You want to know the real reason why that Smash Bros thing hurt more than Infinity War?
Because the heroes go from “We can do this” to “save yourself” in a matter of seconds, and that’s not even where it ends.
They stand and fight like it’s some typical battle–Link blocks an attack with his shield, dodges, counters…and then he’s gone. Samus tries returning fire, but it’s useless. Zelda and Mewtwo see this and put up their unbreakable defenses–and they are blown away like leaves.
That’s when it all falls apart, the battle lines break, and the true horror is unleashed.
Sonic and Pikachu use their speed to gain distance, and Sonic even tries to save Pikachu. It’s no use. Captain Falcon decides to just run, and he doesn’t even make it inside his vehicle. Everyone else then just flees, trying their own methods of escape, not even trying to protect each other, but to save themselves.
The Inklings go into the safety of the ink. It doesn’t protect them. Bowser and the Pokemon trainer make a stand, refusing to yield. They are obliterated. Snake tries to hide in his box. The attacks find him. One by one, they fall…
But the worst is Palutena. She tries to shield herself, but she is destroyed–and when she goes, Pit and Dark Pit lose their ability to fly. They have time for one horrified moment of realization before they, too, are gone.
Only Kirby, who has the ability to enter a different dimension, is able to find a road to escape. He’s the only one capable of making such an escape, and he does–leaving everyone else to die. His fellow fighters. His fans. People he didn’t know. The whole universe is eradicated in a matter of seconds, and we watch the heroes and villains fall uselessly in the path of voiceless destruction.
There’s no confusion or horror, no numbing farewells or final words–they all just die in a few seconds of pain and horrific realization. It’s awful.
Democrats have *flipped* 7 state legislative chambers and 333 seats, adding 6 more trifectas (gov+both chambers)
All I saw on my mainstream news app was “GOP holds Senate, GOP governors win in three states, Trump says the midterms were great” and nothing like this.
You probably know that the Democrats decisively won the House of Representatives.
Here’s more good news that you’re probably not hearing: Democrats took control from Republicans in New Hampshire,
Colorado,
Minnesota,
Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, Illinois, and New York, and now hold the governor’s seat and both chambers of the legislature in the last six of those states.
This is huge for fixing the huge gerrymandering issues at the state level that have enshrined minority rule by the GOP in all U.S. elections from the presidency on down.
Something to remember, as the election approaches:
The work is never wasted.
Even if the Republicans keep control of Congress–yes, that would be terrible, yes, I would be furious and frustrated and sad and it would hurt like hell–EVEN SO: the work we have done to get here was not wasted.
I was part of the previous “biggest worldwide protest ever,” the global protests against the Iraq War in February 2003.
We lost. The war happened. Is still happening.
But some of the people who got involved then worked for Obama’s campaigns, a lot of them are part of the resistance now, and all of us learned something. The work was not wasted.
Even if we lose. There were Democratic primary debates in my hometown for the first time I can remember. Even if our terrible Republican Congresswoman gets re-elected, there’s still a broader and stronger Democratic Party organization in Mike Fucking Pence’s home state.
The election can’t be an end. It will only be an end if we win and get complacent, or if we lose and give in to hopelessness. We cannot afford either. We do the job that is in front of us. No matter what.
The work is never wasted.
The stories our world tells us are about Great Heroic Struggles With Triumphant Climaxes In Which Good Vanquishes Evil And They All Live Happily Ever After. It’s all about the one extreme emergency during which people rise to the occasion.
Problem is, that’s not how the world actually … works. That’s not how change happens. That’s not how societies are reshaped. We hear about MLK and the bus boycott and the protests, but not the DECADES OF WORK that came before, the organizing and the education and the legal challenges and the hundreds of thousands of people, from great heroes to ordinary people, who put in the grinding every-day work to make the world a better place, step by step, bit by bit. The big things–the speeches, the marches–were the tip of the iceberg. Nothing would have happened without the rest of the iceberg.
The 2018 midterms are the tip of the iceberg. They are incredibly important, yes. But without the rest of the iceberg, they mean nothing. Without ordinary people across America organizing and talking to their friends and coworkers and paying attention to politics and getting involved and volunteering (not just politically, but for all the nonprofits out there working to make the world a better, fairer, more just, more merciful place) the election is useless.
This is not a sprint. It is a relay marathon. If you can run a major leg, awesome. If you can help organize the marathon, awesome. If you can coordinate the people running, awesome. If you can hand out bottled water along the route, awesome. If you can cheer along the way, awesome. If you can remind people that the marathon is happening, awesome. It’s not about great heroes or one person doing it all or one climactic battle in which everything magically gets fixed.
It’s about ordinary people doing what they can. What you can do right now is vote. What you do on November 7 and the months and years following (no matter who wins the election) is stay involved and stay working.
Take care of yourself. Take care of others. Don’t hyperfixate and burn out. Be the tortoise, not the hare. Vote. And then keep moving on.
A PSA: if you think Naoto Shirogane is a girl you’re fucking disgusting and transphobic. bottom line.
Y’all really getting pissed for pointing out the fact that ATLUS likes to bait LGBT+ memebers by erasing things they themselves established as canon, only before they try to cover that shit up.
hmm 🤔
The fact that he is the most oversexualized character of the whole series also speaks volumes, but go off I guess.
Sex isn’t gender and he’s a transmale, so there it is.
You do realize that’s Shadow Naoto, right? As in, the darkest parts of your personality twisted into an unholy Eldritch Abomination? Going by that logic, Rise is actually a stripper, Chie is actually a dominatrix, Yukiko is actually a giant bird thing, etc…
And also:
Look I’m trying to step back from video game discourse, but Naotocourse will always piss me off. Quite frankly people who are so insistent on Naoto being a man are very ignorant (some might say lowkey racist but I feel that’s too far) which is just plain unacceptable when trying to comment on a series like Persona that ties character arcs so heavily into aspects of Japanese culture. Naoto is a showing of Japan’s heavy ageism and sexism, especially in more serious careers like detective work. She is in no way meant to be shown as trans, if she was than honestly the game would not have been subtle on it.
Wait wait wait, hold up, did OP say Naoto is the most oversexualized character in all of Persona? What in the goddamn. Like she’s in the same fucking game as Rise Kujikawa, not to mention any characters from other games. But Naoto isn’t even the most sexualized P4 character let alone the entire franchise.
Good points! What I’d also like to point out is that
THE SHADOW SELF
IS NOT
THE TRUE SELF
EVER
IN ANY WAY
SHAPE
OR
FUCKIN’ FORM
The shadow self, according to Jungian philosophy, WHICH IS WHAT THE GAME IS BASED ON, is the opposite of who we are, it’s what we fear we may become, it’s our hopes, dreams, and desires twisted into the complete opposite of who we are as people. It’s not what we want to become, it’s what we do not want to become but fear we may have to become.
In other words, because of strict gender roles within her culture, within Japanese culture, Naoto felt pressured into the idea that she had to change her gender, had to become a man, in order to have her hopes, dreams, and desires come true and be recognized by the sexist society in which she lives. She did not want to do this, but felt that she may have to wind up doing so. However, in defeating her Shadow self, she comes to accept her True Self, thus unlocking her persona. She gains the strength to take on society and work hard to have society accept her as she is, a young woman intent on becoming a police detective and solving crimes.
Japan is not the USA. ATLUS is not an American company. Persona is not an American series. It comes from Japan, a country that has stricter gender roles, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. It’s alright to have headcanons, but once you insist that it’s actually canon and then throw around accusations to make other people feel bad for reminding you that it’s just a headcanon, you lose your credibility in your argument.
Naoto Shirogane is not trans. She’s a young Japanese cis woman dealing with sexism in Japan.
But I suppose OP will just ignore this and continue calling people transphobic for not liking their headcanon, because that’s the way people like OP roll, I guess.
“Naoto is the most oversexualized character in Persona”
I guess if you have zero experience outside of Persona 4…
Also, other LGBT people are telling you to shove it OP. You’re the wrong one here.
okay long shot here but this has been bugging for like two weeks.
anybody remember this japanese song on youtube that had a video of a bunch of 8-bit-ish (think like those yume nikki spirtes) characters singing on a train platform or something and one of the characters had a pumpkin on his head or something? Anybody remember the name of that??
Rex's place 