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felikatze · 3 years ago

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give me the a brainworms i am deeply invested in this man

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okay first of all you asked for this. second of all if i am a little off track from the game that is explained by me just building thoughts like building blocks without looking back. third i was supposed to be studying for an exam but this counts as practice right? it's character analysis anyway lmao.

buckle the fuck up, my dearest anon, because I have sub headings.

1. A as the Player Character

Let me begin with why I am obsessed with this horrid little guy in the first place: he's a silent protagonist. I am always obsessed with protagonists. It's a law of nature. I love taking hollow characters and dissecting them for scraps. It's a long standing practice of mine.

Being a silent protagonist, A, as X, does not have a set personality. However, there are patterns. Firstly, as any semi-silent protagonist, A is a reactive character. He does not start incidents, he only responds to situations, presented by the Sephirah, as they arise. He does not actively seek out new information, merely going about the routine of expanding departments, but expresses curiosity when information is presented to him.

I'm aware fandom likes to characterize X and A differently, likely because they are initially presented as different characters. I, on the other hand, would like to pose the theory that they are more similar than expected.

I believe that A is also a reactive character, rather than active. Despite the fandom wiki describing him as stubborn, the goal A pursues with such fervor, the completion of the Seed of Light, is not actually a goal he set for himself. Carmen is the one who set this goal for him by leaving him her legacy.

Throughout the backstory we get relating to the Cogito Project, A is Carmen's assistant, whereas Carmen is the driving researcher. This is how many of the City's inhabitants seem to be; going with the flow of goals set for them by superiors. Yes I will get into his attachment to Carmen later.

The above is not to say A isn't stubborn. Once he has accepted a goal as his own, he will pursue it at all costs, as is obvious from any and all flashbacks leading to horrible deaths. But the point isn't his pursuit of the goal, but where that goal comes from. Even Lobcorp itself supports this, despite what Hokma may say; A as X follows the "simple" task of managing the Corp's day to day activities, and executes any mission given to him by the Sephirah. He outranks them, and doesn't actually need to do their missions, but does so anyway. Players are driven by the reward offered by those missions, of course, and A might be the same in that regard. Nonetheless, at no point in gameplay do you do anything somebody else hasn't told you to.

The overarching narrative of the Script would be the most obvious example. Every single person in the game follows the script, whether they know it or not.

Lastly on this note, a phrase we hear attributed to A, "Machines must behave as machines." Now, Angela may be attached to this phrase because it bears significance to herself as a machine, and informs most of A's unjust treatmeant of her. However, what if it doesn't just apply to machines? The phrase reads as such, "Everyone must act according to their own role."

2. A, Carmen, and the disease of the mind

So, A will at any cost pursue goals Carmen set for him. Question is, why? The obvious answer would be saying he's in love with her, which like, true. But also, how did Carmen come to be so precious to him?

Let us return to the comparison, "This is how many of the City's inhabitants seem to be." We don't really know why exactly most characters joined Carmen, excluding mainly Daniel and Benjamin. But this does not mean we can't have theories.

Carmen's ideal was curing the "disease of the mind." What is the disease? Complete hopelessness. The inability to form aspirations and dreams, to think of a better future. A is a very reactive character who does not set goals for himself. Therefore, I personally conclude, that initially, Carmen's ideology resonated with him because he could identify with the disease.

This is the point where I start rewatching Lobcorp story clips. Dear god.

So, by briefly binging day 27 onward, I've come up with lines that very much support this lil theory of mine:

First, from Carmen, a description of the disease, "People lock away their own potential."

Second, a line from Angela, after the memory synchronization, "You've locked yourself in this prison without bars."

Carmen describes A as humble, and Benjamin thinks he is warm. If I suppose A was one of the diseased initially, Carmen would be the catalyst for this change. Carmen was someone with big aspirations, with plans to heal what is wrong with the City, and it gave him hope. He was one of the diseased, but through time with Carmen, with that relentless optimistic spirit, he may have been cured, for a time. It's not a stretch to say that she was his light.

But lor shows us what happens when the seed of light sprouts wrong, doesn't it? It distorts. A grasped hope for the first time and then it is ruthlessly crushed. Carmen was everything. Yes, A is described as a jack-of-all-trades, as a genius in all pursuits he puts his mind to, but what does that matter in the face of someone who can unite people? Who can give them hope of a better world? Who can inspire them to actually use the talents they have?

And what kind of pressure is it to put the legacy of a messiah in the hands of the diseased?

3. A and the Perception Filter: A is weak to White damage

No, I am serious about that. He's extremely weak mentally. Obviously death of a loved one is a changing experience for absolutely anybody, but Carmen's death destroyed him.

Not only did he refuse to confide this grief to anyone and bottled it up, now everybody looked to him to lead the project, but he just isn't Carmen. He isn't an ambitious person, he doesn't have the same optimism, he can't bring people together, but people expected him to, and he failed. Hard.

While he was without a doubt talented in science, he was also just an average guy.

After her death, A grew to hate humans. He lost trust in them. He refused to confide in anyone, and be confided in by anyone. Thus, the team fell apart.

In both lobcorp and lor, we get interesting tidbits about precations taken to protect the manager.

Firstly, Lobcorp's perception filter. The cartoony art-style of the game is a result of the game being in first person. Through the eyes of the manager, everything is cartoony!

This is a measure undertaken to specifically protect the manager's psyche. Angela tells us that, before it was deployed, the manager would frequently go insane, one notable incident including the manager trying to hang himself. When we first hear this, the previous managers and X are still separate in our minds. However, they're all A! A went insane multiple times without it.

This is understandable, considering that employees also frequently go insane and try to kill both themselves and others. But they're there in action, confronting the Abnormalities directly. Just watching them made the manager go mad. They could not handle the responsibility for the employees' deaths.

In lor, Angela explains why she picked the Rabbit Team from R Corp as their main contractor instead of any other team. One team was simply too big for L Corp's narrow hallways, and the other team... dealt in psychic damage. It was simply too big of a risk for the manager. But the manager is always secure behind the cameras. Would that teams methods just be that brutal visually, or would their attacks have reached the manager?

Combined with his immense grief at all of his friends and coworkers dying in part because of him, A cannot bear to look at death.

4. A's greatest flaw: Avoidance

A common thread during Core Meltdown flashbacks: A refuses to look at suffering. He just can't. Whether it be looking away from Elijah writhing on the floor or hanging up on Daniel's panicked report of death.

This is actually the thing Angela takes the biggest issue with, and what hurt her most. A would never look at her, acknowledge her, and she did not understand why. But I think A did not refuse to look at her out of maliciousness. Rather, it was out of grief over Carmen. He could not look at her without being reminded of what he lost.

Angela's creation came about because A wanted someone to guide him, someone like Carmen. He threw himself into the project to the point it made Benjamin happy that A was passionate about anything again. But as soon as the project he distracted himself with is complete, he is filled with regret. Carmen cannot be replicated, and he breaks again.

Furthermore, tying this back to my first point about A being a reactive person, we see Angela take charge over A. She's the one recruiting employees and leading the business. It was likely a relief for him to be able to step down from the leading position.

But avoiding it made everything worse. He did not act when he saw Elijah's unchecked ambition, he did not act beyond a simple check at Gabriel's decay, he gave Giovanni the same hope he clung to to no avail, et cetera et cetera.

Avoiding his problems is making them worse and sending everything down the drain (including his psyche), so he deals with it the only way he knows how, avoiding them more!

Biggest example of A's big avoidance problem as his psyche crumbles: the memory wipe. A, in perhaps his one singular moment of acknowledging his emotions, recognizes that he is incapable of fulfilling the Script in his current state. His grief is just too much.

By erasing his own memory, he could start fresh without his grief, because he might've really killed himself otherwise. His suffering became bigger and bigger, and he coped by avoiding it.

The memory wipe allowed him to distangle his problems. Through his interactions with the Sephirah (which I will not individually detail for the sake of my sanity and because I dumped all this on a friend on discord already), he can deal with and actually process his issues one at a time.

As the motto describes, only by facing the fear can he build the future. Only by finally facing his grief and acknowleding it, seeing that the past cannot be changed and he has no choice to move forward, can he actually do so.

5. The Sephirah as ghosts

Lobotomy Corporation feels like a ghost story. I've touched upon this in my previous A post.

As you reach the Corp's lower levels, there are less Sephirah. First there are four. They act like normal employees, and do not breach into the story's underbelly until you reach their core supressions and the facade breaks. Second, counting Tiphereth as one, there are three. They still go about their duties, but they know what they are. Third, there are two, and the facade is gone. They know what they are, and they will tell you about the sins of the past.

And finally, you reach Keter, and there is only one.

This gradual decay of the facade is what really gets to me. I said that by interacting with the Sephirah, A deals with his issues one by one, but that's what the Sephirah are, in this case. Representations.

The people the Sephirah used to be are dead, and the Sephirah are their ghosts. The core supression involve putting these ghosts to rest. Doesn't it match the progression of a typical ghost story? Find the ghost, find what they used to be, and help them move on.

So, if everyone is a ghost, then A is alone.

But, behind the scenes, the Sephirah are still there. They are still people, and they have changed for the better, too. As always, A simply does not look.

(Does he even see the good others see in him? Does he look away from praise, too? Did he even realize Benjamin's admiration for him? Will we ever know?)

6. A's end.

A's progression of moving on would be fine and dandy if it did not end as thus: A does kill himself.

A sees himself beyond the point of no return. Everyone is dead. He is alone. Carmen is never coming back. He can't call it quits now, or else everything has been in vain. (Even if the last days show us a part of him wants to just quit, so badly.)

So, there's only one thing left to do: follow the Script to its ending. Fulfill Carmen's legacy at all costs. Death as the ultimate release.

This is the point where I admit I do not like the death as release trope. But the game does a good enough job as presenting it as the only option A had, or the only option he saw himself as having.

However, I've mentioned it before, I'll mention it again: A was not alone. Death was his release, but he left wreckage. In order to end his own suffering, he inflicted the same pain he went through on others.

Throughout the game, he moves on and pushes through. The ending shows that in reality... he didn't.

At least in lor the characters stick together and help each other heal.

This has been most of my thoughts on A, amounting to my longest analysis post ever, having taken me approximately two and a half hours to complete, and clocking in at 2337 words including up to this paragraph.

Thank you anon for giving me the incentive to verbalize all of this, so I can finally be at ease having inflicted my thoughts on everybody else.

#Feli gets asked #lobotomy corporation #ayin #library of ruina #also i saw apparently another fandom besides lc uses the ayin tag which is just fun to watch honestly #many characters could rival this word vomit probably but as i said i already inflicted most of my thoughts abt netz on my good pal borgor #thank you borgor for dragging me back into projmoon stuff. also curse you terribly #long post #Feli speaks

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sinterblackwell · 2 years ago

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hi!!! you have me totally hooked with your description of the winners/the beartown series... i've never read anxious people, which i know a lot ppl have enjoyed that one of his, and i'm just trying to get back into daily reading habits, so THANK YOU FOR THE UNCONSCIOUS REC!! if you have any more really good books you've read just in general.. i'm definitely in the looking-for-recs mode 😭😭😭 anyway, CONGRATS ON PAGE 200!! ❣️❣️❣️

aaaa okay okay first, thank you so much for the congrats!! “the winners” is going to be the longest book i’ve read this year at about 678 pages (just realized the numbers are in chronological order….) so i’m almost halfway there!! i’ve only teared up like three times so far.

i have read “anxious people” and really loved it!! it’s very popular for a reason, and it’s one of those books i’m glad is popular, although i would love to see more people talk about the author’s “beartown” series. the closest i’ve come to it is through seeing it mentioned in a twitter thread that was full of spoilers so i immediately clicked out of that.

it’s really cool that you’re into hockey because i think you’ll find a lot of love with “beartown” and be able to connect even more than i possibly did with the characters as we see how this sport drives them to the highest of highs only for them to be shown at their complete worst…..

(this came out a little long….i am very sorry about that. my little rant about the beartown series and my personal book recs are down below!!)

what i love about the story is how empathetic this author is when it comes to his deeply complicated characters. he doesn’t shy away from the violence of hockey, as you would know better than i do, and the thrill that drives fans absolutely mad, while also being able to display the complexity of their emotions and how different circumstances can drive people to make different decisions, both on and off the ice. as someone who doesn’t know too much hockey, the author has a way of making you feel invested in it because most of the characters are, and the descriptions of when they’re on the ice and playing the game is absolutely ruthless at times but most often, it’s all about the feeling of elation these players describe as they play. that’s what makes the choices they make outside of the ice rink feel as if it weighs so heavily, because by putting so much of themselves into hockey, they take all the good and bad with them that eventually leads to some pretty intense events.

one of the key elements of the entire series that’s so vital to digging into the heart of this small hockey town that lives near the forest is that it spans across a wide range of perspectives; multiple voices given a highlight because what this series is about isn’t just hockey itself, it’s the people who sacrifice and devote their entire lives to it, and who by extension, cause ripples in the fabric of each other’s lives. we see that ripple escalate as we see through the eyes of different families and friends and community members with different impacts to the story and it’s just….absolutely phenomenal. i highly recommend it.

as for book recs, if you’re looking for more hockey, i would love to recommend you “icebreaker” by a.l. graziadei. it’s a young adult book, and much much shorter in length to backman’s “beartown” series, but it offers a very impactful perspective with our main character, mickey james III, who goes through a tough mental health journey that i resonated with and that i hope others have, too.

if you want something more fun and a little lighthearted with hockey still in the background, there’s also the “check! please” series by ngozi ukazu. it’s a graphic novel series in a college setting and very adorable (the mc loves baking!!) so there’s that. also….just a slip-in……but i will recommend “gravity” by tal bauer as well!!! just something to check out maybe…..this was my review of the book, right here.

for books without hockey, here’s some other recs for you!! hopefully any of them catch your eye, i loved all of these books for different reasons and the writing in them is amazing; there’s so much more i could share with you but this it it for now :’)

- “the girls i’ve been” by tess sharpe

- “velvet was the night” by silvia moreno-garcia

- “henry hamlet’s heart” by rhiannon wilde

- “man o’ war” by cory mccarthy

- “these violent delights” by micah nemerever

- “dangerous damsels” series by india holton

- “the city beautiful” by aden polydoros

- “fragile remedy” by maria ingrande mora

- “you & me” by tal bauer (because of course.)

#❣️#thank you for the ask!!#i'm really happy that i unconsciously rec'd you this series #that's like every book lover's dream whenever you're just ranting about a book and you make someone interested in picking it up themselves #booklr #asks

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lies · 4 years ago

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I liked “The Queen’s Gambit” a lot. It reminded me of the movie 42 (which I also liked a lot) for a particular reason: In each case I had a strong positive response to the movie/show that I subsequently came to question due to my realizing the problematic nature of things I at first glossed over.

In the end I still liked it a lot, even loved it. But it’s a love colored by questions I have about the sources of my own appreciation.

Is my personal take on this something you’re actually interested in knowing more about? Read on after the cut!

Note: spoilers.

What I liked most about “The Queen’s Gambit”:

* The treatment of chess. They obviously cared deeply about getting it right, and went to obsessive lengths to do so. Most of their audience (including me) would have no real way to tell the difference without being at least decent chess players, but as far as I can tell (from the reactions of people way more into chess than I am) they met that standard. That kind of over-the-top attention to detail is something I care about. That the chess was (mostly) anatomically correct, down to the level of being based on actual grandmaster-level games that were reflected accurately in the characters’ emotions and actions was awesome. Idiot lectures were minimal. The depiction of tournaments was mostly accurate (albeit with some story-serving anomalies like players occasionally addressing each other directly). Besides that realism, the presentation of the games was really well done, in the sense that they didn’t repeat themselves stylistically. We saw lots of different perspectives on the games. There were medium shots of players and boards. Tight close-ups of the player’s hands, or their faces. The audience watching. Tournament staff repeating the moves on a big board. It was always interesting, even absorbing, and I’d blink and realize whoa; they’re actually showing a chess game. And it’s intense.

* The way Beth’s substance abuse was portrayed. There were points in the series where I grew concerned that we were going to trope-land, where the troubled genius spirals down into pills and alcohol, and it would have been boring. Trite/easy/exploitative. And then... they didn’t do that. When young Beth pulls off the big pill heist I was concerned that’s where we were going. And then the way they resolve that, with an over-the-top bravura climax to the whole young-Beth arc, it was breathtakingly good. The same with the latter parts of the series, as she deals with her addiction issues during the tournaments in Paris and Moscow. There was a trite version of that story, and they very much did not tell that version. Instead they gave us something that felt true, as Beth deals with her issues the best she can, with help from others at key moments. It was a positive story that nevertheless didn’t minimize the problem.

* The basic narrative structure, of the young orphan, the weird kid beaten down by the world, learning and growing and eventually triumphing, worked really well for me. I related to Beth, and especially as the show goes on it was exciting to see her become more capable and self-assured. In the scene with her adoptive father when he reneges on the house arrangement you realize that oh; Beth is approaching it as a chess match. She sees the board, is way ahead of her opponent, and is ruthless about pressing her advantage. The look her lawyer gives her at the end of that scene was great.

* The deeper theme of her found family was beautifully realized, right up to the final scene in the park. Taylor-Joy sold all the key moments in that journey so well, and it made that conclusion completely satisfying and earned.

* There was more that I loved: The period details, the clothes, the cars. Though with the cars, there was a specific thing that was bugging me until I figured out what it was. I grew up watching period pieces from times before I was actually around. But this show, set in the U.S. of the late 1960s, is showing a place and time I actually lived in. So details matter. And with the cars, there was a subtle artifact of unreality: Everyone was driving cars that weren’t actually accurate depictions of what they would have been driving. Instead they were driving cars of that era lovingly restored (and beautifully shot), but still recognizably 21st-century cars. When Beth and Benny drive to New York in Benny’s car, it was the right car (a 1966 VW bug; actually the first car I owned). But it was a ‘66 bug as it looks today when restored by a collector. It wasn’t the version of a ‘66 bug that Benny would have been driving. It should have been scruffier (just like him and his apartment). That was a cheap car at the time, and the right car for his character to have, but it didn’t look like a cheap car. I guess it would be asking too much for them to have gone to the level of not just getting the right car, but of distressing it to look appropriate. I don’t know; as with Beth’s journey toward glamour the cars (and clothes) were treated as eye candy. And on some level I’m sure that was working for me, so maybe I shouldn’t complain.

But that brings me to the thing that I realize was problematic:

* The series at times was super male-gaze-y. The depiction of Beth’s relationships was good, and realistic to who she was. But at a certain point in a series created, written, and directed by a dude, the dude-specific viewpoint was bothersome. And I get that this was part of the story being told: Beth is operating in a world dominated by men, and her reactions to that were interesting. But is that really worthy of elevating as the default frame? The exceptions to that (her relationships with her friend Jolene, and with her adoptive mother) were good, but at times felt peripheral to the main focus, which was on the men dealing with/reacting to Beth. And that’s where it reminded me of 42, with its white-savior narrative that at times seems to focus more on the white characters around Jackie Robinson like Dodgers owner Branch Rickey and shortstop Pee Wee Reese than it does on Robinson himself. And I get that that’s probably a significant part of why the movie (and “The Queen’s Gambit”) worked so well for me in particular: I’m a straight, white, heterosexual dude. So I invest in the drama of the white people around Jackie Robinson, or of a male chess nerd staring slack-jawed at Beth Harmon dancing in her underwear. It works for me because it’s designed to appeal to my perspective. And in each case it’s also a good story with transcendent performances from Chadwick Boseman and Anya Taylor-Joy. What they (and the rest of the people who made these creations) are doing is great, and rises above the limitations of the framing. But I can’t stop myself from wondering: Is it really as good as it seems to me? Or does it just seem that good to me because of who I am?

#the queen's gambit #male gaze #problematic faves #meta #it's been a while since I inflicted overlong meta on you

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laureviewer · 4 years ago

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Persona 5 Royal: A Review

It’s finally time to review one of my all-time favourite games.

I first played Persona 5 around 3 years ago, and I’ve really grown since then in a few ways. A few thoughts before I begin: a) since my first playthrough, JRPGs have cemented themselves as one of my favourite types of games; b) I don’t hate all turn-based RPGs except Pokémon anymore!; c) after my first playthrough I went to Japan, and as Persona 5 is set in Tokyo, playing Royal was a lot of fun as I knew a lot of the locations, which meant I could dive into the setting deeper than the first time; and d) my 250 hours of playtime in total across both playthroughs can most likely be attributed to the incredible writing and masterful character development.

Warning: HEAVY story spoilers

I’m not trying to sell you a game. I want to give you an in-depth analysis of the story, characters, gameplay and all other aspects of this brilliant game, spoilers and all. I want a discussion. So, dive in and see what I really thought, no holds barred.

The Silence is Deafening

‘…’ – a direct quote from our protagonist, there. Our silent hero, codename Joker, is a victim of circumstance. Wrongfully accused of assault by a mysterious man who is angered that a kid prevented him from forcing a woman into his car et al., he must move away from his hometown to wait out his probation period and live a normal student life. Why must he live above a failing café under the guardianship of the cranky owner? Not to mention: why is he banished to Tokyo of all places, somewhere very likely much more exciting than wherever his hometown is?

Either way, Joker isn’t going to tell you. He’s quiet and lets the other many, many other characters do the talking for him—a usual trope of JRPGs, but it is still an issue as he is also put on a pedestal as an incredibly special, talented, empathetic and all-round great guy. He’s the only one capable of saving the world, as he has abilities no-one else has, for some reason.

But this isn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be. Sure, it doesn’t really make sense why you have such a huge following when you don’t have much of a personality, but that’s the beauty of the silent protagonist. You, the player, are the protagonist. The fact that you can even put your own name in as his name is telling. You make the decisions, you make the friends, and you carve out your own destiny from the choices you make. It’s always these kinds of games that, when I talk to my friends, I say ‘I messed up with Sojiro’ or ‘I went to the arcade today’—and it is me. Because even though I’m not a woefully silent Japanese male teenager with glasses, for the time I’m playing Persona 5, I am.

So, you are the protagonist. You learn that there are mental shutdowns all over Tokyo, making people go crazy and kill lots of people, such as a conductor crashing his train, or simply killing people on the spot. It’s weird, but what can you do? You’re just a student with his own problems: not only do many of the students avoid you because you are a delinquent, but the volleyball coach, Kamoshida, seems to be harassing students, from the ones on his team who seem terrified of him, to girls that are being hit on. When a strange app appears on your phone, you accidentally find yourself in the metaverse, along with Ryuji, who also has a good reason to get revenge on Kamoshida.

I Am Thou, Thou Art I

What teenager doesn’t have a rebellious self hidden deep within their subconscious? Well, these teens can utilise that hidden self past its usual constraints to overcome the crappy adults that suppress them and make detrimental decisions for them. Once Joker and Ryuji, and later many other young adults, realise this potential and recognise that these adults need to be stopped, they are awakened to their Personas. A Persona is a manifestation of a persona user’s personality, which the individual can use to face hardship and overcome injustice, even if just in the Metaverse, the collective unconscious world.

But, really, there’s no ‘just’ about it. Here in this world, which take the form of Palaces, the Phantom Thieves (you and your friends) can defeat the ruler of the Palace (the adult with a distorted desire) to convince them to change their heart. In this way, the ‘real’ them in the real world will atone for their actions and justice can be served. So, really, your actions are vital to solving crimes, dealing justice and, eventually, saving the world.

These Personas are like Pokémon for adults. You are special, as you can catch and wield multiple Personas, allowing you to have a whole array of powers, but your friends have one that they train and evolve throughout the course of the story. Catching them is a skill: you have to learn their weakness, and use a skill that takes advantage of it to ‘down’ the Persona. This gives you a chance to either: perform an ‘all out’ attack which sees all your allies fight them at once for increased damage; ask them for money or an item; or negotiate with them to convince them to become a part of you (and thus catch them for use later). This gets harder when there are multiple different Personas to battle at once, all with different weaknesses and strengths that means you must time your combat precisely to ‘down’ them at the same time.

Personas are one of the best parts of the game, as you can see.

Not happy with a persona’s moves, or you want to create stronger ones? Go to the Velvet Room, where Igor and the Twin Wardens Justine and Caroline will fuse two or more Personas together to create new ones.

This is where the Pokémon element is better and worse. You can get completely new and stronger Personas immediately, which is cool, but if you are particularly drawn to one it doesn’t make sense to keep using them as they will level up far quicker if you fuse them than if you keep them. I struggled with this at first, as Arsene is your first ‘official’ Persona, and I couldn’t quite believe you are only meant to have him for the first few hours. It’s like Ash giving up Pikachu after defeating Brock!

Also, have you seen how you have to fuse them? It’s so dark and unnecessarily vivid! You have to guillotine, electric chair or hang them in order to create these new Personas, which is so different to Persona 4 where the Personas are cards, making it less gruesome to get rid of your companions. It definitely made me feel bad for fusing them, but that didn’t stop me!

Essentially, the Persona franchise wouldn’t be the same without all the incredible Personas you fight and capture along the way. It really encapsulates what the games are like: stylized and deeply considered, exuding character and imagination throughout.

Take Over, It’s Time to Put You Down

Using these Personas are a lot of fun, too. The moves are elemental as well as physical, they can inflict ailments such as ‘sleep’ and ‘fear’, and evolve as you and your Personas level up. Personas all have strengths and weaknesses, and by fusing them, you can create Personas with stronger moves and resistances that, as you get towards the end of the game, means that you can fuse some incredibly powerful Personas that can fight any and all enemies, if you’re smart with the moves you inherit.

This all sounds very similar to Pokémon, right? Well, there are other more showy, fantastically fun elements that integrate beautifully with the stunning graphics to make every battle (which have the potential to become very repetitive) exciting and challenging. When a character manages to ‘down’ an enemy by using a move that is strong against it, they can either do another attack or choose to Baton Pass to an ally, chaining super-effective attacks to down multiple enemies in one round, which is useful if there are a lot of different enemies with different affinities and weaknesses. Then, once all enemies are downed, all allies can come together for an All Out Attack for an extra boost of damage.

As much as this is useful for the player, if the enemy downs one of your allies, they can also do a secondary attack, which means that they have the potential to wipe out your team very quickly. Plus, some moves are one hit kills, which may have low accuracy but is still extremely frustrating sometimes, particularly in regular 5 where I found the combat more challenging. The worst boss fight was Haru’s dad, where I actually had to change difficulty for the only time throughout the game—who decided it was a good idea to revive the robot shadows if you didn’t kill them in three moves?!

The Showtime moves, new for Royal, bring a fresh new element to the game. As you progress through the story, your allies start forming bonds, which will then be reflected in combat. At seemingly random times, they can join up with fantastic new animations (such as Yusuke cooking Ryuji some yummy food at a bar, who get interrupted by a shadow coming in the door, and they both take it out) and inflict massive damage. I was sad that Joker doesn’t get one, until the Royal section where baes Akechi and Sumire both team up with you respectively for new Showtimes. It made me wonder whether Joker just wasn’t as close to the rest of the team as he becomes to Akechi and Sumire, which actually also made me glad that I focused on both of them heavily in my playthrough!

Every song that plays throughout the game, including combat, is a banger, so even though my husband got annoyed hearing it coming out of my TV for 120 hours, this soundtrack will remain one of my favourites to date. Overall, the combat is great, and thankfully not too repetitive after so many hours of gameplay.

Adulting is Hard

The story of Persona 5 is deeply gripping, and keeps you invested and interested the whole way through. It didn’t absolutely destroy me like other JRPGs have done (see: Final Fantasy XV), but fun, emotive and has huge repercussions if you don’t succeed in your mission, including people dying and the world ending. No pressure, then.

Your actions, then, are crucial to making the world a better place: and the villains that you encounter are integral to succeeding. In true revolution fashion, it’s the kids that need to stand up to the adults to rid them of their distorted desires—but it’s not all random. The adults are truly abhorrent (the first one, Kamoshida, sexually assaults female students and physically abuses members of his volleyball team) and they continue a running thread from first to last—that is, the ones who you think aren’t connected at all seem to be connected to the final villain by the end. It’s very clever, and kept me gripped the whole way through—something that’s needed with 80+ hours of gameplay.

The writing is absolutely fantastic. All characters have their own distinct mannerisms, personalities and stories, which you get to explore with the Confidant mechanic (see below). The voice acting is great, and as I progressed through the Confidants, I really started to feel like they were becoming my friends, and that every time I turned on my PS4 I was hanging out with my pals again. It’s the way games should make you feel—like you actually care about what will happen to them.

This does make the game quite stressful (in a good way), as what you do has actual repercussions. It’s a bit frustrating sometimes that some of your dialogue doesn’t affect the game at large, as well as your romance choices. None of the characters acknowledge you have a girlfriend, and if you date Ann, for example, she won’t act any differently than if you decide to not even become her friend. While that’s disappointing, other dialogue choices can completely affect your game so that you always have to be very careful with your decisions. Will you get the ‘bad’ ending, where you fail to stop the final villain; the ‘good bad’ ending, where you accept his distorted view of the world; or the ‘true’ canon ending, where you revert the world to normal? A lot of choices throughout this lengthy game affect what ultimately happens, so you do feel like you’re affecting the story a lot more than, say, Pokémon. In fact, in Royal, you can even miss out on a whole section of the game…

Ascending to Royalty

As long as you max your Confidant links with Akechi (the renegade teen detective), Kasumi (the new gymnast freshman at your school) and Maruki (the school counsellor), you get to experience the 30+ hours that Royal adds to Persona 5. And—major spoilers here—once you’ve defeated the God of Control and exposed Akechi for the unhinged betrayer that he is, you should go to juvenile detention and your ability to use Personas should be gone for good, as Momentos has been destroyed.

However, in Royal, Maruki has figured out how to use cognitive psience—and you’re the reason why. His sessions with you has helped with his research, and so now he can make the world a better place by granting everyone’s desires in the collective unconsciousness.

As you can see by his actions, he’s not your typical antagonist. His heart is completely in the right place: he wants to make everyone happy by granting their desires for them, such as bringing back Futaba’s dead mother and helping Ryuji recover so he can get back on the track team. I resonated with that, and actually wondered whether it would be worse for certain characters, particularly Futaba and Haru who get to spend time with their respective dead parents, to reject the “blissful ignorance” reality that Maruki had created for them in favour of the truth.

By this point, I had grown rather fond of the deranged but entertaining firework that Akechi has revealed himself to be, and once I learned that Akechi would die (as he did in regular 5) if Maruki’s reality were to be revoked, I almost chose to accept it. But Akechi being adamant that he was going to stop Maruki no matter what as he didn’t want to live under anyone else’s rule helped make that choice for me. It was difficult, though. Akechi’s is a motive that is simultaneously selfish and noble: selfish as he doesn’t want anyone else to control him, even if that means other people are happy, but noble because he values the truth above all else. Plus, the fact that he was one of the main villains throughout the story up until this point made me question whether we should continue to trust him, even though he had decided to help us, even if it were primarily for his own gain. I think my fondness for him (perhaps because he is a fully-fledged Confidant in this game, unlike regular 5) and the wildcard elements he brought to the game made me feel a certain brand of loyalty towards him, and so I chose to honour his “dying wish”. And, of course, this path led to the ‘true’ ending!

This indecision is shown most clearly in Maruki’s palace, where you have to deduce what decisions in certain situations Maruki would think is the ‘right’ one. It really helps you understand where he’s coming from. For example, his question ‘if your friend is being attacked, and you don’t have much time before they get seriously hurt, would you a) run to get help but you might not make it back in time, or b) join the fight to help but you might get hurt yourself?’ Neither answer is necessarily wrong, but b) is correct as Maruki simply wants you to look out for yourself over others. The crux of his viewpoint is that you should endeavour to make yourself happy or safe, even if that means others may not be. It’s a very interesting conundrum, and one I enjoyed debating philosophically whilst playing.

The concept of right and wrong and mental health was also tackled in this game through Kasumi/Sumire. Ultimately, even though Maruki wanted to help her by allowing Sumire to pretend to be her dead sister, as she blames herself for her death, he ultimately did her more harm than good. With the support of Joker and the others Sumire was able to overcome her delusions and grow into a strong, confident young woman. This cemented for me how backwards Maruki was and that reality is the most important thing, even if it’s not always what we want, because that’s life. In this way, I feel that Royal added something to 5. Even though going into someone’s mind palace was about mental health, I never really considered it until Royal dealt with an innocent traumatised girl and a misguided man attempting to heal her. I applaud Atlas for tackling something so difficult pretty well.

Confident in my Confidants

It’s a good thing the player can really get into the story, because it’s heavily dependent on personal decisions and making friends.

In order to get stronger within the Metaverse, Igor, the man inside the Velvet Room, tells Joker that he needs to strengthen the relationship with his friends first. This is absolutely true—not just with your teammates, but with other individuals who live in Tokyo too, in the form of the Confidant mechanic. For example, while your teammates all get skills such as curing afflictions and taking fatal hits for Joker, others give just as much if not more valuable perks, such as Kawakami giving you more free time or Mishima allowing all teammates to gain experience even if they don’t contribute to the battle once you max them out.

The way you level them up is through socialising. This passes time, but is also incredibly interesting, as each Confidant has a gripping story (except Ohya!). You can’t downgrade a Confidant, but picking the right dialogue choices can make leveling them up much quicker in a game where time is everything. It’s also necessary to level up your stats, such as knowledge, kindness and charm, to allow you to progress with some Confidants and be empathetic or charming enough to deal with the situations thrown at you. I loved the dual play style of dungeon battles and social simulation—in a lengthy game, it broke up gameplay and kept it fresh.

As this was my second playthrough, I already knew that maxing certain Confidants would yield the best results, such as Kawakami and Yoshida who eventually allows you to negotiate with and catch shadows of a higher level than you. But in Royal, the new additions of Counselor, Faith & Justice—Maruki, Kasumi & Akechi��freshened things up. Technically, Justice isn’t new, but you can now hang out with him instead of his progress being facilitated purely by story.

Time to rate my friends from worst to best!

21: Ichiko Ohya Devil Arcana

I found this alcoholic journalist very annoying. Her story isn’t that interesting, she isn’t very nice, and the skills that she gives you to allow you to sneak around Palaces easier aren’t worth it either. I only maxed out her story near the end as I had time, but honestly, she shouldn’t be a priority.

20: Iwai Munehisa Hanged Man Arcana

Didn’t think anything of him until Royal, where I had more time to learn about his time in the Yakusa and his son. Useful for guns (which aren’t even an integral part of combat, really), but other than that I barely used his shop—plus you have to have high Guts in order to progress. Definitely better Confidants out there.

19: Tae Takemi Death Arcana

The fact that this doctor is a sexy goth is probably the best thing about her. You can level her up quite early on, so she is quite exciting at the beginning as she’s one of the only adults you can turn into a Confidant at that point, but after a while she stopped being interesting to me. In my Royal playthrough I found I didn’t need many healing items—SP was far more important!—and in the end I didn’t max her out. A fun outfit, but can leave her.

18: Shinya Oda Tower Arcana

Definitely annoying (but what little brother isn’t?) but there’s a sad reason for that—his mum is emotionally abusive, even if she doesn’t mean to be. In the end I wanted to max him out to save him from that life, but I never quite got that far. At least I managed to change his mum’s heart before I finished the game.

He’s also quite useful in buffing gun attacks and bonuses for downing and negotiating, so definitely useful for combat. I just ended up feeling bad for him, but he was also a bit of a shit, being a bully to his classmates; his big bro Joker helped with that!

17: Hifumi Togo Star Arcana

I never got to know her in my first playthrough, and I didn’t realise how useful she is for battles. She eventually allows you to swap players in combat, hastens escapes, improves money hauls, and allows back-up members to do follow up attacks. I’d definitely give her a shot for just those bonuses, even if you don’t want to romance her—but she is sweet, if very detached from the rest of the story.

16: Chihaya Mifune Fortune Arcana

I maxed her out pretty quickly so I could get the fortune readings; affinity was especially useful, as you can level up Confidants a tiny bit quicker, for a price. And, after she takes 100,000 from you near the beginning (!) and eventually gives it back, she’s lovely. Nothing special, and definitely not one to romance, but nice.

15: Twin Wardens Justine & Caroline Strength Arcana

Their Confidant path was slightly different: you have to show them Personas with specific moves, and they will level up. This was very interesting, and also put a natural brake on their relationship, as some Personas can’t be made until you are a certain level. They are also very useful as you eventually unlock group Persona fusions and can fuse Personas of a higher level than you, for a price. Always fun to get the ridiculous Personas a bit earlier on! Also, their story was super interesting, due to the mystery that surrounds their identities…

Also also, Royal gives a new element to your relationship with them. You can now take them out of the Velvet Room to show them ‘human things’, like aquariums and cinemas. I didn’t utilise this much as you only get skill cards, and no actual level progress, but I wish I had more time, as the dialogue in these sequences is hilarious as they try to understand why humans would do certain things. The fact that I’ve ranked them so low is telling—there are so many fun and useful Confidants that mean they rank this low.

14: Yuuki Mishima Moon Arcana

I actually think you’re a bit mean to him—he’s definitely your friend, but every time you are asked to clarify this the dialogue choices make you seem like a dickhead when you say he’s only ‘sort of’ your friend! He’s helped you so much, stop being such a dick, player. Plus he helps increase EXP, as well as allows EXP to be given to back-up members so it’s definitely a good thing to max him earlier. Plus, he’s sweet, and gives you Momentos requests. Justice for Mishima!

13: Takuto Maruki Councillor Arcana

Lovely. What a gent. Shame he turned out to be distorted by deciding to change people’s realities by interpreting their vague wants instead of actually asking people if they’d WANT their realities changed or not. Sounds a bit like Thanos to me, but with a better reason to be evil.

The bonuses of Maruki though are: he’s interesting; he’s lovely; and his bonuses are mainly SP based, which is always hard to recover in Persona, especially in the early stages of the games. He raises your SP, gives you a chance to instantly recover ailments, gives you a chance to become focused and therefore raises your attack, and gives you a chance to recover your SP when low. Very useful, and you can’t play the Royal storyline without maxing him out before November 18th anyway.

12: Haru Okumura Empress Arcana

Again, I wasn’t too much of a fan of Haru on my first playthrough (perhaps because she’s quite a late addition to the team), but this time round, I had more time to get to know her. I really wanted to save her from her awful fiancé, and hoped I’d be able to say ‘don’t marry him, marry me!’ if I chose to romance her, but alas. I was also quite surprised with how business-orientated she is, which was a surprise. However, she was just too prim and proper for me, and even after her story showed her to be evolving into a confident woman, she didn’t evolve quite enough for me to be interested.

She’s useful, though, as all the Confidants are who are your team members, so leveling her up is a must, for help in combat and to evolve her Persona.

11: Morgana Magician Arcana

Morgana was the most useful as the support hero—I always wanted him in my party, particularly in hard battles, just to keep me and my allies alive. Plus, who doesn’t love a talking cat? Though, at one point, he does get moody and very annoying. While Morgana as a character was never that exciting past being the initial reason they can become Phantom Thieves and the mystery surrounding where he comes from, Royal switched that up by turning him into a dreamboat with piercing blue eyes when Maruki made his dream of being a human come true. They kept saying throughout this sequence how beautiful he was, which was amusing. A nice twist on the original game.

10: Toranosuke Yoshida Sun Arcana

I learnt to level this fallen-from-grace politician up quickly from my first playthrough as, once you max him out, you can negotiate easier with shadows of your own level, and negotiate with higher level shadows and add them to the compendium—absolutely necessary. Also, he’s basically a massive socialist leftie, so he rocks.

9: Yusuke Kitagawa Emperor Arcana

I didn’t like him much in my first playthrough, but now I appreciate him far more—he’s flamboyant, artistic and, best of all, happy to be in his own mind and be himself, no matter what people think of him. He’s a bit stuck up sometimes, but all in all he’s an outsider who fits in better than he really should. And he provides funny dialogue, particularly when interacting with Futaba. I also love his Showtime moves with Ryuji and Ann.

8: Ann Takamaki Lovers Arcana

I’m quite surprised she’s this low down for me, but even though she’s the first girl you befriend and she’s hopelessly beautiful to everyone who meets her, she doesn’t quite push past the ‘ditzy girl’ trope. The story does try to make her more nuanced, and to an extent it works—she’s also fun, thoughtful and empathetic—but there’s just too many misogynistic and ditsy jokes that even only a few years later don’t land anymore. Saying that, she literally uses her sexuality to break free of the misogyny that surrounds her body and the sexual abuse and prejudice she experiences, at the most from the volleyball teacher, and at the least from everyone around her. It’s a steep hill to climb, but she’s doing it.

I drew the picture below!

7: Sadayo Kawakami Temperance Arcana

Kawakami’s your teacher—what could possibly go wrong? Well, she’s also a sexy maid who comes over to clean up, though she won’t go any further as you’re her high school student. Yet. It’s a bit dodgy, especially as she acts like your mum, but even so, the forbidden fruit angle is fun. Her story is also compelling. Not only is she an interesting Confidant, but one of the most useful ones for the amount of extra time she gives you when you level her up. Why on both my playthroughs did I not level her up immediately?

6: Sojiro Sakura Hierophant Arcana

He’s your guardian who takes you in when you have to move from your hometown after your alleged assault to live out your probation. He starts out cranky, but has an absolute heart of gold. He ended up being one of my favourite Confidants—plus, he’s one of the most useful, as he is one of the only ways to get SP in the early game by making coffee and curry. You need to understand the pride I got from making coffee that met his expectations!

5: Futaba Sakura Hermit Arcana

Sojiro’s adopted daughter is so much fun that I romanced her in the first game. While some may think she’s more like a little sister, she’s just a bit more immature because of her hermit lifestyle and Arcana. She’s funny, loves games, and has great references; she is one of the only instances of a game that has a young girl who doesn’t sound like 40-year-olds trying to sound like teenagers. She has a heartbreaking story, but her personality keeps it light. She says it how it is, no matter what anyone else thinks. She’s great.

4: Kasumi/Sumire Yoshizawa Faith Arcana

I chose to romance the gymnast honour student in Royal, because how can you not romance the new girl? Though I wasn’t sure at first, as I found her quite twee at the beginning. However, she became a lot more nuance when she became Sumire, which is to be expected. Plus, she is really well integrated into the story and really makes you feel she cares about you. She has an amazing costume when she is Codename: Violet, and gives you some truly useful abilities, such as ambushing from a distance and avoiding being surrounded by shadows. She’s a great addition to an already great game.

3: Makoto Niijima Priestess Confidant

She’s bestgirl in terms of smarts, badassery, and simple relatability. She is Student Council President, an honour student, and has been manipulated by evil adults for their own distorted desires. Her parents have died, which instils her with deep guilt for being a burden on her sister. She’s also the only one whose Confidant story doesn’t actively revolve around herself: she changes, but it’s through helping her friend who may be a victim of trafficking rather than her own self-interests. She’s sharp, poised and even more badass when she awakens to her Persona, Johanna—it’s a freaking motorcycle!

2: Ryuji Sakamoto Chariot Confidant

Your best buddy. I’m always drawn towards these ones, who are treated a bit dumb but are loyal to the end. He’s also hilarious, like when he complains the Phantom Thieves are in the shadows and not getting any credit, and I chose the option ‘I like the shade’, he says ‘what are you, moss?!’ I really do wish I could romance him, because I can see a lovely storyline where he’s unsure at first but the fact that they’re soulmates transcends gender.

1: Goro Akechi Justice Confidant

I’m almost hesitant to admit I find him the most fascinating and fun. Not only is he dangerous, exciting and unhinged, he's at the centre of an incredible twist. He’s one of the most interesting characters, and you never know what he’s going to do next. I would definitely date him if Japanese games let gay relationships happen; he has all the best attributes for a crazy romantic relationship. Not IRL, but in a game, why not?

I love that he didn’t die and teams up with you in Royal, and that . He’s also the first character that Joker gets a Showtime move with, which made it quite special. When it is revealed just how evil and crazy he is, his whole character changes, including his Persona, his Phantom Thieves outfit, and his demeanor—it’s scary how excited he is by killing, but at the same time, he is absolutely certain of his viewpoints and won’t compromise for anyone. Many of these points would be a reason why he shouldn’t be my number one, but I can’t help it.

Honourable Mentions: Igor (Fool Arcana), Sae Niijima (Judgement Arcana) & Jose

Igor is the ruler of the Velvet Room, and the person who facilitates your rehabilitation in changing peoples’ hearts. However, ‘person’ isn’t quite right for Igor: he’s the God of Control, born from the desires of the collective masses who want to be controlled and be told what to do rather than make difficult decisions. It was a cool twist to realise that the God of Control had been impersonating the real Igor; I don’t know if Igor was lovely in the previous games, but he certainly is once you restore him at the end of 5. Despite him being interesting, I never felt like I had a connection with him, as you level up his Arcana automatically throughout the story, and he never tried to have a personal relationship with Joker.

Sae has her own palace and Arcana, but she’s not quite the same as the others. Like Igor, you level up automatically throughout the game when you confess to her the whole Phantom Thieves story, and while she does have a Palace, she doesn’t through any huge transformation other than realising that learning the truth is better than trying to win at any cost. She’s cool, and her outfit in her Palace is sexy, but you can’t romance her and can’t change much of what you say to her. I wish in Royal she could have been a fully fledged Confidant instead.

Jose counts even less. A new addition to Royal, he helps you change the cognition of Momentos by collecting stamps as you go further down, and he gives you items in exchange for flowers, so he definitely makes Momentos better. However, his addition is nothing world-shaking, and he only shows up randomly, which makes him quite annoying. I could have done without him, but at least he made Momentos more interesting than in the base game, which, compared to Palaces, was quite boring.

All in all, my main issue with the Confidant system as that you still can’t date boys. We’ve been saying for years ‘that’s just the Japanese way’, but considering the crazy hentai they bring out (still with only very little amounts of yaoi/gay hentai) it may be time to stop excusing them for not being with the times. Catherine: Full Body aimed to dispel that somewhat—perhaps Persona should too.

A Momentous Game

Overall, this is one of my favourite games of all time. The gameplay keeps me entertained for 100+ hours (though, to be fair, I do love long games) and the characters and writing makes me emotionally connect with the story they are telling. I’d suggest playing for at least 8 hours, as it’s a slow burn, but once that hurdle is jumped the real obsession begins.

Time to go and play Persona 4 Golden, as I’m not quite ready for the fun to be over yet.

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thereluctantinquisitor · 6 years ago

Note

personally i don't think lgbt ppl getting upset abt a bi/pan character getting killed is "ridiculous drama", even if it is a game it's media too and harmful tropes can perpetuate in any form of media. the fact that there's an element of randomness from the dice doesn't mean lgbt ppl aren't allowed to be upset about the death of a character that meant a lot to them or the implications that come from the most flamboyant character getting killed first

I do understand where you are coming from. Perhaps I did not phrase my post well enough. It is not a matter of people not being allowed to get upset. BE upset. That’s okay - it was an emotional situation, and there is nothing wrong with getting invested in a character or their story.

It’s when it turns into abusing people (such as the DM) because of an intrinsic element of the game being played, that it earns the term ‘ridiculous’.

The thing with D&D is that, unlike other media, it does exist in an environment of chance. There is no escaping that, and there are risks associated with it as a result. Part of the game is making decisions on how you approach situations, and they are not always going to be the ‘best ones’ because the player does not have all the information. Which is the point. Yes, Molly was the most flamboyant character. Yes, it was very sad that he died in that encounter and I will also miss him deeply. However, he was also not the only LGBT character in the game, and I am not sure I like the idea of certain characters being ‘off limits’ in D&D for that reason. Let me briefly explain why.

This is not a narrative written by a team that unfolds perfectly according to their plan throughout a novel or season (etc). This is an improvised tabletop game with chance as its central mechanic. There was no ‘Grand Narrative Plan’ of who to kill off first, because anyone who has DMed even a single session will tell you that it is laughable to believe that any plan you make will survive player interaction and decision making. There are too many moving parts, too many improvised decisions, and too many dice-rolls for it to work like a pre-scripted show. Holding it to the same standard just isn’t possible.

Hating on a DM for how a D&D session unfolded is not the same as holding writers accountable for the long-term narrative decisions they have made throughout the course of a production. So yes, you are right, it is a form of media. But not all media can be defined by a single set of standards when the core of their creation differs so wildly.

#i hope that cleared some of my stance up anon #you don't need to agree with me #but i want to show you where i am coming from #it is okay to be upset #it is not okay to direct abuse at the cast for how an improvised game of chance unfolded #reluctant replies #this will be all i will say on the matter folks #we will now return to your regularly scheduled programming #critical role spoilers #cr2 spoilers #anonymous

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domiandsascha · 6 years ago

Text

The Sweetest of Heartbreaks

An emotional essay on Domi’s run at the Us Open.

Sport is the most heartbreaking of passions. Believe me, I've tried them all. I don't know how to be an average fan. I don't "like", I obsess. And even though I think being passionate is wonderful, I really wish I could tone my emotional investment down, because sport, and especially tennis, hurts more often than not.

The day after Arsène Wenger retired from Arsenal, a customer, devastated and unable to put his pain into perspective, told me "Sport is the most important of irrelevant things. It means nothing on the big scale of life and yet, it means the world. It's silly how sad I am, but I can't help it". Twenty four hours after the Madrid final, I could relate, big time, being way more upset than one should be following a tennis match. But as he had said, I couldn't help it. There's no way to rationalize the disappointment when your heart belongs to a team or a player.

Since the day Dominic Thiem has taken, unknowingly, full ownership of mine, I feel like I've been on a never ending rollercoaster ride. It's psychologically exhausting. Now, would I jump out of my seat if I could? No. Never. But I've been trying to protect myself in case of unavoidable nosedives. The most efficient seatbelt I've found is to lower my expectations to what I'm certain Dominic is capable of, based on current circumstances. Don't get me wrong, my faith in him is limitless and he will achieve greatness. But history has proven that a few things beyond his control can get in the way of his tennis abilities. And also, Hope is a perverse b*tch. So I'm being cautious and pragmatic. It's safer and healthier considering the irrational impact of Dominic's results on my wellbeing.

Therefore, two days before the beginning of the US Open 2018, my take on Dominic's chances would have cost me a few "And you call yourself a fan??" had I made it public. But let's face it. He hadn't won a single match on hardcourt since Indian Wells in March and he had just been injured, sick and through a heavy personal disappointment in Kitzbühel not too long before. So draw in hands, facts in mind and my arch enemy Hope silenced in the basement, I set my expectations to what I knew Dominic could do: reach Round 4 and defend his points.

I watched his first game against Basic on my phone, a great friend of mine face-timing me from Grandstand where she was seated, sixth row. I couldn't really follow the points, seeing only Dominic and a third of the court on my screen, but I understood he had broken his opponent, playing flawless and lethal tennis. So Hope got rid of her gag and yelled "OMG! He's going to have an epic US Open!". I shut her up. "Don't you start!".

He won easily, but struggled against Johnson, which I had seen coming after Steve's epic run the previous week. Dominic did it the hard way, probably harder than he could have. He drove me to turn off the stream at some point and to fear a premature heartbreak. But he did it and reinforced one of my certainties: he was born for five setters and epic battles. Then came the match against Fritz. Dominic lost his cool, which I like to see, even though I maybe shouldn't. And not only did he play great tennis, he also displayed, once again, his unbelievable sportsmanship, advising Taylor to challenge a call on break point. A friend told me "Domi shouldn't do that. He's too nice!". And I thought "Oh, he should. Always". He didn't become my favorite player because of his backhand or his deep runs at the French Open. He's my favorite player because he's a gem of a human being and I'll forever value kindness above all qualities.

And there we were. Round 4. Points had been defended. Personal expectations had been reached. Facts in mind once again -their head-to-head, the surface and Anderson's current form-, I allowed Hope to come back in the leaving-room but asked her not to be too loud. Winning this one would be difficult, but it was possible.

Before the match, I tweeted "May our boy play his best tennis and enjoy himself". That's all I've ever wanted. That's why the finals in Madrid and Paris had been so painful and hard to recover from, despite the pride from watching him reached them. Because Dominic hadn't enjoyed his time on court and had left both tournaments thinking he could have played better. So yes, if he had to lose against Kevin, I was hoping he would do it in style.

Two hours and thirty-five minutes later, at 5-2 in the third set tiebreak, I was bawling my eyes out, both my hands pressed against my chest, overwhelmed and dizzy, but feeling so light I could have flown away. This, right then, this rush, this very instant, was the reason why I would never jump out of the rollercoaster. That was the point when the train reaches the top of the highest slope, when your heart starts racing, as you know what's coming, but you let go of the security guardrail and raise your arms, because you feel a hundred percent safe. I was feeling so safe. I didn't think for one second I should silence Hope. "It's not over til it's over!". It wasn't hope. It was over. It had been over from the moment Dominic had broken Kevin in the first set and it had made no doubt from then. It might have taken a fourth set, but ultimately, Dominic would have won this match. He was playing his absolute most clever and efficient tennis and he was having the time of his life doing so. Up to the very last point, he showed the full extent of his skills and his reaction after his amazing final shot increased my life expectancy by a decade.

During the following forty-eight hours, there was no way to silence Hope. It didn't matter that Dominic had to play Rafa next. Feeling this safe is too rare, I had to make the most of it. So I was walking down the streets, grinning like an idiot, day dreaming he was going to beat Djokovic in straight sets on Sunday evening and lift the trophy. There was no stopping him, there was no stopping me.

The morning of the match, I tweeted "May our boy pull off the upset we all know he's capable of". And the reason why we all knew it, was that Dominic had made it clear he knew it too. Everything he had said in interviews was screaming fierceness and willpower.

I've explained it at the beginning, I set my expectations to what I'm certain Dominic is capable of.

So at 2am UK time, Hope sat right next to me in my chair and I hugged her tight.

The first set was a surreal experience. It was mesmerizing and more satisfying than any set of tennis I had ever watched. But somehow, it was terrifying. It felt like one of those dreams, where everything is perfect, but a tiny part of your subconscious is aware you're asleep, aware the dream might end or turn into a nightmare at any second. Dominic was flawless, his tennis was spectacular and he wasn't playing against a diminished opponent. Rafa was being outsmarted, outrun, outgunned and it was all about Dominic's genius. But still, such a score line was abnormal.

A year before, to the day, Dominic had won an opening set with a score line that felt abnormal. The circumstances were way different, but it was impossible not to think about it. I don't believe any Dominic fan has fully recovered from this heartbreak. I know I haven't.

Oddly, I would have felt safer if Dominic had won this first set 6-4. He was playing Rafa, a man whose ability to recover, adapt and start fresh has been proven to be the best there's ever been. I couldn't help but picture a beast, which had just been deeply provoked and was about to attack, with all it had. So I was smiling, still, of course, but biting my nails and glancing at Hope who was really confused and had no clue what to do.

And indeed, Rafa recovered and adapted, but Dominic didn't falter. He didn't get scared. He held on, he kept fighting, kept painting lines, kept producing mind-bending tennis and kept believing. So I kept believing too. Until he lost the third set. I switched off my laptop. The commentator on Amazon Prime had just said "I feel like Thiem deserved to win this set, considering the terrific tennis he's been playing" and that's exactly how I was feeling. Dominic was maintaining an unbelievable level and still, it wasn't quite enough. So would anything be? Hope had left my place and discouragement had taken over. And even though Dominic looked nothing but discouraged, I was too exhausted to watch him fight in vain. The idea of seeing him lose three sets, after that miracle of an opening one, was unbearable. Cruel and heart wrecking.

I went to bed as dawn was glimmering through my curtains. But of course I couldn't sleep, of course I couldn't let go of my phone for more than three minutes in a row. Of course I was following the score and reactions on twitter. I knew Dominic was still battling with a mental and physical strength that was about to go down in tennis history. And I felt guilty to be hiding underneath my duvet like a coward. To have given up when he hadn't.

When he won the fourth set tiebreak, Hope stormed back into my room, turned the lights and my laptop back on and glued me to my chair. She had never seemed so dangerous and perverse. I could foresee the violence of the shock, should this specific ride end up in a wall after so many ups and downs. It would be painful. Really painful. But this time, something was different. This time, I was protected by a brand new kind of seatbelt, I was snuggled in a cocoon of pride and gratitude. After four hours, Dominic was still playing his heart out and he was turning mine into a colorful and sweet substance that wouldn't break, no matter what. Watching him save breakpoints by the shovelful, throw winners left and right, keep his focus and his cool, show so much resilience, all the while being an absolute angel towards everybody on court, was a dream come true. Except this one was and would remain a hundred percent real. Nothing could erase it. No outcome could stain the joy of witnessing Dominic achieve greatness.

Dominic was Great.

The fifth set tiebreak began and Hope tried to hide underneath the table. I pulled her back next to me and smiled. Whatever was about to happen, to Dominic and to my heart, we would face it together.

At 3pm, I went to work, having slept two hours and a half, my fingers skinned from all the biting, my throat hitching from all the nervous cigarettes smoked, my stomach aching from the amount of chocolate swallowed frenetically. My colleague and good friend greeted me with a sad face and a comforting hug. But he quickly took a step back and frowned "How are you so cheerful??". He had just seen the score line. He just knew Dominic had lost. He had no idea how painless this heartbreak was.

Yes, my heart had cracked, despite everything, when Dominic had hit this final overhead wide. Tears had filled up my eyes and a rush of bitterness had shaken my entire body. I had cursed the "fifth set tiebreak rule" out loud, because it had felt so freaking unfair that, after such a fight, a single mistake on serve could be decisive.

But then, there had been this hug, this proof of Rafa's respect and affection. A respect and affection earned through years of rivalry and sportsmanship. There had been Dominic's peaceful acceptation while he was still on court, his smiles to the umpire and the crowd, something about his face whispering to my ear "He's okay, he will be okay". The standing ovation and the praising headlines already pouring in on social medias. His press conference, turning the whisper into a loud promise "He's okay, he will be okay".

And finally, this long overdue consequence: the world falling in love with Dominic. He was finally given the credit he had always deserved, as a player and as a person. He was finally seen for who he is: a man with an arm of steel and a heart of gold.

I was cheerful, because I was happy beyond words, still snuggled in my cocoon of pride and gratitude.

Writing those lines, a week later, I'm still really emotional about it all. That's why I needed to set it down on paper. So I never forget. So the next time tennis feels like the most heartbreaking of passions, I'll remember how fulfilling it also is.

Sport is, indeed, the most important of irrelevant things.

In a world that's constantly shaking underneath our feet, it is an anchor. In a life that goes so fast it can consume our feelings and leave us empty, it is an inexhaustible source of raw emotions keeping us alive.

I don't know how to be an average fan and I'm not planning on ever trying. Because I'm lucky enough to have chosen someone who makes every twist of the ride worth it.

Thank you, Dominic. From the bottom of my heart.

#dominic thiem #us open 2018 #helene writes

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wonderingangelsuniverse · 6 years ago

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January 7th 2018

I’ve noticed something different in me which I think I understand. The universe is astonishing lately, keeping kind. It maybe because my wishes always vary from light to dark in some ways, so it doesn’t have to worry to much about how to find that fine balance between love and torture. I consider myself invested in my own growth as I tend to make sure I learn things I need to for my overall goals of becoming a better writer and most importantly so I may understand the humans more. I realize I have a fine sense of people/psychology as I have never truly been one myself, so I am able to take a not so bias embrace to what I’ve heard is truth from many voices in my lifetime. Mostly empathy not so much sympathy.

This brings me to my point. As we both know I’ve been experiencing raw emotions on a next level basis like I have never before felt. In any case I have expressed that I may need some assistance discovering what true evil within a person is like. I never expected in any way that I would become the dummy. It makes a very large amount of sense to me that in some aspects I must suffer in order to test what darkness is, but for me to be both the antagonist and the victim is a shock. Destiny is the greatest writer and although I too wish to be that good, I almost feel like it has a fairly high advantage over me. Over my existence, even at a young age, I have found that if destiny wants to shake anyone simple put it can, perceive or think such an outcome maybe not so much. Its kind of screwy, I have spent many, many of times writing out all the possible situations that may unfold upon the future. I have gone as far as taking bets with you. I feel like its not always entirely true as destiny attempts to persuade me otherwise with letting me predict small things. The problem is that it appears to keep an equal playing field for all the players in the game. If I am able to predict something then someone with an equal or better ability of anticipation an assumption can also interpret the next move. I can’t decide within myself weather to be mad or what, however my only outlet right now appears to be: to push everything towards the unknown. It’s because of the unknown that I am having these issues. This will never solve my problems and will only just do what I am proficient at which is to withdraw and berry any remnants of my issue. I keep finding myself having no reason to be so sad, not depressed, no, sad. A deep rooted sadness that makes me question if I’m going to stop living shortly. My lead theory is this strong inner emotion that often strikes me later in my day almost but most definitely heartbreak. I thought and I keep thinking, sadly, that I have once before experienced heartbreak undoubtedly, previously in my lifetime, however this is not true. We can come to this conclusion because of a recent discovery, one that separates admiration from lust. I’ve always understood love, as love is something given out. Love is not only something given out but something us humans are often exposed to at a very young age. I however have had a real tussle with lust so far. Not necessarily in a bad way but in a very confused way. Confused to the point that the only thing that makes sense to me, may not make any sense at all in the long run. I feel like the conclusion I have come to is both easily agreeable and nearly identical to the literal definition which should lead me to believe I am correct, although, from my point about destiny, I surprisingly may not know definitively. Let me explain, admiration is an extremely intoxicating feeling that makes me unable to get enough, because I find this person to be godly beyond and I must impress them. I fall unable, silent in fact, and yet I absolutely crave that persons presents. No matter how imperfect, their imperfection becomes my idea of perfection. Simple put, envy to an extreme. Lust is completely different is it not? I have gathered at some point that both lust and admiration enjoy holding hands romantically while they gaze at the vast illuminated ocean at the days end. Lust picks at me like ticks in hidden places, making me yearn for something I want desperately. I don’t consistently want actions from a person, but I feel a consuming warmth, like I’ve been eaten. I feel my blood rush in response to the ticks. The ticks are no unpleasing in anyway, but exactly the opposite of pain. I find myself taken away by lust just as I am taken by admiration except the dreams I have of lust are pearly sexual and admiration treats sex like its embarrassing.

In middle school the trendy thing to do was to have a boyfriend. I have to say I’ve always admired the idea of an intimate relationship with another. As I am/was female and ignorantly unable to be anything else, questioning the boy part in the word boyfriend wouldn’t cross my mind. What I wanted in my partner wasn’t sexual and just included sex in the package, so what did it matter to me? I was never repulsed by the thought of having sexual interactions with any gender anyways. In factuality I had already had intercourse with a male before I even entered the middle grades. I found it very glorious on a physical level. When I found the right guy, it would be both physically good and emotionally good as well, right? I was positive that the right guy would spark greatness in every encounter we made together. Wrapping this up I had absolutely no way of telling or evidence to reconsider about my partner not being a male. Why would I ever set out to make my life any more difficult then it already was? I scouted the halls of the middle school for the perfect male partner, even when I had a boyfriend, and was regarded as very happy. I was even admired for my cute little half cocked relationship I graciously accepted my way into as a kind favor. I loved the thought that someone genuinely enjoyed who I was, and could easily be broken emotionally if I were to protest. I’ve always been quite a kind and gentle soul. The boy I did end up admiring, key word, was a kid I thought was perfect in his appearance. I had little to no idea about him and in no way ever wanted him to mount me. I was addicted to how I felt about him however, always speaking of him kindly, and felt disingenuous stringing my so called current boyfriend along for no reason. If I had to break his heart it was going to be over the truth. The truth was simply because I didn’t find him, or in his defense any man, ever to be sexually appealing. I didn’t feel anything but love for him as a good overall person. always feeling that way over and over again towards admirable male personalities. Back to my walking art piece. My luck was quite fantastic when it came to wooing over the male I thought was perfection, sense I ironically had picked up many females online before. Definitely not an overly obvious hint to my clear lesbianism. I persuaded him to go out with me for a whopping ten days. I however was completely ignorant to this fact and avoided him like the pledge. I thought he genuinely rejected me sense he dashed off and didn’t answer my question. When I finally did catch up with him I found many people cheering in shock for whatever reason. Turns out he had admitted he would like to date me for some unknown reason. I didn’t understand this at the time so I was completely crushed into small shards of melting glass pieces when I did come to the realization. We did not love one another, I am still sure of this, but we were going out for an entire ten days. We never actually hung out or chilled, or did anything at all. He just kind of acknowledge my existence, stuck some half ass gum in my hair and made sure to remind me that my life was shit occasionally throughout those days. It was when he broke up with me and I realized I’d momentarily squabbled my chance that I was truly tortured. I retired from ever going back to my only public school option therefore deciding I could easily be self taught. I have only ever know this as heartbreak.

You however maybe wondering quite deeply at this point on, why or,who or, perhaps how, I managed to become heart broken considering I haven’t been with anyone as of late. I’ve acquired many deep and meaningful connections with an assortment of types of humans so far. One of my dear friends for example displays a personality type I like to consider like minded. Their like mindedness gives my brain a magnetic pull of justification. This person is always ahead of me on deep beliefs/concepts that I try to explore making them everything I could find attractive. I guess hiding that this person is female would be silly at this point, but you’ll have to excuse my need to be discrete. I did mention that I didn’t want to desire to struggle in anyway if I didn’t absolutely need to. Having a partner who could communicate both appropriate and clearly to me some of the answers in which I often seek out hands me no reason not to want them by my side forever. I find them both attractive physically and mentally, although I am unable to give out any physical features they have, I am sure you know whom I am speaking of Pain. Possibly I could go on and on about how I have been emotionally connected to this person, however I am not witting this out to cause myself inner conflict. My opinion on this person hasn’t seeped into the quicksand, because it was ultimately I who decided to be a masochist. That’s right I chose to stomp on my completely legitimate feeling. I debated spiritually and mentally about it but inevitably asked the universe to give me the ability to truly open up to her. How would I ever get anywhere in our already existing relation ship if I am constantly clouded by emotions that I don’t have a license to drive? It seemed illogical to me for many reasons. One major cause being that we had already spoke about in some way of, us. She didn’t break my heart because I find that she does love me dearly. Quite sad isn’t it? Already it’s unfortunate, although I am entirely to blame. It is I who fell for her. It is I who didn’t stop me, and it was I who made the end choice of continuing. Even at the time of discovery of my feeling, I still felt back then that I wasn’t a lesbian. I debated long and hard with myself on the topic of whether or not I believed that I honestly enjoyed who I was as an individual. All because of this heartbreak I poisoned myself with. I have always stuck true to myself so if I did decide that I hated me, it would be a difficult task to change who I am, nearly impossible in fact. I really can’t justify disliking my character in anyway due to my overall life accomplishments.

Finally all of what I have written about will come around now into my new thoughts. I asked the world what true evil was like. The only evil I have ever found is greed. Now I know that true evil can and will come from within. Sense I am now extremely heartbroken in order to speak with a dear friend on the same level, regardless of all the circumstances, I am pissed off. I am unable to be regretful about all of it, I am unable to be to angry at her in anyway sense she has done nothing wrong and doesn’t deserve any form of ridicule, and most important I am not going to be mad at myself for this shit that I didn’t sign up for. I didn’t say I wanted to be gay, I didn’t say I wanted to love her in that way, nor lust. I in no way said yes. I asked the universe questions, I asked the universe for favors. Oh yes I fucking nearly begged for love, because that’s what I was sent to this plane for. I was sent here as a human to do human things and be human and I REFUSE to take the blame for doing what I was called to exist for. No, I caused this, I undeniably did this to myself. I am the victim of my own crime and yet I have no choice but to be entirely angry at the universe. I will thank it, I will take more, I will complete any task it asks of me, but it can’t really be frustrated at me in anyway. NO, if the universe is a friend of mine then it should allow me to be mad. More Importantly because of the truth that it is I who both caused and was effected by said heartbreak. It has ripped a black whole deep with in me. My purity ruined by myself. I see the evil. I see it. I lay my gaze on the darkness I feel, how it manifests from the this sadness.

Edit from the Future: Blackhole of sadness not heartbreak but a deep warning from the pits of space calling to me, watch out.

#universe #dear diary #help #heartbreak #heartache #signs #therapy

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neni-has-ascended · 7 years ago

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What are your thoughts about Marie from P4G? She seems to a contrversy in the fandom so I would like to know your opinion about her and her role in the game.

Ahhh, to Marie or not to Marie. The old song and dance of love, betrayal and the fandom ripping each other’s heads off in the neverending cycle of waifu wars.

To give you my take on the issue:

Short Version: I like the character. A lot. Love her, even.

Long Version:

When I first played Persona 4 and was made aware of the fact that “The Golden” had some additional content I had no chance to experience yet, I was fully prepared to hate her. What I saw go around in the Fandom were horror stories of badly written dialogue, character derailing escapades and a character who has no business being there taking over the entire narrative. Additionally, I wasn’t really sold on her design, since her fashion style seemed pretty badly out of place for P4. So that’s what I went in expecting. A one-note plot device character who’d make my experience worse for it.

Then I actually played P4G and realized that absolutely nothing of what I’d heard was true. Instead of the “obnoxious Tsundere Mary-Sue” I was warned of, I was greeted by a very well-woven in story about a lost girl trying to deny her own loneliness and confusion by distracting herself with the material world and channeling her emotions into secret writings. In many ways a typical teenager, but the way she acts isn’t romanticized at all. It’s ridiculed where it deserves to be ridiculed and treated seriously where it deserves to be treated as such. At no point is she framed as some great, romantic “ARTEEEST” whose suffering makes her a bigger person. She’s just somebody desperately trying to not feel lost. Everything she does, having the protagonist take her out, her stance on consumerism (which she seems to embrace), her constant boredom and impatience, and her poems are symptomatic of how desperately she wants to *not* talk about her real issues that are making her hurt, simply because she doesn’t know how to talk about them. That is, of course, because she’s actually a fragment of Izanami which once rebelled against the goddesses’ corrupted desires and was cast out for it, now resigned to forgetting about its own ideals, which adds a whole layer more to the character. She’s the embodiment of a desire for people’s most honest, sincere wishes to come true, but since Izanami has abandoned her, she can no longer believe in the very ideal that makes her up, hence why she’s so resigned to materialism and living out her own desires only in secret. Additionally, the fact that she’s not actually human makes it hard for her to understand human social norms (just how Izanami doesn’t actually understand humans either), so she often acts terribly out-of line, which is where we get the “Tsundere Archetype” accusations from. However, unlike most cases, Marie is actually a GOOD execution of that character archetype: Not only is her “Tsundere-ness” not just an expression of embarrassment towards a guy she has a crush on (she acts like that towards EVERYONE, not just him), she also has damn good reasons to act like that, since she never actually learned about social guidelines.

Still, I am not surprised the fandom is often as opposed to her as they seem to be. As soon as I’d decided that I actually really like Marie, I felt immediately reminded of the exact same thing happening with a character in another fandom I am big on: Xion from Kingdom Hearts received pretty much the exact same cold initial reception from the fandom as Marie did. And that even though in character analyses she tended to be called a “very good character”.

Of course, the parallels between the cases are immediately visible: Both characters are black haired girls who were added to their respective games in retrospect by the way of expansions to the stories, turn out to be deeply important to the story and lore the players have cared about ever since before they knew this character exist, also turn out to be intrinsically connected to an important canon character, and their absence from the initial release ends up being explained with “All memories of them were destroyed when they died, BUT you now have a chance undo that!!!!”. They are perceived as somehow acting as a “forced love interest” towards a major character.

It’s pretty clear how a character like that would irk players, who might already have invested hours and hours into doing fanwork and crafting fan-theories that do not involve said character. It can be extremely frustrating to have your image of canon foiled like that by a retroactive update to the narrative. However, in both cases I think the kneejerk reactions were actually greatly overstated:

Even though both, Xion and Marie, change something about the lore they were introduced to, the changes are not so great as one couldn’t accommodate for them with ease, a love-relationship with a main character is only implied as a possibility in both cases (In fact, with Marie you can deny taking her down a lover’s route, just like you can with any other character, and with Xion I’d argue it isn’t there at all outside of Axel’s overinterpretation; Xion and Roxas’ relationship seemed strictly platonic or brother-sisterly to me) and, again, timelines where the characters have been erased from existence still exist in both cases, so if you really don’t want to involve them, you can still set your fanwork within those timeframes/timelines.

If anything, I see Marie’s - and by extension, Xion’s - case as a cautionary tale for writers as to what kind of violent reactions to expect from your audience if you decide to introduce important elements retroactively, as to opposed to putting them into the story right away. No matter how well done those elements are, there will be fans who just can’t find it in them to accommodate to that sudden change in the lore. That’s just how it is.

#Neni Replies #Persona 4 #Kingdom Hearts #Marie (Persona 4)#Xion #Neni Theory #extrosexytrollingpolice

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phaylenfairchild · 7 years ago

Text

Lying In Wait: Mike Pence Prepares To Take The Presidency

There is no question, Vice President Mike Pence is the worst of the two evils.

While Donald Trump may be a chest thumping, ego maniacal womanizer who brags about his nuclear button, laments over his small hands and has become a international meme, the Man behind the curtain is much more dangerous.

As nations around the globe laugh at the antics of Trump, whether because of his outrageous twitter attacks against celebrities, lying about his inauguration attendance or rambling about covfefe, we in America have accepted that he is no more relative to national strategy or politics than a potato.

Thus far, in his 13 months as President, Trump’s only personal success has been embarrassing himself before a world audience on a daily basis. Our plight as a country has become a running joke to so many who seem bizarrely detached from this new reality in which we are trying to adapt. It has more to do with social media desensitizing us to the nightmarish consequences of tragedy than simple indifference. We’re used to seeing pictures of dead immigrant children washed up on beaches and bodies piled up on top of rubble after a horrific bombing in Aleppo. Human beings have put on an emotional armor that has conditioned them to be unaffected, mostly to protect themselves from slipping into a sense of hopelessness and defeat. “Thoughts and prayers” via a few quick keyboard strokes have substituted genuine reactions to the suffering of others we witness with alarming frequency.

This unsettling separation of ourselves from dangerous truths and inevitable consequences is partly how a man like Donald Trump became President. While many voted for him, purely motivated by an impractical rage against the establishment, others did it for the comedic value. Republicans didn’t believe it could happen until they were suddenly faced with him as their newly minted nominee. Democrats were lulled into a sense of absolute security by gallup polls, expert commentary and news coverage which declared Hillary Clinton as a guaranteed landslide winner… so millions didn’t even bother to vote.

Partisan politics have destroyed democracy. We’re no longer hearing topics debated on senate floor; Instead politics are the new Superbowl and you’re either team Democratic Donkeys or Republican Elephants. Americans are divided by Red and Blue and they are ferociously loyal to their color. Social issues are irrelevant. So are economics, foreign relations, civil rights and the most basic of all, common sense. It is more important to win than to be right, regardless of the damage done in the process or pursuit of “Winning.” A surprising number of people who voted for Trump have experienced voter regret, realizing that the delight the thought they’d take from seeing him give ‘snowflake liberals’ a sharp upper-hook, was also dealt to them. Some are smart enough to feel betrayed. Others are so blindly devoted to their own team that they don’t mind being a casualty of it, as if they view themselves as a willing- and necessary sacrificial lamb required for the political Gods to destroy the other side and favor theirs.

Unfortunately, for Republicans, it was Trump they found occupying their political God seat. They’ve watched in sheer terror as he, and the unqualified lackeys he has appointed to power positions, have disassembled America’s perception of fairness, progress and priority.

In an unusual partnership, Donald Trump’s Vice President, Mike Pence, has been unusually quiet throughout most of the their reign so far. While Trump spent time in his first year campaigning for his next Presidential bid in 2020, Pence rarely made public or media appearances, and when he did, he was tactful rather than defensive; well practiced in dodging the damning questions hurled at him regarding his boss. It’s clear that Pence maintains a far more Presidential demeanor that Trump, manicuring his responses and speeches instead of vomiting his words all over the podium.

It has been speculated that inner-circle Republicans have anticipated Trump’s impeachment from the onset. Trump and his campaign have been beleaguered by legal troubles since he took the oath of office. Allegations of collusion with Russian entities and election tampering, obstruction of justice, failing to divest from his business investments, misuse of campaign funds, accusations of sexual misconduct and even extramarital affairs with multiple adult film stars remain ongoing. Yet, while Trump takes to twitter at 4 am to ridicule celebrities, foreign leaders even those players on his own team, Pence remains quietly on the sidelines as Trump slowly self destructs.

Pence’s visible distance from Trump isn’t incidental, but an act of self preservation. Nearly 40 White House staff have resigned or been fired since Trump assumed power, falling on the sword of Special Investigator Robert Mueller who has been tasked with examining Trump and his closest allies. Four Trump advisers were arrested before the incoming administration could decorate their new offices.

Pence never comments on these circumstances, instead leaving White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders to volley questions from Democratic colleagues and the media. Pence is meticulous about where he steps on a lawn full of droppings, and the suggestion has been made that his actions are fully premeditated. Having his eye planted firmly on the throne, he understands he must avoid getting dirty.

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The Atlantic reported last month in an article called “God’s Plan For Mike Pence” that Pence’s wife, Second Lady Karen Pence, finds Donald Trump’s behavior “Vile.” Indeed, she would given that she and her husband are deeply convicted to their Christian religion. That alone made the Trump/Pence coupling extremely odd, especially considering Trump’s reckless attacks on women and his vulgar, brash behavior. Meanwhile, Pence is a polished politician, whose voting history and on-the-record comments as Governor of Indiana reveals someone with unwavering faith- to a disturbing degree.

Pence has voted against marriage equality. He voted to to uphold the archaic military policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. When asked about his stance on gay rights, Trump intercepted the inquiry to say, “Don’t ask that guy, he wants to hang them all.” He has voted against a women’s right to sovereignty over their own body. He has neglected the needs of people of color in Indiana, contributing to a political system that imprisons more black men than it provides access to school. He condemned anti-racism efforts- even walked out of an NFL game where the players knelt peacefully to protest inequality and police brutality afflicting the black community. Pence has never spoken out against the alt-right activists that have violently attacked minorities, but sat back while Trump defended the self-described white supremacists as “Some very fine people.” Pence is known to keep the company of White Nationalists.

Pence has a very specific definition of America and who it belongs to. In Pence’s vision, the only citizens deserving of opportunity, justice and equality are white, male, straight, cisgender and christian. His history of actions and remarks provide irrefutable evidence that he believes anyone who slips outside these boundaries are second class citizens.

Much of what drives Pence is his radical religious extremism. Although Pence keeps a very low profile, we do know that he has weaponized his religion to harm people who do not share his world views. As governor he signed the Freedom Of Religion Bill which began by allowing radicals like himself to discriminate against LGBT people without consequence. As a result, he received intense push-back from democrats and progressives alike and he was forced to implement amendments that included LGBT residents of the state. Unhappy with having to compromise his belief system as Governor, once he became Vice President, he counseled Trump on the founding of the new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division, which achieves what he failed to do as governor- sanction abuse and discrimination against LGBT Americans by any individual who wishes to deny them service or treatment based on religious or moral objection. The department allows medical professionals to deny care to LGBT identifying people with no consequence, even if they die as a result of their neglect.

According to new reports, Pence was also the one who drafted the new ban that disqualifies Transgender identifying individuals from enlisting in the military. Not a surprise considering ex-White House Aide, Omarosa Manigault Newman, who, like so many others before and after, was fired by John Kelly for misusing the White House car service claimed that working in Trump’s administration as a the only Black woman on staff was both isolating and disturbing. She stated that she could not reconcile the gross mishandling of racial issues by the Trump administration and stay silent. In fact, as the only Black Republican who had access to Trump and Pence, many people of color saw her as a traitor who refused to represent their interests and instead sold them out. After her dismissal, she came forward stating that she was prevented from discussing the topics that were relevant with the president because other staffers deliberately kept her away.

Soon after leaving the white house, she returned to her roots on reality television with CBS’s Big Brother where to spoke about the possibility of Pence moving into the Oval Office;

“Can I just say this? As bad as y’all think Trump is, you should be worried about Pence. We would be begging for days of Trump back if Pence became president.” — Omarosa Manigault Newman

Omarosa made claims about a sort of White hierarchy in the administration where diversity did not exist in its upper ranks. The White House could not prove her wrong. Communications director Sarah Sanders found no evidence to the contrary when, during a press conference, she was grilled about the accusation. It seems The White House is now a literal representation of the inhabitants.

Mike Pence Posted a Selfie of The House Of Representatives

The 2016 Democratic Interns vs The 2018 Republican Interns — Spot the difference

We cannot fault any man or woman for their personal faith. After all, in America, we have the freedom to choose which system of belief to follow, if any at all. It becomes problematic when a radical Christian, like Pence, from his position begins implementing laws, bans and limitations on innocent Americans because he believes he is serving his God’s purpose. Last I checked, we still had a separation of Church and State, albeit weakly enforced and slowly dying.

Omarosa continued to provide insight on life with Pence in the White House; “He’s extreme. I’m Christian. I love Jesus, but he thinks Jesus tells him to say things.” When the topic turned to immigration, things even got more terrifying;

“I’ve seen the plans- the round-up plan is getting more and more aggressive. The crackdowns are happening and they’re aggressive. They’re intentional and they’re going to get worse.” — Omarosa Manigault Newman

Pence never responds to the accusations of racism, elitism, misogyny, bigotry or his radicalism. Instead, we have to unearth the dark reality of Pence’s nature from inside sources, past comments and his voting record. He allows his actions to speak for themselves and will not risk further qualifying his tumultuous past by addressing it. It could put thorns in his path to the presidency.

And he believes, as do many others in the administration, that he will assume the Presidency. Despite Donald Trump appearing to be made of teflon, it’s starting to wear thin. As the scandals and controversies, arrests and indictments pile up around Donald Trump, Pence is patiently lying in wait, biding his time, watching as Trump digs himself a hole that he’ll never climb out of.

Today the Republicans are starting to discuss Donald Trump’s impeachment. It begs the question; Has this been the Pence plan from the beginning? While he has been responsible for ghostwriting some of the most discriminatory, hate-motivated legislation in decades that have been attributed to Trump, that seems to have been intentional. Pence and co. have been content in allowing Trump to take the flack, because he’s not intelligent enough to understand he’s being puppeteered. He’s like an obnoxious little kid begging to play a video game, so his elders unplug the remote and let him think he’s playing while they discreetly maintain control. There’s no way Trump could independently come up with all of the damaging, religious rhetoric from a golf course. In 2018, he has taken more than 15 vacations.

Pence, however, has stayed at the White House, drafting up the future of America under his Presidency.

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#Equality #lgbt #trump #pence #bigotry

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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Premier League news conferences - Klopp, Pochettino

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Premier League news conferences - Klopp, Pochettino

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Live Reporting

By Ben Collins

All times stated are UK

Posted at 13:0613:06

‘People booing you is a horrific feeling’

BBC Radio 5 Live

Michael Owen added onGranit Xhaka:“You can’t condone it for starters. You can’t do that – you’ve got to be responsible, especially as captain. However, there’s another side to every story, and I just felt for him, I really did.

“You’re trying your best, giving your sweat, blood and tears for your team and fans, and when you’re effort isn’t good enough you know that, you walk off and you’re disappointed. To have everybody booing you and shouting things at you is a horrific feeling, and some people can’t deal with that.”

Robbie Savage’s Premier League Breakfast.

He said: “I can see why he might want to consider leaving the club. It’s interesting [that] in the Instagram message,the so-called apology, that he didn’t reference Emery’s support for him at any point.”

statement on Instagram on Thursdayto explain his angry confrontation with fans, saying he “reached boiling point” following repeated threats to his wife and daughter.

The Swiss midfielder was booed while he walked off the pitch at Emirates Stadium, prompting him to cup his ear.

In an emotional statement, he said he had been “hurt deeply” by comments on social media and at matches recently. They included ‘Kill your wife’ and ‘Wish that your daughter gets cancer’.

Breaking his silence for the first time since the incident, Xhaka, 27, said he got “carried away” and reacted “disrespectfully” to fans.

Robbie Savage’s Premier League Breakfast earlier and he spoke about the Reds’ fixture dilemma.

“Yes managers will complain and they don’t want to risk injuries, and players will always want to play because that’s the nature of the beast, but we’ve just got to balance it,” he said.

“The big teams who are asked to play all these games have got the big money to invest so they can compete on all four fronts.

“If you’re asking someone to play on a Sunday and a Wednesday it’s just about OK, but anything shorter than that, I think you’re pushing your luck a little bit.”

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

Liverpool won on penalties and earned a quarter-final draw with Aston Villa.

But the last-eight ties are due to take place in the week commencing 16 December, when the Anfield side are in Qatar for the Club World Cup.

The club and the EFL are in talks over an alternative date for the Villa game.

And the Premier League have now said they are unlikely to allow Liverpool to move any top-flight games to accommodate the tie.

The Reds’ Premier League match at West Ham United has already been postponed because of the Fifa tournament.

Lawro’s Premier League predictions while I grab a coffee.

Will be back at 12:00 GMT, though, as Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp kicks off a busy afternoon of Premier League previews. And make sure you bring your lunch!

Posted at 10:3010:30

‘Magpies will try to park the bus’

West Ham v Newcastle (Sat, 15:00 GMT)

Mark Lawrenson

Ex-Liverpool defender

Just when I thought West Ham were about to push on, they started a run that has brought only two points from their past four matches.

But while the Hammers are still horribly inconsistent, at least we know what to expect from Newcastle – they will come to London Stadium and try to park the bus.

Steve Bruce’s side cannot really do anything else, because they offer such little threat going forward – which is why I am backing West Ham, despite their poor form.

Lawro’s prediction:2-1

Posted at 10:2310:23

‘McTominay’s developing into a very good midfielder’

Bournemouth v Manchester United (Sat, 12:30 GMT)

Manchester United

Scott McTominay has also impressed in recent weeks so he, Marcus Rashford and Daniel James are the nominees for Manchester United’s player of the month award for October.

BossOle Gunnar Solskjaeradded: “Scotty has been excellent. He’s a leader, he’s a Manchester United boy and you can tell he used to be a striker with the goal he scored against Norwich on the half-turn. He’s developing into a very good midfielder.”

#Klopp #Pochettino

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whataregames · 8 years ago

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The Liminal Space Between Spontaneity and Planning

As a game designers, we often find ourselves wishing to be “the idea guy”, the guy who comes up with games, who imagines worlds and emotions and interactions. And we do have many ideas, some of them good, some of them bad. We find it difficult to tell the difference. There are many cautionary tales about biting off more than you can chew, and about realizing your idea is bad before it gets too far along. But I do not think we have much sage advice in the way of deeply considering our ideas before we begin to explore them and bring them to life. What I mean is that we, as a community, must learn to look before we leap.

When you realize you have failed, what do you? Do you restart from scratch? Try again? Try harder? I think that while all of these techniques have merit, I believe that they do not necessarily suit many game designers. To begin again from scratch takes all kinds of discipline, it takes speed, it takes a willingness to give up. Try again takes persistence, and it takes time and investment. Perhaps we, as a community, could handle a bit more planning in our work. I know that the idea of making game after game, until I create something good and worthwhile, is something that I find extremely daunting, not only because of the time and effort that it takes, but also because of the emotional labor of creating and forgetting, over and over again. Lately, I have found myself planning.

I don’t usually plan when it comes to creativity. But I am slowly finding that planning goes a long way towards evading emotional and physical exhaustion in the realm of game design and development. Perhaps this seems simple; think before you do. It sounds simple to me. But it is complicated and difficult. You must know what you can plan, and what you cannot plan. Some things must be spontaneous, this is true. An original idea, for instance, will most likely be spontaneous. It will be something that just “came to you”. What must carefully be planned, then, is the execution of that idea. Plan prototyping, plan play testing, plan story, plan mechanics. Yes, continue to create on a whim, but do not allow that comfortable spontaneity to rule the way you think about your game.

I ran into this exact issue when I was creating Super Death Machine. I leapt before I looked, and I created a game that wasn’t fun and had no point. For a long time, I used player feedback spontaneously, making quick changes on the fly and hoping they would help fix the boringness that was my game. I found a way out of this trap very slowly; the feedback began to get repetitive. I wasn’t bringing anything new to the table. My game was unbalanced. When I had finally decided my game needed a major overhauling, I happened to be testing with a friend majoring in stats. This friend of mine quickly broke down why my game was unbalanced, and combined with the feedback from previous playtests, that a new version of my game would need to be quite meticulously planned in order to work.

To save ourselves emotional and mental labor, we must learn to plan when we design games, and to not be afraid of forward thinking in our designs. There is a middle ground between spontaneity and planning where we must stand in order to create the best games we can. We should all do our best to make our way to that liminal space of structured creativity every once in a while, and make the best use of both sides of the argument.

Learn to plan so your spontaneity will not be wasted.

#games #game design #planning #creativity

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nightsnaps · 8 years ago

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All 117 for the latest questions post you shared! ^~^

this took me awhile & has been sitting in my drafts HAHAH full answer under the cut

1: Let’s start with a tricky one; what is the real reason you are confused right now? I’m confused bc this guy I’m crushing on keeps sending me mixed signals

2: Do you ever get “good morning” texts from anyone? sometimes from my mom. lol

3: If your significant other smoked pot, would you care? I would never have an SO who smoked pot so if they picked it up, I can definitely say I would care.

4: Do you find it easy to trust others? YES. perhaps too easy? I always end up getting myself into trouble because I trust other people haha

5: What were you doing at 11PM last night? Studying for a linguistics morphology quiz.

6: You’re drunk and lost walking down the road; who is with you? probably my best friend Nicki

7: What would you do if you found out you had been cheated on? depends on the situation…

8: Are you close with your dad? YES he’s one of my best friends

9: I bet you kissed someone last night, right? HAHAHA no

10: What are you listening to? my roommate folding laundry & miscellaneous late afternoon sounds outside

11: You can only drink ONE liquid for the rest of your life - what is it? green tea

12: Do you like hickeys? not particularly. If your only skill is sucking on my skin, you need to branch out lol

13: What time do you go to bed? normally around 11:30

14: Is there someone who continuously lets you down? myself

15: Can you text as quickly with one hand as you do both? nope. my right hand is faster but still not AS fast

16: Do you always answer your texts? I try to

17: Do you hate the person you fell the hardest for? not at all, even though I broke up with him. He was one of the greatest blessings.

18: When was the last time you talked to one of your best friends? today

19: Is there someone that makes you happy every time you see them? I am blessed to say many people!

20: What was your last thought before you went to bed last night? I was probably thinking about linguistics tbh

21: Is anyone else in the room with you? my roommate erika & my other roommate molly

22: Do you believe what goes around comes around? in some form or another

23: Were you happier four months ago than you are now? about the same, i think. I’m generally a pretty content person.

24: Is there someone you wish you could fix things with? my high school ex

25: In the past week, have you cried? probably. I cry so much hahaha

26: What colour is the shirt you are wearing? gray

27: Do people ever call you by your last name? sometimes bc my first name is so popular

28: Is anyone ignoring you right now? mmmmm… one of my exes. he sucks. good riddance.

29: Do you have a best friend? yes

30: Would it be hard seeing someone else kiss the last person you kissed? well it’s already happened & it’s chill so i guess not

31: Who was your last call/text message from? my friend emily

32: Are you mad at anyone? myself for my lack of focus

33: Have you ever kissed someone older than you? ¾ people I’ve kissed have been older, yes.

34: How old will the last person you kissed be on his/her next birthday? 22. But he just turned 21 last week. so

35: How many more days until your birthday? 334 days until I can legally consume alcohol WHATTUP

36: Do you have any summer plans yet? Yes! I’m a lead counselor at a theater camp. Also probably two other jobs besides that bc I have zero chill

37: Do you have any good friends of the opposite sex? many! & I love them

38: Are you keeping anything from your best friend(s) now? Nope. I’m not a very secretive person at all.

39: Do you have a secret that you’ve never told anyone? I don’t think so

40: Have you ever regretted kissing someone? After the fact but never at the time

41: Do you think age matters in relationships? I think you can’t have a mature relationship until you’ve grown up a lot, but that happens at a different age for everybody

42: Are you available? physically, yes. but I am really enjoying being single so maybe not emotionally right now haha

43: How many people have you had real, strong feelings for since high school ended? 3

44: If you had to get a piercing (not ears), what would you get? nothing. I don’t even have my ears pierced lol

45: Do you believe exes can be friends? absolutely, although in order for that to happen there had to be some basis of friendship before the relationship started.

46: Do you regret anything? Sometimes I jump to conclusions and make decisions off of my emotions rather than logic, and there have been times where I’ve hurt people because of that. So I regret those times.

47: Honestly, what’s on your mind right now? Who I’m going to go with to formal haha

48: Did you ever lose a best friend? We’ve certainly drifted apart, but I think every one of my best friends & I are still on speaking terms & I know I could call them up anytime if I needed them. I hope the feeling’s mutual

49: Was your last kiss a mistake? nope but it having been 5 months since it happened is driving me crazy lol

50: Why aren’t you pursuing the person you like? Because I need to find a person to like first HAHA but also bc my crush never hit like level... so it’s fading slightly. also he’s not interested, as far as I can tell.

51: Has the last person you kissed ever seen you cry? has he ever seen me not cry is the question

52: Do you still talk with the person you LAST kissed? I can, but I usually don’t. He has a new girlfriend

53: What was the last thing you ate? a smoked salmon bagel

54: Did you get any compliments today? not yet but the day is young. lol

55: Where are you going on your next vacation? Yosemite national park

56: Do you own anything from other countries? I have a lot of Mexican Blankets, a scarf from London, postcards from Tasmania & Spain, a sweatshirt from Canada. Probably some other things idk

57: Are most of your friend guys or girls? A good mix of both

58: Where have you lived most of your life? California

59: When was the last time you took a long drive? my last roadtrip down to school about a month ago

60: Have you ever played Spin the Bottle? no but I would if it was people who weren’t awkward hahaha

61: Have you ever TPd someone’s house? only a thousand times HAHA

62: Who do you text the most? probably my friends courtney, emily, or my mom

63: What was the last movie you saw? How to lose a guy in 10 days

64: What’s preventing your current boyfriend/girlfriend from going back to their ex? nothing bc I don’t have one hahaha

65: How many boyfriends/girlfriends did you have in 2011? a grand total of 0

66: Is the last person you kissed younger than you? no

67: Do you curse around your parents? if I feel like it. we have a very open relationship

68: Are you happy with where you live? for the most part. I want to travel though

69: Picture of yourself? check out my tagged/me tag

70: Are you a monogamous person or do you believe in open-ended relationships? monogamous

71: Have you ever been dumped? no

72: What do you most like about making out? someone’s hands all over me. kissing is fun but I just like the closeness even more

73: Have you ever casually made out with someone who you weren’t seriously involved with? ...... well. yes.

74: When you kiss someone for the first time, is it usually you who initiates it or the other? it’s always mutual or the other initiating

75: What part of a person’s body do you find most attractive? a nice smile

76: Who was the last person you talked to last night before you went to bed? my friend Gabe

77: Had sex with someone you knew less than an hour? no

78: Had sex with someone you didn’t know their name? no

79: What makes your heart flutter and brings a big cheesy smile to your face? quick wit, handsome boys playing with kids, handsome boys playing with PUPPIES

80: Would you get involved with someone if they had a child already? probably not

81: Has someone who had a crush on you ever confessed to you? yes

82: Do you tell a lot of people when you have a crush? depends on how deep I’m in lol

83: Do you miss your last sweetie? I miss having him as my buddy but not as my boyfriend

84: Last time you slow danced with someone? last month

85: Have you ever ‘dated’ someone you’ve never met? no

86: How can I win your heart? by being completely & unapologetically yourself & by not playing games with me

87: What is your astrological sign? capricorn but I identify 100% with gemini

88: What were you doing last night at 12 AM? dutch blitz tournament

89: Do you cook? when I have the time

90: Have you ever gotten back in touch with an old flame after a time of more than 3 months of no communication? back in touch yes, back together no

91: If you’re single right now, do you wish you were in a relationship? I don’t really. I get wistful when I see other couples sometimes but wholly I’m very happy on my own

92: Do you prefer to date various people or do you pretty much fall into monogamous relationships quickly? I’m a serial monogamist but I wouldn’t mind dating casually, I think. Boys are sometimes just too chicken to go for it haha

93: What physical traits do you look for in a potential interest? funny, genuine, intelligent, adventurous, honest, Christian

94: Name four things that you wish you had! flawless skin, a million dollars, a golden retriever puppy, a beach house

95: Are you a player? I enjoy flirting but I don’t play with people’s feelings, I don’t think anyway

96: Have you ever kissed 2 people in one day? Nope

97: Are you a tease? depends who you ask lol

98: Ever meet anyone you met on Tumblr? no, although I am mutuals with a lot of my real-life buddies

99: Have you ever been deeply in love with someone? I don’t know. probably not, if I don’t know. hahaha

100: Anybody on Tumblr that you’d go on a date with? sure

101: Hugs or Kisses? hugs

102: Are you too shy to ask someone out? If I’m really invested in the outcome then yes but if it’s casual then I don’t care

103: The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? their eyes, teeth, and skin

104: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you babe? yes but not baby. gag

105: If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he/she was in relationship, would you go for it? no. if I did & we started dating, who’s to say they wouldn’t do exactly the same thing to me?

106: Do you flirt a lot? guilty as charged

107: Your last kiss? sometime in August

108: Have you kissed more than 5 people since the start of 2012? no

109: Have you kissed anyone in the past month? no

110: If you could kiss anyone who would it be? Logan Lerman

111: Do you know who you’ll kiss next? nope

112: Does someone like you currently? maybe

113: Do you currently have feelings for anyone? crushy feelings sure, deep sustaining romantic feelings no

114: Do you like to be in serious relationships or just flings? relationships probably

115: Ever made out with just a friend? yes

116: Are you happier single or in a relationship? I will be happy with whatever I’m doing at the time! I’m enjoying being single rn because I haven’t been single for more than a total of 6 months since I started dating 4 years ago so this has been good for me haha

117: Your own question that you want me to answer. Just write it. well danny you didn’t write me a question so here we are

#mohawk yeshua #q&a #thanks even though this took me FOREVER haha

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