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

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Baughn said:
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.
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I feel like this is inherently flawed.

I don't mean just you saying this Baughn, I mean the entire argument here has been twinging as off to me.

Perhaps the best way to put it is that "Mato Kuroi has Rejected violence." That's not quite right of course, but Mato has been severely scarred by her own penchant for violence, to the point of having shoved it into Rock.

There seems to be a lot of violence in her though, so its hard to say exactly how it was divided up between them, especially as Otherselves seem to just use it as their first language anyway. I suppose Rock may not be able to take the Violence Mato would want to be rid of because it is already a part of her nature.

Anyway... I'm not sure where to meander to next, because its more just a gut feeling that we're missing something or approaching this wrong.

A bit of... its okay to be afraid, its okay to be weak... and its okay if those stop you. Some people just can't face certain things... granted I don't think this is true in Mato's case here.

I do think she's hurting however. I do think Spectral pointed out that whether Reversed or Upright the cards can be both healthy and unhealthy in either interpretation.

And I think smashing Mato's head against her trauma is not a good way to resolve it. She's already confronted and acknowledged her fear and trauma, that's amazing improvement.

I feel like we're approaching that breaking point, the one where a character breaks and falls into despair only to be pulled back up by some enlightenment of themselves or with help from those around them... only Mato has exactly none of that right now.

Also its not Mato's responsibility alone to reach out and come to an understanding. If BRS wants Mato to come to an understanding (with both BRS and herself probably) then BRS should be reaching out to try and understand the problem. Mato's afraid of herself, afraid of violence in herself, if BRS wants Mato to be better then she should be there, be trying to understand, and be trying to help.

To another end, if Mato (and BRS) want Mato to come to peace with herself, then we'll need to summon and understand Mato's persona. Even if it was gifted to her by Izanami it is still her Mask and should tell us something I hope. Or maybe even break the 4th wall to talk with us like Rock was.
 
ShadowAngelBeta said:
I feel like this is inherently flawed.

I don't mean just you saying this Baughn, I mean the entire argument here has been twinging as off to me.
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I think you're probably right. The issue being, of course, that I make a hobby of breaking characters against their trauma... I may have forgotten to mention that that's what we'd be doing.

It's fun!
 
[x] Break the card, call your Persona to the fight.v

A. Forgot to vote.
B.
Baughn said:
I think you're probably right. The issue being, of course, that I make a hobby of breaking characters against their trauma... I may have forgotten to mention that that's what we'd be doing.

It's fun!
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*hefts Sledgehammer of compacted baps*

This is going to hurt you a lot more than it'll hurt me.
 
So while I have voted for us using our sword, I do feel that we should use our persona in the nearish future. Right now I feel like syncing ourselves with BLS is more important, but we should take the time to see what our persona does. if it focuses mainly on buffs and debuffs that would work for us even better seeing as it would let us keep doing what we're doing but better.
 
Please estimate Mato's initial level of violence in milliDoomGuys
 
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auzzie said:
So while I have voted for us using our sword, I do feel that we should use our persona in the nearish future. Right now I feel like syncing ourselves with BLS is more important, but we should take the time to see what our persona does. if it focuses mainly on buffs and debuffs that would work for us even better seeing as it would let us keep doing what we're doing but better.
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I... somewhat disagree? To me, the timing of if/when we use our persona matters a lot less than why we choose to use it. It feels like something we should only use once we've been pushed into a true, genuine corner, or something we should use as a result of a conscious and considered choice. There should be some meaning to the decision to unleash it, not just 'I want to see what it does'.
 
There are also practical concerns to consider. For instance, 'how hard will it be to fight effectively against a heavily armored and mounted foe in each case?'

And 'If Shooter and 'Mato's Persona' are two different things, how do they effect each other?'
 
Spectral Waltz said:
There are also practical concerns to consider. For instance, 'how hard will it be to fight effectively against a heavily armored and mounted foe in each case?'

And 'If Shooter and 'Mato's Persona' are two different things, how do they effect each other?'
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Mato's persona is just BRS standing on her shoulders and commanding her to run towards enemies so she can hit them with her sword.
 
A shadow is the part of yourself you suppress. A persona is the part of yourself you show the rest of the world.

They're opposites, inherently. Normally persona users don't have a shadow, since it goes away as an independent entity when you accept it... I don't think that would happen here, Rock is too much like a real person to simply disappear, but all the same I don't want to try it. Even if I don't see why using a persona that already exists should be a problem, as such, I also don't feel sure it won't.

Besides, I'm not even sure this is Mato's persona.

All I'm saying is, I have plenty of reasons to postpone that vote as much as possible.
 
Baughn said:
They're opposites, inherently. Normally persona users don't have a shadow, since it goes away as an independent entity when you accept it... I don't think that would happen here, Rock is too much like a real person to simply disappear, but all the same I don't want to try it. Even if I don't see why using a persona that already exists should be a problem, as such, I also don't feel sure it won't.
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And then we have a Scooby-Doo style unmasking where its revealed Mato was really Black Rock Shooter all along.

Baughn said:
Besides, I'm not even sure this is Mato's persona.
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That's all the more reason to try to me. Besides, no one's personas are strictly their own anyway. All personas are... I said it before I think, but Personas are the figurative Shadow On The Wall from I think it was Plato's thing about the cave.

Anyway, essentially all the humans are seeing is the shadows made on the walls, the demons and gods standing at the mouth of the cave are making shadows on the wall as well, where the shadow of the human and demon overlap sufficiently well is how a Persona is given a form.

More or less anyway.

Another way I've heard it put is that demons put their face up against the "fabric" of reality and the "molds" are how Personas are given their shape.

Anyway, I do get what you mean, but just because someone mucked with it somewhat doesn't mean it doesn't reflect Mato. It actually kind of can't not.

Furthermore we're still only going to get somewhere once we're in contact with her anyway. I think BRS called her a double-faced witch a bit ago? I know she called her a witch at least, the problem is that witch is a very flexible term, especially when one tries to apply it to Shinto mythology (with is the mythology P4 draws its cast from for... fairly obvious reasons if you know who the final boss is).

Also... so what? Its still the only Persona she has, Mato is not a Wild Card and we already shook her hand, this is our Persona and that's it.
 
You should definitely think outside the 'Japanese Mythology' box. Persona as a whole draws from all over mythology and I did not restrict myself to a single mythos while choosing the representative for Mato's Persona.

Personas can grow and change as the people wielding them do. Just because Mato's Persona is one way and is represented by one figure now doesn't mean she can't be represented by a different figure later on.

And finally, the power of a Persona comes from revealing the true self to the world. The power of a shadow comes from the pieces of the true self that are hidden away. In that way, a Persona and a Shadow are true opposites, though one can always debate what might happen if a person reveals one part of themselves while keeping other parts hidden. Such a Persona would be weaker for it, but one could argue that they might still exist.

Rather than that though, ask yourself this.

What if you have two people who are the same Self? Both of them revealing different parts of the whole that is their true Persona?
 
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Spectral Waltz said:
You should definitely think outside the 'Japanese Mythology' box. Persona as a whole draws from all over mythology and I did not restrict myself to a single mythos while choosing the representative for Mato's Persona.

Personas can grow and change as the people wielding them do. Just because Mato's Persona is one way and is represented by one figure now doesn't mean she can't be represented by a different figure later on.

And finally, the power of a Persona comes from revealing the true self to the world. The power of a shadow comes from the pieces of the true self that are hidden away. In that way, a Persona and a Shadow are true opposites, though one can always debate what might happen if a person reveals one part of themselves while keeping other parts hidden. Such a Persona would be weaker for it, but one could argue that they might still exist.

Rather than that though, ask yourself this.

What if you have two people who are the same Person? Both of them revealing a part of the whole that is their true self?
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So what you're saying is Mato's persona is the single tail Tamamo-No-Mae from FGO while Rock's is the kyuubi version monster. Got it.

:V

And while its true it does change its also shown to be a significant step on the path of self-enlightenment/awareness. This isn't a rock rolling down a hill, this is an avalanche reshaping the mountain. Except its character development.

Also while there is a "general" pool of Persona (Pixie, Angel, Incubus, Mara, etc.) anything beyond that is from whatever pantheon the final threat is from. Greeks to counter Erebus, Shinto to counter Izanami... although it got a bit more loose with 5 granted, but 5 flipped the table on a few things for sure.

Anyway, if Izanami did give us a Persona it would either be one of her own, IE a shinto-related one... that or something from her backer. Who's Nyarlathotep.

Which is all kinds of horrifying for very different reasons.

Or if somehow we have Mato's "natural" one and its not Shinto despite all the shinto shadows on the wall then we're probably in trouble. Like a Buddha waking up in Rome. That's a yikes.
 
[x] Break the card, call your Persona to the fight.

Who wants to be the uncool kid who's the only one here with no Persona? Let's use the Persona, specifically for that reason.
 
VagueZ said:
Who wants to be the uncool kid who's the only one here with no Persona? Let's use the Persona, specifically for that reason.
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*Raises hand*
I want to spook everyone with how Mato doesn't use her Persona at all and somehow still manages to keep up and be an effective fighter. Hopefully the most effective fighter in the team, but I know better than to expect that to happen without a lot of luck/self-destructive behavior.
 
Spectral Waltz said:
What if you have two people who are the same Self? Both of them revealing different parts of the whole that is their true Persona?
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Then I'd say you've been stealing my notes, and we shouldn't risk discussing it publicly. And also that it depends on how you view the substrate underlying no stop talking bad Baughn.

ShadowAngelBeta said:
*glances to making Mato fight without Persona or BRS support*

Well, we're well on our way to that.
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That's why I added the subvote, by the way. I do want Rock's support, just ideally by different means.

Here's hoping folks will reconsider?
 
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ShadowAngelBeta said:
*glances to making Mato fight without Persona or BRS support*

Well, we're well on our way to that.
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I actually think we need to show Mato is willing to fight with her own power in order to gain BRS's approval, and thus BRS's support.
This is slightly complicated by the fact BRS is Mato, but I think everyone involved would get what I mean.

I skipped most of the thread's discussion in favor of getting caught up ASAP, but from my reading of the update where BRS kicked Mato's ass, she approved of her not using her Persona, but disapproved of Mato saying "I don't want to do this".
So I think the best way to get BRS's full support is to fight without relying on our Persona, or relying on it only when absolutely necessary, while also accepting we really do want to fight.
 
jwolfe_beta said:
I'd be willing to change mine but are subvotes even going to be considered here? There's no write-in options or anything like that.
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I honestly don't know. I usually consider them clarifications of how I'm imagining the vote playing out, which most GMs at least consider, but—

@Spectral Waltz? Is it valid?

Well, depending on how he configured it… worst case the vote counter should just ignore the subvote.
 
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Baughn said:
I honestly don't know. I usually consider them clarifications of how I'm imagining the vote playing out, which most GMs at least consider, but—

@Spectral Waltz? Is it valid?

Well, depending on how he configured it… worst case the vote counter should just ignore the subvote.
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Vote tally still puts your vote in with the others, and adds the subvote in as a separate line.

I will allow subvotes in that vein, but if they end up going against how I interpret the characters, then I will simply ignore them as I see fit. The only time that I will fully count write-ins with a (mostly) guarantee that they will be followed in full are in cases where I explicitly include a '[ ] Write-in' option.

It is for that reason that I probably won't include very many explicit write-ins.

So, the teal deer is that subvotes are permitted, and if I happen to like them and think they're fitting, I'll include them. But unless I have specifically asked for Write-ins I reserve the right to completely ignore them if I want.

Okay?

Adhoc vote count started by Spectral Waltz on Nov 25, 2021 at 11:31 PM, finished with 55 posts and 28 votes.
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Highwind said:
I actually think we need to show Mato is willing to fight with her own power in order to gain BRS's approval, and thus BRS's support.
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This statement is very strange to me. A Persona is very explicitely a manifestation of personal power. It all comes from within after all.

Which is, naturally, why it's so dangerous to the user.
 
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