#it’s interesting seeing the persona social system in a different setting

[supertrunks]

genuinely the most anti-gamer sentence i’ve ever read in a video game

[lucielmars]

hey it's anon from before!! I just read the final chapter of your fic, it was wonderful. gojo visiting nanami's grave made me cryyyyyy

thank you so so much for the wonderful fic!!! I'll never stop saying I love the way you wrote the characters, I love how you wrote the world of jujutsu, I love how you wrote the exploitation and all the other tragedies. I love how you explored morality in your fic too!! your characterization of them is so so good that your gojo is literally canon lmao !! and how you wrote him is so stuck in my mind he's the top 1 version that exists in there. everything about it is just so wonderful, I'm sure other commenters already made their own analysis or appreciation for more specific details in the fic (I've seen the long comments lol /pos)

also you said we could ask about your understanding of the characters? I don't have specific questions but would love to hear about it!!! I love love your satosugu<3

thank you so much again!!!!

Hi ! Sorry for the delay anon, September is such a busy period where I work T.T

To reply to your question, I'll tell you where I think SatoSugu is similar and where they are very different.

To me, they are very similar in that they are :

-Strong, but in a specific way. Strength is just a possibility, what truly sets them apart is that they are willing to use their strength. They want to have an impact on the world and those around them. Unlike Shoko or Nanami, for example, who are both fairly strong but see being a sorcerer as a job. I think that's what Gojo yearns for the most in the absence of Geto, this "meaningful existence." It's also what he means when he talks about how people don't understand him. His level of potential impact is terrifying even to him.

-Smart, even though of course the word smart means nothing and intelligence is just a specific set of skill. I would say they are both smart in that they think conceptually and in terms of systemic realities. They think about philosophy a lot. But they have other blind spots.

-Unloved Speaking of blind spot. So yeah, I think both Gojo and Geto have no idea how much the other loves him. And just how important they are to certain people (they both die thinking their kids will be fine without them which is ABSURD, they are very emotionally needed). I think they were both brought up with a love that was very conditional/hypocritical. So they don't understand how it works.

-Caring -> and parental. Which is kinda their downfall if you think about it. They both died because they couldn't kill a kid (yes I think Geto could have beaten Yuta.)

-Fake, they both are really good at hiding their true feelings / mental state. Which is a huge part of what makes them so interesting to write. The Geto death scene is so UHHH because they're both acting like they don't care and it's SO ANNOYING.

-Sadistic and violent, this one is up for debate but likeeee. The way Gojo kills curses ? The way Geto tortures a curse user and then gets immediate skincare from murdering a whole village ? They're freaks. Which doesn't make them 'bad guys' necessarily, but it's part of their personalities. It's also something that sets them apart from others, they both have a tendency for violence. And they like it, if it serves their ideals.

But they are very different on the aspects of :

-Control, I think is one of the most important difference. Gojo can let go of things and admit he doesn't control everything. Geto is obsessed with control : Self-control in particular (he doesn't even tell his friends that he's depressed and hides it). But also control of the world around him. His cult leader persona is (to me) a way to regain complete control after the chaotic state that he dissolved into from his depression and mental breakdown.

-Social aptitude, Geto is manipulative. Not to an extreme, but he definitely know how to use his appearance to gain followers, and I think he's really good at influencing others. Although, I think he doesn't manipulate the people he loves, or only to stop them from doing something that would harm them. Gojo, on the other hand, SUCKS at being socially apt. I genuinely think he doesn't understand how annoying he is. Geto is the only one who tries to explain to him how social dynamics work, and that's why he imprints on him like a kitten.

-Trauma, so that's the main thing that separates them for me : Gojo has a trauma around being abandoned (from his parents, most likely, and from the fact that any love he ever received was conditional except Geto). Geto, on the other hand, has a trauma around exploitation. Which is the worst combo, because their interactions are basically "do you need me, or am I just useful to you ?" And "don't leave, don't leave, don't leave." It makes it very hard for them to communicate efficiently.

Gojo is obsessed with being useful, and Geto is obsessed with not being used.

So now, why are they soulmates :

Their similarities could drive them to be really good leaders together. They have the will and the means to do it, and also kids that could be their heirs. Power couple for sure.

Their differences is what makes them really interesting as a couple though. I think Geto would thrive on having some level of (positive) control over Gojo, and Gojo would thrive on being taken care of in a bossy way (he loves it as a teen, come on). I also think Geto could become a better person, if he understood how much Gojo looks up to him and uses him as a moral compass, and Geto could also help Gojo improve socially (basically sit him down and explain to him how to not piss off others). And on the last point, their trauma opposes them as much as it could potentially help them grow, if they understood how much they mean to one another.

Their discussion in the afterlife is loosely about that. Gojo telling Geto "I would have been happy if you had been encouraging me." Notice, doing something that is objectively useless, but not to Gojo. And Geto being there for him, waiting in the afterlife.

[agathathevelvetlady]

Late Night Thoughts on Metaphor: ReFantazio

Probably going to periodically post thoughts on Metaphor. I'm currently at 6/16(?), so I'm still in the first real dungeon. Lots of points (and spoilers) below the read more; you have been warned.

-Storywise, this game seems made for me. Immediately differentiating the player from the protagonist is a very interesting move coming from ATLUS of all people, and I love me some metaplot. Seeing my own name on the end of the Royal Magic Scroll sent an actual chill down my spine. -Hell, the fact that the protagonist actually speaks is so jarring. I don't know if we've EVER had a speaking ATLUS protagonist. -The whole idea of fantasy being not just a form of escapism, but a form of idealism is a very interesting response to how Megaten handles Alignments; it feels like a much more hopeful version of that basic idea. -Speaking of which, I absolutely love that the protagonists book is clearly about our world but is absolutely an idealized version of it. The idea that our world is in some way aspirational to these fantasy characters? Cool as hell! -Any worries I had about the game having it's edge removed because of the T rating are also gone. Hell, I would argue there's more edge to it than some of Atlus' M rated titles. Seriously, how'd they get away with all this blood and people getting hanged without an M. -On a personal note, I think it's incredibly funny that ATLUS released a semi-meta JRPG where the main characters powers come from "Archetypes" at the same time I was working on a semi-meta TTRPG wherein characters get their powers from "Archetypes". Utterly hilarious coincidence. -I love the fact that there's a bit of nearly every ATLUS game in here. You got DDS mantras, Etrian Odyssey resource management (we even have ariande threads!), Persona social stats/links/time management, Megaten Press Turn combat, FUSION SPELLS (but actually balanced this time), not to mention nearly all of the classes being from some ATLUS game or another. Hell, we've got the Etrian Odyssey Brawler and Gunner in here. This is awesome. -The time mechanics feel a lot less grindy than something like P5; it seems like we'll be restrained to a much shorter chunk of time but it makes each action matter a lot more. -Coming off of P5 Royal being so piss easy that I could do most dungeons in a single day without even trying even on merciless, I am so glad that Hard mode is actually like, Hard. I've already wiped a few times, and it is SO refreshing to have to actually leave the damn dungeon. Does wonders for the game's pacing. -Being able to engage in a bit of real time combat to wipe out fodder enemies or weaken stronger ones is a wonderful system (I believe it's taken from Trails but don't quote me on that). It lets us skip past most of the "fodder" fights and really cuts down on the combat being too repetitive since the times when you will fight will always be against things which actually challenge you. It's not as brain dead as just running up and hitting the attack button, or Persona 5's stealth ambush system. There's times when I legitimately have decided to just engage a fight then and there because I thought it would be too risky to try and go for a break attack. I love making decisions like that. The fact that you have different move sets based on class weapon similar to SMT IV makes it feel fresh enough to keep doing. Character wise, I'm pretty happy with the core trio. I would die for Strohl and that is not a joke. Plot wise, it keeps pulling out things that really just amaze me. That fucking stone head in the sky man. What a great idea. Overall, I'm really happy with the game so far. Cautiously optimistic and with some minor nitpicks (I think some of the VFX need to be toned down tbh). If it follows through on the ideas it's setting up? I could genuinely see this becoming my favorite ATLUS game. I feel like I'm playing Vanilla P5 for the first time again, and it's a beautiful feeling.

[ewingstan]

So all the wildbow protags seem to have some frog-being-boiled trick about them where you are nodding your head along with all their choices and then look up from where you started and start noticing how bonkers things have gotten. But how exactly that manifests differs between books in pretty interesting ways.

Taylor makes a bunch of choices that read as understandable for an awkward teenager trying to make the best out of a bad situation, but it doesn’t take long before those choices become pretty clearly (although crucially often not to the extent that they would stick out while reading through the first time) indicative of a much higher willingness to use people as tools than the norm, not be motivationally hindered by empathy, etc. And of course in hindsight a lot of her choices are less careful utility calculus and more an expression of her desire for friendship and control as well as her need to be invaluable in whatever circumstance she finds herself in.

Blake has a much more prototypical set of ethics and motivations, and these largely don’t change throughout the text. He starts and ends as your stock angry but fundamentally “good” YA protagonist. He’s just put into situations where the morals of that type of character means he acts like a horror movie monster. Which is a pretty neat thing for a text to do, to take your typical Percy Jackson-esque character and show that “hey if you put him in enough situations then he could end up asking a facebook group of teenage girls if they want him to kill any of their husbands.”

Sylvester is an interesting case because he starts performing actions the audience would consider objectionable well before they’d get acclimated to it as they could in the case of Taylor or Blake. He performs extrajudicial killings of rouge academics for the government using manipulation and underhanded tactics while peeking up people’s shirts. It’d be tempting to say that his gradual transformation is into an okay person, and that might be true to an extent—the seeds to him eventually rebelling from the academy get planted early and slow shifts in his perspective before that point could be detected going a while back. I don’t think that would be the whole story though. It would probably be more accurate to say that you don’t notice how much Sy’s matured until he’s at the point of rewriting his personality to an adult’s persona.

Its much too early in my reading of Ward to be able to say if the pattern is going to hold. But I found it interesting to see one of the big morally questionable decisions be made early, and in a pretty noticeable way. I’m talking about Victoria secretly tailing Rain home after the capture-the-flag game, after he specifically denied her offer to follow him for protection. It doesn’t read as totally unjustified or anything, she is doing it to protect someone’s life when she has good reason to think its threatened. But she’s also doing it because she’s suspicious Rain’s been lying. And she flies in uncomfortable conditions for hours to find out what he’s up to. Its a huge breach of privacy, and while well-intentioned, it does read strongly as Cop Shit™. And while I only have my own response to the text to go off of, it kind of feels like it was meant to be framed as a pretty ethically questionable act on Vicky’s part. So if I was reading this with no knowledge of the story, I might think “Oh, wildbow’s done the here’s-how-being-in-the-social-position-of-the-criminal-puts-certain-behavioral-pressures-on-you story, now he’s doing the here’s-how-being-in-the-social-position-of-the-protector/peacekeeper-puts-certain-behavioral-pressures-on-you story. We’re gonna see how the moral beliefs that make someone strongly want to be a superhero, and the system of designated “heroes” they get slotted into, cause a lot of shitty behaviors.” But from everything I’ve heard, that is very much not the type of story I’ll be getting! This isn’t the “ACAB doesn’t exclude the well-intentioned cops” story, this is the “we do need a carceral justice system because people need to face punishment for past crimes and also some people are just inherently evil” story. And right now I’m not seeing how we get there?

[robo-milky]

Extras:

Dominant Hand: Left

Favourite Food: Chicken Heart Skewers

Least Favourite Food: Anything pickled

Talent: Acting Lying

(Old art before his revamp)

Trivia:

- Named after the birthmark on left hand

- Completely colourblind/Monochromacy (Why Floyd still calls him Shrimpy- While the mantis shrimp does have more colour receptors than humans, their ability to tell colours and shades apart is lacking)

- Doesn’t have a magical pen/stone, so he wears a flower to fill in the blank space. He changes it each day- (Fuschia, flower he’s currently wearing, is his default if not inline with the main story.)

- Arrived at NRC with his mask, he still keeps it on out of habit and personal choice

- Prefers auditory mediums than anything visual (music, podcasts, speeches, audiobooks, etc)

- The original shape of his groovy candy is unknown

Bio:

A social boy with an extremely open mind, willing to try anything and everything if given a reason to. His academics may be average but his people skills are nothing to scoff at. A people pleaser who wants to build security for himself.

Yuuharu is good at reading people and fulfilling their unconscious desires. If someone dominants the conversation, he’ll listen; if someone is meeker, he’ll speak. His intuition also helps him build different personas to accommodate different people. Upon first meeting, Yuuharu would mirror the other individual subconsciously. Yuuharu doesn’t like to be direct about his wants, he either plays mind games and leads the conversation to where he wants or he hints at it. In group settings, Yuuharu is lost and blends into the background so he isn’t noticeably inconsistent. He fits in with many different groups yet he’s not close enough to truly join them. Yuuharu shines the best when he’s in a one-on-one, that way, he’s able to mirror the other person yet add his own spin on things. Yuuharu is self aware of his emotions, actions, and the impacts of them at all times, which makes him wishy-washy and vague when making decisions. He is generally very lax and is able to see things from all perspectives, making sense of everything in a rationalized manner. Because Yuuharu is so dependent on the thoughts of others, he questions if his opinions and interests are truly his.

Grew up in an average income family. His family was one that prioritized his well-being over academics and contemplated immigrating somewhere else for a better opportunity. Yuuharu is extremely grateful they were patient to work with his inability to see colour and worked out a system where they labelled everything with special stickers. His parents wish that he can be his own person someday.

Current Situation:

- Accepts all of Crowley’s requests and responsibilities with no complaints.

- On decent to good terms with everyone, though Leona, Azul, Tweels, Jamil, Cater, Trey, Rook and Idia are wary of him.

Noticeable Relationship(s):

- Grim and other Yuu’s/Ramshackle residents are the only ones Yuuharu doesn’t bother with mirroring

- Cater and Yuuharu have a very fickle yet mutual understanding relationship that goes like “If you don’t call me out, I won’t call you out”.

- For every time Idia calls Yuuharu a “normie”, Yuuharu goes into a deep Internet rabbit hole to research what exactly Idia is talking about in order to converse with him. (The same goes for everyone else-)

[skaldish]

you probably get dozens of messages each day but i wanted to say thanks for saying what you did about DID/OSDD. i stay away from that entire community now bc i never know if the person im talking to is just doing a cozy thought experiment, like you said, or if they are like me and have actual trauma. i never see anyone stand up about that kind of thing, and it makes me super uncomfortable and upset when people are like "im a system too!" when their brain was not broken apart in the same way mine (and yours) was. anyway, thanks. means a lot. have a nice day <3

You're welcome. I'm all for people experimenting with self and facets of self. Play (improv, roleplay, etc.) is an effective tool for self-exploration. I've seen people use different personas as an assistive tool for putting them in the right "mode" for certain social settings, and I'm all in support for people using play and narrative as tools to walk through life and make things interesting.

But I get heated very easily when people using a very real, very rare, and very traumatic psychological profile as a model for self-definition, co-opting an experience they simply don't have and shouldn't want.

It's like watching people mimick having seizures and insisting they're part of the epilepsy community because of it.

It isn't progressive to claim "diversity" when the behavior is inherently ableist, fetishistic, and unethical.

[alto-tenure]

But then I tend to slot Eve as fairly badly socialized heroic antagonist and Arthur as the actual villain. Just on grounds of - Eve apparently going out of her way for Jean (Yeah, remove the drugs from the house, no need for a second suicide, letting Jean stay in the house) and in general deciding that the townwide illusion has to end. Arthur meanwhile - well he is the one that apparently set off the golden statue incident with his "story" (especially as he callously using Belduke's home for it)

(Part one here, because I didn't see there was more until I was already answering the first ask.)

I think the ending of the game is best assessed looking at it as a Layton game; there are plenty of revenge-seeking people in Ace Attorney, but it’s easier to see the trends looking at Layton villains in comparison to AA ones.

Since Unwound Future (and arguably earlier, though I wouldn't call Baron Reinhold or Anton truly villains imo), there's been a formula of sorts with two antagonists, one generally lower-level than the other, with different levels of justification & narrative forgiveness. A brief summary:

Unwound Future: What both of these characters did was messed up, but they both come away regretting it. Even though they'll face legal consequences, the narrative is still forgiving of both of them.

Last Specter: Jakes is hopelessly corrupt and gets his Deserved Comeuppance, and we have no idea about Descole’s deal.

Miracle Mask/Eternal Diva: This guy also did some messed up things, but he was being manipulated by Descole, so can you really blame him?

Azran Legacy: A lot of people have already spoken at length about why Bronev's turning point feels like too little too late and more. I think you need to at least be in a position to understand why Layton would choose to forgive him in the end, even if you personally can't.

Azran Legacy came out after the crossover, though they were only a few months apart, which is interesting considering the thematic similarities among their antagonists. (Cut for getting into AL spoilers.)

I agree with you about primary vs secondary antagonist here; I'd argue Eve is more like Descole (revenge; dead family; several different personas/identities) and Arthur is more like Leon (terrible awful father; runs the show; responsible for a great deal of what goes wrong). I think where the crossover goes wrong in comparison to Azran Legacy is in how much Arthur is unequivocally accepted back into the fold. Going back to our comparisons here...Des is never going to forgive Bronev, in my opinion, for the murder of his wife and daughter (among other wrongs). Hershel forgives Leon because he is in a better position to; he was not as personally wronged, and the theme with him is forgiveness. Hershel forgiving Leon is, dare I say, necessary to emphasize the theme of forgiveness in the series, and it would be more out of character for him not to.

But everyone forgives Arthur. Now -- Arthur may not have been directly responsible for anyone's deaths, but what he did was still deeply unethical, and while I am a firm believer in restorative justice over punitive justice, I think it doesn't have to be the case that Eve especially forgives him. Getting forgiven by Espella is important, and as much as I dislike it, it is in character for her. And the emphasis on embracing forgiveness and sympathy and understanding is a Layton theme as a whole.

Ace Attorney is a game about how systems can fail people, but it's not a game in which you can fundamentally change that system just by playing. It's frustratingly realistic in that you can only get rid of corrupt people and not the system that corrupted those people in the first place -- Kristoph Gavin, Gant, von Karma, and even the main antagonist of DGS. And there is also often a divide in AA between the antagonist who did some shit but ultimately is misguided (people like Ini Miney and Acro and Adrian Andrews and Godot) as opposed to the antagonist who is unrepentant and in some ways seeking something more (Matt Engarde, as well as the aforementioned corrupt legal figures).

And I think the collision here between the "Ace Attorney antagonist formula" and the "Professor Layton antagonist formula" in terms of how Eve and Arthur are ultimately written is interesting, because I think ultimately how they're written falls more into how Layton tends to treat its antagonists, but Eve leans slightly more towards the category of "Ace Attorney antagonist who massively screwed up and now has to face that" more so than the analogous Layton category.

But ultimately, as you've said here and as I implied in my previous response...Eve's plans would have been bad for Espella, but they would have been good for Labyrinthia. Arthur's plan involved just...carrying on with the way things were, content to let Espella believe what she would and to keep the fantasy going. It's why Layton and Luke present a more immediate threat to him -- though I don't doubt Eve had some hand in convincing him what exactly to do about them so that she could help Layton escape to the woods.

And in the end -- Eve never wanted Espella dead. She wanted Espella to see the truth, to see the gravity of what was done. We see that in all the times she bails Espella out of bad situations -- aboard the ship, in the courthouse, and at the Bell Tower.

[kickstartvtr]

The Essentials of Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Success

In the present computerized scene, online entertainment promoting has turned into a foundation of effective business systems businesses have never-before-seen opportunities to connect with their audiences because of the billions of people who use various platforms to interact. Be that as it may, with this potential comes the test of exploring a complex and steadily developing climate. To assist you with making virtual entertainment progress, here are the fundamental methodologies you really want to execute.

1. Define Clear Objectives

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2 . Know Your Audience

Grasping your ideal interest group is crucial analyze demographics, interests, and behavior patterns to create detailed buyer personas. You'll be able to tailor your content and pick the right sites to reach your ideal customers now that you know this .

3. Choose the Right Platforms

Social networking sites come in many forms. Watch out for the websites where your customers spend a lot of time. As an example, Instagram and TikTok are great for younger people, while LinkedIn is great for business-to-business conversations make sure that your content plan fits the specifics of the site.

4. Create Compelling Content

Content is king, but only if people like what you write. Make a content plan that includes different types of content, like writing, pictures, videos, and slideshows. Make sure that the material you create is useful, interesting, and fits with the style of your brand. Tell stories in your posts to make them more interesting and easy to remember.

5. Maintain Consistent Branding

Keeping your social media pages consistent helps people remember your brand. Keep your brand's look and feel consistent by using the same image, colors, and style. People will recognize your business and trust it more if you are consistent.

6. Leverage Paid Advertising

You might not be able to reach your goals with just organic reach. Paid advertising can help you reach more people and more exactly target certain groups to find out what works best for your business, try out different kinds of ads, such as stories, paid posts, and ads that move .

7. Engage Your Target Market

There are two ways to use social media. Quickly responding to comments, emails, and notes shows that you value what your audience has to say. Getting involved with your fans helps you make links and have deeper talks .

8 . Monitor and Analyze Performance

Keep an eye on your social media data on a regular basis to see how well your plan is working Rates of contact, click-through, and sales are all key performance indicators (KPIs) that you should keep an eye on Use the tracking tools that social media sites or third-party services offer to learn more and make choices based on data .

9. Stay Updated with Trends

Trends and systems on social media are always changing to stay current, keep an eye on new features, trends, and changes in the business you can get an edge over your competitors if you are flexible and willing to try out new tactics.

10. Foster Community Building

Encourage user-generated content, hold events, and make posts that people can connect with to build a strong community around your brand Building a community makes people faithful and turns your fans into brand ambassadors.

Conclusion

You need to be smart and open to change in order to master social media marketing You can use social media to move your business forward by setting clear goals, getting to know your audience, making interesting material, and staying involved Remember that the key to success is to keep learning and adapting to changes in the modern world.

[master-apology]

Okay, after playing through the demo again and giving myself some time to digest it I'm going to put down some thoughts.

The demo itself went longer than I expected, consisting of the game's prologue and ending after your third day of spending time how you choose, or after reaching a certain point in the first main dungeon.

Setting and Themes

While not Atlus's first foray into fantasy (I think that'd be Etrian Odyssey), they're most prominently known for MegaTen's urban fantasy, cyberpunk, and post-apocalyptic stories. The game's definitely marketing itself through its connection to the Persona games and the calendar system draws immediate comparison, but part of P3-5's charm was the contrast between regular life and crazy psychic battles with mind monsters, so a story that's all fantasy all the time might not click with some of the people coming in from P5. I happen to like fantasy, especially weird fantasy, so it's not a problem for me. The game is openly metatextual, beginning by pondering the worth of fantasy, the protagonist's fantasy novel clearly being about our world, and containing a lot of references to Thomas More's Utopia. There's hints that the setting might actually be post-apocalyptic, with the most dangerous monsters being called Humans, hints of an Old World, and the usage of Esparanto. I'm curious to see where this all goes.

Characters

Characters are all enjoyable so far. I'm obviously not the first person to say this but Will, the hero's default English and Japanese name, really does look like the kid of Aigis and the P3 MC. The dialogue you pick for him is voiced, which is nice. Also, I find it funny how all of your initial party members are noticeably taller than he is. Kind of fun to play a short king. Will is an Elda, a race of people at the very bottom of society's social hierarchy, their mere existence considered blasphemy against god. Needless to say, a lot of people you can talk to around town aren't happy to see you. Gallica is neither an annoying fairy nor a shitty mean fairy, but the rare best friend fairy. She casts a spell on Will early on making him music wherever he goes, meaning the soundtrack is technically diegetic. I like More, but I can't help but think of him as a yassified Igor. Your party is neat; an honorable young noble from a fallen house, an experienced veteran mentor, and a dedicated lady knight. Griffith Louis Cypher Guiabern seems like he'll shape up to be a good villain.

Gameplay/Combat

I felt a little trepidation when I learned there would be a mix of real time and turn based combat since I mostly prefer turn based, but I needn't have worried. The real time combat is simple and ultimately in service to the turn based combat. It gives you the chance to instakill weaker enemies and lets you get an ambush on stronger ones, though if you're not careful they can ambush you instead, and you can enter turn based combat whenever you want. This is important, as combat can be pretty tough, even on normal difficulty, and who does the ambushing can make a big difference. While Metaphor's similarities to Persona are obvious, combat and character progression actually feel a bit closer to Digital Devil Saga, with SMT's usual Press Turn style rather than Persona's One More style, as well as each character having an extensive tech tree. The Archetypes are more like a job system than personas; any character can learn to use any Archetype and an Archetype determines what equipment they can use. That last bit is especially important as physical damage is once again split by weapon type. Some interesting complexity is added to the combat with positioning and synthesis skills. You can command a character to switch between the front-line and the back-line, which determines how much damage they'll deal with and take from physical attacks. Certain enemy attacks will only target your front or back line and the trailers indicate some skills are dependent on position as well. Synthesis skills are combo moves that can only be used if you have specific combinations of Archetypes and take up two of your press turns. Notable, it seems like all AoE attacks are synthesis skills, so you may end up in a situation where you want to arrange your party's Archetypes a certain way just so you can use them.

Tips

This will go into some detail about what you get into during the demo, so avoid if you want to go in blind. First piece of advice is that the optional boss in the mines is totally beatable if you're prepared. Equip both Will and Grius with the Mage Archetype as soon as you can. By the time you get to the boss they'll both have ice magic, which is its weakness. You can get a good great sword type weapon for beating it, which can be purified later for an even better version. Learn and equip the Healer Archetype to Will as soon as you get it. Don't go to the dungeon the first day you can. You should instead spend some time looking around town, talking to people, and picking up quests. One quest in particular is to help out at the inn's kitchen. Spend the afternoon sitting at the bench, increasing your wisdom, and the evening in the kitchen. Complete the quest the next day to increase your wisdom again and get it to the second level. With your increased wisdom you'll be able to accept a quest from the magic shop lady which unlocks a new, smaller dungeon. You'll also be able to get equipment purified at the church. The purified version of the sword you got from the mines makes normal attacks deal fire damage instead of slashing damage, which will be a big deal in the main dungeon. The dogs in the first area are weak to fire and the soldiers are weak to pierce, so the best Archetypes for you party will be Healer, Warrior (with fire sword), and Knight. The next area is mostly zombies, which are weak to light and fire, with some stronger enemies that are weak to bashing. Best Archetypes for here are the same as before, but have either Strohl or Hulkenberg switch to Brawler for the tougher guys. The next area is mostly skeletons who are weak to light and bash attacks, but are resistant to pierce, so a good team would be Healer, Warrior, and Brawler. The midboss encounter, and the cutoff point for the demo, is a soldier using magic attacks and buffing four skeletons. The soldier is weak to pierce like the others so have someone with Knight and have your other characters equip Healer and Seeker, as they synthesis moves will make short work of the skeletons.

Finished the Metaphor Re:Fantazio demo. Lot of fun. Was hoping to play it on PC but had to play it on PS4 instead. Computer couldn't handle the desert the game drops you into first thing.

[crescentfool]

recently, i’ve been thinking about what a 100% social link/confidant run is like from the perspective of the persona protagonists, rather than the player. i’ve always been a sucker for thinking about the type of narrative created by a person’s gameplay choices (it can be so fun and deep) so!! i wrote this analysis / musing.

some notes before we start: this was written with the lens of persona 3 being the most recent game i played- but the concepts are applicable to the p4/p5 protagonists as well! no spoilers for any of the games are mentioned; this is moreso a general discussion of ludonarrative dissonance with the game mechanics and narrative and how it makes for fun angst (ft. personal interpretation).

(more under the cut!)

the framework: game mechanics

in all of the games, the social link system’s existence coincides with the social stats mechanic. certain social links require a specific set of stats in order to initiate it, or surpass a certain rank. each game has around 20 of these- each of which represent the major arcana (+ some bonuses, e.g. aeon / jester / faith / councilor).

for any players going for a 100% social link run, this basically requires each social stat to be maxed out. anyone who’s followed a guide for a 100% run would know that the beginning of the game tends to be very “strict” with how time can be used, most of which involves getting the stats raised  as soon as possible.

outside of characterization and worldbuilding, completing social links are incentivized for a variety of gameplay reasons. so how could this completionist play style affect the protagonists?

prioritizing social stats over everything else: a general view

regardless of which protagonist you want to put under a petri dish, with a 100% run, you’re essentially asking the protagonist to form amicable bonds with 20 or so people, give or take. granted, not everyone becomes adjoined to the hip to the protagonist.

personally, i feel that forming 20 different bonds over the course of a year would be rather strenuous. during these 100% runs, the protagonists may feel that they’re spreading themselves thin trying to dedicate their resources to multiple different people as well as raising their “social stats.” i find the implications that this has on said bonds is so, utterly fascinating.

while this isn’t reflected in the game and would be better represented within a fic, i find it difficult to believe that this type of behavior doesn’t have any ramifications on the quality of the protagonist’s closer relationships (or their self-image, for that matter).

just… imagine calling one of your close friends but then they consistently give responses along the lines of “lmao sorry i’m busy doing other things,” and they rarely make the time of day for you. how would you feel? gameplay-wise, this deterioration of the relationship is best represented in persona 3 with social links reversing if you haven’t spent time with them in awhile.

part of my fascination with this concept is influenced by my own experiences. trying to maintain so many relationships can be difficult to keep up with and it quickly gets overwhelming (see dunbar’s number for more information). jumping between so many people also makes it difficult to focus on a few relationships meaningfully- meaning that relationships may be limited to being simple pleasantries. even then, ‘successfully’ keeping every relationship satisfying comes at the cost of being unable to pursue your own development and interests.

overall, i think that trying to do so many things ends up lowering the quality of the relationship(s) involved, especially when you also consider the fatigue from going to school as well as fighting shadows.

playing the therapist friend / listening role: a general view

another aspect of the 100% run that i think about is how the protagonists rarely open up to other people. a good chunk of SLs follow a storyline of the protagonist acting as a therapist friend/helping the other person through one central issue. some SLs are an exception to this and have a more casual “we’re just hanging out vibe.”

basically, SLs tend to be weighted toward the other character’s growth, moreso than the protagonist’s (which is handled by the main story). that said, the idea of mostly playing a listening role across most of your relationships and not having many that you feel comfortable to speak freely about your own stuff… feels really unbalanced and unhealthy?

i do think that part of the lack of “input” can be attributed to the silent-protagonist approach taken in the games (which is a whole ‘nother topic). but!! i find that each protagonist’s options, while limited, are fun to think about! some of the traits and interpretations i’ve seen for the differing protags, to name a few, include:

being afraid to open up / get attached and keeping people at arm’s distance as a result

needing to be around other people, even if it’s just listening them, to distract from their own struggles / pretend nothing’s wrong with them

enjoying helping others, being a good and careful listener who can provide an appropriate and helpful response

the willingness to prioritize others over themselves; a lack of self-preservation

compulsive people pleasing

at its worst, the lack of “protagonist talking” or equal reciprocation in response could be misinterpreted by the other person as disinterest (like they’re talking to a wall). alternatively- the lack of “personal tidbits” could be taken as, “you don’t trust me enough to be able to open up, huh.” and i just think that seeing this in a fic would be the biggest shitshow ever (and i would read that).

concluding thoughts:

overall, i feel that the protagonists taking a predominantly listening approach to several relationships at once can lead to compassion fatigue and general burnout. the protagonists are rarely at the receiving end of being listened to and/or having their issues worked through… and that’s kind of sad?

while the 100% social link run can provide great power to any persona fusions (and other cool battle abilities + hijinks)... i ultimately think that there’d be a lot of mental strain that would make achieving this much more difficult when you take a narrative-emphasized approach.

i do realize that it is possible to see the general vibe of this post as “100% social link is bad,” but like… there’s something i find really appealing about the messiness of attempting to manage so many relations at once- only to fall short in several of them and attempting to salvage the last bits of their sanity. when you think about the complications of the 100% SL run from the shoes of the protagonist… yeah!! that’s the good shit!

anyways! if anyone knows of any fics with this kinda vibe for the p3/4/5 protags… feel free to drop it in my askbox… i like them all VERY much :3c… and if this raised any food for thought- i’d be equally honored! let the protags go through shit i wanna see their emotions and coping mechanisms damn it! 👏

[steve-is-a-bottom-bitch]

Thinking about Steve's performance of heterosexuality vs. Will & Mike

Literally so much of Steve's vibe in S1 is agressively straight.... Just so Heterosexual™️ (derogatory). Every single thing he does infront of Tommy and Carol is meant to reinforce this performance/fill this role.

When he's alone with Nancy (or people he really trusts) he tends to drop that persona. We don't see this happen often in S1 but it sets the foundation for his future character development. We can see in S1 that he actually is a nice guy but he's trying to perform something he's not.

We also see Steve get increasingly aggravated by Tommy & Carol's remarks about his relationship with Nancy. They mostly make derogatory comments, and part of that is to tease Steve about liking her.

Steve doesn't do anything of his own accord until he shows up at Jonathan's house to apologize. And then the second time he takes charge is when he's outside, and sees the lights flickering so he runs back in to save N+J. These both are the first signs of Steve as Protector.

Steve performs heterosexuality to fit in. And as Steve stops attempting to fit in, he stops being successful with girls. In S4, Robin points out that he's not getting as many dates as he used to, and he doesn't seem particularly interested in participating in dating (tho he does hint that he wants a solid relationship, not just hook-ups)

Anyway.... Those are the Steve thoughts. But now I'm thinking about how as Mike & Will grew up, they went in opposite directions with this performance.

Will is different from the start, but Jonathan encouraged him to be himself, even if that is "different". So Will had support ("you don't have to like things just because someone tells you you should"). His friends also mostly accepted him, even if he was a little "weird" in comparison. After all, he went through some MAJOR shit. They all did. So Will has some level of support system. Will doesn't perform heterosexuality, but he doesn't perform much of anything at all.

Mike does. Mike tried so hard to fill a role that is entirely unattainable to him. Mike is trying to conform to the same pressures & expectations as Steve. BUT!! He has Eddie and he has good friends. So even though he is makeing a performance of heterosexuality he doesn't have the same level of bullshit attached to it that Steve does. Mike actually tried really really hard to believe himself.

Are we saying trauma = no more performative sexuality? Maybe. Are we saying that Wills character is a plot device and not well rounded enough to perform social constructs? Uhhhh probably not but who knows.

[balioc]

A Taxonomy of Magic

This is a purely and relentlessly thematic/Doylist set of categories. 

The question is: What is the magic for, in this universe that was created to have magic?

Or, even better: What is nature of the fantasy that’s on display here?

Because it is, literally, fantasy.  It’s pretty much always someone’s secret desire.

(NOTE: “Magic” here is being used to mean “usually actual magic that is coded as such, but also, like, psionics and superhero powers and other kinds of Weird Unnatural Stuff that has been embedded in a fictional world.”)

(NOTE: These categories often commingle and intersect.  I am definitely not claiming that the boundaries between them are rigid.)

I. Magic as The Gun That Can Be Wielded Only By Nerds

Notable example: Dungeons & Dragons

Of all the magic-fantasies on offer, I think of this one as being the clearest and most distinctive.  It’s a power fantasy, in a very direct sense.  Specifically, it’s the fantasy that certain mental abilities or personality traits -- especially “raw intelligence” -- can translate directly into concrete power.  Being magical gives you the wherewithal to hold your own in base-level interpersonal dominance struggles. 

(D&D wizardry is “as a science nerd, I can use my brainpower to blast you in the face with lightning.”  Similarly, sorcery is “as a colorful weirdo, I can use my force of personality to blast you in the face with lightning,” and warlockry is “as a goth/emo kid, I can use my raw power of alienation to blast you in the face with lightning.”)   

You see this a lot in media centered on fighting, unsurprisingly, and it tends to focus on the combative applications and the pure destructive/coercive force of magic (even if magic is notionally capable of doing lots of different things).   It often presents magic specifically as a parallel alternative to brawn-based fighting power.  There’s often an unconscious/reflexive trope that the heights of magic look like “blowing things up real good” / “wizarding war.” 

II. Magic as The Numinous Hidden Glory of the World

Notable examples: Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, H.P. Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle

The point of magic, in this formulation, is that it is special.  It is intrinsically wondrous and marvelous.  Interacting with it puts you in a heightened-state-of-existence.  It is -- ultimately -- a metaphor for The Secret Unnameable Yearnings of Your Soul, the glorious jouissance that always seems just out of reach.

It doesn’t so much matter how the magic actually functions, or even what outcomes it produces.  The important thing is what magic is, which is...magical.

This is how you get works that are all about magic but seem entirely disinterested in questions like “what can you achieve with magic?,” “how does the presence of magic change the world?,” etc.  One of the major ways, anyway.

The Numinous Hidden Glory fantasy often revolves around an idea of the magic world, the other-place where everything is drenched in jouissance.  [Sometimes the magic world is another plane of existence, sometimes it’s a hidden society within the “real world,” doesn’t matter.]  The real point of magic, as it’s often presented, is being in that magic world; once you’re there, everything is awesome, even if the actual things you’re seeing and doing are ordinary-seeming or silly.  A magic school is worlds better than a regular school, because it’s magic, even if it’s got exactly the same tedium of classes and social drama that you know from the real world. 

Fantasies of this kind often feature a lot of lush memorable detail that doesn’t particularly cohere in any way.  It all just adds to the magic-ness. 

III. Magic as the Atavistic Anti-Civilizational Power

Notable examples: A Song of Ice and Fire, Godzilla

According to the terms of this fantasy, the point of magic is that it doesn’t make sense.  It doesn’t make sense within the logic of civilized human thought, anyway.  It is nature and chaos given concrete form; it is the thing that tears away at the systems that we, in our [Promethean nobility / overweening hubris], try to build. 

There’s not a baked-in value judgment here.  This kind of magic can be presented as good, bad, or some of both.  Same with civilization, for that matter.

It’s often presented as Old Myths and Folkways that have More Truth and Power Than Seems Reasonable.  Narratively, it often serves as a dramatized version of the failure of episteme, and of the kind of entropic decay that in real life can take centuries to devour empires and ideologies.

This kind of magic is almost always the province of savages, actual inhuman monsters, or (occasionally) the very downtrodden. 

(I think it is enormously telling that in A Song of Ice and Fire -- a series that is jammed full of exotic cults and ancient half-forgotten peoples, all of whom have magic that seems to work and beliefs that at least touch on mysterious truths -- only the Westerosi version of High Medieval Catholicism, the religion to which most of the people we see notionally adhere, is actually just a pack of empty lies.)  

IV. Magic as an Overstuffed Toybox

Notable examples: Naruto, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

Or, sometimes, we care about what magic actually does.  More than that -- sometimes we want to see magic doing really interesting things, and then other magic intersecting with it in ways that are even more interesting.

The fantasy here, in simplest terms, is “magic can achieve any arbitrary cool effect.”  There doesn’t tend to be an overarching system that explains how it’s all supposed to come together, or if there is, it tends to be kind of lame and hand-wavey -- a rigorous system of Magic Physics, delineating the limits of the possible, would get in the way of all the cool effects we want to show!

Once again, this shows up a lot in combat-heavy narratives.  Less with the genericized D&D-style “magic is a fist that can punch harder than your regular meat fist,” and more with people throwing weird and wacky powers at each other in order to show how those powers can be used creatively to overcome opposition.  Sometimes, instead of combat, you get magicians using their cool-effects magic to MacGuyver their way out of problems or even trying to resolve large-scale social problems.  Issues of magic usage within the narrative being “fair” or “unfair” or “cheesy” are important here in ways that they generally aren’t elsewhere, since the fantasy on offer comes close to being a game. 

(Ratfic often falls into this category.) 

V. Magic as Alternate-Universe Science

Notable examples: the Cosmere books

This covers most of what gets called “hard fantasy.”  The fantasy on offer is a pretty straightforward one -- “magic has actual rules, you can learn them, and once you’ve learned them you can make predictions and achieve outcomes.”  It’s puzzle-y in the way that the previous fantasy was game-y.  It’s often a superstimulus for the feeling of learning a system in the way that video game grinding is a superstimulus for the feeling of rewarding labor. 

The magic effects on offer tend to be less ridiculous and “broken” than toybox magic, because any logic you can use to achieve a ridiculous effect is going to influence the rest of the magic system, and special cases that aren’t grounded in sufficiently-compelling logic will ruin the fantasy. 

Not super common.

VI.  Magic as Psychology-Made-Real

Notable examples: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Persona

This kind of magic makes explicit, and diagetic, what is implicit and metatextual in most fantasy settings.  The magic is an outgrowth of thought, emotion, and belief.  Things have power in the world because they have power in your head.  The things that seem real in the deepest darkest parts of your mind are actually real. 

This is where you get inner demons manifested as actual demons (servile or hostile or anything in between), swords forged from literal hope, dungeons and labyrinths custom-tailored to reflect someone’s trauma, etc. 

The fantasy, of course, is that your inner drama matters. 

My personal favorite.

VII.  Magic as Pure Window Dressing

Notable examples: later Final Fantasy games, Warhammer 40K

This one is weird; it doesn’t really make sense on its own, only metatextually.  I think of its prevalence as an indicator of the extent to which fantasy has become a cultural staple. 

The fantasy on offer in these works is that you are in a fantasy world that is filled with fantasy tropes.  And that’s it.

Because the important thing here is that the magic doesn’t really do anything at all, or at least, it doesn’t do anything that non-magic can’t do equally well.  It doesn’t even serve as an indication that Things are Special, because as presented in-setting, magic isn’t Special.  Being a wizard is just a job, like being a baker or a tailor or something -- or, usually, like being a soldier, because the magic on offer is usually a very-simple kind of combat magic.  And unlike in D&D, it’s not like magic is used only or chiefly by a particularly noteworthy kind of person.  It’s just...there. 

The great stories of the world, in these works, don’t tend to feature magic as anything more than a minor element.  The point is to reassure the audience that this is the kind of world, the kind of story, that has magic. 

-------------------------------------------------

Thoughts?  Critiques?  Other categories to suggest? 

[goblin-witch]

ꉔꏂ꒒꓄꒐ꉔ ꓄ꋪꏂꏂ ꋬꇙ꓄ꋪꄲ꒒ꄲꍌꌦ

Celtic Tree Astrology is the astrological system practiced by the ancient Irish. It is based on an ancient Celtic symbol system. The Celtic Zodiac is drawn from the beliefs of the Druids and is based on the cycles of the moon. The year is divided into 13 lunar months, with a tree (sacred to the druids) assigned to each month. Each tree has particular magical qualities whose secret mysteries come from the ancient Celtic alphabet, the Ogram.

The Celts envisioned the entire Universe in the form of a tree, whose roots grew deep below (in the ground) and whose branches reached up high (into the Heavens). In time, the Celtic people eventually designated a tree to each of the 13 Moon phases in their calendar, in accordance with its magical properties. As such the Celtic Zodiac is based upon the cycles of the Moon, with the year divided into the 13 lunar months established by the Druid religion.

The Druid religion was based mainly upon an awareness of natural and supernatural energies. These energies were identified with spirits and the Celtic Druids believed that trees were given these spirits, who dwelt within, and were perceived as attributes of the Supreme Being. Thus, trees were considered living entities, possessed with Infinite Knowledge and Wisdom, symbolically representative of the Cycle of Life, Death and Renewal, and symbolically connected with the three planes of existence: mind, body, and spirit.

Birch – The Achiever

December 24 – January 20

If you were born under the energy of the Birch you can be highly driven, and often motivate others they become easily caught in your zeal, drive and ambition. You are always reaching for more, seeking better horizons and obtaining higher aspirations. The Druids attributed this to your time of birth, which is a time of year shrouded by darkness, so consequently you are always stretching out to find the light. Birch signs (just like the tree) are tolerant, tough, and resilient. You are cool-headed and are natural-born rulers, often taking command when a situation calls for leadership. When in touch with your softer side, you also bring beauty in otherwise barren spaces, brightening up a room with your guile, and charming crowds with your quick wit. Celtic tree astrology Birch signs are compatible with Vine signs and Willow signs.

Rowan – The Thinker

January 21 – February 17

Celtic tree astrology recognizes Rowan signs as the philosophical minds within the zodiac. If you were born under the Rowan energy, you are likely a keen-minded visionary, with high ideals. Your thoughts are original and creative, so much so, that others often misunderstand from where you are coming. This sometimes makes you aloof when interacting with others as you feel they wouldn’t understand where you are coming from anyway. Nevertheless, although you may appear to have a cool exterior, you are burning within your passionate ideals. This inner passion provides inner motivation for you as you make your way through life. You have a natural ability to transform situations and people around you by your mere presence. You are highly influential in a quiet way and others look to you for your unique perspectives. Rowan pairs well with Ivy and Hawthorn signs.

Ash – The Enchanter

February 18 – March 17

Those born under the Celtic tree astrology sign of the Ash are free thinkers. Imaginative, intuitive, and naturally artistic, you see the world in water-color purity. You have a tendency to moody and withdrawn at times, but that’s only because your inner landscape is in constant motion. You are in touch with your muse, and you are easily inspired by nature. Likewise, you inspire all that you associate with and people seek you out for your enchanting personality. Art, writing (especially poetry), science, and theology (spiritual matters) are areas that strongly interest you. Others may think you are reclusive, but in all honesty, you are simply immersed in your own world of fantastic vision and design. You are in a constant state of self-renewal and you rarely place a value on what others think about you. Ash signs partners well with Willow and Reed signs.

Alder – The Trailblazer

March 18 – April 14

If you are an Alder sign within the Celtic tree astrology system, you are a natural-born pathfinder. You’re a mover and a shaker, and will blaze a trail with fiery passion often gaining loyal followers to your cause. You are charming, gregarious and mingle easily with a broad mix of personalities. In other words, Alder signs get along with everybody and everybody loves to hang around with you. This might be because Alder’s are easily confident and have a strong self-faith. This self-assurance is infectious and other people recognize this quality in you instantly. Alder Celtic tree astrology signs are very focused and dislike waste. Consequently, they can see through superficialities and will not tolerate fluff. Alder people place high value on their time, and feel that wasting time is insufferable. They are motivated by action and results. Alder’s pair well with Hawthorns, Oaks or even Birch signs.

Willow – The Observer

April 15 – May 12

If you are a Willow sign, you are ruled by the moon, and so your personality holds hands with many of the mystical aspects of the lunar realm. This means you are highly creative, intuitive (highly psychic people are born under the sign of the Willow) and intelligent. You have a keen understanding of cycles, and you inherently know that every situation has a season. This gives you a realistic perspective of things, and also causes you to be more patient than most tree signs. With your intelligence comes a natural ability to retain knowledge and you often impress your company with the ability to expound on subjects from memory. Willow Celtic tree astrology signs are bursting with potential, but have a tendency to hold themselves back for fear of appearing flamboyant or overindulgent. It is your powers of perception that ultimately allow your true nature to shine, and what leads you to success in life. Willow signs join well with the Birch and the Ivy.

Hawthorn – The Illusionist

May 13 – June 9

Hawthorn signs in Celtic tree astrology are not at all what they appear to be. Outwardly, they appear to be a certain persona, while on the inside Hawthorn’s are quite different. They put the term “never judge a book by its cover” to the test. They live seemingly average lives while on the inside they carry fiery passions and inexhaustible creative flame. They are well adjusted and can adapt to most life situations well – making themselves content and comforting others at the same time. You are naturally curious, and have an interest in a broad range of topics. You are an excellent listener, and people seek you out as an outlet to release their burdens. You have a healthy sense of humor, and have a clear understanding of irony. You tend to see the big picture, and have amazing insight – although you typically won’t give yourself enough credit for your observations. Hawthorn signs match up nicely with Ash and Rowan’s.

Oak – The Stabilizer

June 10 – July 7

Those born under the Celtic tree astrology sign of the Oak have a special gift of strength. They are protective people and often become a champion for those who do not have a voice. In other words, the Oak is the crusader and the spokesperson for the underdog. Nurturing, generous and helpful, you are a gentle giant among the Celtic zodiac signs. You exude an easy confidence and naturally assume everything will work out to a positive outcome. You have a deep respect for history and ancestry, and many people with this sign become teachers. You love to impart your knowledge of the past to others. Oak signs have a need for structure, and will often go to great lengths to gain the feeling of control in their lives. Healthy Oak signs live long, full, happy lives and enjoy large family settings and are likely to be involved with large social/community networks. Oak signs pair off well with the Ash and Reed, and are known to harmoniously join with Ivy signs too.

Holly – The Ruler

July 8 – August 4

Among the Celtic tree astrology signs the Holly is one of regal status. Noble, and high-minded, those born during the Holly era easily take on positions of leadership and power. If you are a Holly sign you take on challenges easily, and you overcome obstacles with rare skill and tact. When you encounter setbacks, you simply redouble your efforts and remain ever vigilant to obtain your end goals. Very seldom are you defeated. This is why many people look up to you and follow you as their leader. You are competitive and ambitious even in the most casual settings. You can appear to be arrogant but in actuality you’re just very confident in your abilities. Truth be known, you are quite generous, kind and affectionate (once people get to know you). Highly intelligent, you skate through academics where others may struggle. Because many things come to you so easily, you may have a tendency to rest on your laurels. In other words, if not kept active, you may slip into an unhealthy and lazy lifestyle. Holly signs may look to Ash and Elder signs for balance and partnership.

Hazel – The Knower

August 5 – September 1

If you are born under the energy of the Hazel, you are highly intelligent, organized and efficient. Like Holly, you are naturally gifted in academia, and excel in the classroom. You also have the ability to retain information and can recall, recite and expound on subjects you’ve memorized with amazing accuracy. You know your facts, and you are always well informed. This sometimes makes you appear like a know-it-all to others, but you can’t help that; you’re genuinely smart and usually know the right course of action because of your impressive knowledge base. You have an eye for detail, and like things to be “just so.” Sometimes this need for order and control can lead to compulsive behaviors if left unchecked. You have a knack for numbers, science and things that utilize your analytical skills. You like rules, although you are typically making them rather than playing by them. The Celtic tree astrology sign of Hazel joins harmoniously with Hawthorn and Rowan’s.

Vine – The Equalizer

September 2 – September 29

Vine signs are born within the autumnal equinox, which makes your personality changeable and unpredictable. You can be full of contradictions, and are often indecisive. But this is because you can see both sides of the story, and empathize with each equally. It is hard for you to pick sides because you can see the good points on each end. There are, however, areas in your life that you are quite sure about. These include the finer things of life like food, wine, music, and art. You have very distinctive taste, and are a connoisseur of refinement. Luxury agrees with you, and under good conditions you have a Midas touch for turning drab into dramatic beauty. You are charming, elegant, and maintain a level of class that wins you esteem from a large fan base. Indeed, you often find yourself in public places where others can admire your classic style and poise. Vine signs pair well with Willow and Hazel signs.

Ivy – The Survivor

September 30 – October 27

Among other cherished qualities of the Ivy Celtic tree astrology sign, most prized is your ability to overcome all odds. You have a sharp intellect, but more obvious is your compassion and loyalty to others. You have a giving nature, and are always there to lend a helping hand. You are born at a time of the waning sun so life can be difficult for you at times. This sometimes seems unfair because it appears that obstacles are coming at with no prompting on your part. Nevertheless, you endure troubling times with silent perseverance and soulful grace. Indeed, Ivy signs have a tendency to be deeply spiritual and cling to a deep-rooted faith that typically sees them trough adversity. You are soft spoken, but have a keen wit about you. You are charming, charismatic, and can effectively hold your own in most social settings. Ivy signs are attracted to the Celtic tree astrology sign of Oak and Ash signs.

Reed – The Inquisitor

October 28 – November 24

Reed signs among the Celtic tree astrology signs are the secret keepers. You dig deep inside to the real meaning of things and discover the truth hidden beneath layers of distraction. When there is a need to get to the heart of the matter, most certainly the Reed sign will find the core. You love a good story, and can be easily drawn in by gossip, scandals, legend and lore. These tendencies also make you an excellent historian, journalist, detective or archaeologist. You love people because they represent a diversity of meanings for you to interpret. You are adept at coaxing people to talk to you, and sometimes you can be a bit manipulative. However, you have a strong sense of truth and honor so most of your scheming is harmless. Reed people join well with other Reeds, Ash or Oak signs.

Elder – The Seeker

November 25 – December 23

Elder archetypes among Celtic tree astrology tend to be freedom-loving, and sometimes appear to be a bit wild to the other signs of the zodiac. In younger years you may have lived life in the fast lane, often identified as a “thrill seeker.” At the time of your birth the light of the sun was fast fleeting and so you took the same cue from nature. You are often misjudged as an outsider as you have a tendency to be withdrawn in spite of your extroverted nature. In actuality, you are deeply thoughtful with philosophical bent. You also tend to be very considerate of others and genuinely strive to be helpful. These acts of assistance are sometimes thwarted by your brutal honesty (which you openly share solicited or otherwise). Elder Celtic tree astrology signs fit well with Alder’s and Holly’s.

[toflyandfall]

I just saw a photo of "What persona. Dick Grayson isn't a mask. Not like Bruce Wayne is" from Detective Comics #725 and I find it interesting that Dick and the rest of the bats, with the exception of Bruce, don't wear "masks" per se. They are who they are with or without the domino mask/helmet. The only time I can really think of Dick faking things is when he pretended to be an incompetent BPD cop. How was he able to avoid creating and living, half the time, through a "persona" like "Brucie"?

Oooh, this is a lovely, meaty question.  There’s a lot more analysis of Bruce than I planned because let’s be real, it’s kinda weirder for a guy to run around with half a dozen personas than for someone else to run around as himself.  I hope you still find it interesting, but if you want to skip straight to the more Dick-centric stuff, head under the readmore.

A simple but significant factor is that Dick thrives on the company of people in a way that Bruce does not.  I suspect if you talk honestly to many introverts, you will find they too have an extroverted ‘mask’ they put on to the larger world, though probably not quite so extreme.

Another factor is that the civilian social circles Dick and Bruce travel in are vastly different.  Though they each have a reason for being in those circles, that difference itself enables Dick to escape much of the scrutiny that Bruce’s public identity undergoes, because he doesn’t frequently associate with the much more media-hounded elite.

An interesting thing here is that the large difference in social circles between their civilian lives is actually caused by their own personal similarities: they are 100% committed work-a-holics.  It’s just that they have differing civilian approaches to their goals.

I want to start with Bruce because as you point out, his use of persona is distinct among the bats and his reasons for using them in part explain why Dick and the other bats do not.

Bruce is a child of privilege, he has always lived a lifestyle of privilege, regardless of the tragedies that have occurred during it, and his default view of the world, through no fault of his own, is natively that of the extreme upper class.  This drastically influences his perspective and approach to change, and changing the world is his perpetual goal, the reason he put on the suit in the first place.

Bruce works a top-down society approach toward systemic change, and he works it all the time.  This is actually my favorite but woefully under-emphasized part of him: he is not just someone who punches people on the street ‘for justice’, he uses his company, his money, and his social position toward substantial systemic change. This post does a wonderful job covering the ways he does this through his corporations and personal wealth, as does this one.  I cannot recommend either enough because I constantly want to push even the most casual Batman fans to understand: Bruce Wayne is not just a violent punchy puncher man.  He is a traumatized person genuinely trying to use all his resources including himself to make the world safer.

Detective Comics #725

Bruce has many personas he maintains, and he uses all of them according to what suits his need--Batman for places the law can’t go, Bruce Wayne the CEO pushing for systemic changes, Matches Malone for street information, and Brucie the society high roller for society information and social influencing.  He is rarely ever not in a persona and simply ‘Bruce’.

His top-down perspective of enacting change are what dictated the usage and necessity of these personas. He has the means and capacity to basically disappear from society if he so chose--he in fact does so to train during his younger years so successfully they don’t even know how long he was actually gone. 

The Batman Files

So he doesn’t need the personas.  Not Bruce Wayne, CEO, or Brucie, or any of them really, to protect his identity.  That tells us that Brucie is a deliberate choice he made at some point.  He could have been a recluse billionaire Batman indefinitely.  Even though he fully has the status and means to not maintain a job or a persona or, let’s be frank, a life outside the mask at all, it’s his own work-a-holicness that led to the creation of his public personas.  He’s an obsessive strategist, so if Brucie is a choice, that leads us to why?

Bruce does many philanthropic things with his money, but he isn’t the only rich person around, especially not in a city as old and corrupt as Gotham.   But he’s one of the very few ones doing good with it.

The comic you mentioned has a very beautiful moment where Bruce touches on that, and in full context you can feel how consumed he is by this goal of creating the Gotham his parents would have wanted.  Batman mentions he never sees himself in that place, and the morbid interpretation is that the city kills him before he reaches it, but the hopeful interpretation is that in that shining city, Bruce Wayne and Batman and Brucie and all his masks will no longer be needed.

Detective Comics #725

Back in the old days they’d call it noblesse oblige: the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged. Thomas and Martha Wayne ingrained this feeling of responsibility into Bruce by example, and as all things related to them, he obsesses over it.  It urges him to fulfill expectations within segments of society he finds onorous for the betterment of society as a whole in order to carry out their unfinished works.

Enter Brucie.

Brucie serves a two-fold purpose.  Since Bruce has chosen to maintain personas among society, it becomes a false face to justify any oddities Batman might bring into the life of Bruce Wayne by setting himself up as a eccentric, popular social scion.  But that persona itself also allows him to manipulate the upper crust of society.

I have some insider perspective on the kind of society events Brucie attends.  They’re all about the who’s who of making connections, name-dropping and networking, and unspoken class-based elitism.  Charity events among the upper class have these things at the forefront and the cause is the background.  You don’t get your hands dirty, you don’t go out and make change yourself, you pay money to be socially seen and sometimes it happens to go towards a philanthropic cause.  If you want to raise money from the rich and keep people with deep pockets coming in the door, you have to have social currency yourself. This is where, and why, Brucie comes in.  I believe Brucie ws crafted to maintain Batman’s cover but still attempt to carry on his parents’ legacy to grease the wheels of the rich in the directions he chooses: one of generosity towards those less privileged. 

Superman/Batman #51

The inevitable flaw of Bruce’s approach to his personas and their philanthropy is that in a city rife with corruption, money distributed from the top has many opportunities to disappear well before it reaches the bottom.  As in many of ways they are complements to each other, Dick’s approach balances that out, because his approach to helping his fellow man starts out at the street level...literally.

Nightwing #153 (Nightwing: The Great Leap)

Dick, we know, does not come from privilege.  His mother was from a middle class family before she joined the circus, and despite being world famous athletes, most circus workers are lower to middle class.  The people he grew up with, was comfortable with, were all working folk who expected everyone to pull their weight right alongside each other.  He enacts this everyone-together approach in almost all aspects and phases of his life. 

Batman #615

Even once he had settled into being Robin and adapted to living at the manor, he didn’t feel belonging to a culture of privilege, materialism, or high society. He preferred shotgun in the limo to chat with the driver to riding fancy in the back.  Once he was able to start making his own decisions about where and how he lived, despite having both Bruce’s money and then later inheriting a substantial amount of his own, he chose mostly lower-class communal places.

Batman Black and White #6

Dick also doesn’t see the value of throwing money at a problem when there is an option to fix it with his own hands.  We see this frequently, from building his own car instead of buying a finished one or outsourcing the work, to deciding the best way to clean out the BPD was to start at the bottom and work his way up (literally), to quitting college because his classes never got prioritized over crimesolving.  Most of his day jobs ended for similar reasons. 

Nightwing #153 (Nightwing: The Great Leap)

Despite the showmanship training, he gravitates away from spotlight on the rich and wealthy, who are notoriously the kind of people who do not get their hands dirty or go out and take care of things themselves, and prefers to find or build communities around the kind of people who do.

Finally, Dick is an extrovert.  He doesn’t need to act extroverted as Brucie does because he is extroverted.  He likes people and likes being around people.  Whether by conscious choice or not, he tends to put himself in situations where he is surrounded by people in nearly all aspects of his life.  He chooses apartment buildings whose occupants frequently pass each other on the stairs; jobs that involve interacting with many co-workers, patrons, or students; and collects superhero teammates like Boy Scout badges.  And all of these behaviors come very naturally to him.  

He doesn’t need a mask or a role or a persona for those kind of interactions; his mask is pre-supplied as “neighbor” or “co-worker” or “teacher” by the situations he puts himself in.  It helps make him an exemplary leader, because just by acting authentically to himself, he automatically builds up little communities around him any time he arrives somewhere.

Bruce, on the other hand, is an introvert.  For him, interacting with people isn’t easy, automatic, or comfortable unless it has a purpose, but as a strategist, he knows the necessity of human interaction as a catalyst to achieving dynamic change. So he adapts personas to suit people’s expectations.  Extroverts have more social currency; the life of the party can generate more resources than a brooding wallflower.  

So, it boils down to just a few elements: Dick believes in living and interacting at the street level to accomplish the things that he wants to, and he is extroverted enough that the level of social interaction that entails is not a burden to him.  He surrounds himself with the types of people he is more familiar or perhaps more comfortable with, which happens to keep him further out from the media’s eye than associating with the upper crust does. The lower profile is more incidental than intentional, but it lessens his need to have a cover story for every single bruise and lets him get away with even less of a ‘persona’.

Bruce, on the other hand, is introverted and follows a more classist view that systemic change needs to be effected from the top down.   His personas are more of a self-assumed duty than a necessity, as a way of trying to carry out his parents’ legacy.  Any of his children could have chosen to follow his path in business or the high society limelight, but the sense of obligation toward it is something personal to him that most of them don’t share.

[twst-headcanons]

Hey! I was scrolling through some of your older posts and i found the band au one. I was really interested about it so maybe if you haven’t done it, could you do a continuation of it through hcs?

AUHROENFOSHDJNDKD WAIT OHMYGOD ANON THANK YOU IVE BEEN MEANING TO POST MORE STUFF I ALREADY HAVE PLENTY MORE WRITTEN ABOUT EACH SO I HOPE YOURE OK WITH ME POSTING THE BASIC BIOS

HEARTSLAYBUL

A band of five boys looking to enjoy the rest of their highschool experience together before moving on to the real world as adults.

Riddle Rosehearts; A junior at Night Raven, and the young heir to his mother's company. He wishes to do the best he can to take on her business once he graduates, though feels pressured to do so.

Trey Clover; A senior at Night Raven, and Riddle's childhood friend. He looks forward to having enjoyable moments with Riddle and the others before graduating and moving on to college.

Cater Diamond; A senior at Night Raven, and a generally easy-going and "people's person" type of guy with a need to make others around him smile. He thought joining a band might be a good way to promote his social media, and an overall nice change of pace.

Deuce Spade; A sophomore at Night Raven, and a former "bad boy", Deuce is looking to redeem himself so that he can have a pleasant and worry-free highschool experience.

Ace Trappola; A sophomore at Night Raven, and a bonafide flirt as well as an active troublemaker/class clown. He thought joining a band might garner him more attention from girls.

SAVANACLAW

A band of three boys looking to make a change, and their voices heard in the world. Struggling with different issues, they decided to come together to form a band.

Leona Kingscholar; A "super" senior at Night Raven, and the second-born son of a recently-deceased millionaire. Feels as if he was cheated out of his "rightful" inheritance, he hopes to vent his frustrations via music.

Ruggie Bucchi; A junior at Night Raven, and a lower-class student who was lucky to make it to the prestigious school in the first place. He joined Leona's band in hopes of getting famous and being able to give back to the struggling community he grew up in.

Jack Howl; A sophomore at Night Raven, he looks up to his seniors and hopes to support their efforts as best he can, and joins Leona's band to put his drumming skills to good use.

OCTAVINELLE

A band formed by three childhood friends hoping to promote the Monstro Lounge, a restaurant gifted to Azul by his parents. Found out that they enjoy performing together as a band, and decide to continue even after the Lounge gains traction.

Azul Ashengrotto; A junior at Night Raven, and a young yet passionate restaurant owner. He hopes to make it in the restaurant business, and formed a "temporary" band with Floyd and Jade to promote the Lounge.

Jade Leech; A junior at Night Raven, and childhood friend of Azul. He wishes the best for his friend, even if it means joining his band and working at his restaurant.

Floyd Leech; A junior at Night Raven, and childhood friend of Azul. A bit of a loose cannon and rather unpredictable, it was a miracle that he agreed to joining Azul's "temporary" band.

SCARABIA

A duo focused on sharing their culture with others, Kalim's only real goal being to make others smile while Jamil tries his best to keep him out of trouble.

Kalim Al-Asim; A junior at Night Raven, and a wealthy foreign-exchange student sent to attend with his servant, Jamil. He thought it would be fun to perform music and pick up an instrument, hoping to spread the joy his culture brings him to others.

Jamil Viper; A junior at Night Raven, and a fellow foreign-exchange student sent to watch over Kalim while they're overseas attending school. He decided to perform with Kalim as to make sure he wouldn't get in any trouble or messy situations, picking up an instrument as well.

POMEFIORE

A band of three boys formed by an agency with the goal of spreading Vil's influence as a celebrity. Clashing opinions oftentimes cause concern for the stability of their band in the long run.

Vil Schoenheit; A senior at Night Raven, and a famous model/social media influencer hoping to dip his feet and test the waters of the music industry. He demanded that the agency only pick him the "fairest" musicians to choose for his band.

Rook Hunt; A senior at Night Raven, as well as a friend and admirer of Vil's. He decided to pick up the bass in the past but never got serious with it until he heard that Vil was looking to form a band, and asked to join.

Epel Felmier; A sophomore at Night Raven, and a candidate hand-picked by Vil's agency. He hates the thought of being seen as fragile and "pretty", and started learning how to play the drums by Jack. He oftentimes has opinions differing from Vil's, and gets irritated easily by arguing with him.

IGNIHYDE

A pair of siblings hiding anonymously behind the alias of "Ignihyde", they work together as a DJ duo.

Idia Shroud; A senior at Night Raven and a textbook shut-in, he has a talent when it comes to technology, and secretly enjoys making his own music in his free time. Prefers to keep to himself, and is viewed as "the strange student", or even as "mysterious".

Ortho Shroud; A child attending the local middle school, he oftentimes comes after school in hopes of Idia opening up more around others. He was involved in an incident that left him missing a leg and needing a prosthetic, oftentimes joking that he's like a robot because of how the prosthetic is modeled. Asks Idia if he can sing for some of his songs, or at least help him with the instrumentals, even if the answer is usually an embarrassed "no".

DIASOMNIA

A band of four who've known eachother for most of their lives and act as family, and are hoping to stay with eachother for many more. They have decided to create slightly altered "personas" to act as onstage.

Malleus Draconia; A college student attending the local university his grandmother works at, in hopes of taking up her place as a professor once she retires as a means of "continuing her legacy", as Lilia jokingly phrases it. His "onstage persona" is a powerful mage and dragon fae who rules over a civilization.

Lilia Vanrogue; An older college student who never had the chance previously to attend, becoming a father and caretaker by the time he was fresh out of highschool. He used to play the bass, but had to prioritize taking care of Silver and Malleus over his own personal hobbies. He thought it might be fun to start a band with Malleus and Silver. His "onstage persona" is a vampire fae who acts as an advisor to the powerful dragon fae in power.

Silver Vanrogue; A junior at Night Raven, he's a rather sleepy and quiet individual who suffers from narcolepsy, even if it isn't immediately obvious. He's rather indifferent to the idea of being in a band with his father (and Malleus, who he somewhat views as an adoptive brother), and his "onstage persona" is that of a knight training to protect and serve the powerful dragon fae ruling over the faerie civilization.

Sebek Zigvolt; A sophomore at Night Raven, he's actually a rather shy and skittish boy when not acting as his onstage persona, though he's taken to adapting it into his regular behavior to fit his tall and intimidating stature. He decided to join his childhood friend, Silver, in Malleus' band, hoping to grow less shy and to impress Malleus, seeing him as an older brother figure. His "onstage persona" is a rather boisterious yet serious knight-in-training, hoping to live up to his master's expectations and more.

EXTRA INFO

- Night Ravens is a group formed by all seven main vocalists to perform a song for homecoming week, as per the request of the oh-so-generous Principal Crowley.

- No magic exists in this AU. Think of it as a sort of "spin-off" BanG Dream! universe.

- The Diasomnia boys still go by their names onstage, though they act differently according to their onstage personas.

- Each dorm name is their band name. For example, Octavinelle would perform regularly at the Monstro Lounge.

- Any boy that might have "strange" or non-human features are human. If they get body modifications (such as the twins with their teeth, perhaps) then they keep it, but Malleus doesn't have horns offstage, the Savanaclaw boys don't have animalistic features, the Octavinelle boys cannot turn into mermen (sea creatures?), and both Idia and Ortho have normal hair, even if it may be dyed.

- Ortho is a normal human boy, though he lost his left leg in a currently unspecified incident that might be delved into at a later point in time. All that will be currently mentioned is that Idia feels immense guilt and like he was the one responsible for it happening.

- In this AU, it isn't specified whether Silver is adopted or if he's Lilia's biological son. Malleus was put into Lilia's care as his parents couldn't be bothered to raise him/make the time to care for him and his grandmother is busy as a well-known and highly-regarded university professor.

- The setting that this AU takes place in is a city based in a country similar to the United States, and works on the United States school system. This is moreso for convenience on my end, though as it is unspecified it can be adapted to other school systems as needed.

- The faculty are all teachers at the school, though Sam runs an on-campus convenience store. Yuu is the insert character, and Grim is an online friend of Yuu who very conveniently happens to attend Night Raven as well.

[star-six7]

And You’re Someone Who Knows Someone (Who Was Someone I Once Knew)

Mikey Way x Reader (Gender Neutral)

Word Count: 1909

Request: Could I request anything with Mikey? Thanks :)

A/N: I am so sorry about the delay on this one! I’ve been drowning in school and work at the moment, but I’m still thinking of you guys, I promise! Also, catch that title reference ;)

Disclaimer: This is entirely a work of fiction. No part of this story is meant to be libel, slander, or in any way derogatory towards any character’s real life counterpart. I’m not delusional; I know that these characters are simply based off of a public persona and may not actually resemble the people behind those personas. Any additional characters that you do not recognize are entirely fictional, unless otherwise stated. And finally, if you got here by Googling yourself, whatever happens next is 100% on you.

You rocked back and forth on the balls of your feet anxiously as you stood in front of the chain-link fence. Finally, a large guy with a security shirt came into your view, calling out your name.

“Hey,” he grinned when you nodded. “It’s good to finally meet you in person; Gerard’s been chattering nonstop about you for the past few days. I’m Worm, I’m in charge of most of the security for the band; I’ll take you back now.”

“Okay,” you nodded, putting away the backstage pass that Gerard had mailed to you. You were slightly taken aback by the professional quality of the whole set-up; the last time you had been to a My Chem show, it had been in a much less… respectable venue, and there wasn’t even the faintest idea of guards and backstage passes. Something told you that the security probably wasn’t the only thing that had changed over the last few years...

While you were lost in your thoughts, Worm had led you through a back parking lot filled with big box trucks and busy stage crews right to the band’s bus. He punched in a key-code, and grandly guided you up the steps. 

“Gerard, your esteemed guest has arrived!” He winked good-naturedly at you, and then turned to leave. “Soundcheck at four, please attempt to think about being there in some semblance of a timely manner.” He rolled his eyes as he exited the bus.

Gerard, of course, didn’t hear him because he was too busy leaping off the couch so he could tackle you. “You’re here!”

“Yes,” you grinned, attempting to pat his back and keep your balance at the same time. “It’s been so long, Gerard, how are you?”

He let go and returned your smile. “I’ve been great, really great. A lot better than I was the last time we met. Um,” he ran a hand through his close-cropped white hair, and glanced sideways at Mikey. “You remember Ray and Mikey, right?”

“Of course,” you grinned at them. “How could I not? I did go to all of your shows for a year.”

“Well, uh, Otter ended up leaving after we finished recording Three Cheers, so that’s Bob- say hi, Bob- oh! And you remember Pencey, right? Well, Frankie’s with us now, and I think that about covers it.”

You waved at them. You remembered Frank’s wild nature, not surprised that he fit in so well with My Chem, and Bob seemed nice enough. All of the guys seemed genuinely excited about your presence, though you couldn’t shake the feeling that there were some conspiratorial glances and nudges being thrown around by everyone except Mikey. In fact, the bassist in question was doing his best to look artfully bored from his place on the couch and ignore Frank’s not-so-subtle shoving. Still, you felt a certain tug towards him, even after all these years.

“C’mon!” Gerard said brightly, snapping you out of your observations. “Let me give you the grand tour.”

The rest of the afternoon passed by in a whirlwind of wandering the bus park and venue with Gerard, watching the guys soundcheck from the nosebleeds, and dining on pizza in the green room. You were so glad you had been able to make it to a show; Gerard was one of your closest friends, and it had been a couple of years since you had last met. 

Your friendship had started during your senior year of college- you had both had an internship in the same building, albeit for different companies and lines of work. Since then, you had bonded over several of your shared interests and kept in touch, leading you to go to several of the first My Chem shows, and by extension, meet Ray, Frank, and Mikey. Though your busy work life and their crazy tour schedule had caused you to drift apart, it felt like no time had passed at all as you watched Ray swat Frank for stealing his pizza while Gerard and Mikey laughed uncontrollably at Ray’s exasperated expression.

Soon enough, it was time for them to go onstage, which became evident when the venue’s stage manager knocked on the door to lead them to the curtain. Worm reappeared and guided you to the seat marked on your ticket from Gerard- a center stage view from the very first row of actual seats behind the pit. Clearly, Gerard had wanted to make sure you didn’t miss a single part of the show.

The lights dimmed, and you watched two crewmembers dressed as doctors and nurses wheel out a covered gurney while the sound of a heartbeat monitor played over the sound system. You were unsurprised when Gerard leapt out of the gurney moments later, kicking off the show. 

You already knew the guys were awe-inspiring onstage- you had known it from the way you felt the first time you saw them live- but it was clear to see that over the past few years, they had taken it to a whole new level. They had each grown into their stage personas and their identity as a band, but your eyes kept drifting to one member in particular...

You had noticed it earlier today, but Mikey had definitely evolved since the last time you had met. He seemed much more sure of himself onstage; instead of retreating to the space almost directly behind Gerard, he often came up to the edge of the stage or interacted with his bandmates. He also seemed more relaxed off stage, easily interacting with fans outside of the venue and joking before the show with the rest of the band and crew. You couldn’t deny that he was a far cry from Gerard’s shy, slightly awkward, little brother you had met all those years ago.

Before you knew it, the show was over, and Frank was insisting on heading to a nearby diner for several plates of french fries and milkshakes. You glanced at your watch and balked. “Shit… I’m sorry guys, it’s almost 1am and I didn’t get a hotel. I think I’m going to start the drive home.”

Frank and Gerard glanced at each other, and then they rushed to stop you. “Don’t be ridiculous, come with us and you can just stay on the bus!”

“I don’t want to take up anyone’s space…” You hemmed.

“It’s fine!” Ray insisted. “Don’t even worry about it, you can sleep in the back lounge, it’s honestly very nice.”

Though you were suspicious of their enthusiasm, you accepted their offer with a shrug and followed the rest of the group in their search for a 24 hour diner.

…

You sighed as you took off your shoes and settled into the bed in the back lounge. You were exhausted; the long day of walking, dancing, and socializing was starting to catch up to you. However, just as soon as you had stretched out across the soft surface and closed you, you were startled upright by the sound of yelling coming from the bunk area just behind the lounge door. Confused, you opened it to see Mikey, looking irate, and Frank looking guilty yet slightly pleased with himself.

“What the actual fuck, Frank?” Mikey glared accusingly at him.

“I’m really sorry Mikey, it was-”

“An accident? Frank, we all know you’re clumsy as fuck, but there’s absolutely no way someone pours an entire liter of soda directly on my bunk on accident!”

“Oh shit,” you said, stepping out of the doorway to assess the damage.

Mikey glanced at you. “Sorry if I woke you up, Frank’s just being ridiculous.”

“Mikey, I don’t think you’re gonna be able to sleep here tonight,” Ray said, gently prodding Mikey’s mattress. “It’s pretty soaked.”

“Oh, well, of course,” Mikey sighed irritably. “Well, couch it is, then.”

“Actually,” Gerard piped up, oh-so-helpfully, “there’s plenty of space in the back lounge.” He turned to you. “If you’re okay with sharing, that is.”

You stared at him, trying to figure out his plan here. You were pretty sure that if he could bat his eyelashes right now, he would. Ignoring your suddenly accelerating heart rate, you turned back to Mikey.

“I don’t mind sharing, it is your bus after all,” you shrugged, glancing at Mikey. “Gerard’s right, there’s plenty of room.”

The other three looked extremely pleased with themselves.

“Thank you,” he told you, before turning to glare at Frank and head into the bathroom to change.

A few minutes later, you were in the back lounge again, somewhat awkwardly laying on one half of the double bed as you waited for Mikey to turn off the lights and get settled.

He looked abashed as he stretched out on the opposite side of the bed. “I’m sorry for snapping back there,” he said. “It’s just… the guys have been making fun of me for the past few days and it gets old fast.”

“I understand, it's okay,” you nodded, as you watched his silhouette shift closer to you in the dark.

He gave you a considering look. “It’s just… I told them something personal and they couldn’t just leave it alone. Honestly, this whole weekend has been sort of a set up.”

You rolled over to look at him properly as everything began to fall into place. Frank and Gerard’s insistence that you should stay the night, Frank’s “clumsiness,” Gerard’s helpful suggestions, the general feeling that something was going on behind the scenes…

“Oh,” you said, hoping he would confirm your suspicions, “what do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just that,” for a moment, it seemed like the endearing shyness of the Mikey you had met in Gerard’s basement was back. “Okay, like.” He took a steadying breath. “I’m working on building my confidence, so I’m gonna tell you this and hope for this best. I’ve… had a thing for you for a while, if it wasn’t already obvious. I mean, at first, it was just a crush… but as the years went on, and I- we grew up, I’ve realized it’s more than that. I know I’m still working on being stable, but I want to take that chance with you. I mean, if you feel the same way of course.” He paused. “Wow, that was a weight off my chest.”

You stared at him, opening your mouth to speak and then closing it as you parsed your thoughts. You had always felt a certain fondness for Mikey, and the past day had shown you that, over the course of a few years, it had grown into something more than friendship. You couldn’t deny that you also had feelings towards Mikey, and that seeing his new-found confidence and sense of self had only solidified them.

“Um, you’re not like, pissed, are you?”

His timid question snapped you out of your reverie.

“No, of course not!” you rushed to assure him. “I… I feel the same way, Mikey. I think I always have.”

“Oh!” He couldn’t keep the small grin off of his face. “So then I guess you don’t mind if I do this then, right?” He moved in closer to you and wrapped his free arm around your waist, effectively pulling you into his chest.

You smiled, warm with the feeling that things had finally fallen into place. “Good guess,” you sighed, already beginning to fall asleep.

“One more thing,” Mikey paused.

“Hm?”

“Under no circumstances can the others know that their evil plan worked.” “Deal.”