Randomness 1 (I Bit The Bullet)

I/II) Persona 5 Royal Thought Dump @5 am

Major, major, major spoilers. Obviously.

1. The two things that made me decide to watch a playthrough of P5R were Yusuke and Blooming Villain (specifically Yusuke's Dancing in Starlight routines), so I just wanna appreciate both of them. First of all, I'll talk about Blooming Villain because I have less to say about it. It's an AWESOME boss theme. It may not be the one used for the more important bosses, but it sets up the early-game bosses SO well. The title also makes me feel like it can almost sort of be about the Phantom Thieves and not the villains??? The Phantom Thieves' reputation gets tossed around over the course of the game: sometimes society views them as heroes of justice, other times as horrible criminals. And even they know that their powers aren't entirely ethical. But they choose to do good with them and save other people, and when they confront the Palace Rulers, they're blossoming and growing and shining.

2. Okay Yusuke Kitagawa. I don't feel like whipping up a whole ass character analysis but I do want to talk about him a bit because he easily became my favorite Phantom Thief (Ryuji is second place, for the record). When I first saw him, I suspected he'd be kind of arrogant? Definitely not a villain but one of those show-offy teammates that nobody really likes but makes the team better anyway. Where they actually took him made me way happier. He's just a total dork. Earnest, passionate, and completely authentic. He's kind of the perfect Venn Diagram of the Starving Artist and Comically Serious tropes, where he's just so eccentric and so unabashed about it that he can talk about aesthetics in an even tone while holding two live lobsters. I also appreciate how much he strives to be moral. He's deeply introspective and is constantly wondering whether certain viewpoints make him a corrupt artist or a bad person, but his learning that tainted things can still be truly beautiful is a solid arc. And like??? His dynamic with Madarame??? Especially after Madarame's Palace, when he has to come to grips with how awful his mentor was without the adrenaline of awakening his Persona. My thoughts are starting to get scrambled so I don't think I could get too few into it right now but just... Foster Dad is horrible but he was still Foster Dad, so how does one cope with that?

3. I love all the Phantom Thieves, but I also really, really love the non-party member Confidants? Honestly, every time I try to list my favorites, I wind up adding a ton more. Pretty much all I know is that Ohya and Takemi aren't my favorites (but they're still lovely). I have mixed feelings about a few of the others. But I really love Hifumi, Yoshida, Iwai, Sojiro, Chihaya, Mishima, and Shinya. Also I will come out and say I love Maruki. I prefer Lavenza as herself than as the twins, but I liked them more than I thought I would, too. I would talk about everyone if I had the time and mental energy, but I'm only doing this because I will not be capable of sleeping with these thoughts running rampant. They're also probably about to get a lot less coherent starting now.

4. I have had River in the Desert stuck in my head for like fucking HOURS, what the hell? It's so catchy.

5. FUCKINg Bryce Papenbrook as the cursed af Human!Morgana made me gag /hj It was so uncomfortable but it made me bark from laughter. I was already pretty sure I heard him doing background characters but to hear that voice come from FUCKING Morgana!

6. Shinya's voice actor really reminds me of a character from the first Care Bears movie. I don't know which character I'm thinking of specifically, but God, it's really messing with me /pos. I already really love Shinya for his arc and for the the fact that we get a child confidant, but the fact that he sounds so much like one of my baby cartoons makes my heart happy in a really stupid way.

7. okay as a follow-up to my Yusuke ramble, Idk whether I'd rather headcanon him as aroace or as extraordinarily gay for Joker. But then there's also the very complicated thing with Akechi and Joker, plus I ship Joker with Hifumi. Also it's hard to remind myself that Akechi has done literally UNFORGIVABLE things because it's easy to get swept up in the sad backstory and the fact that he basically sacrifices himself TWICE and can also do so in-battle if his Protect skill kicks in. Because damn, you just feel that for as much as he hates/is jealous of Joker, he would trust him with the fate of the world a million times over.

8. Agh I feel like I need to end this on something stupid but I'm running out of thoughts. Oh wait!! This is the perfect cross of heartwarming AND stupid! If you do Iwai and Sojiro's confidants, Joker gets-basically adopted by TWO single dudes who each already have another (younger, but barely so) adopted child. And their styles/pasts/ways of life are so different but they're both just... DADS DADS DADS <3333

Okay that's it for now. Here's your daily reminder to not be like me, children. Because I just binge-watched a game that takes roughly 147 hours over the course of the past week on times two speed and now I'm so desperately hyperfixated on it even though I need to be packing and taking care of stuff before I go back to college (in like three days, technically two now).