Remember that time in Tales of Symphonia when Genus’ character arc climax involved admitting that he’ll never fully heal from a lifetime of trauma and that part of him will always hate humans on some level for societal bigotry, but that he’s able to make peace with that and still love and trust his bff?
i was supposed to wrtie about homestuck today not simultaneously cry about every estranged jrpg anime series i like
SURPRISE I am also a hardcore, longstanding Yoko Taro fan and have at least watched lets plays for every game he’s done back to drakengard. I really like @pixievalkyrie and clemp’s work on that franchise. I am still slowly, slooowly making my way through Nier: Automata but yeah Nier Gestalt/Replicant is amazing and maybe my favorite game in this franchise outside of Automata which is climbing fast.
so i’ve been replaying p2: innocent sin and decided to try doing one of the psp-version exclusive side quests for the first time and out of nowhere it’s just…THROWN out at you, plain as day, that tatsuya is bisexual? he’s already implied to be bisexual throughout both p2 games but this is so utterly blatant and abrupt, i feel like i’ve just been hit with some kind of surprise gay left hook
even in the original version of innocent sin his romance options were still a guy and two girls though so that also counts but this is cool
i’m well aware– as much as i love lisa, i have to pick jun every time:
the main reason i made this post was because of people who aren’t knowledgable about p2 and don’t realize that tatsuya is his own character with a fleshed out backstory, family, personality, and sexuality.
he and maya are outliers amongst SMT protags, which are usually silent and have their personality/interests left up to your interpretation. some people assume tatsuya and/or maya are the same kind of silent protagonist. while you do make plenty of minor in-game decisions for them in their respective games, their characterizations are otherwise set in stone.
(using tatsuya examples below since less people on tumblr have played ep):
i’ve seen people who think that tatsuya’s personality and sexuality are up for interpretation, and i’ve seen people choose to “interpret” him as straight or gay, based upon the romance option they prefer.
but tatsuya is canonically bisexual, regardless of who he dates. whether people are doing this to tatsuya because of biphobia or because they don’t know much about p2 is besides the point.
even in eternal punishment, where maya is now the main character, tatsuya is still implied to be bisexual because it’s an important part of who he is. it’s shown through various minor details, such as tatsuya’s only real friends being anna yoshizaka and noriko katayama, who are both lesbians (solidarity, anyone?) or katsuya being very vocally supportive and protective of lgb youths and their feelings, almost as if someone he knew fit in with people like that…
TLDR; some people get confused and think tatsuya’s sexuality is up for interpretation based upon the romance option you pick, but it’s not, and i don’t like seeing people erase his sexuality. it made me happy to see such an obvious in-game reference to him being bisexual added into the PSP port and since it was featured in an obscure side quest that people may have missed i thought i’d share it.
THIS IS HOW IT COULD BE, PERSONAS 3-5….WE COULD BE LIKE THIS BUT INSTEAD YOU PLAY GAMES W/ MY HEART….
Anyway nelfes linked me to this very good post so I am obligated to reblog it and let us all in on what we’re missing in P2. Goddamn this franchise is weird and cool.
@sam-keeper i feel like you would love this franchise, by the way. this is the same game as the one where hitler wields the lance of longinus and works for nyarlathotep or w.e
omg, i seriously had no idea!! you even know way more than me about the series, which owns and im taking notes here. im really happy youve had the experience of playing that too. smt3 is a game i can never get out of my mind.
yeah its really something else. i usually dont talk about them cause im so busy with homestuck lately but theres a good number of other things i am as absolutely batshit about, and SMT is one of them.
it’s not QUITE as blatantly homophobic as persona 4 but its plot is way, waaaay better and has cooler themes & story & characters & villains & mechanics overall. i totally recommend it, if u need a more solid pitch hmu & i can provide
I believe you. Like, its really important for me to be clear that all of my criticizing is grounded in a sense of love, I am not going to escape persona as a franchise until i die because it was too formative and important to me. If I had the money and free time i’d already have played p5.
It just also makes me furious and anything I say about the games critically has to incorporate the abject failure I perceive from them re: dealing with LGBT rep, and thus human attraction, on any meaningful level.
like p4 had HOW many remakes and they never decided to dust off yosuke’s old cut romance arc with the protagonist and put it in the game? they had lines RECORDED for that shit before they cut it, it’s cowardice, pure and simple.
this stuff changing was my one big hope for p5 and ive been repressing the anger ever since but if i’m going to suck the games dick for its perfect aesthetic and fascinating themes (and i WILL, believe me i will if i ever get the chance to produce actual Content™ about it) i am definitely, definitely also taking the opportunity to complain about the franchise basically showing me the door when it had the chance and LITERALLY THOUGHT about including me in the playground
like Persona has literally gone backwards here, Persona 2 had two protagonists who could be in a relationship! I forget their names but im sure @alotofmomos or @nelfes know. It’s infuriating.
Anyway i am serious for all my complaining feel free to drown my submission and asks in instances where Persona 5 touches on Gnostic stuff, even if you’re not sure about it i’ll be happy to take a look because…i love these games and know I will love whatever stuff p5 dumps on my anguished, conflicted face
HI YES DID SOMEONE MENTION MY CANON BISEXUAL SON TATSUYA SUOU AND HIS BOYFRIEND HE EXCHANGED VOWS W IN FRONT OF A BRIDAL SHOP HERE I AM
there we go. so yeah persona 2 is probably the outright best at this stuff its a shame its a TRAGEDY OR WHATEVER
I know Yaldabaoth is a boss so I am, of course, immensely interested and like, it’s Persona? I know it’s gonna be great and own me hard and make me think things and the aesthetic and music will be killer. I love Persona games so fucking much.
I also know it also ramps up the presumed heterosexual anime twee bullshit up to like, a million, making it worse than even Persona 4 managed maybe? So like. As usual it is Persona’s extreme cocktail of incredibly fascinating world and character building and INCREDIBLY frustrating corporate-conservative queerbaity bullshit.
I definitely, without question am going to play Persona 5 eventually. But it’ll probably wait until I am living comfortably off this youtube business because those games are such an enormously long timesink and also, they make me furious, and i love them.
Feel free to @ me at length about whatever more gnostic stuff it has going on besides ol’ yodelboner. I’m definitely interested, I just don’t have the money to engage with Persona atm nor the patience to wade through the bullshit.
I would say it was actually less aggravating than Persona 4 if only because I was able to ignore the bullshit? It’s not as stupid and in your face as Kanji and Naoto, but the queerness is notably absent in most places (even though Ryuji is so fucking in the closet come on). So I kinda just played it as a queer ace protagonist with no interest in dating any girls, and it worked fine, but wasn’t exactly beneficial to that roleplay either.
As for cool themes and Teenager Emotions, I wrote a short article when I was halfway through the game about P5′s approach to abuse and anger and catharsis and how it’s really goofy and validating. You can read it right here.
i guess it could be Rage come to think of it–I’d have to replay the games to say for sure which, lol. not happening soon.
But like she basically commands a cult of devoted followers who she leads through inspiration/ideas, and her ideology causes the doom of the entire world? So it was an easy line to draw for me.
I actually haven’t played much in the Devil Summoner franchise yet, I’d love to branch out to it eventually.
Digital Devil Saga like…MIGHT be my favorite of the franchise as a duology? Like it’s just so…weird….and gay….and Serph & Heat have this weird kissmesitude thing….and theres such weird lgbt undertones….and everything about the setup is so great. DDS is close to a perfect example of how good the series can get when it sucks it up and just lets one of its protagonists have a morally ambiguous relationship with an intersex trans woman. like where the hell else do you get that kind of storytelling?
Oh theres also Argilla. Dear, sweet, precious argilla. GAY Argilla. Argilla with jaws on her boobs and a dead girlfriend shes pissed about. Goth argilla, devourer of men. I love her.
On my last blog for a while my description was a reference to digital devil saga because my friend @kajy once used this quote to describe me:
“Rend…SLAUGHTER…DEVOUR THE HOMESTUCK. You have no other way to survive…. Friend…of TAZ…”
Flying through Storytelling 