«Ｒ» PERMISSIONS.

[uragiru]

CHARACTER PERMISSIONS

OUT OF CHARACTER

» BACKTAGS: yes! i will backtag without limits.
» THREADHOPS: 90% of the time, yes. if the thread is serious/emotional, ask first.
» FOURTH WALL: no thanks. i won't do it to others either!
» ACTION/PROSE: i prefer action/brackets, but i can match prose if necessary.
» SENSITIVE SUBJECTS: i don't have anything that particularly bothers me; i'll let you know if something comes up.

IN CHARACTER

» PHYSICAL AFFECTION: he's touch-repulsed from years of isolation, so he'll shy away from it. it's good for him though. 100% hug him.
» FLIRTING: you can try......
» KISSING: he will stop you even if you're a friend.
» ROMANCE: always for memes/psl, case-by-case in games. open to both m/m and m/f!
» SEX: yeah once you've been dating him for like 50 years. (yes for memes)
» PHYSICAL VIOLENCE: he's not great at it outside of the metaverse, but he can take a punch and he'll give back as good as he gets.
» INJURIES/DEATH: he's in a horror game, both are fine
» TELEPATHY/PSYCHICS: go for it, i love that shit. just let me know so i can give you relevant details and/or provide introspection in tags!

MISCELLANEOUS

» akechi comes with warnings for child abuse, suicide, and suicidal ideation. if you need me to avoid any of these topics, let me know and we'll work something out! if you just want me to give you a heads up before those things come up in tags, i can absolutely do that too.

CODE BY TESSISAMESS


METAVERSE/HEART PERMISSIONS

Comments

» CHANGE OF HEART PERMISSIONS.

[uragiru]

» METAVERSE INFORMATION.

[uragiru]

Hello! Welcome to a primer on the bullshit mechanics of Persona 5, namely the Metaverse, Shadows and the change of heart. If you don't know anything about P5, good news: this is for you. If you do know everything necessary about P5, then just scroll down and skip the TL;DR to fill out the relevant forms, or just click here! This might be obvious, but there are going to be a lot of P5 spoilers here.

» WHAT IS THE METAVERSE?

The Metaverse is a plane of reality based on human cognition. It corresponds to the real world exactly, down to the smallest detail, unless someone's cognition is distorted enough to affect it. Most of the time, it's no different to walking around in the real world — but its function is as a mirror to the internalised beliefs and emotions of both individuals and humanity as a collective. Think of it as a reflection of people's "sins."

» COGNITION? DISTORTION?

A person's cognition is basically just how they perceive things: themselves, the people around them, society as a whole. "Distortion" is when something in that cognition has gotten warped. Their ego may have grown out of control, or they may have become fearful of the world around them. Somehow, the way they see things is not "right" and they've become damaged in a way that won't disappear on its own. This is called a "distorted heart."

For example, Suguru Kamoshida is the first case of distortion encountered in the game. A teacher and volleyball coach at Shujin Academy, he's the school's pride and joy on account of him being a Olympic medallist. However, his cognition of himself and those around him is twisted: he sees himself as the King of Shujin, and this means he can do whatever he wants without guilt or consequence, whether that be physically abusing his volleyball team or sexually harassing the female students.

» SO WHAT DOES DISTORTION MEAN FOR THE METAVERSE?

First of all, a person who's distorted will give rise to a Shadow of themselves that exists in the Metaverse. The Shadow is the embodiment of this distortion; for Kamoshida, his Shadow presents itself as a literal king and brags about its greatness, demanding that others bow down to it. If the Metaverse reflects people's sins, then the Shadow is sin itself, pure and undiluted.

But a distortion doesn't need to be that extreme to form a Shadow. A girl who abuses her boyfriend because she's scared he'll leave her; a boy who thinks that he has to abuse his own power to avoid being powerless ever again; a man who cheats at arcade games just so he can feel good about himself. It also doesn't need to be cruel, or even something that is projected externally on others. Distortion can form if there is any negative emotion strong enough to warp a person's perception — guilt, fear, self-loathing, despair. One of the cases that canon deals with is Futaba Sakura, who blames herself for her mother's death and becomes unable to leave her own room, seeing it as a tomb where she's meant to die.

Generally, a Shadow's demeanour depends on its true self and the distortion that birthed it. A Shadow born from ego might be arrogant, a Shadow born from hatred or bitterness might be vicious and spiteful, and a Shadow born from fear might be obsessive and neurotic. There aren't any hard and fast rules for this, and how much Shadows resemble their true selves varies... especially if they're a Palace ruler.

» WHAT'S A PALACE?

When someone's cognition is both intensely distorted — like being incapable of feeling guilt for their actions because they think it's their right to do whatever they want — and centred on a specific place, then a Palace will form in the Metaverse. It isn't necessarily a literal building, but more like the mental landscape of a person's distorted heart.

A Palace is a number of different things rolled into one, so I'll use a lot of examples here to try and make it clear. First of all, location: a Palace needs to have some kind of connection to a real world location, or else there's nowhere in the Metaverse for it to go. Futaba's is her room; Ichiryusai Madarame, a plagiarising artist, has the shack where his apprentices live; Junya Kaneshiro is a crime lord extorting the people of Shibuya, and the location of his Palace is "all of Shibuya."

Secondly, the Palace must be something. The real world person perceives this location in a warped way; the Shadow owns this Palace and sees themselves as an extension of it. To pick up from the previous examples, Futaba's room becomes a literal Egyptian tomb, of which she is the buried Pharaoh; Madarame sees his students as his own property to profit off and so the shack where they live is a museum, with each of his former students a painting inside; Kaneshiro believes he has the right to take money from his victims, and sees Shibuya as a glorified bank with its people as walking ATMs.

Not every Shadow has a Palace of its own, though. Some of their distortions aren't large or warped enough to sustain a landscape of their own. These Shadows reside in Mementos.

» WHAT'S MEMENTOS?

So, you have three elements of the Metaverse. One is the Metaverse itself, which is just the cognitive plane of reality where these things exist. Another is Palaces, which are distortions applied to real world locations that distort the Metaverse's mirror of reality.

The last thing is Mementos. Mementos is a Palace formed by all of society; the collective consciousness of people, concentrated to a single area. Its appearance is distorted to begin with — in canon, Tokyo's version of Mementos is the Shibuya subway, filled with graveyards and bones and screaming, and it goes down about a hundred floors beneath the city. Nothing can be done to Mementos itself, as the distorted cognition held by an entire society is too much to erase, but Mementos is populated by those Shadows without a Palace of their own.

I said earlier that a distortion doesn't need to be extreme to form a Shadow. Those minor distortions, or even grand distortions without a location to anchor to, end up quarantined in Mementos. It's a dungeon crawling with monsters, and the Shadows formed from people's hearts that live there are like mini-bosses.

» OKAY. BUT WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY DO WITH ANY OF THIS?

We steal those twisted hearts, of course. ☆

This is both literal and non-literal. The Phantom Thieves — our P5 cast — locate distortions that they know about, and get rid of them by taking the source of the distortion out of the person's "heart." It goes differently for Palace Shadows and Mementos Shadows. In a Palace, they need to infiltrate and find the Treasure, a manifestation of the distortion's core; it matches the Palace's theme in the Metaverse, and becomes a real object outside of it. To come back to Kamoshida, who saw himself as a king, his Palace's Treasure was his crown, but in reality that Treasure was his Olympic medal, the reason he started to become distorted in the first place. Once they've stolen the Treasure, they must talk down the Shadow and convince it to surrender. Killing a Shadow will kill the person in real life.

Mementos is much easier. When they have a person's real name, they find them in Mementos, and defeat the Shadow's true monstrous form. Once defeated, the Shadow reverts to its human form and, having come to its senses, admits its wrongs before disappearing to rejoin its true self. Some Mementos Shadows don't even need to be fought, and are capable of being talked out of their distorted cognition, but this usually requires a certain level of familiarity with the person and their distortion.

» WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE THIEVES STEAL SOMEONE'S HEART?

With their distorted cognition gone, the person becomes able to change. Keyword: able.

It's important to note that a change of heart doesn't affect someone's personality. The adults in canon whose evil hearts are stolen turn themselves into the police because what was removed from their heart was the distortion that prevented them from feeling any guilt for their actions; with that gone, even though they hadn't become different people, they were hit with the full weight of guilt and confessed to their crimes.

Here, Futaba is the best example of how a change of heart takes effect without impacting a character's trauma or personality at all. When the Thieves steal her heart, they clear up her guilt and the perception that she was to blame for her mother's apparent suicide, which was keeping her trapped in her room. But that's the only immediate change to her character. She remains socially anxious to the point of being unable to hold a conversation, fearful of other people and the outside world, and deeply traumatised by the things she went through because of her mother's death. The change of heart doesn't fix these things for her — what it does is remove the obstacle that was preventing her from changing, and from there, she still has to heal and improve herself by her own efforts.

» AND THEY'RE DOING THIS IN REVERIE NOW?

YES. This is where you come in! Because we are opening Phantom Thief services to the public!

Does your character have some kind of warped perception that is preventing them from healing from trauma or making any kind of progress towards development? If so, the Thieves can jump-start that process. It doesn't have to be something that's been with them for a long time, either; if events in Reverie affect your character's cognition of the station, themselves, others — whatever it is, at such a time that distortion sets in, the Thieves can help by stealing it away.

» HOW DO I PARTICIPATE IN THIS?

First, you fill out some info for us below. There are some important things to keep in mind, though — and please understand that we have no intention of excluding anyone, but most of these mechanics have very specific purposes that won't always suit a character! Even if you can't jump in on this right now, it's always possible things will change later. A brief overview of the important points:

— To have a Shadow, a character must have a distortion that affects their cognition in some way. If a character is just a jerk, the Thieves can't change that. If they're a jerk because their life has taught them that only the strong survive and this has warped into proving their strength by preying on the weak, that's a Shadow.
— Most characters will not have Palaces. There are only two ways a Palace can form in Reverie. The first is if a character's distortion is anchored to a specific place on the station, such as if they refuse to leave their quarters, or can't enter a certain room because of some trauma that has happened during the game. The second is if a character's distortion has warped their cognition so badly that its location encompasses "the entire world." That kind of distortion has to affect themselves, the way they live, every person they see, and everywhere they go. It is not common.
— You can still make a Mementos Shadow interesting! We're not going to force you to stick to the same boring rote sidequest exchanges as in canon. The difference is that the Shadow will still be "themselves" instead of a king, or a Pharaoh, or a casino owner.
— The Thieves need certain information to steal someone's heart. For a Palace, they need the person's name, the Palace location, and the distortion. For Mementos, all they need is the person's full name; their real name.
— They'll need some way to consider the possibility of a Shadow existing for someone, too. We'll work with you on this! It could be that one of them has seen something that gives them enough suspicion to check, it could be that another character informs them, it could be that the character themself asks for their own heart to be changed.
— The Phantom Thieves operate by a policy of unanimous decision. This means that, more likely than not, they won't do anything morally sketchy, because at least one of them will veto it.

Once your character's plot actually happens, the amount of involvement is entirely your choice. We can handwave it with an outline of the kinds of things the Shadow would say, we can play out the pre- and post-fight conversations, or we can play out the whole thing including the fight! Palaces are the same deal, although they will require more information and planning on your end so that we know what the Thieves were dealing with, even if we only play out the final confrontation with the Shadow.

» THIS SOUNDS PRETTY COMPLICATED.

It kind of is. We're going to run an Akechi Palace in the near future, and when that happens, I'll link it here as an example of these mechanics in action, which will hopefully help! Otherwise, please don't hesitate to ask questions below for clarification.

» PLAYER PLOT OPT-IN.

[uragiru]

» PALACES.

[uragiru]

CHARACTER: Western order.
JOURNAL: Self-explanatory.
REQUEST SOURCE: Where are the Thieves getting the information that your character needs their heart stolen? Is the distortion something they would have picked up on themselves, through your character's general personality and demeanour? Does someone they know put in the request? Did they put in the request themselves? (If you're not sure, we'll work this out with you!)

DISTORTION: A Palace requires a significantly distorted cognition. How would you describe the ways in which the character's perception is warped? Is it focused on themselves, or others? Ex. the world is unjust and unfair, and so I will use whatever unjust and unfair methods I have to in order to win at all costs, and this is how justice works.

LOCATION: Where is the Palace located? This must either be a specific place on the station, the station itself, or "the entire world."
KEYWORD: What does the distortion turn this location into? In one word, what is the "theme" it adheres to? Ex. castle, museum, bank, tomb, ship.
TREASURE: When the Thieves steal the Treasure of the Palace, what will it look like in both the Metaverse and the real world? The Metaverse object should relate to the Palace's distortion "theme" and the real world object should relate to the source of the distortion. Ex. Kamoshida's crown in his Palace, symbolising his kingship, becomes his Olympic medal in the real world, the source of his warped ego.

SHADOW: Tell us about your character's Shadow! What is its demeanour like? Is it cruel, arrogant, morose, cowardly? How does it conform as the ruler to its Palace's theme or its distortion? Ex. the king of a castle, the Pharaoh of a tomb, the owner of a casino.
PALACE: Describe the Palace to us in more detail! What does it actually look like? The Thieves will have to explore it from top to bottom, so the more information you give us, the better they'll understand your character by the end of it. Is there anything that stands out? Ex. in Madarame's museum, there was a sculpture built of all his previous apprentices that symbolised his exploitation of them.

THREAD INVOLVEMENT: How much of this do you want to play out? Feel free to say any amount from "all" to "none" — if we're concerned we won't have the time to commit to a more involved Palace, we'll let you know and talk it out from there.
CHANGE OF HEART: What kind of experience is the change of heart going to be for your character? What will this change for them? This is mostly just to make sure players know that a change of heart (for someone who isn't lying criminal scum) doesn't affect personality or have a huge immediate impact on a character.

<span style="font-family:helvetica;"><b>CHARACTER:</b> <b>JOURNAL:</b> <user name=""> <b>REQUEST SOURCE:</b> <b>DISTORTION:</b> <b>LOCATION:</b> <b>KEYWORD:</b> <b>TREASURE:</b> <b>SHADOW:</b> <b>PALACE:</b> <b>THREAD INVOLVEMENT:</b> <b>CHANGE OF HEART:</b>

[ EXAMPLE ]

[uragiru]

CHARACTER: Goro Akechi
JOURNAL: uragiru
REQUEST SOURCE: The Thieves will be able to tell something's up with him from the way he acts.

DISTORTION: Akechi believes that he literally has to wear a "mask" — i.e. a fake personality — in order to survive in the world, because of the trauma, abuse, and neglect he went through as an orphan. He's felt for most of his life that he is both unwanted and fundamentally unlovable, and that the only way he can be wanted or loved is to be someone else entirely; he feels that he's being constantly judged by everyone around him for the slightest mistakes, and that a single misstep will result in him being abandoned yet again. He doesn't remember how to be himself around people.

LOCATION: The entire world.
KEYWORD: Theatre
TREASURE: In the Metaverse, a physical mask that his Shadow wears; in the real world, a Featherman-R toy from one of the earlier foster families he stayed with that he didn't get to keep because they sent him back to the orphanage, which is when he realised that he wasn't "good enough" as himself.

SHADOW: His Shadow is the star actor of the grandest theatre around. It's melodramatic and almost Shakespearean in how grandiose it is; it will gladly boast about its acting talents and the number of people that come to see its shows. However, the further in the Thieves go, the more it becomes envious and desperate for attention, as the crowd's fickle attention turns towards other promising actors like Ren Amamiya. Towards the very end, it displays self-awareness, as it is well aware of what the Thieves are attempting to take from it and it's afraid of the rejection that the real Akechi will receive without his mask.
PALACE: Since his Palace covers "the world," the entirety of Reverie Terminal will be turned into a theatre district. Outside the theatre where Akechi performs, there are posters and billboards with various names on them: Ren Amamiya, Makoto Niijima, Haru Okumura. Eventually, after wandering around and following signs, the Thieves will find a theatre called The World, and a marquee that advertises Akechi as its star actor, performing 24/7. Inside the theatre it's brightly-lit and extravagant, mostly reds and golds, but the side corridors are empty and bleak like service tunnels. The progression through the theatre towards the Treasure leads through several ongoing stage plays, which show snippets of Akechi's life, reenacted by faceless Shadows. It feels like there are eyes on them all the time, everywhere.

THREAD INVOLVEMENT: Maximum! I intend to run a full Palace, which I've discussed with all of you and organised the time to handle. We can discuss the details as we play it out.
CHANGE OF HEART: With his distorted cognition gone, Akechi will no longer feel the pressure to be absolutely perfect for fear of rejection and scorn, and his personable act won't be the default survival mechanism that he never turns off. He'll present a more honest personality over time instead of pretending to be pleasant. The rest of his behaviours are rooted in a decade of trauma that he'll have to confront now, such as the origin of his fear of abandonment (his mother's suicide) and the certainty he has of being rejected (the system's neglect and abuse of him) as well as... y'know. All his other issues.

» MEMENTOS.

[uragiru]

CHARACTER: Western order.
JOURNAL: Self-explanatory.
REQUEST SOURCE: Where are the Thieves getting the information that your character needs their heart stolen? Is the distortion something they would have picked up on themselves, through your character's general personality and demeanour? Does someone they know put in the request? Did they put in the request themselves? (If you're not sure, we'll work this out with you!)

DISTORTION: A Mementos Shadow can have a significant distortion, or a smaller one. How would you describe the ways in which the character's perception is warped? Is it focused on themselves, or others? Ex. because my boyfriend loves me, I can treat him however I want to in order to remind him that he's mine.
TREASURE: Mementos Treasures usually aren't as grand as Palace ones because the distortion is on a smaller scale, but on this count, we're more than happy to bend canon a little. What does the Treasure that the Thieves get for their victory look like? For Mementos, you only need to tell us the real world object that relates to the character's distortion. Ex. an Olympic medal, a model spaceship, a journal.

SHADOW: Tell us about your character's Shadow! What is its demeanour like? Is it cruel, arrogant, morose, cowardly?
COMBAT: Will the Shadow fight the Thieves, or will they be able to negotiate with it? If you want to play it out and see where it goes, that's fine too! If combat is a possibility (or a certainty) then what kind of monster will the Shadow be when it fights? It doesn't have to be an existing Persona demon, but there's a list of them here if you want ideas or want to pick from the list.

THREAD INVOLVEMENT: How much of this do you want to play out? Feel free to say any amount from "all" to "none."
CHANGE OF HEART: What kind of experience is the change of heart going to be for your character? What will this change for them? This is mostly just to make sure players know that a change of heart (for someone who isn't lying criminal scum) doesn't affect personality or have a huge immediate impact on a character.

<span style="font-family:helvetica;"><b>CHARACTER:</b> <b>JOURNAL:</b> <user name=""> <b>REQUEST SOURCE:</b> <b>DISTORTION:</b> <b>TREASURE:</b> <b>SHADOW:</b> <b>COMBAT:</b> <b>THREAD INVOLVEMENT:</b> <b>CHANGE OF HEART:</b>

» OTHER.

[uragiru]

Some other kind of player plot to hash out with us? Drop a line here.

» QUESTIONS.

[uragiru]

Persona 5 is stupid and complicated. Ask me how!

By which I mean, ask absolutely anything you need to here, I know Persona is not friendly to the canon-blind. And even if you are canon familiar, if you want to opt in for a Shadow plot but you're having trouble coming up with ideas or want to check if something is okay to do, this is the place.