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Alternate Title: I Must Be In Hell
Welcome back. This post contains mentions and discussions of death, murder, self-harm, suicide, and generally creepy behavior towards women. There's also something rather important at the end of this post, so even if you aren't into Persona 3, please have a look. And, in case you weren't made aware last post, we have a guest sporker here, so please welcome Tristram. Now, moving on:
Chris: *Nursing a large bump on his head with an ice pack* You didn’t have to hit me quite that hard, Shinji.
Shinjiro: *Unapologetic* If you screamed any longer, it’d have made the entry too long to post on the site. Get back to recapping.
Chris: Well, I can’t just yet. For those interested in the obligatory recap of what’s happened so far, last time was a trip to Kyoto, an infuriating series of meet-ups with Ryoji “Accept My Love” Mochizuki, and we fought Chidori, after which she gave her life for Junpei and their Personas fused. The new Persona will be detailed later, but for right now we have to touch on what this means.
This is Junpei’s Persona’s “ascension”. This is where he gets a new Persona. With everyone else, and with most users in the series, this only happens when they become a more self-realized person, or generally when they mature. That doesn’t happen with Junpei; he instead gets his new Persona only thanks to the girl he was horny for fusing his Persona with hers, and I’m not even sure how that happens in the first place, much less while taking into account his natural one versus her artificially installed one. But what this means for him is that he never matured. Or rather, if we take into account how his Social Link affects him early on, it actually means he’s regressed. This happens in vanilla P3, so Atlus has in the long run of things shafted him. They’ve shafted him and left him without character growth, a character arc, or any maturation, instead choosing to stick him with a terrible romantic plot and trying to fit that square peg into the round void left behind.
That’s pathetic. And because of it, I’m awarding it one last one of these:
Romantic Plot Cancer: 60
Tristram: I think the idea of his Persona merging with Chidori’s was meant to be a subtle alchemy reference, backed up by Trismegistos being named for the god whose writings inspired Hermeticism, but if that was the case they really did not do us or themselves any favours. All they succeeded in doing was reminding me why I don’t like Junpei despite a fantastic Social Link. And that Hashino has a very nasty habit of objectifying women for the entertainment or advancement of men in his games.
Chris: I can’t say for sure that it’ll be the last one—I’m betting Junpei will probably have more to say about his “relationship” with Chidori later on—but for now, that’s the end of the romance subplot itself.
It’s 11/23. While we’ve technically got another week of November left, most of it will be taken up by Career Experience Week and the internships that comprise it. Before then, it’s Monday, but also Labor Day. We thankfully don’t have to sit through some lengthy scene about last night before being handed control.
Woops. Ignore what I just said about the RPC count. Fuuka, Yukari, Aigis, and Mitsuru all have to comment on how beautiful and powerful Junpei and Chidori’s romance was.
Romantic Plot Cancer: 64
I’m not buying it, Atlus.
Tristram: Ahahahahaha what? Look, Yukari I could almost buy, but Fuuka? Mitsuru? Aigis, the robot with no personality or emotions? I’m sorry but no. Fuuka got bloody possessed by Chidori and should rightfully hate her guts, Mitsuru is way too sensible to see romance in what was an event that existed just to make Junpei look good, and Aigis has no emotions!
Chris: With nothing else to do with our day off, we go boost our Mitsuru Link. When we get back, we take Koromaru for a walk.
11/24. For our internship, we’ll be cleaning up Wild Duck Burger for the next four days.
11/25, 11/26, and now 11/27. We get an Academics boost we don’t need, and stop by the cafe on our way home to meet Ryoji. I was not informed of this beforehand. Apparently, that’s intentional, as he apologizes for it when we meet him.
Tristram: Asshole. Even if we were into him, nobody in their right mind wants to be hit on after four days of sweaty greasy miserable work cleaning up in a fast food restaurant.
Chris: We tell him it’s fine, and he mentions how he was in the same group as Junpei, who didn’t show up for a while, only arriving one of the days because the teacher said he had to, and Ryoji’s noticed how down he is. When he asks, we just tell him that yes, something happened, and he wisely wonders if he shouldn’t ask any further. He claims Junpei to be someone he cares about.
*Snort* Mhm. And I’m a millionaire. I’m so glad Chidori died not only for Junpei angst, but to make me listen to this guy’s yammering as well. Ryoji’s “deep concern” for someone he saw being distressed allows us to RANK UP.
Tristram: Ah yes, someone you ‘care about’. Ryoji, you are literally saying you didn’t contact him for several days when you thought he was sick or something was wrong. During a session of school activity where not turning up could very well get you suspended or maybe even expelled, because this school is run by a capitalist business, lest we forget that little nugget of concern.
> You spent time with Ryoji, but little was said.
Chris: I’m too tired to be mad. Let’s just be cool with the fact we were basically handed that rank-up without having to endure more merciless romantic crap.
Tristram: If he’d tried to be romantic after that conversation I think I would have puked from rage.
Chris: Again, we have nothing to do when we’re home, so we just go to bed.
11/28. Theodore calls, informing us that 3 humans got lost in Tartarus. What the hell, I needed a reason to go there. We pick up our Snow Queen Whip for Mitsuru and drop off Masakado for fusion. We’ll give Junpei a sword when he resurfaces. Then, we spend today with Mitsuru.
This time, we’re going to the burger joint, which Mitsuru has also never been inside before, and she’s nervous. We ask if this is her first time eating burgers, and she says she did pass by here once with Akihiko, so she knows it’s not a meal eaten with utensils. ...Christ, lady, ain’t you ever seen a commercial? She’s still unfamiliar, but is glad we’re here to help her along. The business acumen in her rings in again, and she asks if it’s profitable to sell their food at such low prices. Trust me, Mitsuru, they more than make back what they spend.
However, before she can get too lost in thought, she says it wasn’t just to eat that she brought us here—she wants to thank us. We’re all facing a trial, she says, and we only made it this far together. She knows she’s been hard on us, and wants us to know she appreciates us. We RANK UP.
Tristram: Despite all the signing us up for crap without asking, we appreciate you too.
Chris: We do have a scene this time when we get back to the dorm. I really, really don’t feel like going into a lengthy description about it, but basically they get Junpei to snap out of his funk by bringing him Chidori’s sketchbook, in which there are many drawings of him. The entire damn sketchbook is filled with detailed portraits of him. *Sigh*
Romantic Plot Cancer: 65
Tristram: *gags violently* No. Just. No. No more of this bullshit, I can’t take it any more! What indication is there that Chidori could draw people, let alone that she’d draw Junpei? I seem to recall only a couple of entries ago she’d stopped drawing when he was around altogether! And the one time we have been told about what she was drawing, it was red and black and abstract! You can’t have someone who apparently specialized in the extreme abstract go straight to super-detailed portraits, art doesn’t work that way. You have to completely retrain yourself!
Chris: No, you don’t get it, Tris. It’s a symbol of her love for Junpei. It wouldn’t work if it were just pictures she’d drawn, they have to be pictures of her man!
He does perk up, and finally apologizes for being a dick about not getting to be the leader all that time ago and says he has faith in our skills. I’m thirty levels higher than you, so you better. Also would’ve been nice for an apology for, you know, trying to dick the enemy and endangering us all multiple times and showing her more loyalty than to us...but we’ll take what we can get. Our SEES Social Link RANKS UP to 9, skipping Rank 8. We still don’t have shit to do tonight, so let’s go to Tartarus again.
*knuckle crack*
First, Junpei’s Persona: Trismegistus (that’s how it’s spelled on the status screen). We’re going without him, as he already has plans, but still. It’s a fused culture god, being made from Hermes and Thoth, rather than Hermes and Medea, and is also the name given to the founder of alchemy, astrology, and magic. Looks just like Hermes, but red with stripes, a second pair of wings and a second layer of blade “feathers” on the first pair, and rather than a visored helmet, there’s now a helm with a bird’s beak grasping a red orb. Maybe I’m just being petty, but I’m more into black and gold than red and gold.
His skills now include High Counter, automatically replacing Counterstrike since he’s a high enough level, and Spring of Life has been added, letting him regenerate. Agidyne is next on the list, as is Vorpal Blade and Brave Blade after that. The resistance to fire has been upgraded into a null.
Tristram: It’s still objectively one of the least useful Personas on the team, though. He does one thing well, smashing dudes in the face with a sword, but he’ll never have the stats to use Agidyne properly and he doesn’t have the MP to cast it as often as, say, Koromaru. And in a game where there are three types of physical damage and four types of magical damage BEFORE you start counting instant death, only being able to use one damage type with any competence is a death sentence.
We can get away with it because we can swap Personas around on our turn. He never gets better. Junpei gets shafted in both story and battle.
Chris: We rescue the people, then head back to bed.
11/29. Naturally, Ryoji calls and we have to hang out with him. This dude, excited as a puppy, takes us to school on our damn day off. We climb the gates and then get up to the roof. How, I’m not sure, if the actual school doors are locked. Maybe we scaled the outside like Altair. He wonders if anyone will find us and if we’ll get in trouble, so we say we’ll just have to not be seen.
He gets somber, saying he doesn’t feel right and feels scared when he’s alone. Oh, so you’re a horribly clingy romantic because you’re just that afraid of being single? Granted, it’s not phrased that way, but that’s what it sounds like regardless. He says thinking about us scares him, and thinking about tomorrow coming scares him, which scares me because oh god, do we have more lengthy story scenes to endure?! He says he can’t figure out why. He stammers “I’m...”, trying to admit something obvious, and we just say “[he’s] Ryoji”.
“Hearing my name from your lips makes it sound so wonderful.”
CUT IT OUT, DAMN YOU.
Tristram: Please stop trying to make me puke from anger, Ryoji! This would maybe work if we hadn’t already seen you try lines exactly like this on every woman who comes close enough to you. You’re not seductive, you’re a creep.
Chris: He thanks us, and says he doesn’t want to lose us. Why he would worry about that considering he’s not a part of SEES, and definitely not the creepy little boy that’s been plaguing our sleep for the last several months, we can’t say. Suddenly voiced again, he says that we’re “the only one there is for me, the only one I want”.
STOP IT!!! I FUCKING SWEAR...
So please, stay with him, he says.
Tristram: Fuck no. We have standards.
> Is Ryoji confessing his love for you?
Chris: 
We emphatically state that we’re there for him… as a friend. Which he says is fine so long as he can stay by our side.
“You’re the most precious thing in the world to me… More precious than my own life.”
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—
Tristram: *eeps*
Shinjiro: It’s okay! That’s the end! It’s over, you can calm down, now!
Chris: *gasping* I—for fuck’s sake—
Shinjiro: Drink some water, and siddown…
Chris: *inbetween sips* Everyone can understand why I’m angry with this, right?! Why it bothers me with Ryoji and not Shinjiro, or Naoto? With both of the latter, there’s an effort to include the character in the months leading up to before they join your party, for you to get to know what they’re like as people before you get to know them a little more intimately on a short time limit. This dude, despite Atlus being very shitty at pretending we haven’t already met him, legit just pops into our lives and we’re supposed to go from 0 to 10 with him in under a month’s time—under a week’s, really. He’s very needy and clingy from the moment we meet him, and refuses to let up, talking to us like we’ve actually spent months and years together. We did spend months together while he was Pharos, but all he did was be creepy and make doomsday revelations on our beds while we wanted to sleep, and didn’t reveal much about himself or ask much about us. This is not like Shinjiro or Naoto, this dude is coming off as throwing himself at us 1000% with only the prerequisite of our immediate time and attention. This is a time when I really do have to ask, was I supposed to like this guy?!
WISTLH: 72
Tristram: Fuck you, Ryoji! Fuck you for writing Ryoji, Hashino! Do you have any idea what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one of these guys? Lemme tell you I do, and it’s fucking terrifying! We haven’t encouraged him more than the bare minimum required to not reverse the Link, we have constantly referred to him as a friend, and he’s taking that as permission to go full steam ahead!
I legitimately had to deal with someone this forward once. He literally walked up to me on the street, said I was cute, and demanded – not asked, demanded my phone number. Of course I gave him a fake one because I just wanted to get away, and do you know what happened? He started lurking around the town’s public library waiting for me because he’d seen my library bag. I got ambushed outside said library and had to write a note to a librarian begging for help because he wouldn’t stop following me even when I told him I wanted to be alone and I wasn’t interested.
It’s not cute, it’s not charming, it’s not romantic. It’s one of the worst experiences of my fucking life and seeing it played up like it’s super fucking precious and cute and romantic is EVIL!
AND IT STILL GETS WORSE IN THE FUTURE.
Chris: Ugh, that sounds like a nightmare, I’m sorry you had to go through that, Tris.
We RANK UP, and he says the ocean’s glimmering and he asks why it hurts when he sees things so beautiful. I don’t know, you clingy fuck.
Yes, there still isn’t shit to do tonight. We go collect our rewards for the missing people—a skill card labeled “Phys Boost” that I’m not familiar with, a Tetrakarn skill card, and two Luxury Coins to sell. We’re reminded that the full moon is soon before we go to bed.
11/30. Mr. Ekoda asks about beauty standards in the Heian period, and men and women both doing the same things. Aigis is still rightly worried about Ryoji. There is still nothing to do, but we do pick up Masakado’s Katana and drop off Chi You there, before boosting Ken’s Link at the shrine, then we go home—
WHY IS RYOJI IN THE SEES DORM?!?
Tristram: GET OUT YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!
Chris: We are treated to a fully voiced scene that starts with Fuuka calling us late and saying Ryoji was just leaving. He greets us on the way out, just in time to miss Aigis, who walks downstairs and asks about him. Aigis asks what he was doing here, and Yukari just says he’s been coming around here a lot ever since he started hanging out with Junpei.
BITCH, WHEN?!
Aigis points out in her polite monotone what I’m screaming in my head: visitors aren’t allowed here. This is the dorm where the top secret monster-slaying organization stays! He can’t be in here! Junpei waves it off, saying Mitsuru said it was okay during the day.
Shinjiro: Mitsuru said that?! Oh hell no—!
Tristram: Bitch please, no WAY did Mitsuru say that! Especially not so soon after Fuuka got fucking possessed! And you got shot! I’m so sick of the game constantly lying to us to make this awful character seem important! It doesn’t make sense in the male version of the story and it makes even less sense here!
Chris: That’s it. I’m convinced. Ryoji obviously has some sort of mind-manipulating power that’s been getting him into everyone’s good graces and making them give him everything he wants. I’m not even kidding, that has to be it. It’s why he’s been so annoyingly romantic and clingy, he’s just expecting us to be in love with him from the start like everyone else and doesn’t realize it isn’t working. It’d also explain why Aigis, as a robot and unaffected by it, is convinced he’s a threat.
Shinjiro: This dude needs to butt out! Go get a life somewhere else! Fuck off back to the Sea of Souls or something!!!
Chris: Aigis insists he’s dangerous, and they brush her off, Junpei offhandedly mentioning Chidori.
Tristram: Junpei, I guess you forgot, but Chidori was dangerous. Chidori hurt us and put you in a situation where by all rights you should’ve been killed. Your judgement is not exactly more reliable than Aigis’ right now. And I hate Aigis!
Chris: Aigis gets all down, as she’s a machine and can’t understand how it feels to “live” after his remark. But, she is “functioning”. If she malfunctions, she can be repaired. Why do I sense “robot gains humanity” soon on the horizon?
Hey, if we were all like Aigis, we wouldn’t have to worry about dying, Junpei says.
DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 50
Tristram: What the actual fuck, Junpei?
Chris: Atlus, please. You’re transparent and it’s flat.
Everyone goes back to their rooms to study, leaving Aigis alone to contemplate life with us. While she can’t understand living, she can understand loss, and makes it noted that us being harmed would be very bad for her.
Aigis I’m Stuck With You: 28
She says we’re very important to her.
Aigis I’m Stuck With You: 29
And that she doesn’t know why, but she always wants to be by our side.
Aigis I’m Stuck With You: 30
Tristram: We don’t want you there!
Chris: You’re not off the hook just because of Ryoji, Aigis. As it is, I’m stuck between two clingy leeches.
She says she wants to protect us, then apologizes for taking up our time and leaves. However, elsewhere in the dorm, she’s still worrying. She is still very uneasy about dangerous Ryoji Mochizuki, and muses ominously that since she can’t die, “they won’t have to grieve for [her]”. Uhhh, Aigis? Somethin’ you wanna tell us?!
DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 51
She has to do something, she says, and she doesn’t want the rest of us to suffer anymore. *Sigh* the intrigue builds. We’re handed control, not that we can do anything with it except sleep. Immediately thereafter is another scene.
Tristram: Here we go again, another set of contrived moments to induce rage. Please do not frying pan me for my inevitable shrieking, Shinjiro. This is so dumb it deserves all the fury I can muster, and I can muster a LOT.
Shinjiro: *hands the frying pan to Chris*
Mitsuru is in the command room looking ill at ease and staring at her cell. She suddenly calls someone, telling them to perform a “full autopsy” on the “new arrival”. …??? Any distinguishing features could lead to the location of her family, she says, so we must be talking about Chidori. She admits that she suspects Kirijo Group to be tied to Strega in some way, and thus she doesn’t want the death covered up, and will take full responsibility. However, something on the line gets her attention.
The “corpse” has transmogrified into a coffin. Yeah, change of plans, keep that under lock and key—Chidori Yoshino is alive. She wants to be informed of any more changes, and hangs up.
Mhm. That was our “reward” for encouraging Junpei to go see her four times. She gets brought back to life. *glancing at Shinjiro*
Shinjiro: *staring ahead dully*
Tristram: …
Chris: Uhh… anything to add about that…?
Shinjiro: Kinda used to this game fucking me over and rubbing it in my face by now. Just say your bit and move on.
Chris: Okay, so while our actions can save both Chidori and Shinji, it’s important to note that one of them is canon, and the other is not. Guess which. Yep! Persona 4: Arena Ultimax confirms that Chidori is alive and well after Persona 3! But not Shinjiro, because fuck you.
Tristram: Oh look at that, yet another reason for me to never touch the Arena games!
Chris: Why shouldn’t Shinjiro be alive? I am a thousand times more attached to him than I am the chick that Junpei latched onto and dragged in front of me to showcase his forced, flat heterosexual romance with! Of all the add-ons introduced to re-releases (this was added in FES), why make this one canon?!
Hey, Atlus? I’d like to ask you who Shinjiro is based on and why you hate him, but I think a better question would be which developer was going through a bad breakup or pining when writing this in 2006 and adding the Chidori mess into the game? Something tells me his name is Hashino. Urrgh.
The scene ends.
12/1. We can finally do shit, including Mitsuru’s Link, but no, it’s Ryoji again. He takes us up onto the rooftop. He muses on how you can see the city, the sky, and the sea from the roof and how they’re all beautiful. Eh. He says his eyes and body hurt. Eh.
Tristram: Good, you little creep.
Chris: He turns his head away, and asks us quietly not to forget him. Son, if only I could be allowed to forget you. Then he says to forget him. Then he says not to. Then both.
I’m so done with Ryoji. All the sad music in the world won’t make me un-done with him. He says he hurts inside when he thinks about us. We RANK UP. One last time, he begs us to forget him “when the time comes”.
Tristram: When the time comes I will be first in line to punch you until you beg for mercy. Boys like you are not hot or sexy and this is not romantic!
Chris: We’re done. For now, anyway—the next month is Ryoji-free, at least according to the guide.
Tonight is the night we max Ken’s Link.
He takes us to the back alley, where Shinji was shot. He says that he’s always been scared to come here, that he’d remember things his mom would tell him and he was scared to remember, that he couldn’t handle that he’d never hear them again. He looks off, smiling, admitting that he pushed himself to be more than he was because he wanted to hurry and be an adult. Ignoring himself and his own feelings. Err…if you say so. But now, he thinks he gets what Shinjiro was trying to tell him with his last words: take care of the things closest to you. Like us, he states.
He gives us a silver key. It’s the key to a house he hasn’t lived in in two years, and doesn’t need. We agree to hold onto it. He says he’s been thinking about what it means to be left behind, and thinks his mom must’ve had regrets what with leaving a kid to grow up alone, but he still has a lot of fond memories of her and that house. We remind him of those times, so he wants to give us the key full of those memories.
He then says that he rewrote his essay about his dreams for the future, and that he wants to protect the ones closest to him, and find out what he can do for them as a person and a friend, and he wants those people to be happy. He’s happy right now, he says, and he thanks us for it.
We RANK UP. The music plays, and we’re informed we can now fuse Melchizedek, the King of Justice. He says he wants to be reliable to us, and we go home.
This would ordinarily be the part where I remark on a Social Link, what it did for the character, and how I responded to it. But that much is going to wait for Final Thoughts.
Tristram: At this point my only comment is why did this need Lover flags? If you take that romantic streak out I actually like Ken’s Social Link!
12/2, full moon day. Aigis meets us outside the gates to let us know she intends to do her very best to protect everyone, and we ask if something’s wrong, and she says no in a way that makes it clear the answer is yes. Junpei notes after class that both she and Ryoji left awfully quickly. We were supposed to max our Temperance Link today, but since we’ve already done that, we have a free day. Mitsuru’s not around (of course), so we go boost her Link at the shrine again.
Nothing happens when we get back in the dorm. Aigis isn’t back yet, and we go for a walk with Koromaru. Then, we get a Dark Hour cut-in, followed by a scene: Aigis and Ryoji are at Moonlight Bridge. Aigis steps forward, and demands to know what he’s doing here. Ryoji answers, matter-of-factly, that he came here when he came to his senses. He remarks on the odd location, and says that something terrible has happened here, and yet he feels at peace.
The music changes to something more confrontational, as does Aigis, who asks if he’s forgotten. Her voice goes low and returns to sounding more robotic than before, as she says that he’s not only active during the Dark Hour, he’s adapted to it, too well to be human. He doesn’t answer, but she’s realized why she’s so uneasy when he’s around. She reiterates that he’s not good, he’s her enemy.
Shinjiro: Isn’t Ryoji a re-release addition? How was this handled before?
Chris: No, he was still here, just not a Social Link. That’s just wishful thinking on your part.
It takes Ryoji a minute to catch up, but he recalls a night much like this one, a full moon, long ago. Aigis confirms they’ve met before, “as adversaries”. Ryoji wonders who he is, and who she is. She identifies herself as Aigis, the last remaining Anti-Shadow Emergency Control Weapon, created to destroy shadows. And him? She says his true name is Death. He’s the shadow she sealed away ten years ago.
Sealed away…?
Tristram: Oh shit here we go. Here’s the bit that makes Ryoji’s entire Social Link even creepier. I’m getting a plushie to hug and I suggest you all do the same.
Chris: We enter a flashback. Ryoji finally remembers, saying he set foot on this same bridge the night he was born into this world. Aigis reaffirms her purpose, and as Ryoji speaks, we see a ghoul-like being on the bridge of the past, wearing chains and a hood and looking something like the Reaper or the Thanatos Persona.
Ryoji narrates that he is the thirteenth Arcana, the one that was never meant to be.
Arcana Believe It: 28
What Arcana has to do with this or why it should be important, I’m not sure. Ryoji describes, when he was born, part of his power shattering and being strewn about, mispronouncing “strewn”. Thus, he was incomplete. Yet, Aigis states he was still strong, far stronger than she. Unable to kill him, she chose to seal him away instead.
How is she supposed to have done that? What methods? Magic or mundane? It had to be magic, so how? What ability does Aigis have to seal things?
Ill Logic: 95
Never clarified. Only one suitable “vessel” was available: a human girl, seven years old, who happened to be nearby—us. Aigis says she had no other choice, and Ryoji realizes he was “inside” us all this time.
Aigis I’m Stuck With You: 40
One for every year we’ve had to have creepy people stuck inside of us because of her. Altogether, just like Ryoji, I see no reason why the game couldn’t have worked perfectly fine without this little bit of story.
Tristram: Yuuuuup! This game is totally trying to convince us that we’re in a deep and important romance with the little shit who’s been riding piggyback on our soul for a decade. And then they’re gonna try and do the same thing with the bitch who put him there! I’m gonna hurl now.
Chris: Lovely! That’s not intensely gross, or anything!
Yes. Which you wouldn’t think would activate an apocalypse upon being destroyed, as we’ve covered multiple times.
Ryoji’s memory has fully returned. Aigis describes the purpose of her existence as a machine being to defeat him. Ryoji insists it doesn’t have to be that way, but battle music sounds as Aigis summons Palladion. 
Unimpressed, Ryoji blocks her attack with some sort of rune/glyph barrier. He calmly says he’s different than before, and there’s no way she can win.
Shinjiro: Doesn’t that just make him the same as before, since she couldn’t win back then, either?
Chris: Yes, it does. He apologizes, and there’s a flash of white, and Aigis is sent flying without having even been able to touch Ryoji. More than defeated, Aigis is utterly ruined, sustaining immense damage. She says she’s sorry in a voice more human-like than before, and that this mission appears impossible. A machine that can’t fill its purpose has no worth, she struggles out, and she apologizes to everyone, particularly us. The screen blacks out, and she continues that she’s scared.
Tristram: This really bugs me. Does she have emotions before she gets her neural net scrambled or NOT, game? Because you’ve been trying to convince us she doesn’t, and then throwing in little hints that she does, and not even Star Trek could make me care about the emotionless robot’s search for feelings so I don’t see why Hashino thinks he has a chance. Especially not with this whole… This.
Chris: I wouldn’t have wished her blown up. Albeit, I certainly don’t like her enough to cry over this the way I think I was intended to.
We transition to the dorm command room, and Yukari asks what’s going on. Juno’s been summoned due to Aigis still being missing, on tonight of all nights. Fuuka says that she sensed a Persona, but only briefly, and then Aigis’ presence vanished with it. Yukari wonders if it’s Strega, and Mitsuru responds that neither of them have been sensed, but they can’t be positive. Fuuka confirms Aigis’ location, and SEES gets together and moves out.
Once there, it’s reiterated that Aigis has been thoroughly rekt, parts of her body strewn everywhere. Aigis has retained consciousness long enough to apologize again to everyone now present, and repeat that she’s remembered. She stretches out her remaining hand and we take it, and says she knows why she wanted to be by our side. Do tell.
Aigis I’m Stuck With You: 41
Since she doesn’t actually tell, I’ll just assume her desire to be close was a need to monitor what she sealed away.
She apologizes for failing. A voice rings out: Ryoji’s still here. Everyone expresses their shock just in time for Aigis to cease functioning. Ryoji admits to being responsible for this. Akihiko is alarmed, but Mitsuru says to wait, as he’s not showing any signs of aggression.
AIGIS IS LYING DESTROYED ON THE GROUND. I THINK THAT'S A SUFFICIENT SIGN OF AGGRESSION.
I get not leaping into battle, but c’mon, he just admitted it.
Ill Logic: 96
Tristram: What is it with Hashino and constantly making the smartest (barring us of course) member of the team behave like the biggest idiot this side of gaming?!
Chris: Part of it is that it’s impossible to write a character smarter than one’s self. The other part is that any and all qualities will be forgotten in order for a plot to work.
Mitsuru demands the details, and he says he’s a shadow. Rather, he says he’s the origin of all shadows, the Appriser, born from the union of the twelve Arcana.
Calm Down There, Edgelord: 50
There are twenty-two major Arcana, the tarot was first invented in the mid-15th century, and Death, aka you, were already stated to have been created from a giant ball of shadows the Kirijo Group gathered ten years ago, so shut up. It’s pissing me off how Persona 3 can’t decide where it wants its big endgame monster to originate from.
Ill Logic: 97
Tristram: Also that’s not how the Arcana work. They represent stages of a journey towards enlightenment, with Death representing the point where you either accept change and grow from it, or you become locked into a single mindset and stagnate in a reversed situation. There’s a bunch more Major Arcana after Death’s turning point!
“The Shadows are here to facilitate the rebirth of the maternal being. The maternal being will begin to awaken as she is drawn to me, the Appriser.”
Chris: When asked who the maternal being is, we get this response.
“She is a great being… There is no comparable word in your language for her.”
How about Great Mother? Or, I dunno, Mem Aleph? Ryoji reiterates the great-ball-of-shadows story, and thus he was born, but the unification was interrupted and he awoke incomplete. Soon after, Aigis sealed him away. He then repeats pretty much everything he and Aigis just discussed. “Inside her” gets said about four times, so I’m sure it was intentional at this point.
Thus, our return to this place awakened the twelve Full Moon Shadows that desired to reunite with Death/Ryoji.
Are you telling me that killing them accomplished that? How? How the hell does that work?! How are they rejoining anything if they're dead?
Tristram: I’m sure if we asked him Hashino would have some bullshit pseudo-intellectual explanation that boils down to ‘like attracts like’, but bollocks to that. I wouldn’t trust him to logic his way out a wet paper bag at this point.
Chris: Junpei agrees angrily that none of this makes sense. And Ryoji? He’d tell us more, but he falls unconscious. You know, so we’ll have to be The Good Guys and take him somewhere safe instead of kicking his ass, like with Chidori. That is exactly what happens.
Everyone returns home, with the truth out that us coming here fucked everything up, that Ryoji is some sort of monster, and that Aigis is responsible for everything and just paid for it harshly. Oh, and the game finally admitted that Ryoji was Pharos.
Tristram: And implies that Ikutsuki deliberately brought us here to kick everything off, although why he knew we specifically were needed and how he tracked down an orphan who left a decade ago are left completely unexplained. As with basically everything about Ikutsuki and his face-heel turn.
Chris: Just a thought that should’ve hit me before, but they never did explain why it was Pharos who knew about and gave us the Velvet Room contract, did they?
Ill Logic: 98
12/3. After school, Mitsuru walks in to inform us that Ryoji’s awakened. We’re to meet tonight on the 4th floor. Junpei curses him after she leaves.
Once we’re there, we find Ryoji sitting on the far couch, “hanging his head”. Fuuka asks if he’s okay. Bitch, he’s fine.
Tristram: If anything you guys should be asking us if we’re okay since he was living in our body and soul for a decade. What if him leaving had hurt us? What if it affected our mind? Come on, game, at least try to address these things!
Chris: He has exposition to give us. Mitsuru coordinates it with an interrogation. First, she wants to know about the rebirth of the maternal being.
The maternal being, he says, is called Nyx, the mother of shadows, who bestowed “death” to this world.
Tristram: While this isn’t entirely wrong in the context of the mythology where Nyx actually comes from, it’s wrong enough to warrant a ‘no, screw you, do the research’ from me. Nyx was born from and mated with the primordial Chaos, and gave birth to Hypnos (Sleep), Thanatos (Death), Erebus (Darkness) and a whole host of other personified forces. So no, Nyx isn’t death, she didn’t bestow death, she gave birth to a child who became the Titan of Death. There is quite a big difference and I’m getting increasingly cross with how badly this game uses its mythical references!
Chris: 1) We have already established that whatever you are came from a big ball of shadows. You/Nyx cannot simultaneously have originated from a big ball of shadows and be the origin of shadows. You also can’t maintain the ball-of-shadows story if you insist that Nyx is from ancient times.
Ill Logic: 99
If she’s awakened, “darkness will cover the land” and “all life will vanish”. When everyone questions this, he confirms that it’s not that people will drop dead, it’s that Apathy Syndrome will occur on a worldwide scale. Ryoji describes this as “forfeiting the will to live”. This is where the whole Bad Game Design and Ill Logic debacle from Ikutsuki’s betrayal comes from, in case anyone forgot—let the Full Moon Shadows live, you get mass lobotomization. Kill them, you get worse mass lobotomization. This plot has become a Morton’s Fork, purely because no one actually thought about the plot up at Atlus. Not only do you lose no matter what happens, but the efforts to portray the SEES faction as duped into realizing the End of the World means that their actions never mattered anyway.
SEES recognizes this as the Fall that Ikutsuki was talking about. And according to him, there is no way to prevent it. Why not? Because fuck you. He describes himself as the Appriser of Death again.
Calm Down There, Edgelord: 51
Shinjiro: *In Akihiko’s voice* I am Ergo Proxy, Agent of Death.
Chris: *punches him on the arm* Shut up! It doesn’t help that Liam O’Brien was probably working on both that anime and this game at the same time!
His very existence, he says, is affirmation that it’s happening. Why as a supposedly good-looking flirtatious teenager, might I ask? And how many DEATH points should we award global extinction due to Apathy Syndrome?
Shinjiro: There were around four or five billion people on Earth at the time this was first published, right?
Chris: We can’t give it five billion points though. Maybe one each month of gameplay before it actually happens?
Shinjiro: Actually, let’s just give it one. There’ll be plenty more in the rest of the game to fill the empty space.
DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 52
Tristram: I think the whole ‘flirty teenager’ incarnation is meant to be a reflection of the fact that he’s been living inside us *SHUDDER* for ten years. Well, the human teenager part anyway, I’ve no bloody idea why he’s such a pervert. Unless he was initially written that way to reflect that the male path doesn’t let you Social Link any women without romancing them? But that still comes back to the game’s writers being creeps.
Chris: I think it comes down to the same reason that Aigis is a robot cast in the shape of a teenage girl. There’s no reason for it besides someone not being able to get their rocks off otherwise, just as there’s no reason for the Appriser of Death to look like a teenage boy who’s just so hawt and charming besides someone having one off at the thought of the character they made being lusted after.
Shinjiro: Ryoji says they won’t live to see spring, or in other words, the end of January. While everyone’s shocked into silence, Junpei perks up. All they gotta do is beat Nyx, right?
Chris: *Notices the first name use, but doesn’t say anything* Ryoji calls that impossible, irrelevant of strength, ability, or power.
“Just as all living things die… and the flow of time is continuous… Nyx cannot be defeated.”
Uhh, no. You are comparing Nyx to actual infallible, eternal elements and facts. While that would be badass in another game, in this game it’s a slap in the face considering the whole “people shouldn’t fear death!!!111!!!” thing. Nyx as you are describing is not death. It’s murder, and in fact it’s omnicide. And for that, and that piss poor literal usage of “death is inevitable”, I award you another.
DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 53
Junpei rightly calls that bullshit. Ryoji says that he was born from a ball of shadows—already ranted about that twice—but now he has a human form, and he can “talk with you, laugh with you, cry with you...”
Shut up. Stop acting like you’re anything like us. You’ve been on this Earth for three weeks in which time Atlus has tried to rush in your development, insisting you’re in love with us despite barely knowing us, and now you want to claim it just pains you so much for this to happen? You know what’s really impossible, like defying death or stopping time? Making me buy this bullshit.
WISTLH: 73
Tristram: Ryoji, you are literally not human. Now in most canons that wouldn’t matter a whit to me – my obsession with Cole from Dragon Age bears that out - but right now you’re saying that the emotions you gained by being a parasite shoved into us by Aigis (and oh I’ll have some things to say to her when the time comes on THAT subject) somehow makes you special because now you’re sad about the end.
You’re no more special than any other herald of the end of the world, buddy. You say you don’t want it to happen but you’re not actually doing anything to help. You’re going to spend the next few minutes trying to convince us to stop trying to survive. You know what one of the most fundamental human drives is? One that takes serious depression or trauma to overwhelm?
SURVIVAL! God, why is it that every second I think about this whole situation, the less sense it makes?!
Chris: Ryoji continues, claiming he can give us a choice thanks to being nurtured inside us for ten years, for some reason. That choice is whether or not to kill him. See, though we can’t stop Nyx’s arrival, we can erase all memories of the Dark Hour if we kill him, along with any idea of what’s going to happen.
Spoiler alert: Ryoji is Nyx. Or at least a grand chunk of her. So that gets an Ill Logic Point, seeing as I find it very plausible that killing a chunk of supposedly-unkillable Nyx would at least make Nyx less unkillable. But obviously, that’s the “wrong” choice. Atlus can’t have that.
Ill Logic: 101
Tristram: The game flips back and forth a lot between Ryoji being a part of Nyx or her herald or both, and it’s all so very poorly written. Please pick a lane and stick to it.
Chris: That, and I see no reason why beating up a chunk of Nyx would cause memory erasure. Finally broke three digits on that count.
Ryoji describes the Fall as instantaneous and painless, so no suffering awaits. Unless we don’t kill him, in which case we’ll suffer a lot. He can’t seem to decide. The game is trying to present us an option to die peacefully and blissfully unaware, or struggle on. That’s getting a big fat point, because who the hell is going to choose the first one? Why bother with an entire month’s time to decide? This is stupid.
Bad Game Design: 78
Obviously, we reject that. He balks, saying we don’t know the terror of absolute death. *Long-suffering sigh* God, I hate this game. Thus, he gives us our month’s time, until December 31st. That’s when he’ll vanish into the void to become one with whatever other parts of Nyx are floating around. He then walks out.
> …
> …Ryoji’s revelation was all too devastating…
> That the world will soon perish…
> That mankind will soon perish…
> And the only option you are given is the right to choose how to die…
> Death is inevitable…
DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 54
Tristram: I wish I could drink right now, I could really use a beer or ten to reboot my brain after that mess. I literally don’t have enough words for how exasperated I am.
Chris: We go to bed. Jesus, how are we already at eighteen pages? Sorry, but I’d like to not meet any other super-longrunners like last post. This is a good time to cut things off. We’ll do at least another part of December next post.
Counts:
- DEATH IS INEVITABLE – 54
- Calm Down There, Edgelord – 51
- Villainous Cancer – 33
- Romantic Plot Cancer – 65
- Ill Logic – 101
- Arcana Believe It – 28
- Bad Game Design – 78
- WISTLH – 73
- Aigis I’m Stuck With You – 41
____________________
20 - November 3 | Table of Contents | 22 - December 2
Oh, hey, you made it this far, thanks. I'm in a bit of a pickle.
I work for a company contracted to a warehouse. It was supposed to be good pay, decent hours, and for a while it was. But for whatever reason, the work has just not been there recently. The supervisors have been sending us home half a day in or even as soon as we get there, because they have no work for us to do and can't pay us. This has made it increasingly hard to save money--I can barely make back what I spend in a week just to survive, let alone pay rent.
That would be bad enough, but I found out in January that the company's contract with the warehouse ends March 18th, 2022. That means that by about the time this post goes up, I'll be out of work. I'm searching for another warehouse job in the meantime, but there's a strong chance I could end up unemployed and, in that case, rapidly losing money until broke.
I got bills. Food, gas, rent, phone, Medicare. When spring comes around, I'll have to start paying the lawn and the kid's daycare, too. I haven't been able to buy birthday presents for my loved ones.
I'm not in danger of starving to death, as of yet. But, I do want to move out. This house has been an unpleasant place to grow up and I have wanted to leave for years. I think I can save up the money I need on my own, if I just find a high-paying job, but in the meantime, I'm gonna need some assistance.
I have a Cash App here.
I've also been trying to think of projects people might pay to see me produce. Let me know what you guys think of a full-length video retrospective on Supernatural.
Thanks,
Chris
