With Naoto this should be easier (Utau can do it instead of Amu, but it will take longer to start up), but a pile of shards do not a person make?
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Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- Laniakea
I really hope I'm wrong in regards to Yui, but if my guess turns out to be true on what her situation is then beating up the Shadow would not be the best thing to do.
It would be very easy, if what I imagine is true.
But probably not the best thing. At least, from a "save everyone" perspective.
EDIT:
To cut the sordid details short, I have a bad, bad feeling this is meant to be a "no win" situation where Yui can't really be saved, unless we have a spare body handy or someone is able to teach her to make one from nothing like Miki.
Since I don't think either is possible right now, I'm thinking the only way to salvage the situation is for Amu to put Yui (or, well, her pieces) on ice using the Dumpty Key the way she did with the fox shadow, until someone is able to provide one of the above for her.
I have no idea how long it would take for any of those to be possible either. The only thing I can think of that might be possible on short notice is if Tsukasa is able to take the pieces she's holding in stasis and covert them into a Chara somehow.
Uh.
...Anybody happen to have ideas on where or how a spare body for a 9-year-old kid's Shadow could be ethically acquired? Just as a hypothetical, of course. Hopefully I'm wrong and it won't be necessary.
...Make that 5 bodies, actually. If my guess is right, we might need 5.
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Mind Control / Integrity / Wits, IIRC. Mind Control both to control the "fox" and to keep herself intact, Integrity for fairly obvious reasons, Wits because she was making it up as she went along.
She did spend WP on that, but wouldn't need to do so on a repeat. Keep in mind, however, that the "fox" wasn't fighting back. An opposed roll would be far harder.
- Location
- Laniakea
Ah.
That would happen, wouldn't it.
Hmm, if it's Mind Control, it might be possible to SOS boost it, though ideally, it wouldn't be actively contested and her Shadow could be convinced to voluntarily submit by.... I dunno, Charisma or something. Though I feel like for best odds, it would need Ami making that argument to do the convincing (Miki would've helped too). Yeah, I really think we want to keep Ami nearby for that just in case.
I suppose we'll cross that bridge if it ever comes down to needing it. Hopefully, I'll be completely wrong about Yui's Shadow and this discussion will all be unjustified paranoia.
EDIT:
Just out of curiosity....
Is this meant to imply that Kana has performed soul surgery (of a lesser magnitude) before?
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
It could be read that way. If so, she failed.
Joke: Is this a pattern I spy here? Anyway...
Dysmorphia, so... our only option in that scenario is to make one, or to throw the hot potato to JPs (unlikely to yield a better result in the short term IMO even setting aside Naoto's reaction to that).
Illusion 3 + Biokinesis ? + Dreamwalking ? might work for this, but we have a grand total of 0 Medicine dots right now, and I'm not sure if Illusion has a systemic problem with this sort of thing going by the description here.
Well, I don't see how that's incompatible with the plan I was talking about previously, beyond it being harder and a opposed roll, which probably takes the idea out from step 1 - Amu has 6 normal dice, Ami 6 (1 Integrity however is a bit low for this), Utau 5 dice, Hikaru nope dice, unless Mind Crush counts for this, and Miki 7 dice (still sleeping though, unless we want to wake her up and ask for her help).
If you want to try this, it would probably be a good idea to find a different combination - start with UMI beams? (We can make only so many of them because WP though...)
@Baughn As common sense would expect, Hikaru cannot use the Mind Crush specialty in this task and expect to have the intended result afterwards, right?
There's absolutely no way we can dodge the Mind Control requirement; Integrity is probably also mandatory, so that leaves the Attribute.
Ideally we'd switch to Charisma instead, but we'd need to find a way to erase the Shadow's resistance, and I got nothing on that front so.
As a tangent, have we ever tried 'telepathy' with other people's Charas before?
After this I'd like to ask Ami who exactly this statement applies to, might be important in the future.
Hinamori Ami's Grand Adventure
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Interlude: Hinamori Ami's Grand Adventure
One hour earlier.Describing Ami's world to someone who couldn't mind-read would be like describing sight to the blind. Thoughts and feelings were a complex mix of colours, shapes and sounds—a tumult of images and impressions and sensory stimuli that was more than she could put in words; a mesh of family and friendship that wrapped around her like a warm blanket.
When she thought hard, or remembered something vividly, her own feelings echoed through the air like a physical force; a gentle light or an invisible touch or a wave of darkness or water washing over everyone nearby—a reflection of Ami's moods given shape and substance. Of Misaki's thoughts, of Namami's dreams… there was no-one in her grade who didn't at least recognise it when it happened.
She didn't try to hide her inner self, any more than a regular girl would have tried to hide the colour of her eyes; to do so would have been instantly suspicious, it would have made her friends think she was hurt, and besides: hiding your innermost self was wrong. It was lying. And lying was bad.
She didn't know who she got that last bit from; it could have been anyone in her classroom. Ami's daily life was a stream of pleasant experiences and friendly faces, a continuous flow of emotion and company that buoyed her up whenever she needed help—which wasn't often; Ami was usually the helper—and had kept her from sinking into darker places after she'd crunched down on demon minds and hurt them on purpose.
Even her moments of frustration or anger weren't unpleasant as such—not now that she was old enough to understand them for what they were, and had friends who could help her out when she did. Loneliness was the worst. Which was why she loved her family so much. They never left her alone. There were some girls in her class—and one or two boys—who didn't have such wonderful families, and talking to them were the times Ami felt saddest.
It wasn't fair at all! She felt for them; feeling their hurt like knives cutting into her head, she couldn't help but understand. Everyone in her class did. That was why they went out of their way to be friends with them, making sure they knew that they had people who cared about them—or, at least, they tried their best.
They really did try their best.
So-
"Dad, is Miki-neechan going to be okay?" Ami asked worriedly, tugging at his sleeve with her left hand; with her right she'd taken Miki's hand and held on tight, squeezing her sister's fingers tightly to reassure her—though Ami couldn't tell if it helped much. Miki-neechan felt distant. Not quite asleep, *definitely* not awake. Not drowsing, so much as... in many many pieces? Too busy putting the pieces together to talk and smile and laugh.
That wasn't right, but Ami didn't have a better word for it.
"She'll be fine, Ami-chan," Dad replied with a warm smile, pausing his stroking of Miki's hair to reach down and pat Ami on the head instead—her hand on his arm making the movement awkward. "Your big sister just needs a bit of time to rest, and she'll be okay."
That wasn't even a lie. Ami could see. Dad said the words, but the rest of his mind was saying he didn't know. Ami would have felt a lot better if he'd been truthful with her, but he didn't want to scare her. Sometimes grownups could be infuriating. But-
Ami decided to trust him.
"Okay!" she declared, smiling up at him brightly. "Make sure Miki-neechan's comfortable, Dad!"
Dad smiled and gave her head another pat. Ami decided to lean closer and give Miki a hug. She couldn't actually remember a time when Miki hadn't been part of her family, though- um- for a while she'd maybe treated her like a moving, talking doll? But that had been before Ami had really been able to see people. When she'd still been a baby, basically.
Amu and Mom had left the house, leaving Ami alone with Dad as well as Miki-neechan, though Miki-neechan was asleep on the couch and Ami was bored, which wasn't what she'd expected. Miki-neechan had gotten big, today shouldn't have been boring. She was a dream all blown up like a balloon and Ami could feel Miki's mind straining under the weight of it all—why she was a lump of potatoes on the sofa.
Ami wasn't scared, 'cause Miki-neechan was super duper strong, but it worried... worried... in her innermost self it made her all upset and scared, in the same way a lot of things were making her inside self all upset and scared lately. She wasn't really sure how to describe it, other than that there were bad feelings in her head, and she didn't like them, and she wanted them to go away. But Micchan had said not to do that, that it wasn't smart, and Ami was a smart girl. So Ami wouldn't do that.
Besides, being honest sometimes made her eyes all glowy.
Which was neat.
Ami turned on the sofa, planting her knees on it and leaning forward; Miki was lying on her back with her head on Dad's lap and her legs against the armrest; she looked like she'd just collapsed onto the sofa—which was probably because she had—but Ami decided that wasn't her problem. Miki-neechan felt fine as such.
If Ami had had the words for it...
Miki-neechan had been like the things Ami made in her mind, that were all outside and no inside, and now she was making an inside. Ami was scared for her, because Miki acted like one of the boys in the Star class that had thought he was useless, that because he wasn't good at school or at sports or at anything important he wasn't worth anything. She felt like he'd felt, and that wasn't true! It was an awful feeling. Ami and Micchan and Natsumi and Kyouko and Ayano and even Shira-kun had had a long talk about that sort of thing with him, and it had made him feel better. So Ami was going to make Miki-neechan feel better, and she'd get Mom and Dad and Amu and Utau-neechan to help.
Her older sister's eyes were closed, her face looked soft and kind and gentle. Dad's fingers gently brushed through Miki's hair. Ami pressed her hand to her sister's forehead.
Warm.
But this was boring.
"Dad," she asked. "Can I call Micchan?"
Dad smiled at her again, just as warmly as before—he loved her. He really really did. Ami could feel it from him. She couldn't always understand everything her dad felt—or her mom, or her sisters, or even herself—but she knew about that one. Love was easy. It was warmth and happiness and a lot of other things all rolled up into one nice big ball. When people loved each other the right way, it was always just about the same. It was only if they got it wrong that things got difficult.
Or if they meant it in an adult way, like Mom and Dad often did.
Ami had determined to not ever think about that one.
"Of course you can, Ami-chan," Dad said, smiling at her and not looking or feeling even a little bit surprised. "But use the house phone. Mom will hopefully be calling me soon."
He felt a bit worried about Mom, and about Amu and Utau too. Ami tried to send him reassurance—her feelings were too muddled to do much, but maybe it would help a little! Although it was hard, since Mom and Dad had told her not to touch their minds and she couldn't do it the right way, so she just had to pretend she did. And then Dad smiled again and kissed her on the forehead; so maybe she'd done it right after all.
Ami slid off the sofa and ran to the phone in the kitchen; grabbing the receiver and calling the number she knew by heart. It rang for a few seconds before someone picked up.
"It's Ami," she announced brightly to the person on the other side. "Is Micchan there?"
She heard the person on the other end of the line sigh and hold the phone away from their mouth as they yelled; Ami waited patiently until they finished yelling—she could still hear it through the phone; just not very well—and brought the receiver back up to their mouth.
"She's exploring," Makoto told Ami. "Sorry kiddo, Micchan's not at home." Ami could hear a slight tone of worry in her voice, which was no surprise. It was late. Micchan wasn't usually out this late. Ami felt the same sort of worry as Makoto did, though the source was different.
"Oh," said Ami sadly. "Okay." She sighed. "Can you ask her to call me later?"
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
"Sure," said Makoto after a second or so, sounding as though she was torn between making a joke and asking a serious question. "Ami, do you know if Misaki-chan had any plans for today? Did she tell you anything?"
"Hmmmm," Ami frowned at the wall thoughtfully for a second; not that Makoto could see her do so. "Micchan was sad earlier 'cause she'd broken a plate," she said after a moment's thought. "She didn't say anything else. She doesn't have secrets." She paused, reconsidered. "Not unless she thinks I need to grow up before I find out."
Makoto sounded amused at that.
"I'll let her know," she said after a moment. "Thank you, Ami-chan. I'm sure she'll show up before dinner."
Ami nodded. That was usually true.
"Thank you!" she chirped after a moment. "Goodbye, Makoto-neechan!"
She put the phone down with a click—it was so nice being tall enough to reach the phone properly. Then she sighed again and headed back into the living room; climbing back on the sofa and poking at Miki's face a few times. She didn't stir—or even react. Ami sat down on her knees and poked at her sister again anyway; she might have been sleeping, but she still ought to have reacted.
Miki wasn't actually asleep at all!
It was so frustrating. She was tired, but she wasn't asleep; she wasn't awake, but she wasn't asleep; Ami had lots of things she wanted to tell Miki-neechan and now she had to wait. Ugh. Waiting was boring!
Ami sighed again and flopped down next to Dad, resting her head against her sister's shoulder.
Dad smiled at her yet again, though this time he had a question. Ami could feel it inside him. It was kind of hard to put it into words; Dad loved both her and Miki, and he wanted them both to be happy—but Miki was new, and Dad didn't understand how she could exist, or what he should do. That sort of silly question. Ami stuck out her tongue at him.
"Ami?" said Dad after a second or so. Clearly he wasn't going to ask her.
"Did Mom call?" Ami said instead, because she'd heard Dad's phone go off from the kitchen. Hadn't been important at the time.
Dad nodded. "She's okay," he replied; his attention distracted. He was thinking about Amu and Utau and Miki and Mom, not about Ami. That was fine. "-though the place they're at sounds strange," he continued, sounding puzzled and worried again. "Well, I'm sure they'll be fine. Your mother can handle almost anything."
Ami nodded in agreement, though that was a lie. Mom couldn't have handled the demons that had attacked her school. Though wait, 'almost'. Maybe it wasn't a lie.
Dad kept stroking Miki's hair with one hand, and reached over to pat Ami's head with the other, which made her wriggle happily and squirm into a more comfortable position—she wanted to cuddle with Miki-neechan but couldn't, because Miki-neechan wouldn't notice her even if she was standing on her head. Cuddling without Miki-neechan was no good! She couldn't pretend, because Miki-neechan's mind was still sort of on standby.
Ami spent a few more minutes poking her sister—and Miki didn't even move!—before growing bored and deciding to sleep. Miki's mind was weird but it was still sort of comfy, and if she couldn't hug her sister she could at least sleep with her, and her dad could move her to her bed later. And if Miki woke up, she'd know Ami loved her. That was important too. She wished she knew where Micchan had gone.
-which was how Ami wound up standing inside a mechanical city, wearing her favourite dress and blinking owlishly as she looked around in confusion. Everything was made of gears and pipes; there were buildings of brass and pipes, and they all linked together with large tubes running above her head, most of which were full of steam or mist or fog.
⁂
The city stretched off into the distance in every direction she looked. There were some huge towers in the distance, but other than that... fog. For the most part the city looked normal-ish; like a movie version of Victorian London if half of it had been replaced with metal buildings instead of wooden ones, then wrapped it onto the inside of a sphere. The fog though, that was scary. She'd seen fog in her dreams a few times before, and it was usually a sign that something was wrong. Someone was in trouble, or soon would be.
But where on earth was she?
"Acchan you idiot," she groused at her waking self. "This is all your fault."
There wasn't an answer, unsurprisingly. Angelic little idiot.
Ami grumbled in annoyance and checked her surroundings. There was a lot of noise. Distant machinery produced distant thuds, and the fog was so thick she couldn't see what it was coming from; though at least there were a few street-lamps—they looked like gas lamps—which illuminated a little of the fog.
When Ami had fallen asleep she'd been worried about Miki-chan, mostly, which meant—and yeah, the fog was rather indicative—that she had probably plopped her mirror-self down in the darker parts of the dream. Which was extremely inconvenient. The dreamworld was supposed to be the space between spaces; you could travel quickly from anywhere to anywhere- but here, in the fog? Yeah, no, not happening. She had no idea where she was, so getting home was... problematic at best.
Wait.
She stared at the city and went over Ami-chan's conversation with Mako-neechan in her head. Micchan was lost. Maybe. Which meant her other half had gone to sleep not just worried, but thinking about Micchan specifically being lost, which was her own fault for not taking the time to calm down, and-
-and she was totally, utterly, one hundred percent lost now wasn't she? She wasn't just somewhere she'd never seen before, she was deep in the concept of 'lost', not somewhere you could usually get home from! It figured, didn't it? Ugh. She was feeling ticked off just from the thought.
Her first instinct was to yell and stamp her feet in annoyance. Or maybe hit something with her sword, except she hadn't brought it along this time. All around her the buildings were cast in shadow, and through the windows she could see glimpses of people moving about—vague outlines of bodies in suits and dresses; black on grey on white on brown. There were a few shadows moving around, which was actually reassuring—not that she was planning to go out of her way to talk to anyone; she wasn't dressed for the occasion—but a lot of places like this didn't have any shadows at all.
Oy. Wake up!
She resisted the urge to kick herself in the shins; it would just annoy Ami, who'd probably start her "we're totes the same person even if I'm gonna pretend otherwise for Mom and Dad and literally everyone I meet" spiel. It would have been cute when they were six, but not anymore! They were seven now. Not a baby!
Ugh.
"Munya..."
Munya? Seriously?
"Wake up wake up wake up!" she chanted in an annoyed whisper, bending over and stomping her feet on the pavement. "You've stuck your foot in it, 'sis'. You've gotten us into a bind. And I've got to rescue you. Even though I really don't want to, you dolt!"
Then she stared into a puddle on the ground, where her reflection was yawning.
"Akkun?" said Ami's reflection with a yawn, looking confused and bleary-eyed. "I wasn't trying to wake you up. Wait, where are we?" Her pure blue eyes widened as she looked around in alarm and surprise. "What's going on?"
"Nothing much, you've just gotten us lost," said Ami-kun to Ami-chan. "Again. You have got to stop doing this."
Ami-chan looked around at her surroundings, pressing her hands to the edges of the puddle. "Uh..."
"You're me," said Ami in exasperation, leaning down towards the puddle—she couldn't actually touch it; that would be wet, and bad—and staring into her reflection's eyes. "So don't 'uh' me. How'd we end up in the dream if you weren't trying to?"
"We weren't?" replied Ami-chan, with a frown. She rubbed at her eyes and looked around again, finally paying attention this time. "Wow. Um..." She poked the surface of the puddle and leaned in closer. "You weren't trying to get out again, right?"
"Of course I wasn't trying to get out again!" snapped Ami-kun, rolling her eyes. "If I'd been trying to get out I'd have done it already!" She paused and took a deep breath, reining in her temper. "Though I will, once we figure out how Miki did it. Wherever she is."
Ami-chan nodded—unsurprisingly, since they were the same person—and pulled a face. "She's asleep," she said after a moment's thought, wincing as though a headache was forming. "But she isn't here. I think it's like... like when I get tired from having a cold, and can't be bothered to think. Miki's like that right now, so she isn't dreaming."
"So we can't help her," Ami-kun agreed with a grimace, shaking her head and deciding not to start an argument about how 'not thinking' was one of Ami-chan's greatest strengths. "Wonderful. We can't get her to talk to us and we can't wake her up—so much for that plan." She scowled. "So you've gotten us lost, and there's not even a point to it."
"We could go find Amu?" suggested Ami-chan in that obnoxiously helpful tone of voice. "Or we could go explore this place while we're here? We've never been anywhere like it before." She paused. "Which is why it's not my fault."
"Oh don't even-" Ami-kun began in an exasperated tone of voice; then shook her head again. "Argh. Whatever." She glared at her reflection for a moment, who shrugged awkwardly without saying anything.
At least 'Ami-chan' had stopped complaining when she snarked at her. They both knew well enough why they were arguing, and neither of them liked to say it out loud anymore. 'Ami-chan' had those impulses too, after all. Even if she preferred to shove them on her instead.
Nothing good had ever come from that argument.
"Let's go find Mom and Amu," said Ami-kun finally, letting out a sigh and pulling back. "If nothing else it'll give us something to do."
"Okay," agreed Ami-chan, nodding her head in agreement. "Take the lead, sis."
'Ami-chan' did realise they would figure out that something was up, didn't she? Oh well. Wasn't her problem.
'Take the lead.'
Wasn't a habit of Ami's. Even when it should be.
And like she had any choice in the matter! Ami grumbled and nodded, pulling back and looking around again. Alleys and streets and fog; from above everything was probably made of fog, and none of the lights seemed to be doing anything to disperse it—their warm glow just made it look white and not grey; sort of like snow.
Snow. Snow wasn't where she wanted to go, but snow was clean. Snow wasn't dirty—except for dog pee—and didn't have shadows in it, or fog in it. She could make it to a snow slope. It was tempting, but she wanted Mom and Amu and Utau more; and this fog made it hard to think when she focused on it. If she tried that, she'd land in a weird river instead.
The alleys, then. Alleys were scary. They were dark and dim and full of monsters and stuff, but there'd be shadows there—there always were shadows in alleys—and she could use the shadows, the blankness, to get herself someplace else; somewhere where there wasn't so much fog. Or she could use the monster-ness. There could be trolls in alleys, couldn't there? In the shadows, or Shadows.
"Hey, wait a second," said Ami-chan, her tone urgent enough to bring her out of snark-monster mode. "Do you hear that?"
Ami stopped moving for a second and tilted her head sideways; frowning and straining her ears. There was a bit of noise in the distance—whistling and banging and the clattering of wheels and the screeching of... whatever the noise was coming from. She listened to it for just a few seconds before deciding she'd rather not be where that noise was; even if there was something interesting behind it.
"Monsters," she decided, and jumped into a nearby alley at a run—slamming into the ground in a roll and skidding through the fog that covered the cobblestones, abandoning her role as she went. The lost girl in the city stayed in the city, but Ami wasn't lost, not really; she knew exactly where she was going, even if she didn't know where she was or how to get there.
-her eyes glowed intensely golden, her body wrapped itself in the shadows of the alleyway, and a second later they were gone.
A little later a gremlin wandering past the alleyway noticed that one of the puddles had a hole in it.
"...must be leaking," it decided after a second or two of contemplation, and promptly forgot about the whole thing.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Thanks for beta-ing goes to @ShadowAngelBeta, @Quickshot0, @Nero200, @Kim Bruning and the nightmare I had last night.
Ami seems fine.
Ami seems fine.
Correct. Mind Crush, like the name suggests, is an offensive-only technique.
Nero200
High Priest of Eito, Part Time Nyar.
Ami remains a horrific walking violating of free will, privacy and any semblance of ethical psionics.
On a note unrelated to this update, we just got an example of a Persona blocking Empathy (?) so I guess that's confirmed?
*drowning* not drowsing?
Hopefully it's not literal pieces like Yui/Saaya, but metaphorically trying to come to healthier conclusions (uh, Baughn, how does Miki has Integrity 3 again? Read through the relevant sections, and that's more like Integrity 0 or -1 to me?)
Eh, when you grow up with that sort of thing as your normal and instinct, it would be very strange to naturally remain within the common view on such matters - can't imagine holding that sort of dissonance in that way for that long would be mentally healthy.
In particular, I get the feeling Ami's identity is partially bound up (a bit too much, perhaps - those she are around are probably a bit too much of an influence on her as-is) in the well-being of those around her; and she thus views her ability use as more being particularly convincing / the Mind Control equivalent of projective and receptive Empathy?
(Also, something something "the rest of the class genuinely thinks its normal" something something)
And honestly, I get the feeling she's still allowing them to make their own decisions/their own feelings, but is helping them work through it easier or offering an alternate perspective?
...that being said, she does need to learn an off-switch or dial for these things, and gain through experience what amount is ok and when so
Not sure what to interpret from this part here: Is our viewpoint character here distinct from waking-Amu; or is this Dreamwalking (Navigation) at work?
To be clear:
Ami: "We are totally the same person (but let me mention otherwise to Literally Everyone Else)"
???: "I don't disagree, but the pretending is annoying, please cut it out" or "Nope, or at least that's not totally the case (and the pretending is especially annoying for that reason"
Not very sure how to interpret this line here.
are these related to the whole "rivers" thing?
Wha???
Well, Ami is in Elementary School so that's understandable, right?
As for the argument mentioned here, it's "forcing a sense of separation and/or repression is an extremely terrible idea for Reasons"?
Hm... so that's how Dreamwalking Stunts could look like, if we were careful about it.
Though we'd need the awareness of the "conceptual makeup" of the region for it to really work, which we don't have - we still don't know what a 'normal' Shadow Castle Center looks like from Naoto, and I can't try and extrapolate anything if I don't have any base data points to work with?
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
I won't have time to respond to most of this, but I'm sure someone else will be along soon enough.
To be honest, I decided her integrity should be high (because she's been fighting a selfhood-destruction effect for years), but also put her in a situation where that isn't obvious (because she's been fighting a selfhood-destruction effect for years). Miki is in the final stretch before victory, however.
"Drowsing" is accurate. Miki is very sleepy.
To be honest, I decided her integrity should be high (because she's been fighting a selfhood-destruction effect for years), but also put her in a situation where that isn't obvious (because she's been fighting a selfhood-destruction effect for years). Miki is in the final stretch before victory, however.
No, this is just a literal puddle.
It's mostly the latter, though don't assume "Akkun"'s take is accurate.
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For some reason this reminds me of Shinobu from Monogatari series hm
(Emphasis mine)
Place your bets: Is this a Shadow type situation, a Persona type situation, a Chara-to-be type situation, or none of the above?
If the latter, I wonder what that says about the Ami we know?
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Well, nobody does; it's only a thing because of mashing distinct canons together, not least "Shards" canon.
This is one of those cases where if you make up something that makes sense with the base / currently known material, you get to decide what that canon is.
- Location
- Laniakea
Oh great. Ami has a split personality who -literally- wants to copy Miki and split off.
....That actually makes her even better as a diplomacy assistant, if what I suspect about Yui's Shadow is right.
...Unless what we are seeing is the result of Kana's failure. Then it's right back on the operating table.
Teddie proves that it is possible for a Shadow to have a Shadow, but his was also quite demented and both the Amis here seem fairly reasonable. Though it's also possible it could go either way - that a Shadow can turn into either Chara or Persona depending on the circumstances, as we've been told by QM that Charas take the seed of what would be a Persona (which could refer to a Shadow Self).
....That actually makes her even better as a diplomacy assistant, if what I suspect about Yui's Shadow is right.
This does make my current theory about what happened to Yui a tad less likely....
...Unless what we are seeing is the result of Kana's failure. Then it's right back on the operating table.
Probably number 3, as we've been told that Ami Overgrowth is already so engorged, she's on the cusp of manifesting a Chara.
Teddie proves that it is possible for a Shadow to have a Shadow, but his was also quite demented and both the Amis here seem fairly reasonable. Though it's also possible it could go either way - that a Shadow can turn into either Chara or Persona depending on the circumstances, as we've been told by QM that Charas take the seed of what would be a Persona (which could refer to a Shadow Self).
The way to 'erase' the Shadow's resistance would be to convince it that voluntarily submitting to Dumpty Key Stasis is in its best interests. How hard this would be to accomplish would depend on the circumstances, the Shadow and the people doing the persuasion.
But at least she's not Alice?
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Mm, but the "instincts" aspect of Charisma I'm not sure will work out in a baseline scenario of violence; and even if the Shadow could be reasoned with I'm not actually sure whether Dumpty Key Stasis is genuinely in the Shadow's best interest?
(If nothing else, we can't guarantee it'll ever escape the Stasis, can we?)
- Location
- Laniakea
If what I fear happened to Yui is true, the only way her Shadow (and thus herself) comes out of this alive will be in Amu's containment.
The hope for the... owner... accepting it would be, shall we say, slim to the point whereby convincing it to submit to stasis is legitimately the easier course of action.
And possibly unhealthy for both, even in the unlikely event they agreed to coexist.
Mind stating explicitly what you think (might have) happened and why, as unpleasant as the prospect may be? (I can infer that it's some kind of mental merge/replace scenario, but no further from context)
Furthermore, is the current winning vote mutually exclusive with the proposal you have?
- Location
- Laniakea
No, the current vote won't have anything to do with it.
If I'm right we are sorta fked no matter what we do, we'll just find out faster with this vote. If I'm wrong I don't know what we will see after we connect with the mind in the castle.
I need to think about the best way to phrase the shitshow I suspect is going on to avoid another Alice incident.
If I'm right we are sorta fked no matter what we do, we'll just find out faster with this vote. If I'm wrong I don't know what we will see after we connect with the mind in the castle.
I need to think about the best way to phrase the shitshow I suspect is going on to avoid another Alice incident.
Being asked not to touch her parents' minds must feel like being asked to hug her parents one-armed. She does it, of course - she respects their wishes, and she knows it'd defeat the purpose of a hug to do it in a way the recipient doesn't want. Yet, every time she's hugging their bodies and not their minds, she's looking at this whole side of her parents that isn't getting hugged, thinking "wouldn't it feel better if you let me hug the rest of you?"
Such good kids. Feeling someone's hurt "like knives cutting into her head" of course provides a strong reason to do something about that, but they don't try to fix it by force, or push the source of the pain away. They get closer to the person it hurts to be around, and extend a hand of friendship. Not everyone would respond like that.
There's a good chance walking out the dream-entrance in the Scavengers' house would provide the necessary insight.
It's a little weird that glowy-yellow-eyes Ami is the one effectively saying "you're not me". Usually this goes the other way around.
I don't think there was an Alice incident:
Yukiko's curry is unrivaled even by elementary schoolers.
I can think of a few - where easier options exist but requires not saving some people .
We've already had one of those and dodged it by sacrificing the use of a mcguffin
I think its just that her lines are drawn different. Someone with a 10 dice social pool as a child would behave the same - people tend to agree with her if they don't have any objection, she's the social equivalent of Jupiter moving in its orbit.
Unless she rejects her own telepathic mass to the point where it forms an ungodly powerful Shadow, she's the center of the social scene. There is nothing to turn off, she just looks at you and know what you feel.
She draws the line instead at the point where people would spend willpower to resist. And she could easily force the matter, but doesn't.
There simply isn't a healthy way around this, going down to normal human would be like making her go around with earplugs and blindfolds permanently.
- Location
- Laniakea
Heh, I meant what happened with the player discussion where I thought Ami absorbed Alice and got everyone alarmed about it.
Didn't turn out to be so productive.
...Ergh, I can't think of a way to phrase it that would make the theory sound any less grim, so I'm just gonna to throw in spoiler tags and get to it without sugarcoating, with the reminder that it is still speculation and there's not much point delving into in if you don't feel like getting hit with grimdark:
I suspect that Yui is already dead. And has been dead since long before Amu met her. To be precise, died at around the age of 5-6 and her Shadow is all that is left.
We know the Scavengers are on Persona/Shadow suppressants. In Persona 3, these were needed by artificial Persona users, people who had their Personas artificially awakened.
I suspect the Scavengers' Personas weren't artificially -awakened-. I suspect theirs were artificially -transplanted-.
Transplanted organs need to be harvested from someone.
Yui was one of the "donors". They ripped out her Shadow and stuck it into another kid. Yui's Shadow then subsumed the original inhabitant, took over and has been "possessing" the body ever since. This would explain why she was fond of Amu - shadows are attracted to shadows. This would also explain all the shifty comments being made by the QM about the domain being an amalgam having bits of other people mixed in and the "ghost" thing in Chapter 2.8.
Kana may or may not have been helping Manticore do the transplants. Would explain why she got special treatment if she did. Her crayon drawing shows 4 bodies apart from Kana and 3 tombstones, despite all 5 Scavengers seemingly still alive. My guess is, 3 out of 5 Scavengers have been walking around with dead people's Shadows piloting their bodies for the last few years. Since Aoi was shown alive and Kana herself was in the happy fun room, process of elimination says the 3 who died/got harvested are Yui, Mimi and Naomi. Kana probably knew them before they got harvested and know they are really dead.
This whole arrangement is unstable, unsustainable and requires suppressant drugs to act as life support, because the transplanted Shadows are constantly being rejected by the original inhabitants of the bodies. The original owner of Yui's body still has her own Shadow, who tries to rip Yui apart every time she falls asleep. The whole cognitive domain is falling apart because it is under siege from the body's original owner and was a cognitive hackjob to begin with.
Meaning if our vote to sing the boss room to the front "works", we're probably going to get a room with the original owner, who is not named Yui, or at least their pissed off Shadow in it.
This would also explain why QM's been so coy about Yui being saved if Naoto brings her crew in, plus why Amu or Utau tearing the place apart in 2.8 was regarded as potentially leading to the "best outcome". Because we talk about saving Yui, but which "Yui" are we talking about? The original owner of the body? Or the Shadow that has been possessing it for the past couple of years that Amu knows? Which one do you consider the "real" Yui? If Amu/Utau tried to tear the domain apart, they would probably have found out the problem immediately.
If my guess is right, we'll find out immediately this way too.
There's probably a snowball's chance in hell of convincing the original owner to let Yui's Shadow keep squatting there, health-issues aside, especially if she's already been aggressively going after her whenever Yui sleeps. Yui's Shadow herself wouldn't want to leave, because her original body is already gone and she would just be dead if she did.
Not many options for a happy ending in this scenario.
We know the Scavengers are on Persona/Shadow suppressants. In Persona 3, these were needed by artificial Persona users, people who had their Personas artificially awakened.
I suspect the Scavengers' Personas weren't artificially -awakened-. I suspect theirs were artificially -transplanted-.
Transplanted organs need to be harvested from someone.
Yui was one of the "donors". They ripped out her Shadow and stuck it into another kid. Yui's Shadow then subsumed the original inhabitant, took over and has been "possessing" the body ever since. This would explain why she was fond of Amu - shadows are attracted to shadows. This would also explain all the shifty comments being made by the QM about the domain being an amalgam having bits of other people mixed in and the "ghost" thing in Chapter 2.8.
Kana may or may not have been helping Manticore do the transplants. Would explain why she got special treatment if she did. Her crayon drawing shows 4 bodies apart from Kana and 3 tombstones, despite all 5 Scavengers seemingly still alive. My guess is, 3 out of 5 Scavengers have been walking around with dead people's Shadows piloting their bodies for the last few years. Since Aoi was shown alive and Kana herself was in the happy fun room, process of elimination says the 3 who died/got harvested are Yui, Mimi and Naomi. Kana probably knew them before they got harvested and know they are really dead.
This whole arrangement is unstable, unsustainable and requires suppressant drugs to act as life support, because the transplanted Shadows are constantly being rejected by the original inhabitants of the bodies. The original owner of Yui's body still has her own Shadow, who tries to rip Yui apart every time she falls asleep. The whole cognitive domain is falling apart because it is under siege from the body's original owner and was a cognitive hackjob to begin with.
Meaning if our vote to sing the boss room to the front "works", we're probably going to get a room with the original owner, who is not named Yui, or at least their pissed off Shadow in it.
This would also explain why QM's been so coy about Yui being saved if Naoto brings her crew in, plus why Amu or Utau tearing the place apart in 2.8 was regarded as potentially leading to the "best outcome". Because we talk about saving Yui, but which "Yui" are we talking about? The original owner of the body? Or the Shadow that has been possessing it for the past couple of years that Amu knows? Which one do you consider the "real" Yui? If Amu/Utau tried to tear the domain apart, they would probably have found out the problem immediately.
If my guess is right, we'll find out immediately this way too.
There's probably a snowball's chance in hell of convincing the original owner to let Yui's Shadow keep squatting there, health-issues aside, especially if she's already been aggressively going after her whenever Yui sleeps. Yui's Shadow herself wouldn't want to leave, because her original body is already gone and she would just be dead if she did.
Not many options for a happy ending in this scenario.
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Nero200
High Priest of Eito, Part Time Nyar.
She's constantly reading her fathers mind and using that to gauge if her actions are having the desired effect, even when not using mind control.
And apparently mind reading her classmates and confronting them on their issues / using that knowledge. (Yes, the other psionically aware ones are fine with it, but the ones that aren't are just... open books to their more powerful classmates and can't do anything about it. Horror story of a situation to be in.)
It's a horrifying display of the imbalance between a mind reader and a normal person, and she's just... not thinking about what she's doing at all.
The healthy way around it would be to remove her from a victim rich environment until she learns to turn it off it like Amu is capable of.
Ie: Keep her the hell away from all the people that can't defend themselves / block her reading ability.
- Location
- Laniakea
Just as a reminder, "normal people" in this world include occultists like Hikawa who are capable of using magic or sorcery to summon demons.
Considering that Lulu's lapidary techniques - which, assuming the ones she used while in Japan at the tender age of 12 were crafted the same way, are also able screw with people's minds too - were passed down as a family tradition from her predecessors who would not have been psychics, it seems perfectly possible for "normal people" to also learn how to do some equally horrifying things.
Said "imbalance" in power only exists because this kind of knowledge is not widespread among "normal people". Not because they are physically incapable of learning and executing the techniques.
Now imagine a world where everyone did have that knowledge and could become Hikawa.
Does closing the power gap still seem like such a good idea?
Was randomly rereading: if true, doesn't that sound like the old quest's Integrity Protecting Prana or whatever the first version of the Chara-protecting Charm was called?
I assume if I ask "how do Shadows stay beyond the death of the main self" you will point to Teddy and co?
More pertinently, if that scenario is actually the case, I think our chances of resolving this is basically 0, given our only data point for the difficulty of soul surgery: 8 (grafting of unrelated dream matter inside)
Even separating two fused Shadows when you are not associated with the Velvet Room is probably DC 5, and reducing it to shards means you either have two different set of shards you need to isolate; or need to do what Amu did with Saaya shards earlier without the benefit of implicit trust and innate familiarity?
Very well put, seems like it could very well be how Ami sees things beyond what's mentioned in the update.
While I tidy the rest of my thoughts on why I'm worried about Ami into a coherent post:
Dreamwalking aside, she seems more of an Misaki/MisakiSI expy than the actual Misaki expy from this interlude.
And since this isn't Academy City (as much as Seiyo is an attempted, more mild replication thereof), this has consequences?
(Also, there's no level scaling in this setting if that makes sense, which has implications for that resemblance?)
This sort of thing is probably why Baughn needed Ami to have a Mind Control capable friend, now that I think of it.
- Location
- Laniakea
Well, we know that something allowing Amu to "emulate" the learning and growth rate of an Exalt. So I personally wouldn't be surprised if it were possible for some knockoff version of Integrity-Protecting Prana to be made possible by the Chara system too.
As for the Yui Theory discussion... if it is true that Kana attempted soul surgery and that we are looking at the results of her failure then:
That would imply that the 2 Shadows were not fused together properly and that she failed to graft them together into a cohesive whole, resulting in the unstable Shadow-eat-Shadow situation that Yui and the original owner of the body may be suffering.
So we'd have 2 separate Shadows. And putting one of them into Dumpty Key containment wouldn't be soul surgery, it would just be taking an already-separated Shadow (since Kana failed to properly fuse it with the original owner's) and stuffing it into the Dumpty Key.
So we'd have 2 separate Shadows. And putting one of them into Dumpty Key containment wouldn't be soul surgery, it would just be taking an already-separated Shadow (since Kana failed to properly fuse it with the original owner's) and stuffing it into the Dumpty Key.