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Let's Make A Persona Game

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Well 'Gathering Storm' was meant to fit the rhythm of 'Innocent Sin', as was 'Undying Grudge'.
Also, it was just 'The Golden', not 'Golden Week'.
 
An idea I've been having that I don't know whether or not could be incorporated into this, is the idea of a 'Persona Community', of there now being enough Persona-users for them to qualify as their own subculture. We could have things like hidden sites and venues exclusively for Persona-users (taking a little from Thy-Robocop doing the same thing with Magical Girls), or even whole Persona-user neighborhoods and demographics.
One thing though is that I wouldn't portray them like the X-Men, as an oppressed minority or anything, since most Persona-users don't tend to be minorities themselves beyond being female or working-class (Jun and Tatsuya are gay and bi, Lisa and Ann are white or part-white in Japan, and Futaba has an unspecified mental illness, but that's about it), and that 'minorities with powers' can be an issue as a trope has a whole bunch of discussions of the X-Men have shown.

As for how to work this into the existing premise, you could maybe say that Rin and Yoshiki were victims of an extreme form of gatekeeping like can happen in subcultures, or compare Yoshiki's revenge scheme to subcultural infighting.
 
As I see it, it's…
I think it's an idea that, while functional strikes me as an outright AU element, given that from what I can tell, the various Persona games don't actually acknowledge each other that much? (He says, having NEVER PLAYED A PERSONA GAME HIMSELF!!!)
Like, it's great for characters who want to work in the Law and all, but it makes me picture like…
Imagine the All-Aces and their Empires, but with a lot more serious vows of fealty with the whole Jack and Ace thing, or more in the way of like…
Self-perception games like…The example that comes to mind is like, 40K Aspect warriors, and this idea that you think of yourself and your narrative specifically in certain terms in order to amplify or downplay elements of yourself for use with your Ace.
Like, if you have an Ace that's weak to Fire, you might instead of focusing on events where you were hot-heated or passionate, in favor of times you might have been more flighty, or reframe your life so you fit into a certain Tarot classification, if your Ace has problems with Hierophants or something.
Maybe even with training to become 'aware' of your shadow and 'brace' for it being defeated, with the repercussions that go along with it.
It VERY MUCH raises the question of God-Kings though, unless there's some way for a person to 'awaken' to being a Persona user instead of just 'some people are lucky and get to be Persona-users' to say nothing of the whole 'Wild Card' thing creating yet another tier.
 
I'm pretty sure that ranging from Igor talking about Jung and "the Führer" all the way to some of the lessons in P5 talking about Akechi in terms of the masks/performances of celebreties (I don't quite remember the wording of the lesson itself, but something to that effect), the games have traditionally associated skilled Persona users with being influental in some way. So yeah, definetly not an X-Men set up, if anything it'd strike me as more of the opposite.
 
There was a Quest (part of which is archived on SV) called Persona 2129 which did have the masquerade lifted on Shadows and Personae and, on Zaealix's comment about Hierophants, also had something called 'Arcanism' or stereotypes about people's Arcana, whose closest parallel I think would be blood type superstitions (although Arcana do actually reflect your personality unlike blood type, just in a broader, more flexible way).

Obviously Persona: Tempest (probably the title I'm settling on) wouldn't go so far as to have the Masquerade lifted, just having Persona-Users as a distinct subculture. Having the Masquerade lifted though would be an interesting new direction for the series to take to shake up the formula, you could P5 sorta suggests that'll happen, although that brings up the problem of how the series could reinstate the masquerade in the next game, other than pulling a reboot.
 
Persona 5 specifically is pretty weird in terms of how it should blow open the masquerade, or at least start to unravel it, but then it just doesn't. Even at the end of Strikers
Ichinose's confession is brushed aside by the police as nonsense and Owada needs to be nailed for mundane crimes like bribery and tax evasion.

Anyway, that aside, none of that means you can't have a Persona scene develop for a fan work. Although, I'm somewhat curious how you're planning to relate the revenge targets to the sub-culture. Does their organisation have good publicity, or are there maybe some people that also dislike them but think that Yoshiki's measures are too extreme?
 
A persona subculture would be pretty interesting, and it would provide some interesting mechanics as well.
One thing that could happen is once a party member reached a certain level (mid-late game), they could unlock an optional quest by you talking to the "elder"/"leader" of their Arcana of the subculture that would provide them with special techniques unique to them that not even the Wildcards could copy. Possibly even being a sort of limit break/one use per delve into the shadow world equivalent sort of Skill. All being meant to represent the culmination of decades of experience being passed down.

Another thing we should be considering is musical motifs. How music would interact with scenes could also shape the experience.

I have this image of one of the "crossing the line" targets being one you run into several times, with When you're evil playing in the scenes he in. The target starts off by being one who is completely unrepentant of his crimes to the party, either because he thinks they don't matter or a "greater good" justification. However, when he's beaten, he kneels and begs for mercy, only to be executed... To which the song reappears full force.
 
fascinating idea having revenge justice juxtaposition, the only thing I could suggest for it to be different from other persona games is that mayhaps as Persona series shows that are individuals aware of it mayhaps the protagonists being inspired by the phantom theives purposefully seek out such power and possibly unlike the natural gravitation of most persona protagonists and their group they actively recruit others rather than have them accidentally join, make it so instead of the protagonist accidentally finding their allies that they purposefully seek them out, another is having perhaps both protagonists be wild cards or mayhaps originally being normal persona users but after being betrayed they are experimented on and possibly through nyarlothoteps intervention become wild cards

Precarity version
Mayhaps the protagonist and party have to save a person from a doppelganger of sorts or idealized self much like in
The persona story 'in the eye of the beholder', if they don't they could die from a form of 'karoshi' ie death by overwork and in this case death by overclocking the physical body beyond its limits funfact I accidentally discovered the concept on complete accident

Horror theme idea
Mayhaps the protagonist can be a shadow like teddy specifically the shadow Doppelganger as a sort of inverted version of a wild card instead of multiple persona he instead can assume one by linking with someone and awakening their inner potential, admittedly I've been toying with this concept for bit in my own persona fic idea
Here's sanitized version of the idea not going to spoil anything from my project, doppelgangers primary gimmick is basically becoming a persons shadow to stabilize their existence and identity without 'devolving' into a lesser shadow like akira can recruit but can not stay with any weilder for too long or risk losing their identity by basically becoming them a recurring phrase with dopoelganger being 'Thou art I, I become Thou'

Doppelganger
Appearance like a vaguely human entity, long and wild hair enshrouding its androgynous form, yellow eyes, its expression though corpse like is gently smiling, body is rigid and skeletal, they wear black clothes that are black and tattered, wears an overly large hat that puts the face in shadow leaving the eyes as the only describable features
Intro phrase: "thou art I, I become thou, from the outer reaches of your knowledge I come, a faithful companion till your hour of death or you need me no more, Doppelganger at your service."
Social link arcana the Beggar arcana whose personas are urban legends like slenderman, bloody mary, Ghost train, kuchisake onna etc, fairytale characters like the frog prince, blue fairy, puss in boots, monstro, etc, fictional characters and creatures from popular stories such as say the jabberwocky, cheshire cat, mindflayer, mimics, various characters embodying job/classes from videogames, western dragons etc
Death arcana
No set skills or abilities nor affinities except, water, ice, debuffs, an accuracy buff, and instant death chance, weak to fire, can temporarily become other personas or assume the position of one till a person awakens their persona, over the story absorbs shards of power/potential from both the protagonist, party and enemies, can create, weild or temporarily become 'variant' personas of the party like say the picaro personas from P5 prefers fire resistant or fire proof personas though, hates the fact that due to how many female wielders they've been attached to it's made them girly…. And worried that they will fade away to be become a mindless doppelganger Rather than be Doppelganger, to devolve into a 2 dimensional sub sentient thing and the reason why they do what they do, to remain unique and differentiated rather than become some husk of what they were by taking power from villains and use it to solidify their own identity, tries to remain aloof from his hosts but starts failing after spending to much time with them,
Possible persona
Atropos
Unique ability Severance: to separate, a shadow from its person, an area from its surroundings, compartmentalize cognitve areas and memories, etc
Note persona requires special circumstances to come into being, outside intervention from greater cognitive being?

Ps link to persona fic I mentioned

Edit revenge persona idea, The Green knight from arthurian legend could make for an interesting persona due its story
en.m.wikipedia.org

Green Knight - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
 
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