One year ago, give it take a few days, I started reading Worm. I finished it in a week. I don't think I'll ever read a story that affects me as much as Taylor's did, and since it's the anniversary of me reading Worm I think I might as well get sappy and emotional and write out how much Worm impacted me.
Tw: talking about suicide
I was in a terrible spot before Worm. Behind in every single class, failing to eat or drink or even just get out of bed for entire days, ghosting all of my friends and family just because I couldn't work up the will to talk, I just rotted in my dorm all day and let the tasks pile up higher and higher because I didn't know how to dig myself up, so I just gave up. I found Worm from some stupid meme that I saw while scrolling through social media for 13 hours a day in an attempt to drown out thoughts, and for reasons I still don't know I started to read it instead of returning to my blank inertia. I hadn't had the mental willpower to read or even feel anything in months, and it was completely out of character to immediately read it instead of just saying I'd do it later.
My sleep schedule was already fucked, once I got started it wasn't really a shock that I stayed up until like 5 am.
The week went by, I got to Leviathan, the Nine, Echidna, countless incredible interludes, and somewhere early on I think Worm became some sort of last hurrah. I'm not totally sure if I would have done it, but I had rough plans for methods of killing myself. Worm is a long work, impressively so, I was telling myself I'd finish it so I had something to be at least somewhat proud of before I went. It was a means of procrastination for the end since I didn't want to leave it unfinished, and also a road to it since once I was done reading then it would be time.
I became completely closed off from the world, even more than I had been previously. I dropped any pretenses of passing or attending class, what would the point be when I wouldn't be around for the grade? My meals became even less frequent, and when I had them it was always accompanied by reading. My sleep time was cut in half, I was waking up earlier and going to bed later all to read Worm. It was a week long fugue where I ceased to exist except for my ability to read the text. Once I was done reading, that would be it for me, and since I had closed myself off from pretty much everything there were no outside sources to convince me to change my mind. Just Worm. And it managed to do it.
Something about Taylor's absolutely insane amount of willpower just hit me hard. I remember when I read Speck and was reduced to a sobbing wreck for a day that was one of my strongest thoughts about her. She just tried so hard for everything, and absolutely never gave up as long as there was some way she could try to do something. I never learned how to put all my effort into stuff, but Taylor was inspiring enough that I wanted to at least try to learn how to try. It sounds cringey to write down, but if she could try so hard that she united all of humanity to kill an omnicidal god, then I could at the very least try to eat lunch.
Speaking of lunch, I read 90% of Speck in the corner of my college dining hall. It was like 4:00 and I was the only one there somehow, which is great because I was breaking down the entire time as I read Taylor fall apart. I don't think I'll ever read anything that hurt as much as Speck.
Another part of Taylor that was just as crucial to making me want to live was showing how much her self destructiveness hurt others. How could I justify killing myself when I just read how much it fucking tore at Taylor's friends when she became Khepri? When Lisa scrambled to just barely save Taylor from a suicide attempt in the first chapter of Gold Morning? Even when she just left them behind, Rachel's anguish was palpable, so who was I to ghost my friends because I was too scared to text anyone? I always knew on a logical level people would be sad if I died, but seeing such solid depictions of hurt from similar situations just... I dunno, I couldn't justify it when it was so much clearer to me how much it would hurt people I love.
I took a day to emotionally recover from the mental rewiring that comes from finishing Worm, and then I called my parents and told them how poorly I had been doing. I hadn't done it before because I didn't want to be a burden. They were happy to help. I dropped all my classes and went home. Worm stayed with me, it gave me some sort of substance to my life, something to latch on to. Making ideas for fanfics that I'd never write, talking with friends I'd made through Worm, rereading Speck if I needed a good cry, all of it kept me going and made my life feel less flat. Like five months later I started posting to this account and that was another outlet. It was just fun to analyze the text and make up theories about this work that did so much for me, and when I finally started posting them online that was good fun too. Thank y'all for reading my dinky little rambles, somehow I've cracked 400 followers on what was originally just a place for me to write down my thoughts during lunch hour at a mental hospital. Whenever I get a detailed comment in the notes, or I see someone like/reblog 20 of my posts in a row as they scroll through, or I see the names of people I always see in my notifications it just makes my day. Y'all are lovely.
And well, now it's been a year. Worm was supposed to be the final story I read, a countdown to the end in 1.7 million words, but it managed to convince me to keep going. I didn't think I'd make it to the next year or even the next month, but it's November again and I'm still here. I'm not doing great, but I'm here and I have Worm to thank for that.
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Polin Week: Day Three
Time Travel AU
Colin wished he knew why he keeps jumping from time line to time line or why every time he thinks he found his time line, he jumps to different time and a different version of him. The only constant is Penelope.
Penelope is always there. She was there when he almost married her cousin and broke her heart during the regency era. She was there enjoying her vacation when he was a travel blogger. She was there when they were both actors who worked together for a project but kinda hated each other. She was also there when he was a spy (but not 007) trying to sabotage his mission while trying to seduce him and insisting on being called Lady Whisteldown. She was there when they pretend to date each other so their families would stop setting them up with other people.
But every time Colin realizes that he loves her - that he loves PENELOPE - he travels through time and time line again only to meet and lose Penelope again and again and again.
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geniunely not trying to put words in ur mouth im geniunely asking: what do you actually like about persona 5? from all ur rants im just wondering why you didnt drop the game bc it seems (again, im not trying to put words in ur mouth) that it simply not for you? i geniunely have not felt any of the issues you bring up outside of the writing ones and i cannot tell if i'm just easily pleased and not good at discerning what a good game is or we simply have dif things we enjoy in a video game. i hate getting tone across text but im asking out of geniune curiosity im not trying to attack your opinion (;-;)
Nah, i dont feel like ur attacking me, and I hope u dont feel the same when u see my complaints! Lmao. In my defense, I am replaying the game for the first time after completing my first file back in 2020, so alot of the faults i kinda shrugged off in my first playthrough are now glaringly in my face now that I no longer have the confusion and interest in learning the main story to keep me occupied. The game is clunky all the way through, and at some times, even frustratingly so.
But despite that, i do like this game. Alot! Its probably one of my top games ever if im being honest!
This ended up way longer than I intended, so im putting it under a readmore to keep the post short on dashboards
If i had to describe what I liked about the game in the simplest way imaginable…I think I would say, I like how the game makes me feel :) I like the music. I like the vibe. I like the immersion from city to city, and I like the premise! I like the characters and I like the connections you make with these characters! As im replaying this game, i am most excited to see Akira and his comments about the world :) i like hearing everyones voices, I like their little interactions in Mementos, and I like seeing them fight!
P5 is the first game I played in the series; its the game that introduced me to SMT in the first place! And it (smt) is a series that my longtime best friend LOVES and never thought hed be able to share with me! It is a game i keep very near to my heart; it has influenced me in ways i did not think would happen in the short couple of years since i first finished it. It genuinely keeps me awake some nights thinking about the world this game has created, and I think that is a testament to the impact its had, be it good or bad.
The joke about wishing theyd make a persona game that was Good is that despite all of its numerous flaws, the games manage to snatch your attention and pull you in anyway. Imagine if they made a game that had all of those things that i mentioned I loved, but done Right and executed Properly?? Where I got to have a story that made sense and didnt need to be spoonfed to me (in like an HOUR of dialogue and scenes; an HOUR!), and characters that talked and bonded beyond the tiny snippets of interaction theyre allowed to have in mementos? Combat that let me use PERSONAS i liked instead of BUILDS that stop me from getting instakilled throughout the entirety of the endgame, and a Persona building mechanic that didnt feel like I was shooting in the dark looking for possible fusions that end up not even being useful in the endgame.
Ive mentioned it before, but I complain so much bc I have seen what a good p5 game looks like, and its Strikers almost to a T. Combat is still your typical warriors-esque style combat, but it is at least different from the turn based strategy of the main game. Characters talk to each other freely, they hang out and comfort each other in a way that feels more connected that the base game. Strikers implements the ability to see ALL possible fusions with ALL registered personas, not just the ones in your Stock, so you can fuse easily without having yo consult a guide. The story feels like it makes SENSE with antagonists that feel morally grey and sympathetic. Genuinely, alot of the complaints for p5 I had were almost immediately rectified in this game.
But please also know that the praises I sing for this game is only bc of the groundwork laid by p5 and the world it created. Thats what I like about this game, that it had such a captivating premise and cast of characters, that a DIFFERENT company was able to hit the ground running with them. P5 had alot happening in that game, but i think what it had most was potential. The effort put into this game is astronomical, and the possible connections you can outright MISS if u arent paying attention was worth the money and time to implement; even if it meant that it could be considered a waste of resources to higher ups.
Books and games and part time jobs???!! Silly little cutscenes that add nothing to the game PLOTwise, but define and flesh out the personality of your protagonist. There was alot of love put into this game, and its evident by the fact that we have NOT seen a new persona game released; they bank on existing titles bc they are unwilling to make a game like this from scratch again. They dont want to ‘waste’ resources on good voice acting and a complex, overarching story; they dont want to waste money on scenes a player may never see, on routes a player may never get to experience. Making a game that gives u even the slightest bit of freedom means more money in programming and detailing that freedom. This has been an issue for a WHILE, and its a miracle that the gaming landscape had space for a colossal title like p5!
I complain bc I want better, and I do not think that is inherently at odds with my love of this game. In b4 im told to get good; ive played on hard and tested out merciless (its NOT fun, im making godbuilds again and its boring 😞). Its not the most accessible turnbased rpg; theres no colorblind modes, and the affinity system is convoluted and overwhelming. Combo moves are hard to keep track of and it can be incredibly frustrating to see your turns being skipped or seeing characters take extreme technical damage without understanding WHY it happened. The fact that they KNEW the game was desperate for qol improvements by the time royal came out, and instead of updating the base game to have those improvements too, they just pushed the royal edition out for people to play instead. It sucks! Customers and fans deserve better than being forced to shell out money for a game they already played !
As the gaming climate gets more and more hostile and unbearable, I think it is good to look at your games critically, and understand why products come out subpar. Persona 5 is a fun game that has a nice cast and an interesting premise, but it is ultimately tied down by its refusal to build on existing building blocks regarding its combat, and it insists on having insulting and downright out of character dialogue and scenes to appease the audience its designed to be targeted to. It is easy to forget sometimes that queer ppl are infact NOT the prime target of these games, its cishet gamer bros from aged 16 to 40 who will laugh at homophobic comments, who drool over a 16 yr old girl with a 16 yr old mindset and a grown womans body, who need to be placated with constant sexual comments to deal with a convoluted story that will inevitably make zero sense until its laid out for you before the literal end of the game.
Its bad. Its good. Its so shallow and its unbelievable that they thought having the plot twist make ZERO sense until they showed CUTSCENES of YOUR character discussing Goro and his connections to the metaverse for endgame SHOCK VALUE was more important than just having your team be smart and piece it together over time. Its shit. Its literally amazing. It let you FUCK your teacher ??????????????what the FUCK. They also let me shoot a god in the face w the best looking ult persona in the world so i can ignore that shit. And ultimately that is how i got through the game. Lol.
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