#bc I couldn’t figure out if it was a one time thing or smt that will happen throughout the day

[ifeelfreewithoutmyshoes]

Of course I end up the most annoying level of sick the day I have work!

[icharchivist]

Still in whole of hypmic there is something incredible about the fact Gentaro is always specifically finding a comfort zone with Dice and works as a binome with him to even higher extends that some characters.

Gentaro rarely really interreact without having Dice as a safety net with him. The only time he actively does so is when he faces Ramuda about his dark time: the first time, Dice eases the tension, the second time, Gentaro sends Dice away before bringing it up again.

Hell the rare times we see Gentaro alone after Fling Posse was formed always specifically had him bound back with Dice in some way or another: meeting him on the way to Ramuda’s and calling it fate, being called by Dice when Dice was in trouble, being the first one Dice runs to when Dice ends up in this stupid deal being the major scenes that starts with Gentaro alone and this loneliness is always broken by Dice.

Meanwhile the few times Gentaro and Dice are together with others people, Gentaro does as much as possible to grab Dice’s attention: he extends his comfort zone to Dice and Dice only. At any given opportunity, Gentaro would rather get close to Dice than to try to even connect with anyone else, avoiding every conversations possible if he cannot deviate it on focusing on Dice, almost as if the world scares him enough for him to prefer to be near someone he trusts.

I don’t really count the second FP drama track bc the whole track was Dice trying to get the attention of the Posse and specifically taunting Gentaro by teasing him, but it remains Gentaro barely pays attention to Ramuda and just keeps messing with Dice in particular.

In the Know Your Enemy tracks, He drags on the Star Crossed Lovers’s story in front of Ramuda when Ramuda asks them why they came in together. He keeps playing with the story as long as Dice reacts. He doesn’t just drops it with “that was a lie”, he has to add more to it for Dice to keep reacting to him, even to the point of telling him “in a lie” (”or was it a lie?”) that Gentaro would legit be attracted to him. (fucking canon is fantastic).

But it doesn’t stop at the Posse: when Gentaro presents himself to the rest of the cast, he presents himself with Dice’s name specifically to make Dice’s react. Unlike when he lied about his identity to Ramuda when he first meets him, Gentaro specifically does it to start a banter with Dice and ignoring everyone else who ends up confused about why the famous author is lying about his name. And that banter goes on for ages with Dice saying he’ll be mad at him if he calls him a weirdo and Gentaro going on about “oh no i was planning to share a meal with you but if you’re mad at me...” “huh, who said anything about being mad, we’re best friends” “well that was a lie” “GENTARO.”, all while the people they are supposed to fight later stares at them.

Upon meeting more members they will have to fight later, Gentaro talks mostly to Dice, i don’t recall him talking to anyone else: while the scene does have a lot of characters interreacting (Dice and Riou, Doppo and Juuto, Doppo/Hifumi and the Yamada bros, the tdd members obviously ect...), Gentaro almost only focus on commenting the situation at hand with Dice. (”we should learn from them to create a tactic against them” “eh no that’s boring i’ll figure out when i’ll meet them in the arena” “......... seriously Dice.”)

In Just a Friend as soon as Dice asks for Gentaro’s help, Gentaro drags on the teasing before helping Dice by even buying back the stuff he lost while gambling. When they end up wrapped into this mess with Hifumi and Doppo in Just a Friend, Gentaro demands an apology for both him and Dice. Not just for himself, he extends his world to Dice.

When Hifumi makes him lose control of his sense of self, Dice notices something is wrong, meaning he knows enough Gentaro to have identified the one time Gentaro was serious, despite the fact he runs into all of Gentaro’s lies as if they were serious. Yet this time it was different and Dice picked that up. Gentaro ends up opening up to Dice, being honest for a change, and Dice immediatly ends up protecting Gentaro and getting upset on his behalf, threatening the people who had made Gentaro feel distressed, all for Gentaro’s sake, so much he only calms down when Gentaro stops him, and even there he gets upset at how unsincere the apologizes are toward Gentaro and is looking for a fight.

(by the by, considering Gentaro establish that he started lying to make people happy by lessening the importance of what he would desire himself (first lie / happy in general third time) abd to protect himself (second lie), the fact Gentaro allowed himself to be vulnerable when being hurt shows how much trust he was willing to show Dice. the lies are a self protection. But he let that protection down around Dice when he was at his most vulnerable because he trusted him that much, and Dice proved him right away that this trust was earned.) 

And  after that Gentaro and Dice can team up together in a duet specifically to fight at each other’s side, and they are completely on each other’s flows. Two guys who barely met, who manage to be just as much in synch as two guys who are childhood friends.

But specifically about Gentaro’s focus, the whole confrontation with Hifumi and Doppo after Hifumi triggered Gentaro was mostly Gentaro trying to talk to Dice, ignoring completely the others two. The fight started because Gentaro asked apologizes for him AND Dice, and after that Gentaro refused to interreact with Hifumi and Doppo directly, focused entierely on Dice, and only addressed to the duo once he was in synch with Dice, at his side. He refused to go out of the comfort zone he had found himself into with Dice standing up for him the moment Dice offered it. He only came out of it for Dice’s sake. Gentaro kept focusing on Dice and later invited him for dinner because of how grateful he was.

(which makes me think that therefore him saying that “he planned a feast with Dice - oh no that was a lie” ended up being a lie bc he did end up planning a feast with Dice. Meanwhile too, for “Dice was my knight bodyguard in a previous life - well that was just a lie”, Dice ended up doing specifically that: shielding and protecting Gentaro when Gentaro was in distress.).

Then obligatory Battlex3 forces him to face Hifumi but Battlex3 has also a different formula that Warx3 where they work far more as a team together. Warx3 has each members fight individually until the very end, but Battlex3 starts with the two duos fighting before the chorus separating them from their leader (which is opposed to Warx3 where the chorus even separated the duos). Meanwhile there is a duet specifically between the two of them after Ramuda’s verse before Ramuda joins in. Battlex3 works more by team and more by duos that Warx3 did before it. (also even if not canon, the seiyuu play this song by having Dice shielding Gentaro when Hifumi attacks him and i’m so. sad.)

Which also makes me think that SMT is set in a way that Dice is the one to give Gentaro the go for his own verse, and when they talk about playing later, Gentaro only joins in AFTER Dice said he’ll play along with Ramuda. He waits for Dice’s go.

Me Against the World also has Gentaro focus on Dice in the begining and even specifically has him asking why Dice isn’t angry at him after he messed with him. Once more Dice brushed off a part of Gentaro that Gentaro finds despicable (”how quick he puts shame into my heart”), creating a reassuring space for Gentaro.

And then it’s probably the first time we actually see him talk with the others contender on his own self as Hifumi apologizes to him. Which Gentaro says is weird. Which has Dice immediatly reply “you’re not well placed to call anyone weird.” the one time Gentaro didn’t engage a banter with Dice to avoid other people had Dice engage with him instead. Still though, Gentaro only participates to this conversation with Dice by his side, Dice being closeby. 

The scene also follows with Dice insulting Doppo specifically saying that if they get reincarnated he still couldn’t stand him - while so far the only person who brought up reincarnation was Gentaro, specifically in the context of his relationship with Dice. Dice ends up using Gentaro’s worldview as his own as he moves on. They quickly leave as well, staying far more together.

Then we have Hoodstar where everyone in the song sings individually: none of the other 10 characters are bantering, they are all focusing on flexing about their division, they all have individual verses where they do not interreact. Except Gentaro who takes the opportunity to tease Dice midsong, and Dice who cannot resist but reply to Gentaro, leading Gentaro to also playfully answer to him, which is the only time of the whole song something like that happens. The only exchange in the full song is them bantering specifically because Gentaro is the one to try to get Dice’s attention, managing, and having to joke with him again once it’s done.

Stella, a song written by Gentaro, is guilty of the very same thing with Gentaro giving individual verses to Dice and Ramuda but uses half of his verse to talk about Dice and Dice’s impact on him.

Even in the fiction Gentaro creates he sees himself as a duo with Dice, which is only strengthened later when Dice and Gentaro team up to bring Ramuda’s salvation, completing each other’s sentences and point of view, again with both of them offering the “Wanna bet on it?” together - using a sentence that is much more alligning with Dice’s thematic, meaning Gentaro follows suit onto Dice, inspired by him.

The next verse also implies the two of them saying fragment off the same sentence to inspire Ramuda. Gentaro wrote a song in which he wasn’t complete until Dice showed up and spent the rest of the song writting himself in complement of Dice. And that’s not even touching how the song sees Dice as a kind king being Gentaro’s messiah, saving him away from his boring life, while Gentaro would talk of himself as a lowlife and doesn’t ignore Ramuda’s flaws either. And it’s not even mentioning that the reincarnation motif is there the whole song.

In We Just Want To Party With You, something similar seems to happen according to the translations i’ve found: first Dice reaches out for Gentaro first when he ends up in his shady deal, and Gentaro focuses almost entierely on Dice the whole Drama Track: On Dice and his bad decision.

The reincarnation motif comes back as well as Dice begs for their help as in he would be “endebted to them for all his past and future lives” and Gentaro musing specifically about putting up with Dice in their future lives. Dice is the one to bring it up, Gentaro just pushes a bit the subject on over how many lifelines Dice is ready to bet on. Both of them ended up completely rolling with the idea of reincarnation and accepting the idea they’d stuck together lifeline after the next.

Besides Gentaro seems to mostly focus on Dice the whole drama track: even when they walk into Ramuda being shady and nakey with a lady, Gentaro’s focus isn’t on Ramuda and what the fuck he’s doing, but on how Dice should have knocked the goddamn door. Meanwhile Dice ended up in this whole mess to start with because the money would serve him to pay the debt he has on Gentaro and Ramuda, but especially Gentaro, who had brought it up more often.

and FINALLY in Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win, again according to the translations i have, Gentaro focuses mostly on messing with Dice originally. The Meowing was started by him even if Ramuda followed suit. Gentaro is the one to bring the focus on Dice. He talks to Dice, not Ramuda in that part.

Meanwhile when MTC arrives, Gentaro only addresses directly Juuto and starts to threaten him right after Juuto started to specifically ask for Dice’s suitcase, something Gentaro knows will bring Dice into trouble. And even if Gentaro had lectured Dice over the trouble he had put himself into, he immediatly steps in between of him and Juuto and face Juuto for Dice’s sake. The one time Gentaro actually addresses another member outside of the Posse (and hell even inside because he barely interreact with Ramuda without Dice backing him up and the one time it happened it turned sour), and does it without bringing Dice in any shape or form, it is STILL to protect Dice directly. It is still in his comfort zone.

In comparaison, when the Yamada bros face Hifumi and Doppo, who remains childhood friends after all, each pair remains focused on the person who is attacking them, not on the person who is attacking their binome.

it is also noteworthy that while MTC and FP are fighting, Dice actually focus on how it pains him to fight against Riou, a friend, while Riou doesn’t want Dice to hold back. Gentaro however sets himself up in a way to protect Dice.

____________________________

Gentaro remains a very lonely man who convinced himself growing up he didn’t need any friends and who’s only friend had been bedridden at the hospital for years and seemingly had lost more and more of his ability to reply to the world around him (”Do you know how to bring a smile on the face of someone who forgot how to do it? If so, please tell me.”). Even Ramuda brings up that Gentaro is always so lonely.

By all account Gentaro having been bullied to the point of not trusting anyone to get close to him and to see himself as unworthy of being friend with anyone seem to be mostly a truth as it shines through his behavior with absolutly everyone: he doesn’t allow people in, at all. He rarely instigate situations for his own sake.

When he is forced to behave along with others people, he only does so as long as Dice is there, as long as Dice is standing by his side, and most of the time, he does so in a way he can cling and focus on Dice instead of focusing on others people.

Dice became part of Gentaro’s comfortzone and staying close to him seems necessary for Gentaro. He doesn’t want to be facing people alone anymore and he feels safe doing so with Dice.

and by Dice’s reaction standing up to him against Hifumi, Dice proved Gentaro that this comfortzone was welcoming of him, and that Dice was willing to act as such for Gentaro’s sake, even more so as Dice keeps and keeps running specifically in every single things Gentaro prompt to start this intimacy.

It’s as if Gentaro has specifically this idea that “everyone has the possibility to hurt you”. But Dice proved him “but not me.”

Not only Gentaro is always taking a step toward Dice at any given opportunity but Dice always, always, ALWAYS reply to Gentaro’s attempt to do so, and also gets carried away with those attempts.

Dice is Gentaro’s comfort zone. And Dice is welcoming of it, even if he doesnt realize it is what Gentaro is doing, and actually words it as such when the situation becomes obvious, shielding Gentaro when needed, standing up for him.

And Gentaro specifically works onto this relationship this specific way. He specifically acts as part of a duo with Dice more than his own person. And more than any of the other duets in the story, which again implies childhood friends who are totally married by the by. (and it’s not against them i feel like they’re more used to each other to know when they can stand things alone - Hifumi and Doppo has their fair share of protecting each other but they both open up far more to others people than Gentaro does (because it remains mostly Gentaro, not Dice), like Dice is ready to be in good term with Riou and Hifumi develops alone time with Jakurai, and even if they are willing to defend each other, they know sometimes not to do so (again BB vs MTR))

And i’m so goddamn emotional over the two of them

Love them.

[geckcellent]

p5 is a spiritual/successor to specifically, p2

that proposed p2 hd remake?? yeah i’m excited at the prospect but also filled with DREAD bc we have it in all but actual remake, and the name of the beast is p5

disclaimer: i love p5 & am having a blast with it and am not dunking on p5 in any way! (except its lgbt treatment which is nothing.. new...., ..,.,)

SPOILERS for p5 and p2:is

so i know the internet’s been going wild about how much p5 is similar to p2 ever since all we knew about p5 were the keywords ‘joker’ and ‘catharsis’ and the color red and some dude on a chair,, but like the more i play p5 the more intrigued i get. this is some stuff i was thinkin about, feel free to add/discuss;

- cognition: the metaverse is basically a wilder extension of the ‘rumors becoming reality’ plot of p2.. and THAT plot was setting up xibalba, which was more or less the metaverse™ but more standard smt (enemy demons instead of shadows, everything happens in the real world..ish,..,). pretty much everything that happened in xibalba was the dungeon adapting to people’s cognitions on the fly, like a room that turned into a torture deathtrap for people suspecting traps was a heal/rest point for the uh, simpler folks,.,.. and bosses were straight up cognitive versions of people (like jun’s mom and eikichi’s dad, a pod of Actual Alien Dudes to name some). jun, that poor bitch almost legit wrote himself out of existence at one point thanks to a self hating panic attack

- fun fact he did not in fact succumb to that bc everyone reminded him how sad his gay boyfriend would be if he didn’t exist

- one of the funkier things about xibalba was that using that logic you could also dictate your dungeon crawling experience a little bc it let you offer input at times and going ‘yeah i think we’ve barely gotten started’ would mean Oh Boy Time To Grind but ‘yeah! i think we’re at least half way’ would set you up on a fast track to the finish. real interesting

- some cosmic asshole playing a cosmic asshole with way too much free time game: the underlying thing driving the entire plot of p5, yaldabaoth's 'game' is literally the same thing as nyarlathotep's scheme in p2:is (proving humanity is a bunch of dumbass stupidheads with 0 good points), but with a happier ending and also no sequel to call for/justify a huge FUCK YOU PLAYER, FUCK YOU RIGHT IN THE FEELS, WITH A GOD DAMN CACTUS IN A POT FOR GOOD MEASURE

- adding on to that i'm not there yet but presumably you don't punch out real igor... probably ..,?? you can give philemon a solid wallop right before the epilogue it’s my fav part lmfao,, nyarlathotep also plays... Uh not quite fair but at least he doesn’t outright rig it iirc

- tatsuya had a cool kinda intimidating loner dude rep while akira's more Outright Scorned but in general they both function around a tight group that the world at large either doesn't understand or is at odds with.. they serve different plot purposes and are shown from different POVs but there are definitely similarities between the masked circle and the phantom thieves

- hot topic: "joker". admittedly it's been ages since i played p2 and the details are fuzzy but joker (jun) feels like what joker (akira) could've become had he ended up flying solo without teammates as checks or friends to keep him sane and without a caring parental/family figure.. the only person he trusts is himself in a shitty world full of disgusting people and betrayal; basically, joker (jun) IS joker (akira), had akira been without a support network.

- in short, joker!jun and akechi being similar motivationally is suddenly way more fridge given how p5 plays akechi as ‘not that different’ and i am now distinctly uncomfortable,.,,

- i would be laughing at pq2 being p5-centric and set in a 'movie theater' world (or so i've heard), but im not and thats only because i'm more salty that they took this totally sumaru theatre-feeling setup while conveniently pretending p2 and before never happened

- on that note p5's lgbt handling makes me SO SALTY because BRUH, P2 HAS THE BEST LGBT REP OF LIKE EVERY ATLUS GAME EVER and p5's is..,, well ., ,i thought it couldn't get worse after p3/p4 trans jokes but eeeeeeeh i have officially found my least fav beach pickup episode. yusuke’s lobsters are some sexy thots but nah that dont really make up for that fresh cuppa what the fuck

- the thought of a p2 hd remake fills me with equal parts excitement and dread because we already got a direct spiritual/successor in all but plot continuity and its givign me the worst fucking whiplash

- i lied i am shitting on p5 a little let me just get this out there Hi I Am About To Strangle One Ryuji Sakamoto Personally,

- give us a canon gay like jun & and a best comedy bro and total ally eikichi and also canon gay ship like tatsu/jun and when will atlus let me fuckign rest honestly

- ok i am going to rest right now actually it’s 2 fuckign AM ramble over

[freshqueens]

December 13, 2018

Timestamp 9:58 p.m. So ig I lied when I said you guys wouldn’t be getting any updates. Idk why, but I really just needed to write smt. So the concert was absolute shit. My feet kill, but on the plus side, I met Mr. HDAH, (Hot, dark and handsome). Now ik hot and handsome are the same things but whatever. And by dark I mean he was wearing all black, and ugh he smiled at B, and he had a dimple…. And that’s kinda why I need to write smt.

For one,idk why I was super annoyed with B today, and honestly I couldn’t figure out the reason my damn self. I was mad that she was talking to DB, yes, but at the same time she never tells me anything, bc i’m “too innocent”, which we all know isn’t true. I just don’t think this friendship is going to work out. I really want it to, like I love her to death and back, but idk, sometimes I think i’m just supposed to be alone.

Second thing is that I was kinda lonely when we were waiting for the concert to finish, and you know me, I was observing ppl. I saw a lot of girls with a lot of their guys. Idk what was wrong with me, but when I got in the car to go home, all I could think about was how much I wanted someone like Mr. HDAH to smile at me like he did to B. Idk, maybe i’m asking for too much, maybe i’m just being a ‘girl’, but honestly that’s how I feel. I feel like I deserve more than I get. I’m not saying that i’m this perfect person who deserves the world and everything, but no sis, I DO deserve more than I am receiving rn. I really don’t know why I decided to write this… But I am telling you this. If I continue to see no light in this life, one of these days, will be the last you hear from me. And when that happens… well I might leave a letter. Or I may just let people wonder why I did it.. Cause no one cares unless you’re beautiful or dead... I choose the latter...

Cunningly, Daisy