Applying logic. How do you explain all this? Sam is single, free and heterosexual. Sam travels to GC with Sarah, staying on Airbnb together alone from Sunday to Thursday. They separate because they have separate jobs. Sam returned from Australia. First visit Hyrox to encourage Sarah and participate. This weekend they both disappeared. They have appeared at the same time. I don't believe in Mull, it seems like P's crazy idea. But Sam and Sarah living so close. They could have spent Saturday together. In Glasgow, in Stirling. Why not? At Sam's house for example. Where they have privacy. Eat, drink, sun, casual sex. I don't believe in a marriage commitment. They like each other, sexual chemistry and that's it. Sam is always busy and so is Sarah. It is a practical and comfortable relationship for both. Sam has to stay in Scotland for months now. Sarah has the characteristics that Sam is looking for. She is young, blonde, athletic, sporty. Busy with a son. This point allows Sam free time for himself as well. Sarah looks a lot like Georgia. Then why not? Why does this seem like a crazy idea to you? Convince me logically. Your blog always makes sense. I don't understand your resistance to such a simple relationship between a man and a woman.
Anon, I'm feeling a bit tired to explain over and over again the logic I use. I did in a few posts already and for what it is worth everything I wrote has been confirmed.
I told already when I posted about the villa in GC how they only share a mutual interest, working out, training for Hyrox. And so it isn't such a surprise he showed up at Hyrox in Glasgow, his home town, where he sucscribed to compete as well, and where many friends of him participated in the race as well, including Sarah.
Saying, he is single, a free heterosexual and staying at the same airbnb is not logic, but is confirmation bias. Just the fact someone is single sharing an airbnb isn't any proof or evidence he's dating or more than friends. It's as much as saying any guy wearing a pink shirt must be homosexual. It's stereotyping, it's implying that a person who is single can not share a hotel room or whatever place to sleep and stay with another person depending on their sexual preferences, without bedding them. I know I did many times, I know a lot have said here they're single and did so. It's not odd, it's just a place to crash and stay while in a place with a mutual interest, in this case working out, training for the Hyrox program. It doesn't mean automatically having casual sex as well. That's just a fable made up by people who are narrow minded. It's not logic.
You saying he has to stay in Scotland for months due to filming OL, well we've seen him many times go off for a week or a few days, even to NYC while filming S7. On top of that, as stated many times and not only by me, he doesn't want them close by. During Covid he had to, but that didn't end so well either.
Sarah looking a lot like Georgia??? Well I guess we have different views on that. And why bring up Georgia? Because he went to see her compete last year in a game in Germany? Well, and that's all there was to it, might as well compare that to watching Sarah at Hyrox.
I'm not here to convince you Anon. You gotta do that yourself. But what you are doing is not applying logic, it's applying confirmation bias. You're in a tunnel vision, put there by a blogger who's only 'proof' is filling voids with rumors. You seeing sexual chemistry is solely a result of that tunnel vision, seeing things that are not really there at all. How can you speak of chemistry when you do not even see one picture or these people together? Now use your logic, and ask yourself how much you search and put explantations on things that only confirms what you want to see. On things you think you see because you're in a tunnel vision. Convince yourself how biased that is, did you even consider other explanations? Did you even try to list some things that makes it less credible? It seems you only list the things that add up to your story. How would you know the characteristics he is looking for? Because he sometimes say some things at a talkshow? Where he says the things he knows what people want to hear? Why do you mention Saturday? Because this certain blogger claims he wasn't online? Well that's not true, he liked a lot and even left comments on posts. Why does this blogger not notice how he was much more off social media while he was in London? Where there was no Sarah!! You could easily see when he went to London, when his sm times shifted and were just very briefly, not a scroll before he went to sleep, hardly any likes! How about that? And that's just a few things this blogger leaves out, as it doesn't fit the narative.
We all could have, and did, already predict how this blogger was going to use every little straw she could come up with to spin her story around Sarah from the moment she learned they stayed in GC at the same airbnb. And let me remind you, it wasn't her who found that out, nor her team. It was because I was far ahead and already following things and worked out the villa, before the other blogger even knew her name. If it wasn't for a tweet on Monday 15 January nobody had known he went to GC at all! The said blogger even had to copy images from my blog as she didn't had any stories of Sarah from before. Also not Sunday but Monday he flew to GC and flew early on Friday to Kitzbuhel, not for work or any job but simply by choice. And from there to Munich which wasn't work either, and on to Oostende, work related for one day and from there to LA. How easy would it have been to catch up in Glasgow in between? And why not???
On top of that, and that's what you can't apply to your logic, I heard and saw a few other things, involving women. Not the women you expect, not the characteristics you listed. I haven't posted about that and I wont elaborate on it as well. But for what it is worth, the things I heard and saw doesn't leave much doubt. If I would do the same as this other blogger, I had a lot more proof and coincidences to show you than in Sarah's case. One of the stories I'm told and saw enough evidence of leaves hardly any room for doubts. But I'm not ready to share these information. As what I was told and shown is in confidence not to be shared, people coming to me as they learned they can trust me, as I don't throw any women under the bus and I'm so glad their names didn't turn up in any of my anon messages or anywhere else. I have my integrity and I'm sure I wouldn't have any triumphant feelings about it if I out these things. On the contrary.
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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! 👏
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I know I say this every time I read my own work, but Speak for the Dead really is the best chapter in ILM.
“Well, you know for the first time in a long time this actually feels like fall?”
Jane Romero was smiling at him, sitting propped up against a tree in what had sort of become her usual ‘therapy’ corner in the past almost two weeks. And she was right, it did feel like fall. The air wasn’t as sharply cold as normal, and honestly ‘sharply’ cold was a nice break in and of itself when it happened—usually the weather here was somehow just cold—cold with no adjectives attached. But today it was nicer. It was the kind of waiting fall cold that came when it wasn’t biting outside yet, and it was almost pleasant. A promise of a change in the seasons. Tapp wondered why.
The trees hadn’t started to change color with it, or fall in piles, and as far as he’d gathered there weren’t seasons in here. Everything looked the same. Tall, thick woods, undergrowth and moss and rocks and fallen logs, a slight breeze on and off. Dark sky overhead, full moon, at this point long since throwing off everyone’s idea of what day and night were supposed to mean. All the usual. Except, somehow, the kind of cold in the weather. Who knew, maybe nothing had changed. Maybe they had just started to feel better.
LIKE. Those opening lines mean nothing but environmental flavor when you read them. But they’re a lead in for the thesis of the entire chapter.
“Well, you know for the first time in a long time this actually feels like fall?” - A promise of a change in the seasons. - Who knew, maybe nothing had changed. Maybe they had just started to feel better.
Like that’s it. Speak for the Dead is about a lot of things, but at its heart it’s about healing. It’s about forgiveness and healing, that exists between the living and the dead. It’s about how you can only speak for them, by speaking for them. Not how you want to punish yourself or live for them, but by how you know they would forgive you, or would ask you to live. Very little other than exchanges of information happen, but so much happens at the same time. All of it significant. It’s hope. It’s about how Tapp (and Meg) have spent every day here fighting in their own way to cope with the agony and failure of their lives, and the loss of people they couldn’t save, and have only dug their wounds deeper. About love. About nothing stoping the lambs from screaming except accepting that they want to let you go.
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