#so easy to suss out the sociopaths

[aurora771]

Talking about tlou with someone is a great indicator as to whether they are a wank or a good guy.

[melleonis]

700 words of meta about a 14yo video game i guess

given the circumstances, i am in fact replaying persona 3 (the portable version, cause i can emulate the psp without any strain on my hardware) and on the one hand, HOO boy this fave, so problematic - but on the other hand, yeah, this is one of those experiences that got into my blood when i was like eighteen and will never leave me. that turbogoth aesthetic. that tartarus grind. that shoji meguro soundtrack. mitsuru’s VA feels like home so much more than i expected her to.

there are many valid criticisms of the game, of course. one interesting one is that the way you level your relationships in this game is by saying whatever your friend wants you to say, which is not how relationships should work. and that’s true: you enable kazushi’s self-destructive refusal to take care of himself. you go along with hidetoshi’s fashy student-government power trip. the game can easily be read as falling into the “kindness coins go in, desired social results come out” trap that dating sims are historically prone to. but i do want to push back against the idea that the protagonist is manipulative or sociopathic - he is, instead, something very like borderline.

the experience of social engagements in this game is far less, “how can i make this person do what I want,” and instead far more trying to suss out who the other person wants you to be and responding accordingly, because...well, because it feels better. you get more of the approval chimes and little on-screen music notes, your Social Link numbers get higher. it’s not about getting something out of the other character, it’s about responding to their emotional need with an act of becoming. you’re not behaving out-of-character with these people because you don’t have a character, except whatever coalesces in response to someone else. this is why your character can switch personas when every other character is locked in to just the one. they can grow and evolve, but all you do is swap one mask for another in response to other people’s needs.

and they have so many needs. even outside your social links, people are constantly needing things from you - they need you to join their world-saving monster-killing school club, they need you to take charge of their combat team, they need you to join student government, they need you to anchor the swim team, they need you to be the person they’re imagining you to be - so over and over you step into that role, because if you don’t know how to be a person, at least you can figure out how to be a person to them.

i am, of course, projecting. this game was how i learned to form emotional connections with people, bridging the gap between fundamentalist homeschooling and big city college - and yes i did in fact learn some wrong lessons along with the necessary ones (it is still sometimes hard for me not to treat friendship like something i have to earn, notably), but the stopgaps of these practice relationships with video game characters, and then the stopgaps of “well i don’t know who i am but i know who you want me to be, so i’ll just do that” with real people - these were important developmental steps for me.

there are, of course, any number of bland, blank slate protagonists in video games intended to serve only as easily-compatible avatars with the player, and i think it’s easy to confuse that with this if you’re not looking for it, but protagonists like that of Persona 3 (and Majora’s Mask, for instance) resonated with me, not for their lack of specific qualities, but for the very specific combination of no fixed sense of self and an overwhelming need to help or save others.

(i know the portable verson of persona 3 has the option to play as a female protagonist instead. i’m not doing that in this playthrough because the version i initially played didn’t have that option, and i’m really going for full nostalgia - and also because “lesbian” trumps “woman” in terms of my personal hierarchies of identity, and this game, predictably, does not allow you to date women if you’re playing a girl.)

[old-long-john]

(1)When you ramble without me having to ask for it, it's like the angels have descended and bestowed upon me a gift from the heavens. Have I mentioned you're one of my favorites? No? Well you are. Except for how you managed to make a painful scene absolute agony. Because put like that, I think you're right. Flint is so vulnerable to Silver, but the reverse is also true and. Just.

(2)I don’t think Flint’s motive was malicious or mean spirited, but he cut Silver to the quick with his (obvious, so obvious) rationale. And yeah, rather then face what he knows somewhere in the recesses of his mind to be true, Silver kept charging forward. This is probably me projecting, but Silver is such an accomplished liar that I think he can even convince himself of anything, especially if he doesn’t examine his reasoning too closely.

(3)Whether it’s a coping mechanism from his past or something else, I think his sermonizing at Flint regarding his own actions and the complete lack of responsibility he takes in 408 indicates his willingness to overlook certain truths. Sorry to ramble back at /you/ when you definitely didn’t ask for it. You’re such a fun sounding board because I feel like we view the characters similarly but you are so much better at sussing out motive and meaning beyond the surface. 💜

OH YOU!

I completely agree with the idea that Silver’s even able to convince himself of some lies! That’s something I’ve thought about a lot actually. In fact, there’s a bit I put in a fic I’ve not finished yet which is totally me projecting onto him: ‘Silver had always found himself plagued by a peculiar mix of intense self-awareness and indifferent self-ignorance, and it made it difficult to predict his own reactions to stressful situations.’ I don’t know about you, but I know that more than once in my life I’ve become so submerged within a cascade of little untruths that just keep developing and repeating that I lost sight of what the truth actually was. When you’re trying desperately to rationalise something, or to obfuscate something else, it’s all too easy to let yourself buy into the lies, because you want them to be true. And I’m not even a good liar. I imagine that with someone like Silver, who’s a frighteningly adept storyteller and actor, it would be incredibly easy for him to lose track of what’s true and what’s not when his big, unmanageable emotions are suddenly factored into the equation. Feelings muddy the waters. 

You’re so right about his sermonising and lack of responsibility too. I was going to say that Flint does this shit sometimes as well, but actually I’m not sure that’s true. Not so much any more, anyway. Perhaps that’s one of the key differences between them. Flint’s been a leader of men for a long time. He understands his responsibility for his own actions and for the orders he gives to others. Silver’s still thinking like a loner or a subordinate, while wielding the power of a leader. Maybe all of this ties in with that very early line of his about how ‘guilt is natural, but it also goes away if you let it’. He’s hardly a sociopath. We know he’s capable of feeling things deeply by now. Maybe he was always good at letting go of guilt because he simply weaved his own narratives in which he had nothing to feel guilty for. I suppose everyone does that to some extent, but it seemed as though he took it to extremes. I genuinely think a lot of Silver’s irrationality and overreactions in S4 have been due to him suddenly being made to feel so much all at once. He’s feeling (first?) love, an intense friendship, fear for his life, fear for the lives of others, power over men, the pressure of hard choices, guilt over his mistakes, insecurity in his inadequacies, and a thousand more things. It would be a lot to learn how to process any one of those, when he seems to have spent a long time avoiding feeling much of anything at all, but processing them all at once while exhausted and newly disabled and wondering what the hell his place in the world is going to be when all this is done? It’s no wonder he’s been overlooking a few truths to lift some of the weight off. I probably would too.

[the-lost-lieutenant]

my url?

Send me your URL meme | Closed. 

Thoughts on the character: My first thoughts on Sendak I remember, was sort of for the whole of Galra in general, that I found it interesting that he contacted them with his intentions and a warning as well as accepted their surrender, which gave me the sense that had it been sincere he might have made good on allowing them to go on their way. Not sure if that’d have been true for the Alteans, but for the Paladins. So I thought it was interesting. (Cause I half expected the enemies to just be all ‘raaaawr’ and attack, I hadn’t realized at that point that Voltron s1 would be as good as it was). I’d never seen any of the old stuff, so he was literally my first introduction to Galra ever and I think that and his practicality and prowess sorta endeared him to me a bit. But he’s still an asshole.

Have you interacted before: Yep yep, we got a couple threads going. Have chatted a few time briefly. You were the third person to follow me, I remember. I wasn’t sure why but I was excited. I figured out a couple questions I gotta throw you way for the big ol’ thread, but I want to get well into to know if they stay relevant, and I’ve just had nada time to work on it so far.

Favorite part of portrayal: I’ve mentioned before the narcissism. I don’t think it’s my very very favorite thing, it just amuses me a lot. I personally am not great at villains, so generally I remain impressed with the consistency. I think my favourite part would be that you essentially play him as a sociopath, but no man is ever an island, so I enjoy the way you have him try to suss out emotion with others and sometimes doesn’t fully get it or has to calculate whether or not he’ll allow it for his own comfort almost. Anywho, interesting.

One piece of advice: Uuuuuh, you do you. Keep drawing, they are enjoyable to see. Feel free to say hey if you ever want. That's advice right? Not really, but it’s all I got. Moving on.

A verse (mine or theirs) A thread in: Funnily enough, probably would have  been the exile one. Those two need something where they are on slightly more even ground, which is not an easy task even in the slightest. But they'll likely still just try to kill each other. C'est la vie. But it’s all good. Otherwise maybe my Bitch verse, but Aryn is fairly docile in that one for various reasons. 

Thoughts on the mun: Well, you're fantastic at creating a complicated tapestry of world-building and character motivation. It's very impressive. You often seem quite busy, so I rarely want to bug you. So we've not talked lots and lots but I’m sure we’ll get more chances in the future. I’m normally around in some way or another. Just lately things have been a bit crazy for me. Thus many memes and less threads lately.