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.

Man, fuck this weather. Over 30C the last two days, with 88% humidity yesterday and like 70% today. I live in a basement and it is almost too hot to sleep. The end result is that I, and apparently everyone else at work, have been super cranky. Even the customers seem worse than usual.

...Yeah. I am probably not fit for public today as I am all tired and 'rahhh pay attention to me' and contemplating how nice it would be to ragequit my job. I love how my job sends me tips about how to manage my stress by cutting back on commitments in the weekly wellness e-mails (no, I don't know why I signed up either) when my job is a good portion of the stress in my life.

[locked to Sheska]

We worked things out, so it's all back to normal here (or at least as normal as my life ever gets.)

[/lock]

I suppose it goes without saying, but those plants are very dangerous. One grabbed my leg this morning - left a very nasty chemical burn, down to the muscle, by the time I pulled free.

[locked to the ladies]

Does anyone know a pharmacy here that stocks the morning after pill? I did something...unwise, last night.

EDIT: Problem solved. The drugstore at 4th and Ash, for future reference.

(ooc: pretend this was posted earlier, reworking off screen stuff >.>)

I think this apartment has gremlins in it or something - I'd believe it, in this city. I woke up this morning, and all my clothes were in Alen's room, and his were in mine.

Either that, or he's more of a perverted asshole than I thought - he was supposed to be the one I didn't have to deal with this sort of thing from. I think today is going to be a three cup of coffee day.