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Goddess' Shooting Star (Black★Rock Shooter X Persona 4)

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[X] Raise your sword, fight with your own strength.

...Can we make it the whole quest without actually calling on our Persona?
 
[X] Break the card, call your Persona to the fight.
[X] Raise your sword, fight with your own strength.
 
[X] Raise your sword, fight with your own strength.

Doing things Shooters way!

Also if I'm parsing this update right, then Mato has been limping around at like, maybe a quarter health for the last few days? Dang our girl is tough.
 
[X] Raise your sword, fight with your own strength.

If in doubt, punch it in the face, then stab its kidneys, then set it on fire.

Twice.
 
How superhuman was Mato being in those fights? 'This girl is stronger and faster than she looks', or 'okay, something weird is going on here'?
 
NSMS said:
How superhuman was Mato being in those fights? 'This girl is stronger and faster than she looks', or 'okay, something weird is going on here'?
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Upper edge of human capability in terms of physicality. If someone was watching closely they'd notice her reflexes are literally impossible but everything else was technically physically doable.

As for just now? After being healed, she just made a somewhat superhuman leap to make that first attack.
 
Not 100% sure if this is an appropriate time to call on Shooter directly or not (not 100% familiar with Persona 4's gameplay mechanics either lol) but personally I find it more interesting to see Mato and BRS work together than Mato and a Persona of one type or another. At least for now.

[X] Raise your sword, fight with your own strength.
 
[X] Raise your sword, fight with your own strength.

People voting for the persona card should remember that it's still a reversed arcana at the moment.

Personally i'd prefer never using it and only calling on BRS but at the very least i'd like to help Mato with her issues for a while and hopefully change the reversed arcana to a normal one before summoning a Persona.
 
Vilegrave said:
People voting for the persona card should remember that it's still a reversed arcana at the moment.

Personally i'd prefer never using it and only calling on BRS but at the very least i'd like to help Mato with her issues for a while and hopefully change the reversed arcana to a normal one before summoning a Persona.
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Oh, that sounds kind of ominous; could you explain what the reversed/normal arcana difference means for those of us unfamiliar?
 
Guessmyname said:
Oh, that sounds kind of ominous; could you explain what the reversed/normal arcana difference means for those of us unfamiliar?
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A reversed Arcana simply represents and inversion of what that Arcana would normally represent. It's not always necessarily a bad thing.

In Mato's case, her Arcana is Judgement (Reversed) Upright, judgement indicates conviction and finality, certainty in a cause with an implication of setting events in motion as a result. Whether that conviction is moral or whether those events will be good is not stated.

Reversed, Judgement indicates uncertainty, perhaps even mistakes. Hesitation yes, but also restraint, an unwillingness to commit. Whether that is out of sensible caution or baseless fear.

Both sides have their positives and negatives.
 
Spectral Waltz said:
"Shooter…" The thought goes unanswered despite your best mental effort to send it out to her, the presence at the back of your mind is present but faint, clearly listening, but giving no hint of a reply. "Just what are you?"
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- Mato's other half.
- One of the guides of the dead, potentially. While Mato was in a coma, someone who called herself "Black Rock Shooter" was busy cleaning up the afterlife, though really it was both of them. That's a different story... if you want it to be.
- A mecha pilot... no, seriously. Different story again. I'm fairly sure that's what we're getting in the next BRS 'season'.
- One of Hatsune Miku's favorite roles. Getting into the weeds here.
- Mato herself. The parts of her she rejected.

In Persona terms, it's fairly clear that she's similar to a Shadow. Running on the same underlying principles? Almost certainly. However, Shadows are irrational and one-sided beings, while the BRS anime makes it clear that Rock exists because, as Mato rejected more and more parts of herself, Rock collected them to make up her own mind. We've seen how extreme that can get; between Yuu and Strength, it was Yuu who was the shadow.

In Mato's case, I think it's more of a fifty-fifty split. Mato isn't a complete person, and neither is Rock.. but they both have enough personality to operate on more than instinct. Rock, being the one with a better view of what is going on, rightfully would like her to stop doing that now please. She can't become a persona; that would be a form of death, and Rock has too much of a mind of her own to want to die. In some form of ending, they might still fuse back together, but it's got to be a mutual process rather than Mato reabsorbing her 'shadow' the way the other kids are doing.

There's no way they can defeat her in combat anyway.

But this isn't necessarily a zero-sum process. If Mato wants to recover her full self, and Rock echoes the same feelings, then there's no reason why they can't both succeed. It would be... interesting, to say the least, if we ended up with Rock as a party member... or even a classmate. Teddy demonstrates well enough what is possible.

That is my own story, however. :p

...

In a way, Black Rock Shooter demonstrates Nyarlathotep's more humane side -- he isn't simply pure destrudo. There's nothing human-standard about Mato. She's already far divergent from the template, and almost every solution where she doesn't tear herself apart has her changing further, perhaps even becoming something more akin to a minor goddess (in Persona terms) rather than a schoolgirl, and all of this may have been driven by a truly overgrown Shadow, but--

The point is the rebellion.

Spectral Waltz said:
While time seems to pass far more slowly in this world than in your own it's still been long enough that everyone is starting to worry about getting home, but after a moment's consideration, the vote to press on is unanimously in favor.
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As I recall, it's also enormously tiring. Perhaps you mean to say it's tiring because of the time dilation ruining your sleep, but... I think it was just tiring to exist there, as a thing in itself.

I wonder if Mato has that issue.

Spectral Waltz said:
[ ] Break the card, call your Persona to the fight.
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Persona users are a dime a dozen. If you think I won't delay this as long as possible...
[ ] Reach out with your thoughts, call Black Rock Shooter to the fight.
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As it stands, I don't think she'd come. We need to show her that we're no longer rejecting her, and as much as she's grown, she still isn't a separate person as such. The way to demonstrate that Mato is worthy of Black Rock Shooter's power...

No, 'worthy' isn't the right word. Mato simply needs to demonstrate that she no longer rejects it. Rock is an outspoken side of herself, not someone we can ask for help. ... Fighting for ourselves is the correct way to ask for help.

[X] Raise your sword, fight with your own strength.
- [X] And if this brings Rock closer, then it's time to welcome her.

It probably won't have any such dramatic effect, but making the effort -- trying to make that state of mind a habit -- is how we win her over. Mato has never explicitly rejected Rock... but it's not about words, now is it?
 
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[X] Raise your sword, fight with your own strength.

We're going for the no-persona challenge run, guys :V
 
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