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Post by Friendly Person :) on Jul 16, 2020 22:51:09 GMT -5
ngl, I control f'd to make sure I didn't use "folks" in my post. I don't care for the word either, so I doubted it, but that came so out of nowhere I wasn't sure for a second...
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 17, 2020 12:43:09 GMT -5
Well, it is the random thought thread!
I had been in the middle of reading an article that used it multiple times, and it peeved me.
Another thing that peeves me--I hate the emoticons on this forum. They're so ugly. I wish there was a way to use text ones.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Jul 17, 2020 15:42:22 GMT -5
Finally finished Royal. Final playtime was 141 hours (yes, really).
Despite not having any critical features I can't live without (e.g. selecting Persona fusion abilities), and screwing the difficulty over pretty hard, I nonetheless think Royal adds some great additions to P5. The new characters are all actually -good-, with Maruki being arguably the best confidant in the game. Sure, there are a few new scenes that are just the cast screwing around and being goofy, but unlike Golden those aren't the -only- new scenes. In fact, most of the new stuff fits in thematically with the rest of the game, even if it doesn't slot in as nicely as one could wish. Oh well: such is the inevitable problem with trying to tack on more to a story which was already complete. At least the new dungeon is great, unlike Marie's pain-in-the-ass dungeon.
The ending is also a little different. Rather than just Joker leaving, pretty much everyone moves away. Ryuji moves to be closer to a rehab centre for his leg, Ann applies to study overseas, and Makoto and Haru both move into their own places for college. Do I kinda prefer the ending where everyone is together? Yeah. But I appreciate the attempts at showing how everyone has matured throughout the course of the story, not just Joker. It's probably the superior ending. (Besides, Joker would probably move back to Tokyo after graduating anyway to be with BEST GIRL MAKOTO IDGAF FITE ME).
Royal certainly screws with the difficulty, but otherwise I just love all the additions. I said when I first finished P5 that I could play it again. Well, that's just as true now. Even after 141 hours, I could just start a new game right now and enjoy myself for the whole ride.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Jul 18, 2020 0:22:34 GMT -5
Two episodes into Oregairu's third season and we're already back into the wry comments and double-faced statements. The way it all builds on itself is super satisfying if you've been following along and paying attention, and that's the thing: it -expects- you to have been following along and paying attention. Why is it such a big deal that Yukino agreed to head up the prom event? Hope you remember the student council election arc, and the holy sh*t bundle of emotions behind that. I'll even admit I don't understand why it's so important for Iroha to hold a prom: there's poignant looks, but I can't recall enough to tie them to something. Then again, I always feel like every time I watch/read the series, I pick up on something new, or get a better understanding.
It's one of the few times I actually don't mind waiting, because I get time to think about each new episode.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 19, 2020 13:53:38 GMT -5
So all of those books I bought a while ago have sat, untouched due to a combination of apathy, depression, a brief weeklong inspiration towards a web app, and inertia. Possessed by the unsettling listless boredom that so often grips me nowadays, I finally elected to commit to finishing one--what better else do I have to do? So I finished the Diary of Anne Frank, which I had only gotten maybe 30ish pages into before.
Why do people herald Anne Frank's diary as one of the defining literature pieces of the Holocaust? I think Anne is an interesting character, and her work is interesting on its own merit. She was a deeply gifted writer. But plenty of people are gifted writers. Why the diary of Anne Frank?
In many ways, the Diary of Anne Frank does not really feel like a Holocaust book. So much more of the book is devoted to complaining about her fellow Annex housemates, the petty squabbles with her mother, and her indignant teenage musings than it is about, say, the effects of Nazism on Holland. You might easily forget in large swathes of the book that they are facing imminent death at any time, especially since only in the latter third of the book do the outside events of the world truly seep in. If anything, the Diary of Anne Frank is really a story about coming-of-age--the coming-of-age of a paradoxically insufferable and impetuous, but endearingly likable, young girl with big dreams, oversized confidence, and deep thoughts. It is a Holocaust book in the sense that the ghastly events of the Holocaust frames Anne's coming-of-age. She is just coming into her own, emerging as a thoughtful, more nuanced adult, when there suddenly ceases to be no more pages in her diary. Her life is cut short. Of course you go into the book knowing that Anne dies, but it is another thing to be left with the sinking feeling as you hit the final entry knowing that Anne's journey ends there. You can see, as a reader, that she was beginning to blossom into a fascinating person, and yet, she never gets that chance. You *want* for her to spread her wings and take flight. But her light is snuffed. It saddens me greatly to read the afterword, detailing her tattooing, shaving, starvation, and eventual death by typhus in Bergen-Belsen. Did they break her spirit? I want to say, knowing Anne, that they did not; but I am hard-pressed to imagine such a world in which anything else could be possible.
How *does* one survive after living in a concentration camp? Perhaps I am weak; perhaps I am not adaptable. But I cannot imagine moving forward, unbroken and not deeply distrustful of the human experience, after such an experience. Your faith in your fellow man has to be destroyed; your faith in humanity destroyed; your faith in God destroyed. How does one prevail? I suppose the only way you can prevail is by force of the human spirit to *just keep living*, and perhaps also by seeing it as a trial. I suppose perhaps that is where faith in God comes in handy. You can rationalize God is testing you and your faith; that the Jews were meant to prevail over inevitable hardship. This is just one more. If you *don't* believe in God... all you have left is the recognition that humanity can do some truly horrible things. And there wasn't an overarching good reason for it. It just *was*.
Separate from the Holocaust, I also think the book is an interesting read on merit of Anne herself. I like Anne. In some ways, she is annoying, and I gather she was not an easy person to live with. But I also kind of like that about her? She had a profound sense of self. It is not to say she did not struggle with her identity; she did, but ... it was different, in a way I can sort of relate to. There are some people who do not know what they are, or they doubt their own feelings. They pine for the validation of others to know who they are. Anne, I do not think, ever doubted who she was. She was who she was, unapologetically. She of course grappled with introspection, and self-doubt, but always confident in her core and true to her values. She craved validation from others, but not to *define* who she was, but to *affirm* who she was. She grappled with feeling like she was misunderstood--one can only feel misunderstood if you know who you are.
Accordingly, Anne's coming-of-age is not one of self-acceptance nor finding confidence. For her, it is understanding the world around her and how she fits into it. Young Anne, in her poised and often misplaced self-confidence, often puts the blame of interactions onto others--they are annoying, stupid, selfish. As she grows, she realizes that perhaps others have their own motivations and desires, their own needs, and that her behavior and flaws impact the behaviors of others. I think a nice thing especially about reading a diary of an actual person, versus an equivalent coming-of-age in a novel, is that it is genuine and unforced; Anne's world opens slowly, but in fits and starts, the way people's natural trajectories tend to do.
A final thought: it has been interesting reading the book now, as of today. I think I have very different thoughts on the matter than I would have if I had read the book half a year ago. While not to equate the difficulties of the current day with the horrors of living in hiding due to the Holocaust, there are some relatable parallels that earlier readers could have only imagined in the abstract, like being effectively confined to one's home and normal living activities all but curtailed. Being able to appreciate the difficulty that stripped agency presents, I find it intriguing and, frankly, a bit baffling that Anne does not really talk much about the tedium, or the lack of agency, that living in the Annex surely must have presented. Much of the first half to two-thirds of the book consist of her complaining about family members and how misunderstood she feels. It is not until the end of the book that she discusses the impact that living in fear has, from their scares with burglaries to the constant threat of air raids and the meager food rationing.
I wonder why that is. Was she not so bothered early on? Was it too tedious to write about? Was it edited out of the diary (she went back and rewrote sections in anticipation of publishing the diary for public consumption)? Or was it because she was a child? I am thinking perhaps that that was so. She certainly grows more mature as the book goes on. As mentioned earlier, much of the book is spent complaining about her roommates in the Secret Annex. She is a deeply harsh critic, painting almost no one in a positive light, and frequently mournfully laments how misunderstood and maligned she is by others. The deep irony of her adolescent hubris is painfully obvious to me, as an adult reader a decade divorced from adolescence. Teens think they know everything and are indignantly sure of this fact--yet their hubris and naivety often shields them from actually comprehending others fully. Younger Anne is nothing if not childishly self-absorbed. Perhaps the closed, fearful nature of the Franks' world only became more openly discussed in the latter part of the book because the world ceases to revolve around yourself as much as you grow up.
This year also gives me a better appreciation of Anne's trials, as well as the struggles the Annex household members must have had that Anne does not necessarily divine to the reader. It is difficult to imagine being stripped of all of your agency and barricaded to a home, your sole social companions the individuals you live with. You run out of things to say; you find new hobbies, yet simultaneously struggle to maintain any hobbies at all; you idolize the past; you grow unexpectedly close to some individuals due to limited choices and the relief of shared commiseration; you grow irrationally irritated by others, driven apart by the inescapable proximity. All of these are familiar. Again, this is not at all to say today is like living in the Annex. That would be insultingly naive. But I can see hints of parallels. It makes me wonder how on earth they prevailed, and under such dire circumstances--hide, or be gassed. It is a remarkable testament to the tenacity and adaptability of the human spirit when faced with incredible trials--and yet it also makes me appreciate the relativity of traumatic events. I buckle under the lack of agency now; am I a weaker individual for struggling under such circumstances after a few months when the Franks survived years in the Annex? I say no--not to diminish the Annex, but--rather--adverse events do not evoke an absolute set of feelings in accordance with their actual gravity. They evoke relative feelings. The realistically overdue death of an aging, but well-loved, grandmother may be deeply devastating to someone who has never experienced loss, and yet hardly bothersome to someone for whom death is frequent. There is a message in here somewhere about reminding ourselves that things *could* be worse and are thus, in fact, less dire than we imagine them to be... while also allowing ourselves to feel entitled to and mourn the painful feelings nonetheless.
Anyway, what dogs me now is a better understanding of the Holocaust experience. How *did* people survive, in the moment, and after the fact? What kept them going? How did they not emerge from the Holocaust as broken shells, broken in their faith in humanity, broken in their faith of self, broken in their faith of God and the sanctity of the Jewish people? I am compelled to find out.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Jul 20, 2020 9:39:29 GMT -5
I think it's fair to compare the current situation (at least in the US, our situation isn't quite that bad...) to what Anne Frank was going through. Obviously they are in completely different scales, but you can still relate to those feelings, and like you said reading it might give some perspective to see that the COVID situation could be worse. I've personally never read it, and I've always understood that the biggest "selling point" for the diary was to give a personality to all the millions of holocaust victims we are taught about at school. By getting to know one of the victims and knowing that there were a lot of people like her makes the holocaust sound a lot worse than just seeing the numbers. Reading what you wrote about that book though, I might be more interested to read it myself at some point.
Also, on the emoticon topic:
You can always do this :) ...which isn't really any better. I don't like the emoticons either, but I don't use emoticons much anyway.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 20, 2020 20:48:51 GMT -5
Yeah, I think in general, when you read about human experiences, it's much more moving and impactful than if you just read about it in abstract. I should try doing that more often, reading historical autobiographies and memoirs... I read Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" yesterday. First ever Agatha Christie book. I did not like that one as much. Not to say I disliked it, but I think I was a little underwhelmed by the explanation in the end. I found it improbable. Armstrong and Wargrave's prior connection, in my opinion, was tenuous at best; therefore Armstrong did not really have any compelling reason to trust Wargrave enough to agree, especially at the point at which they collaborated. Nor did I think Armstrong was painted as a gullible idiot. I suppose it's theoretically plausible, but it does require a stretch of imagination. Perhaps I think so because I would have trusted no one at that point.
I'm a bit glad it was not Vera in the end, because I immediately recognized "U.N. Owen" from Touhou's "U.N. Owen Was Her?". From then on, I was afraid it would be an inadvertent spoiler... glad it was a red herring. I didn't know anything about the plot before reading. I suspect it's one of those books that was probably more shocking to read at the time it came out, since the trope of convening people to an imprisoned place and having them die one-by-one certainly isn't a new concept. Now I've moved onto reading the biography of Trump by his niece. I don't like it so far. Her dislike for Trump is so palpable that she sort of undermines her credibility as a narrator, frankly. I don't like him either, but something about it just ... meh. I wish she at least feigned a little more impartiality. Her overwraught style is quickly proving to be a chore to read. I feel committed to finish, though.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 23, 2020 16:52:54 GMT -5
Gah, I thought I had hit an equilibrium of being a languid "fine" on this quarantine business, but now I'm bummed again.
Stupid government STILL won't allow driver's ed to occur.
I may pick up Catherine today. I played a bit of it last night at a friend's, and it reminds me of Pushmo. I enjoyed Pushmo.
I need to find some mindless games to sink hours of my life into.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Jul 24, 2020 10:51:12 GMT -5
Fun fact: competitive Catherine is a thing. It even showed up at EVO in 2015 and 2018.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Jul 24, 2020 12:46:05 GMT -5
Catherine sounds like it could be fun. Too bad I've got a huge backlog of Atlus games to go through and Catherine isn't quite at the top of that list. Didn't know people play it competitively... but why not.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 27, 2020 8:36:40 GMT -5
Well, I think I f*cked up my knee. Got it all mad at me on Sunday, took a week off, felt better, went for a run, and it's mad again now.
gg.
Guess I gotta start biking if I don't want to get fat.
I guess it's not the worst thing in the world considering it's hotter than f**king Hell itself here this summer. Running in the heat SUCKS. It's supposed to hit 98 today, which probably doesn't mean much to Grain, but it's humid. Humidity makes heat soooo much worse. You go outside and the air just feels heavy and hard to breathe.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Jul 27, 2020 11:48:30 GMT -5
Trust me: I'm aware. It rained here Friday, and when I was doing a few things outside Saturday I thought I'd die. Probably the only time it got easier to be outside as the day went on, because while it got hotter (high was 110), it also got less humid.
Heat drains your strength. Humidity drains your soul.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Jul 27, 2020 13:52:28 GMT -5
It's been raining a lot here lately and I've been enjoying. However, Gordon Ramsay is visiting our city and apparently brought the sunshine with him, since the heat has been unbearable today. I'm curious what he'd think about the local food though. The traditional local dish Rössypottu is awful, and I don't know a single Finnish person who actually eats it.
Knee issues are the worst, since it's very hard to let them heal completely. And they prevent you from doing a lot of things.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Jul 27, 2020 15:24:16 GMT -5
Good news is I went to the doctor and they told me they thought I had irritated the tendon, but no actual structural damage like in runner's knee or IT band syndrome. I'm not, in fact, banned from running--just advised to cut back a little and then build back up. Whew.
They did prescribe me physical therapy, and while normally that would induce an "ugh", now... I get to pay to see people???
Physical therapy is gonna be the highlight of my week.
I've never actually considered what traditional Finnish food would be like. A cursory look at traditional Finnish cuisine has me already convinced it is miles better than Icelandic cuisine. Ugh. I was in dire straits when I went to Iceland. So much fish. I hate fish. It's not like Japan where they have lots of foods other than fish, either... I think the only thing I had in Iceland that I liked was skyr yogurt, but even at that, I've never been a big yogurt person...
I see Finland likes its licorice too. I got licorice-flavored gum in Iceland. It was odious.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Jul 27, 2020 16:00:12 GMT -5
I'm not a huge fan of fish either, except in sushi for some reason. To be honest, if I had to list some traditional Finnish food on the spot I couldn't think of many examples. Reading through the wikipedia article on Finnish cuisine, a lot of it is either stuff that I've maybe seen/tasted once in my life, or stuff that I eat all the time where it doesn't feel that special anymore.
One of the things I'd like to do if I ever get around to visiting other countries is to try as many local dishes as possible. Not necessarily anything fancy, just something the people would normally eat, that would still be specific to that country. I feel like that's something where every country has something different to offer, and it's interesting to compare what is "normal" for other cultures.
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