[Locked to the Turks]
Informal dinner meeting at La Vitesse in Central in an hour. Not an order, but I'd like to see you both.
[/Locked]

I'm looking to get very drunk with a bunch of interesting, amusing people tonight - open invitation. Meet me at the bar at 4th and Hastings at ten - first round's on me, but you're on your own after that.

(John? Don't come unless you want me to finish what I started last week.)

[Locked to everyone but Rufus]
I dislike having to make this so...public, but I am getting very tired of repeating myself. I am not available. This man, Rufus Shinra, is also not available - he is mine, in every way that counts. If you harm him, I will kill you, personally, in a completely literal sense of the word. This is not a threat, it's a promise.

I hope I've made myself clear here

Edit: its come to my attention that in my temper some of my meaning was a bit lost. I'm not going to kill anyone for flirting with either if us, although the attention would be unapreciated, and I have no qualms with, as Taiwan so eloquently put it, 'punching a cheerleader'. However... /harm/ him, and then things get nasty.

Will be here later

[Private//Hackable]
Yevon, I rather mucked that one up. Better that everything is out in the open, though, I suppose.
[/Private]

[locked to Sheska]
Sorry our dinner got pushed aside. Would tomorrow night be agreeable?
[/locked]

Well. That was a little...odd, there. I'm glad everyone enjoyed the picnic, though, perhaps we should do that again before fall arrives.

That healing spell must have really knocked me out - strange, I don't usually react like that. Gave me the strangest dream, too, though I suppose it counts as a pleasant one, at least.

Ah, so many visitors right now! It's nice to see some old faces again. If the good weather holds, we should have another picnic in the park - it's been too long. I'll bring tea and daifuku~

[OOC: Braska has stayed in Desai, and probably does picnics outside in the summer a lot. Feel free to be future!friends with him, he needs more]

I always forget how annoying typing one-handed is until I actually have to do it.

Reno? The next time I see you, you are fucked.

I suppose this is going to seem a bit morbid, what with that nasty murder last week, but...it's the season for the Ghost Festival, so I find myself pondering questions of life and death a bit more than usual right now. Which, I suppose, leads me to the point of this - was anyone else dead, before they arrived here? True death, not Unsent or revived by magic.

About twelve years ago, I gave my life to try and stop a great evil that threatened my world, Spira. There was something inbetween that and my arrival here, although I do not recall most of it - just a profound sense of peace. I am curious if my arrival here is simply an artifact of how death works in Spira, or if there are others like me, from other worlds. And if so, if we're truly alive, now...

You know you're playing an Atlus game when you hit the difficulty wall three bosses in (in this case, Shadow Yukiko). Unfortunately I am fail at planning and waited until the last day to do Yukiko's dungeon, which means that while I desperately need to grind like another two levels on each character, I don't actually have basically any recovery items. I've gotten her down to like 10% at least three times now, but when she gets low she casts AoE attacks like every round and owns me. Anyway, general non-spoilery thoughts on gameplay and such:

-Combat system is fun, although I really wish there were turn icons like Nocturne and DDS have. But I like the special pile-on attack that triggers when all the enemies are knocked down.
-Going in, I wasn't sure if I'd like the S.Link/life sim bits of it, but...they're actually surprisingly fun.
-Chie is so awesome XD And Teddie is hilarious but also creepy.
-Jon pointed out the ironic inversion that right now, out of my three person party, the girl is the only one who can't heal.
-Oh god why can't I skip the super-long scene before Shadow Yukiko I've seen it like seven times now whyyyy

And kind of related - I'm starting to really hope Tseng gets kidnapped for the Desai Midnight Channel plot, because playing Shadow Tseng would be creepy and interesting and awesome. Basically, my Tseng hides two things about himself. The first is that he's sort of a borderline sociopath - not only does he not really feel guilty about the fact that he kills people for a living (the exception being Sector 7, and there it's more 'that was not right' and regret at having made the wrong decision), a part of him enjoys the violence. And he hides a lot of that, and hides his fear that the inner Beast is most of what he is.

The other thing he hides is his fear and shame about his sexuality (my Tseng being pretty much 100% gay) - he was raised in an extremely conservative family in a rather conservative culture, and while he moved to Midgar as a teenager, being gay in Midgar is not so much welcomed as it is tolerated. I think this goes for a lot of cyberpunk cities - it's less 'it's okay to be gay!' and more that people just don't give a shit who you're fucking. But I personally see a lot of the Midgar upper-class, as well as the upper echelons of the company, being very much 'wife and two kids', and that there aren't a whole lot positive depictions of same-sex relationships in the media. He hides his sexuality, but if confronted about it wouldn't deny it - he would deny the feelings of shame, that he's unnatural, that his love is ultimately damaging, because he has a certain amount of pride and self-confidence.

So yeah, Shadow Tseng would be kind of a super-creepy over-the-top sociopath with that slightly feral gleam in his eyes, possibly combined with elements of the good old Predatory Gay stereotype.

Erm. Has anyone lost a small child? Her name is Gracie, she seems to be three or four and doesn't know where her parents are. Very friendly now that I've gotten her calmed down though.