you by now, eleven o’clock spinning around all too quickly for you to comprehend. The day had ended in a fit of giggles in the middle of the park after Keith had insisted on trying to paint with mud. He had ended up nearly sinking within the mud put, and you had been forced to drag him out, getting your own outfit dirty in the process.

    But it was friendly, and you hadn’t realised how much you craved such a connection with somebody over the past three weeks. 

    The lights from the summer home came into view as you pushed open the metal gate and led Keith into the garden. He had expressed his refusal to go inside of the house, worried he would either bump into your parents or wake them up, and you had agreed. Leading Keith Kogane into the same house as Matt seemed like an awful idea, especially when you were covered from head-to-toe in sun-dried mud.

    “So I guess this is goodnight,” Keith said as you two approached the lit-up door. You turned to him, placing your hands in front of you as you smiled.

    “Seems so,” you replied. “I hope we can do this again soon, Keith. I had a good time.”

    “So did I,” he said. “Even though you insisted on giving me an extremely detailed run-down of the mechanics of a fighter jet.”

    You shoved his shoulder. “And don’t you forget any of it. I’ll be testing you when we get back on campus.”

    “I’ll make sure to study.” The two of you chuckled lightheartedly, the air dim around you, calm. The calmest it had been around you in weeks. It felt good, like a boulder had been lifted from your shoulders and discarded elsewhere, allowing you to just feel again.

    As you and Keith shared your final goodbyes, the door behind you opened.

    You turned, expecting Jamie to be there, or even your parents. They always managed to say thank you to the person who brought you home safely - they were just those types of people.

    But your stomach flipped whenever you met the beaming, tired eyes of Matt Holt, standing by the door with his buff arms folded over his shoulders.

    “Matt,” you squeaked before you could stop yourself. “What are you still doing downstairs?”

    “I told your parents I’d make sure you got home safely,” he replied, his eyes trailing over Keith in an almost sinister way - as if Keith were prey.

    You had a sudden urge to scold him, to tell him to mind his own business because it was no secret why he was doing this - he was either wanting a fight with you, or wanting a fight with Keith.

    Going by the look on his face now, it was Keith he was wanting to hit more.

    “Well, I’m home,” you said. “You can go to bed now. I can get myself tucked in nice and cosy all on my own.”

    Keith frowned. “I should go-”

    “Why is there mud all over your shirt?” Matt said. His voice wasn’t stern - Matthew Holt was incapable of sounding angry - and his fingers weren’t rough as they plucked at the frills of your white shirt, frowning at the mess that had been made.

    You shoved his hand away before pressing your palms into his shoulders, pushing him back into the house. “No reason, Matt. Go to bed. I just need to say goodnight to Keith and-”

   “You need to get clean clothes on before the bugs start biting at your skin,” said Matt, and before you could even turn to say your final goodbye to Keith, Matt had slammed the door shut and was locking it.

    You stood behind him, totally in shock and disbelief that Matt - the Matt, the kind hearted man who wouldn’t hurt a fly if his life depended on it - was being so rude to a person he barely even knew. Somebody who had gone out of their way to make sure you got home safely and in one piece, and he was treating him like shit.

     Matt turned after the final lock was done up, trailed his eyes over your mud stained outfit and sighed. “I’ll get you some water whilst you get out of those clothes. How long have you been in them? I need to know how long to put the spin on.”

    He attempted to walk past you, but your hand shot out and grabbed his wrist before he could get much further. He stopped abruptly, stumbling a little bit at the sudden contact, but you were utterly seething, in disbelief.

    “What the hell was that, Matt?”

    He raised a brow, and your blood only boiled to a much more extreme extent. You wanted to scream, wanted answers, wanted to kiss him all at the same time.

    It was an odd feeling. Seeing him being jealous was satisfying in the sense that you knew you weren’t insane for feeling the same - if Matt had come home with a girl, you knew full well you’d probably be acting the exact same way.

    But it was Keith, and you had firmly established that Keith was nothing more than your friend. Keith knew that, as well. Matt should have known that.

     “I don’t know what you mean,” he replied after a moment.

    You gritted your teeth. “Matt, this isn’t funny. Whatever it is you’re doing, I don’t want to be a part of it, okay? Let me do what I want, or stay out of my life.”

    The words burned. The idea of Matt exiting your life - at your request, as well - was heartbreaking, but you stood your ground. You kept your eyes firm on his, never once looking away, even as you saw the bold emotion that he once held within them shatter completely.

    “Go get out of those clothes,” he mumbled at last. “Bring them down and I’ll wash them.” He pulled his arm out of your grip, ran his eyes over you one last time before he headed into the kitchen, leaving you stunned in the centre of the living room.

    Despite the exhaustion that rattled your bones, you did as Matt said.

    You could have easily flopped down onto your mattress and gone to bed in the clothes you wore, as dirty as they were, but you knew Matt had been right in telling you to change. The bugs that no doubt littered the fabric now was bound to get you sick if you let them linger for too long. 

    You shed the clothes and got changed into a pair of night shorts and a tank top, turning on the ceiling fan in your room before exiting and heading back into the kitchen with your bundle of dirty clothes still in your hands.

     By the silence of the house, everybody bar you and Matt had gone to bed. You could hear Jamie and Pidge talking in hushed whispers inside their room, but you knew they would be like that for hours now. You wouldn’t have to worry about either of them coming out to ask you about your day out.

    Matt stood over the washing machine, adding in the detergent. He hadn’t turned around before you were coming up to the side of him and placing your bundle of clothes into it.

    “There. I did as you said,” you grumbled. You turned lazily, your bones creaking and complaining with every step you took. Despite having been on a hike almost everyday for the past three weeks, you were still incredibly unused to running around and losing breath and being active. You were a college student; free time to do such activities was not a luxury you could afford.

    “Y/N, wait a second,” Matt suddenly called out. Against your better judgement, you stopped and turned to look at him.

    He was still leaning over the washing machine, hands gripping the edges with his shoulders rising and falling, indicating his heavy breathing. You had the urge to reach out and place a comforting hand on his shoulder, not enjoying seeing him look so broken, so lost, but you stood your ground and folded your arms over your chest.

    “What?”

    He flinched at the harshness of the single word. “We should talk. I don’t want to keep fighting like this.”

    “That’s the point I’ve been trying to make,” you grumbled.

    He turned around now, looking at you with mildly bloodshot eyes that indicated his own exhaustion. He was fighting it off to speak to you.

     “At dinner the other day, we were both being childish. If we want to sort this out, we shouldn’t do it whilst yelling over our families heads - it’s not fair on them.”

    “I know.”

    “So let’s talk now. Here. Like adults.”

    Your fingers dug into the flesh of your upper arm. “Matt, I don’t even know where to begin.”

    “Pick a random place. Tear me apart. Just talk.”

    The desperation in his voice startled you. You swallowed down the lump in your throat and sighed, letting your head fall to look at your arms, which were bumped with goose flesh despite the warm weather.

     “I don’t want to do long distance, Matt. That’s all there is to it. There’s nothing I can say.”

     Matt nodded slowly, as if hearing those words for the first time, finally understanding them, You could tell by the way his knuckles suddenly grew white against the edge of the washing machine that he was struggling to come to terms with such a thing, but you respected that he was at least seeing things from your perspective.

    Your voice wobbled when you spoke. “What about you? What do you want?”

    His Adam’s apple bobbed, and suddenly he couldn’t meet your eyes. It was like looking at a child up on stage during their first Nativity play - nervous, unsure of what to do, waiting for their turn to speak with the most neutral expression on their face.

    “Do you want to hear the honest truth?”

    You nodded. “Always.”

    “I want to be with you, and I don’t think it’s selfish of me to want that,” he said, and your breath hitched. You had expected it - he had made his feelings very cleat, but hearing them so open and unfiltered had your heart beat slamming against your rib cage.

    He took a step closer to you. You fought the urge to back up, the heat from his body clashing with yours in a way that made your head swim.

    “I’ve wanted to be with you since we were - what? - fourteen? Probably even younger than that. Back then I didn’t know what it was I was feeling, or why I was feeling it, and we had spent so much of our time together denying that we were in a relationship, that I just kind of always believed that was how it was - me and you, friends. And I loved every minute of my friendship with you, Y/N, and I will take a platonic friendship over nothing any day, but god fighting off my feelings for you even after we lost touch was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do.”

   “Matt-”

   “I went to the Garrison because it was my dream to go to the Garrison. You knew that.”

    “I was so selfish whenever you told me about your dream to go there, Matt. I’ve apologised for it before, but-” 

    He stepped closer still, until you were forced to look up at him to meet his eyes. “And I will forgive you for it a thousand times over if it means we can have something.”

     Your breath hitched all over again, and you were positive your heart had stopped beating in your chest. You always knew he was poetic - he was a Holt. None of them knew how to form a sentence that didn’t have a hint of Shakespeare to it - but this was different. This was so, so much different and it made your body ache and your fingers twitch with a need to pull him closer to you, with a need to feel his skin against yours in the way you had felt in the lake that god forsaken day whenever you had made one of the biggest mistakes of your life.

    “You’re leaving at the end of the summer,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “I don’t want to go through that. Don’t make me go through that.”

    Matt closed his eyes, and almost absentmindedly, he reached down and tangled your fingers together. They fit perfectly. You wanted to cry.

    “I can promise you here and now, on every grave, that I will not just forget about you once I go back to school. I couldn’t forget about you four years ago, and I definitely can’t forget about you now.”

     Your lower lip wobbled. “I’m scared.”

     “Y/N, if it doesn’t work out-” He opened his eyes then and dragged your hand upwards, pressing it to the left side of his chest. You could feel the sweat through his shirt, feel his heartbeat beneath your fingertips. “-I give you permission to break my heart, okay? If being away from me makes you feel any sense of loneliness, like you can’t carry on the relationship, it would be my fucking honour to have you shatter my heart. But we can give it a chance if you want that, too. We can try this.”

     Your mouth had run dry. Your brain had already made up its decision, but the erratic beating of your heart was swerving you in an all-different direction. 

     Nevertheless, you found yourself curling your fingers in the fabric of his shirt, just to feel something - anything - beneath them at this point. Your head was dizzy with the memories of that night on the lake, his lips against yours and his hands roaming your body in the way that felt so oddly right and scandalous and wrong all at the same time.

    But there was nothing wrong about how you felt right now. Nothing scandalous or disapproved. You were so young, yet so sure and set-out upon your feelings - you had been sure of your feelings since you even knew what feelings were, what having a crush on somebody consisted of. You had joked about kooties, told everyone you would rather kiss Slav than go out with Matt Holt, but it had all been childish games back then.

    Oh, how you wished you could go back to childish games.

    You inhaled deeply. “I’ll give it my best shot.”

    There was nothing else needed to be said - not really. You felt Matt’s heart stutter beneath his shirt, before his hands were falling from your own and placing themselves on your waist.

    “You’re sure?”

    You nodded, biting your lip to hide the smile that was threatening to curl onto your features now. “I’m definitely sure.”

   “Thank God.”

    And then his lips were on yours, at long last. The kiss was soft, but as the realisation kicked in that everybody was asleep, that nobody would walk in you now, you both took the chance. His hands slip beneath the fabric of your shirt, rested on the bare skin of your waist as he span you around and pushed you into the fridge, pressing his own chest to yours shortly after.

    You gasped against the sudden coolness that slapped at your back, arching forward into Matt just a little. He groaned, lips never leaving yours but becoming increasingly messy as his mouth opened.

    Your hands roamed through his hair, tugging on strands, pulling him back before chasing his lips and pressing them back together again in a way that clearly drove the Holt boy absolutely mad - this breaking of lips and coming right back for more was going to bring both of you to an early grave at some point.

     Matt released one hand from your waist and placed it at the side of your head on the fridge. He leaned back then, the kiss fading into small pecks that consisted of breaking apart, staring into each others eyes, before pecking the others lips only slightly, and repeating the process until the laughter that was bubbling up inside of you made the movement impossible.

    Matt was panting as he leaned his forehead against yours. “I - I needed that tonight.”

    You nodded. “And what are best friends for, Matthew Holt?”

   He snarled - a most attractive noise coming out of his mouth, if you were to say so yourself. “I don’t ever want to hear you call me best friend again.”

    You grinned. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

    He slammed his lips back to yours all over again, lifted you up and you squealed. Matt laughed loudly, pulling away to place a startled glance up the stairs. You shrugged, tugging at his collar and pulling him back towards you.

    That night, Matt slept in your bed, and it was the best nights sleep you had ever gotten. 

[eatingfireflies]

What would you recommend to someone who's taken an interest in the Persona series?

hello hello! my first piece of advice is to ignore those hardcore megaten fans who will tell you to play a ‘real shin megami tensei game’ instead of the persona series. :p naaah, i’m pretty sure those folks are mostly joking. mostly. but everyone please play the smt games.

but seriously tho, since the games are pretty much stand-alone (with the exception of persona 2: innocent sin and persona 2: eternal punishment; and even then they niftily tell you that they’re actually connected seeing as how they’re both still p2), you’re good to go wherever you start.    

disclaimer that i haven’t actually played anything aside from p3/4 (and persona q) but here goes:

if you want to have an experience that is closer to the ‘classic’ smt (read: lots of the so-called smt bullshit), i’d reco p1 and p2, which are notoriously hard to beat. p2: eternal punishment is also touted amongst fans as having the best story in the franchise. if you’re kinda tired of having high school protags, eternal punishment is the way to go. i haven’t played these even tho it’s in the psn store because i can’t log into the psn store since i updated my vita’s firmware ages ago. wtf is this sony.

on the other hand, p3 i feel is the sort of turning point where the franchise started becoming its own thing aside from being a spin-off of the smt games. not that there’s anything bad about that, btw. i think it’s good that they’re different from the mainline games. where the previous persona games sort of leave you to do things whenever, p3 does time management where you have to finish so and so until x day. (something that carried through the rest of the games.) you also don’t need to do shadow negotiations to get new personas (which was put back in p5). 

lots of people reco p3 as an easing point into the smt franchise all in all, because it’s not quite as rage inducing (idk about that lol, that single dungeon thing can be tedious) as the other games but still maintains that dark/comedic balance that smt games are known for. if you like some horror and existentialism in your game (albeit with high school characters), then i’d reco this. (persona 3 fes is probably the better version, with a female protag also.) everyone is cool and so are you.

p4 golden is probably one of the best ones gameplay-wise, but since it sort of breaks away from the dark and serious tone of the series this might not be the best game to start off with. (ngl tho this IS the first game i played from the persona series.) you’re not exactly playing for peanuts here, but i can’t say the stakes are quite as high as in the other games. if you like mysteries tho, this is what i’d recommend. it’s more of a personal journey kind of story and comparatively chill. i love this one the best because i have no friends and this simulates actually having a life where people like you.  

p5 i haven’t played yet because i don’t have the console, but it seems to have taken the best parts of p3/4 and put back the nicer stuff from p1/2 (like the aforementioned shadow negotiations). it might be the best game to start with but it can get pretty overwhelming for first-timers i feel like? 

there’s time management (not only with dungeon crawling but also you need to do stuff for school and max your stats by doing extracurricular activities).

keeping track of personas and fusions (easy enough once you get into the hang of it, but lemme tell you i hate tf out of negotiating, so p3/4 might be easier since you don’t have to do that).

also keeping track of the enemy weaknesses so you don’t get fucked by the turn press system (meaning if they critical you that allows the enemy one more turn and vice versa). 

dungeons also vanish once you’re done with them so you have this other place where you can grind. 

add to that all the different and sparkly new features that p5 has and it might get confusing but if you like challenge, then this is the thing! :p p5 is also very pretty and aesthetic and goes back to the ‘serious business’ themes of the earlier persona games. 

hope this helps a bit! and tell me what you choose when you start playing!!

(PS: i forgot: p3 has a two-part movie? i think? while p4 has an anime series. so if you don’t mind spoilers you can always check those out before committing to any games orz)

[thebaalpit-blog]

I like P5 a lot (Spoilers)

So I finished P5 and now that i’ve come out of playing it twice, both in separate languages, I have a lot of wild opinions to go about so here we go. It should go without seeing I’m gonna talk about the game freely, but here’s a warning in case.

I would have to say I like the story of the game a lot, but I’m accounting for the first, fourth, and everything after the fifth arc. Kamoshida is an incredibly strong antagonist who does a million things for setting up the game very well, Sae and Futaba are great ways of showing that Changes of Hearts can happen to people on their own so long as they’re willing to make the change, and Goro and Shido are great personal antagonists for the group and Joker respectively. I like the final storyline a lot too with Yaldabaoth, but it’s very cheesy social commentary in a lot of ways and Yaldy himself isn’t a compelling antagonist so much as the idea that the strict social order that controlled Japan so strongly gave birth to his existence. I’m a big fan of stories that have weird realms or things going on because of the desires of a person being so strong they manifest out of the blue due to human sin and it’s part of the reason why P3 and P4 disappoint me on that front, because they’re largely god plots with very little of that, while P5 is a god plot but it is a god plot created by humans and their sin. While Yaldy himself isn’t particularly impressive, the desire that the Citizens of Tokyo had towards not wanting any part of society to break even a little bit being so strong it creates a god to ensure that never comes about, is and it’s wonderful when Joker summons Satanael to blow his fucking brains out.

I am a big fan of things generally considered to be evil or negative are framed as heroic or things people use to grow. So I appreciate that Joker and Arsene while both very menacing and demonic looking are the heroes of the story and his persona. Arsene especially has such an amazing design that I love looking at him and honestly want to get some sort of figure of him if one gets made. Joker is a fantastic way to make a quiet protagonist that also has a lot of character to him. Between his own backstory, the grudge with Shido, Goro being his foil, and his generally menacing demeanor combined with very theatric and over the top motions he makes, he has a ton of personality in him. The game in general does, but I was not expecting to love the Protagonist more than most of the main cast. His ultimate persona being Satanael is also fucking cool, because not only is the entire moment just an amazing thing and the scope of the whole fight is absolutely beautiful, but Satanael in gnosticism is the dude who is supposed to keep Yaldabaoth in check. So it’s awesome they played to the Trickster theme, the “Blacks are whites” mentality P5 has towards the protagonists, and the lore of the mythological figures themselves. It’s such a cool moment and the music that plays during the summoning is a great arrangement on the boss them that played prior. I can talk forever about Joker and his persona, but I need to talk about other stuff.

The main cast is great. I love Ryuji, he’s easily the best bro character of the games excepting maybe Eikichi. You get to see him grow from a bitter teenager with a huge chip on his shoulder, to a young man with a strong sense of self respect and justice. He gets into silly situations and can be stupid, but he’s a genuinely cool dude and I love him. Ann’s alright and she enhances Ryuji a bit too since they’re both old friends, but they can mess around with one another and it feels organic. I don’t think highly of her tbh, but she’s alright for the most part. Makoto is awesome, being Joker’s contemporary in the group. She’s smart, she has a good head on her shoulders, she kicks ass, and has an amazing outfit. It’s really cool that when they thought of a girl they would try to push as the romantic interest for Joker they made her as much of a character in the group as him. Yusuke’s hilarious, but also is one of the more emotional parts of the team. His interactions with Futaba are great and shows how his weird perspective connects with others. Futaba herself is a ton of fun with her goofy ass personality and smart ass comments. Haru I don’t care for much, but she’s got cool animations so I warmed up a bit to her over time.

The antagonists are all kind of a mixed bag, but the great ones are great. I won’t talk about Yaldy because I already mentioned his deal before. Kamoshida’s an immaculate piece of shit. I cannot tell you how happy I am that he is never once hidden in that aspect. If they had tried to hide his shitty attitude when adults or whatever were around it would cheapen the whole thing, but nope he’s just as shitty to you regardless of whose presence he’s in. It helps that he has such a connection to the school that he effects literally everyone there even the people who don’t associate with him. The underlying character depth also of him being a gold medalist who probably got fucked up by the societal and personal pressure of having to keep being the best giving him a warped perspective on others owing him for this is also great. He’s just got a ton of fucking great things about himself and a super easily punchable face. 

For Goro and Shido, they’re both great. Goro is a fantastic foil to Joker, also being a user of the Wild Card and a pawn of Shido’s due to wanting to be recognized by his dad. His being sent from home to home as an unwanted child has fucked him up so much he desires to see the destruction of the same society that allowed this to happen. At the same time though Goro only has two Persona, Loki and Robin Hood. The underlying implication of course being Goro has only ever had himself and never actually made connections with others so he has two Persona compared to Joker’s several. Shido on the other hand is a good antagonist for how militant he is and how business like he is when handling others. He doesn’t actually recognize the people he steps over in his path to success. He barely recognizes Goro looking like his mother and doesn’t even know Joker is the same child he got locked off into Shibuya. It shows his megalomania off very well that he ultimately created his own enemy and him killing literally everyone tying back to him characterizes perfectly how militant and cold he truly is. 

As for the rest of them. Sae is a good antagonist for her purposes, but she’s not as strong as the other three. Madarame has moments where they characterize him later, but them insisting on his murdering of Yusuke’s mom and his moustache twirling villainy combined with that makes him a very confusing and lame character. Kaneshiro has a minute of characterization, but is a fucking joke villain. Okumura is boring and has a nice moment of depth with the space station kit, but unfortunately he’s being a nothing character every other minute in the worst storyline of the game so rip.

The music in the game is really fantastic. Beneath the Mask and Rivers in the Desert are hands down two of the best tracks in Shoji Meguro’s history of music. Blooming Villain is my favorite non-final boss track in Persona. Layer Cake is CATCHY AS FUCK. Price and When My Mother Was Around are amazing dungeon tracks with Whims of Fate being even better than those two. There’s a lot of other great tracks as well, but I cannot list every single one.

The gameplay mechanics overall improved for the better in a lot of ways and Confidants are really cool too. I do have to say though some of the non-party member ones fall into a really lame pattern of “Character is griefed by other outside character in some way, go to mementos and get rid of them.” But the storylines more than often make up for them. Hifumi, Munehisa, Sadayo, and Toranosuke are some of the more memorable ones. 

If I have complaints though it’s that Mementos is fucking lame. Some of the dungeons are really boring or have lame gimmicks or are LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNG (Kaneshiro and Okumura’s palaces most notably). The story feels like it’s going nowhere for a while. Bosses are boring for the most part with really lame ass mid battle gimmicks, the Sphinx is an absolutely garbage boss fight too. The best bosses are probably Shido and Shadow Okumura, the former because of it not being a lame gimmick driven fight and the latter because you can find fun ways to negate entire legions of the robots. Shadow Madarame and Kamoshida are okay too, but they’re not remarkable or particularly interesting either. The designs on a lot of them are pretty lame too. Also Morgana needs to shut the fuck up about telling me to go to sleep. I love the little bastard, but jesus christ.

But yeah, those are my thoughts on P5. It’s a really cool game that I love a lot that honestly has a decent number of faults, but I don’t care about them which is surprising because I haven’t felt that strongly about a game since like... Metal Gear Rising. Not that those two have a lot of crossover sans the incredibly buff final boss politician with lyrical music in the back.

[panda-noosh]

ser•en•dip•it•y {part 5}{Matt Holt x Reader}

Words: 3642

Summary: You and Matt used to be childhood best friends, but that hadn’t been the case for nearly four years now. Whenever your parents insist on going to the Holt family country home for the summer, you may be forced to face old feelings as Matt makes an appearance.

Pairing: Matt Holt x Reader

Notes: p1 - p2 - p3 - p4 - p6 - FINAL; another lil mini chapter with angst yay. 

  Chapter 5

 It felt like you had spiralled right back to square one again, and you hated it.

   Days had passed since you and Matt had shared your scandalous kiss at the lake. Days had passed since you had completely dismissed Matt’s advances, despite wanting nothing more than to give in to the lips that had once been pressed against yours in what - now that you looked back - seemed almost desperate, as if in the lake was the only time he could actually do it, and he had taken that chance.

    It had also been days since you and Matt had spoken, which made everything worse.

    You liked to think your and Matt’s friendship was stronger than this. For it to be so easily jeopardized over something like a kiss made you realise that perhaps the words you had said to him - the way you had denied him - could have been handled a little bit better.

     Your own voice echoed back in your head as you cleaned up your bedroom, despite it not being messy. You had told him not to let it happen again, said there was nothing that could ever happen between the two of you. You had lied through your teeth in a fit of panic, because your feelings had erupted inside of you like a storm and you didn’t know how else to handle them. You spoke without thinking, and had very clearly hurt Matt’s feelings in the process.

    It was the last thing you had wanted to do, of course, but the damage was done now. Perhaps keeping Matt as far away from you as possible was a good thing, too. Maybe then you wouldn’t feel your heart constrict in his chest every time he walked past you in the halls.

    Your room wasn’t a mess, but you cleaned it anyway. Sunday had brought on a cold chill to the hills you were taking refuge in, meaning nobody wanted to go outside. Despite it not being overly chilly - you were still dressed in a tank top and shorts and wouldn’t dream of changing into anything heavier - everybody was cooped up in the house, meaning you had to find some way to get away from everyone as soon as possible.

    Matt had gone on a run this morning, but it was no secret that he was back now. You could hear his voice through your bedroom door as he innocently teased Pidge on the way her hair had decided to shape itself today. Jamie wailed in protest, saying Pidge looked fine, and soon, the three of them were bickering like children.

     Try as you might, the sound of Matt having a good time with his little sister and your little brother brought back memories that you had pushed to the side ages ago; it made you smile. Remembering when you used to join in on the fun, when you used to play an equal part in the teasing and you and Matt would high five any time it looked like Pidge or Jamie were giving up in arguing.

    That wouldn’t happen again, though. You just had to accept that fact and move on.

     A knock sounding at your door had your head snapping up from the disarrayed state of your suitcase that you were once stifling through. You had yet to unpack any of your clothes, and quite honestly saw no point in doing so at this point.

    “Y/N?” your mothers voice rang out behind the oak. “Can I come in, sweetie?”

    You strode over to the door and pulled it open. Your mother stood there, a smile pulling at her features that mimicked Jamie’s to an almost identical resemblance. She wore a flour-stained apron over a checkered shirt, her sleeves rolled up and her hair pulled into a tight messy bun at the back of her head.

    You stepped out of the way of the door and allowed her to enter. She took the chance, sitting herself on the edge of your bed and folding her hands in her lap in that way that would only look intimidating whenever done by your mother.

    “Is something wrong?” was the first thing you asked, not wanting to beat around the bush at this point.

    Your mother shook her head. “Not unless there’s something wrong with you. Which is the whole reason I’m here.”

    “I don’t know what you mean.”

    Your mum tilted her head forward, glaring at you. “Please don’t play stupid with me, Y/N. I’m your mother. I know when something is bothering you, and you haven’t been acting the same since that day on the lake. The day we all saw Matt storm home after going in the water with you.”

    Your stomach flipped. It had been made fairly clear that nobody had seen you two share your kiss - you had gone too far out for anybody to see you. But still; your mother had a way with words that made even the completely impossible seem possible.

    You knitted your hands in front of you and pouted, as if oblivious. “Again, I don’t know what you mean. I’m fine. Having the time of my life here, actually. Can’t wait to come back next year.”

   “Y/N.”

   “Yes?”

    “I thought you and Matt sorted out your differences.”

    You closed your eyes. How would you respond to such a thing? With a lie? Would you tell her everything was fine and that you and Matt were best of friends again? Would you tell her the truth - that you had completely broken both your own heart and Matt’s heart in one swift hit.

    “We - We did,” you croaked out. “We were okay. We were great, actually.”

    Your mother stood up and made her way towards you - she certainly had that motherly instinct you had heard so much about.  

    “And did something happen at the lake that changed that?” she asked. 

    You swallowed thickly, the bile tasting like acid as it trailed down your throat. You opened your eyes, barely even registering the tears which were pooling within them until your mother reached forward and wiped them from your cheeks, her face contorting into one of equal pain.

    “I don’t know how to fix things,” you said.

   Your mother bundled you in her arms. “What happened, sweetie? Why did you two fall out again?”

    “All he did was kiss me, mum,” you replied. She stiffened, didn’t let you go, didn’t speak. “I pushed him away and I said - I said the worst things to him that I didn’t even mean! You know how I get when I get panicked - I just say the first thing that comes into my mind. I just want to hurt people whenever I get like that, but I truly didn’t mean to hurt Matt. Not Matt. Never Matt.”

    You were on the verge of hysterics. You could hear it in the way your voice wobbled, in the way you clenched your fists in your mothers shirt like you used to do when you were younger, as if she was the only thing keeping you from defying gravity and floating to the ceiling with the size of your heavy heart right now.

    “He apologised for it, as well, once I pushed him away,” you continued. “But I carried on, and I ruined it for both of us. All because I’m too afraid of commitment whenever I know he’s not going to be around for long.”

    A sob racked your body. Your mother held you impossibly tighter to her chest, small coo’s sounding around you. You buried your head in her collar bone, let the cold tears stain her skin without as much of a thought towards how stupid you must look right now.

    “My sweet, sweet girl,” your mother whispered into your hair. “Did you want him to kiss you?”

    There was no point in lying anymore. “I kissed him back for a while. Before the realisation set in.”

    “If you like him, why are you pushing him away so much? Are you afraid?”

    You scoffed, pulling away and wiping a hand over your cheeks. “I’m fucking terrified.”

     “Of what?”

    “Of getting attached again, only for him to leave. That’s why we fell out in the first place - I don’t like long-distance, and it’s so selfish of me to want him to stay, but I just can’t commit myself to somebody who I’m never going to see.”

    Your mother placed a hand on her chin, her eyes never leaving yours. The look had the undertone of mild judgement to it, but on top of it seemed to be one of understanding, as if things were clicking into place for her.

    “You and Matt always did have a weird friendship,” she said suddenly.

    You looked up, raised a brow. “Huh?”

    “Joined at the hip at such a young age. Me and your father always wondered if it would always just be platonic feelings between the two of you - not when you were young, of course. But we always wondered what would come of your friendship as you grew old enough to understand feelings.

    “Every time you got a boyfriend back in primary school, Matt would always hate them. Do you remember?”

    You didn’t reply, having never thought too much about such a thing.

    “And then there was that time you split Matt’s girlfriends head open whenever you were seven. Maybe you didn’t know it back then, but I think that was truly leading up to what you feel now.”

   “I don’t feel-”

   “There you go again,” your mother sighed. “Denying yourself the ability to feel things, just because you don’t think it’s right to feel this way towards somebody you’ve known for so long. It’s unhealthy, Y/N. You need to just admit to yourself what you’re going through, and then we can go from there in terms of repairing it - whether it ends up with a relationship or not.”

    You swallowed again. There was so much you wanted to say, so many emotions you wanted to let out, scream to the world, but you kept them hidden behind the tear-stained mask you were currently wearing. 

     “I think it’s over for us both, anyway,” you said. “I said some pretty hurtful things. He won’t want to be my friend after this anyway.”

   And as much as you hated to admit it, that was the truth.

    Dinner time came around at the same time as it did every night - around 5:00pm.

    You were called to the kitchen by Colleen, who very clearly had been let in on the breakdown you had had only hours prior. Your mother and her didn’t make their gossiping very subtle, though you expected nothing less. It was difficult for your mum to keep things to herself whenever she saw them as ‘teen problems.’

    You sat down next to Jamie, inhaling the scent of the pot roast Colleen and your father had made up for tonights dinner. Reaching forward, you piled your plate full of food in silence, letting the others start the conversation.

    Matt had taken a seat beside Colleen on the far side of the table - you had a direct view of him from where you were seated. He was wearing his usual jacket, zipped up to the throat as if the air outside had been blizzard-worthy. His hair was pushed back from his forehead, clearly in need of a wash.

    You kept your eyes on your plate, not wanting to be caught staring at him. You could feel your mother looking at you, urging you to say something, do anything, but you simply kept your head down and ate.

    “Matthew,” Sam suddenly spoke up. “Seven weeks until school is starting back up again - you excited to go back and see some of your friends?”

    You nearly choked on the asparagus you were eating - what a time to ask that question, Mr Holt.

     Matt barely looked up from his plate when he replied. “Actually, I’m really excited. I just wish some people would be more considerate to me leaving, though, you know?”

    Your mother did choke on her asparagus. You gritted your teeth, chose not to look up.

    Sam raised a brow. “What do you mean?”

    Finally, Matt looked up. You could hear the sarcastic grin in the way he spoke, could basically feel him drawing his shoulders back in an attempt to look taller, any way to get his point across. “Some people seem to think I’m just going to ditch my life back home after I leave for the Garrison - like I can’t have any commitments here whilst I’m away. It’s crazy, isn’t it? Entirely irrational.”

    “Has somebody been causing you trouble?” Sam asked.

    “We should keep the hostility away from the dinner table. Why don’t we just-” your mother began, but Matt cut her off.

    “No, no, nothing like that. I’ve just been thinking, I guess. Me leaving for the Garrison doesn’t mean I’m leaving behind the people I love, does it?”

    Sam stuck out his bottom lip, clearly still confused as to where this conversation was headed. It had come out of the blue. Sam had merely asked his son if he was excited to go back to school.

    “I suppose not.”

    Matt hummed. Anger swelled inside you.

    “That’s what I thought. I still keep in contact with you guys pretty well when I’m away, don’t I?”

   “To the point where I’m on the verge of blocking your number,” Pidge replied.

    “Well, maybe some people don’t like only communicating with somebody through the phone,” you said before you could stop yourself. You felt your mother move her hand, grip your knee beneath the table as if in warning for you to not take this any further than need be, but you couldn’t help yourself.

    Matt looked over at you. “Maybe some people should think about what other people think. Maybe some people should understand that other people are trying their best, and it’s difficult to see to everybodies needs.”

   “And maybe that’s what some people don’t want to deal with,” you barked, finally looking up to meet his gaze. “I don’t see why you should be complaining - somebody dropping out of your life just means the list of phone calls you need to make gets a little bit smaller, doesn’t it?”

    “Y/N!” your mother hissed. 

    “I don’t care about the size of the fucking phone call list!” Matt exclaimed. His eyes were a blaze, glaring into your own as if the rest of the room had melted away under his inferno of rage. “I just want some people to understand that I’m trying to make the best of the situation I’m in. You’ve gotta help me out just as much as you want me to help you out.”

    “What is so difficult for you to understand that I don’t want that. I don’t want to deal with long distance, okay? It’s as simple as that!”

    “And what if I wasn’t going to the Garrison, huh? What would your answer be then?”

    The question struck a nerve in you that you had never felt before. Your mother sighed, nodding her apologies to the confused onlookers before she looked towards you. 

    “I think we all need to-”

   You didn’t let her finish. Your emotions were swelling within your chest and you could barely find the space within you to breath, let alone talk, sit back down and eat. You slammed your fork down on the table, shoved your chair out and stood up. 

    “You know what, Matt? Go to hell.”

    And then you span on your heel and stormed out of the kitchen, not looking back. 

    There was an odd ringing in the air at this time of day, you noticed. An odd little pecking that sounded close to a whistle being blown in the distance - never too close to your ear. In the distance. A safe distance away.

    You sat with your legs dangled over the wall, overlooking the forest which stretched out for miles in front of you. So many trees. It would be so easy to lose yourself amongst them, never look back, never have to deal with the problems that were currently littering your life like the plague.

    It was funny, really. How you could go from jumping to school issues - studying, friendship drama, never being good enough - to summer issues. Matt. Matt was your summer issue.

    You knew it would never just be a summer issue, though. Not with how dearly you felt for him. Your mother had been right when she told you that denying your feelings for the boy would only make it all worse, and as you sat on the wall now, the darkness seeping in around you, you realised that perhaps your feelings were too important to just shove under the rug anyway.

    The argument had startled you. You had expected to sit down and eat dinner in the way you had done everyday since the kiss. Matt and you barely even shared glances, but today he seemed to have reached his limit. He had started it, you childishly reminded yourself. It was his fault. You were standing up for yourself.

     It would be so easy for you two to just forget about one another. It would make everything in the world so simple. If you two just came to the conclusion that being around one another, trying to remain friendly, wasn’t going to work, everything would see itself out. The drama. The weird glances. The awkward interactions. Sure, the feelings would always be there, but you could deal with those on your own. 

   With Matt around, it was difficult to control the tension. 

     Which was why the trees seemed to call out to you now, a welcome for you to just lose yourself in nature for a little while. You dug your nails into the concrete wall, let loose a breath that froze in the air in front of you - you hadn’t even realised it getting chilly, though you should have assumed such a thing would happen. It was becoming night time now, with you only being illuminated by the turned-on lights of the house behind you.

     Seven more weeks in this hell-hole, and then you’d be back into a more manageable hell-hole - school. At least school had its patterns. You knew what to expect, whether you liked them or not. Matt had proven today that this drama - these feelings - were much more sporadic than could be tracked.

    “Y/N, it’s cold. Come inside.”

   Jamie’s voice was like a phantom coming out of the shadows, but you didn’t flinch. Instead, you gently patted the wall next to you, offering your little brother a seat next to you.

    He sighed and made his way over to you. He was fifteen years old now, growing into his body. He was soon to be taller than you, though that didn’t stop you from reaching down and dragging him up the wall, just like you always had done whenever he was younger.

    He sat beside you and wrapped the flannel blanket he had brought out around you, one side still clipped over his own shoulders.

    “What happened at dinner today?” he asked.

    You shook your head. “Don’t ask.”

    “Are you and Matt a couple?” he continued to pry. It was only natural, you knew. You most definitely hadn’t made your feelings towards each other subtle at dinner today.

    Either way, you shook your head. “No, we’re not. Just some best friend problems. Don’t worry too much about it.”

    “It sounded like couple problems,” Jamie insisted. “If you don’t want to deal with long distance, you could always just go out with Keith Kogane.”

    Your eyes widened, head snapping around to look at your younger brother. “What?”

   He shrugged innocently. “Just a suggestion. You very clearly have some built-up tension, and if it’s a relationship close to home you want, Keith is a good man. He and I play Fortnight together sometimes, and I know for a fact he has a crush on you.”

    “I don’t want a relationship.” Not with anyone but Matt.

   Jamie shrugged again, a common action for him to make whenever he was trying to prove himself innocent. “Don’t bite my head off for the suggestion. But you really should text Keith one day - about something other than studying.”

    “Who told you what me and Keith text about?”

     “Keith. I told you - we’re gaming buddies.”

    “Does he know you’re my little brother?”

   Jamie grinned. “He wouldn’t be telling me all of this gossip if he knew I was your little brother.”

    You rolled your eyes, but something pulled in your chest - maybe moving on from Matt needed the assistance of Keith Kogane. You would never string him along - hell, you wouldn’t even ask him about. But perhaps finding a friend who was close to home would make the departure of Matt seem a little easier.

    “Tell Keith to text me when he can,” you said, not entirely sure what you were doing or why you were doing it. “Maybe we can organise something.”

   “Not a date, right? That’s gross. I’m not hooking my sister up with one of my friends.”

    “Not a date. As I said, I don’t want a relationship.”

    Jamie chuckled. “Sure you don’t. Not until it’s Matthew Holt who’s asking you out,”