Geek vs Life

Remember the first time you saw Twin Peaks? Like me, you probably spent the entire glorious hour with your head tilted in rakish confusion, jaw slack and eye sporadically twitching with spasmodic delight.

At the end of it, you probably turned to your viewing companion and uttered that immortal phrase, “Wait… What?”

And then, “What did that have to do with midgets?”

So too is one’s reaction to the new BBC comedy-thriller series, Psychoville.

The show follows the lives of five ordinary people; a midwife with a dark secret, a blind, curmudgeonous millionaire with a dark secret, a serial-killer aficionado with a dark secret (and possibly an Oedipus complex,) a one-handed children’s clown with a secret that’s been painted over with rainbow colours but the paint’s worn through to reveal the darkness of the secret underneath, and a telekinetic midget. With a dark secret. Involving porn.

Someone has been sending letters to each person, simply stating, “I know what you did.” In the pilot this somewhat weak plotline takes a backseat to the over-the-top character development, and it remains to be seen whether anything will become of this watered down story arc or whether the show will expand on the nearly sketch-show feel it achieved in the pilot, but the bizzaro cast of characters are strong enough to stand up to either possibility.

Personally, I like to believe that these letters are less of a targeted threat and more of a social experiment. Grab your crayons and play along. Everyone has a dark secret just waiting for the opportunity to be brought into the light; I encourage all readers to leave similar letters where your loved ones can find them, then sit back and enjoy the mayhem.

The Psychoville pilot aired in the UK on June 18th, no news yet whether it’ll make its way across the pond, but I predict a show as strange as this will be part of Adult Swim’s lineup before the second season airs.

You can visit the YouTube pages for Mr. Jelly, David Sowerbutts, and Oscar Lomax, whom I am convinced is a terrifying glimpse into Joe’s inevitable future.

Okay, so this meeting in the door. Apparently they’ve got some sort of “school club” where they fight “shadows” during the “Dark Hour” with our “personas” (trust me, it wouldn’t make sense to you if I tried to explain it). They let me join their “club”, and gave me a fake gun to shoot myself in the head with. Then I heard a weird voice and saw a tarot card, and was told that I apparently established the “Fool” Social Link. Went to bed after the meeting, and that kid from before was in my room during the Dark Hour. He said something about “the end” coming, and then disappeared.

Came downstairs the evening on the 19th, and Akihiko introduced us to… Junpei? Apparently he’s “one of us” and is gonna live in the dorm, too.  Akihiko was all excited, ‘cuz apparently we’re goin somewhere called “Tartarus” tomorrow. The Chairman’ll give us the details, apparently.

During lunch on the 20th, Mitsuru came into our classroom and told us to meet in the lounge after school. At the meeting, we were told we would be going to Tartarus, and Mitsuru and Akihiko lead us… to school? However, as soon as the Dark Hour hit, our school turned into… wow, that thing is CRAZY! Our school is some huge creepy tower! We got inside, and I was apparently nominated as leader, but before we could go up the stairs, I saw a weird door. Hey, it’s the Velvet Room. Nice, easy access. Mitsuru only let us explore the first floor, though. I was kinda disappointed, because of how pathetically easy it was. We cleared the floor and went back downstairs. Mitsuru congratulated it, then I heard that voice again. Aparently I’m at rank 2 of “The Fool” now.

Tuesday morning, met Kenji, a classmate of mine, before going to morning assembly. Mitsuru spoke, but a lot of it went over my head. Okay, most of it. During classes later, I SOOOO wanted to fall asleep, but I actually stayed awake. Somehow. Not sure how. Didn’t have anything to do after school, so I wandered around. Got outside, and saw Akihiko, who told me and Junpei to meet him at the police station in the mall. Okay, I guess. We got there, and apparently one of the cops is willing to sell us weapons. That’s useful. So’s the 5,000 yen Akihiko gave us. Decided to go to Tartarus that night, and got up to the fifth floor.

Met up with Kenji again before school, and after school, he invited me out to ramen. We hung out, then I heard that voice again, saying that I’d established the “Magician” Social Link.

On Thursday, I decided to join the kendo team. I heard that voice again, telling me I’d established the “Chariot” Social Link. Decided to go to Tartarus that night, even though it was just me and Junpei. Junpei and I explored up to floor 10, then went back to the dorm.

At lunch on Friday, Kenji and Kazushi (from the kendo team) both asked me to hang out after school. I really wanna work hard for the team, so I opted to go to practice. Chatted with Kazushi a bit after practice, and that voice told me that “The Chariot” was now to rank 2. I offered to walk Yuko, the team manager, home, but she declined, so I went home on my own. Yukari was up to it, so we went to Tartarus again. Made it up to floor 14, but since Yukari was tired, we didn’t fight the strong shadow there, and went back instead.

Heard that a new bookstore was opening on Saturday, so I checked it out after school. The old couple that runs it seemed nice, but the man kept talking about some persimmon tree at school. I went out and looked at it, and then took the couple a leaf I’d picked up from the ground. We chatted for a while, then that voice told me I’d established the “Hierophant” Social Link.

Week End’s Social Links:

Fool Rank 2 (Automatic)
Magician Rank 1
Hierophant Rank 1
Chariot Rank 2

Here is the first installment of my Persona 3 Project (P3project). This covers the beginning of the game through the second save point.

I arrived at my dorm right at midnight, and was greeted by a strange young boy who had me sign a contract. Then two girls came downstairs, one of whom had a gun (wth?). Apparently, they’re residents in this dorm… I dunno, there’s something suspicious going on. The younger girl, Yukari, showed me to my room, but told me that any questions I had would have to wait for later.

The next morning, Yukari woke me up, saying that Mitsuru-senpai had told her to walk me to school. We take the train, and then reach the school. There’s quite a few people here. She cautioned me not to tell anyone about what happened last night (what did happen, anyway?). I checked the class rosters, and found out I was in Class F, before heading to the office, where I met Mrs. Toriumi, my homeroom teacher. Made a friend at school (or, rather, he found me) named Junpei, and we walked home together.

The next evening, the Chairman of the Board was at the dorm when I got home. He’s kind of an idiot.  Had a really weird dream that night, with some old dude named Igor and that contract that I signed. He said I was welcome in the ‘Velvet Room’, and that he was going to watch me. I don’t really get it, and the details were really fuzzy when I woke up.

That night, I was woken up by some huge noises, and Yukari came and woke me up, taking me to the back door, but there was something out there. We ran to the top floor, and then onto the roof, where there was a huge monster! Yukari pulled out that gun of hers and was going to shoot herself in the head, but she couldn’t do it. I saw a vision of that little boy again, encouraging me, and I picked up her gun, and shot myself in the head.

I don’t really remember anything after that, but I think I fought something, and met Igor again. When I finally woke up, it was the 17th! I was in the hospital, apparently I’d been there since I passed out. Yukari was there, and she pretty much dumped her life story on me (I’m in the hospital, darnit, at least explain things to me in a way I’ll understand before dumping on me!).

At school the next day, she told me to meet everyone on the 4th floor of the dorm when I got back to school.

I was planning on doing this on my livejournal, but I figure it would be interesting for our visitors here, as well, so I’ll post it here.

For those of you not aware, Persona 3 takes place in semi-real-time. It takes place over the course of a single school year, day by day. You go to school, you hang out with friends, you save the world, etc…

The date that the game “starts” on is 4/7/2009. This year, I am going to attempt to play the game in “real time” (a week’s worth of game at a time… first save point, IIRC, is 4/22, hence the late start). I will be posting my weekly “journal” of the game’s events (yes, there will be spoilers… I’ll try to put cuts in). To get through the game’s events as quickly/easily as possible, the following allowances are being made:

1) Game will be played on “normal” mode
2) Game will utilize save-data from previous run (money, equipment, level, Persona compendium, Academic/Charm/Courage stats)

However, I will be going for max social links, which does limit my free time in the game.

The first “installment” should be posted later today, or tomorrow.