[X] Yourself: Guitar, Colette: Bass, Ryouko: Drums.
[X] Poirot Investigates
[X] Loathcrypt. Much more low-powered, well the player characters are anyway, RPG about retaining sanity in the face of the indescribable.
"Ahem, yeah. Kinda think we've gone off-topic a bit though," Megumi said, before standing up off the couch, "Point is, Nakamura Haruka, I'm challenging you to a contest. Find a date by your mid-terms, end of this year at the very latest, or you'll have to, er, well I'll think of something later".
Does it count if we're forced into the date, or do we have to consent? Depending on the answer we might have more trouble dodging a date than getting one.
Also, congratulations Gakuto on making the bottom tier.
Does it count if we're forced into the date, or do we have to consent? Depending on the answer we might have more trouble dodging a date than getting one.
Speaking of Himawari, she also dropped that her Persona is Anastasia. Originally it was gonna be (Marie) Antoinette, but I ultimately decided to go with Anastasia since she has a bit more connection to a civil war, in that one soon almost immediately after her death.
Anastasia even fits the 'seemingly innocent, really bratty' attitude, since she was described by her caretakers as 'the most horrible of the Romanov children'. Marie Antoinette was an actual musician though, but Anastasia has had a few musicals about her, both on film and Broadway, and was into acting.
[x] Colette: Guitar, Yourself: Bass, Ryouko: Drums.
[x] Tears from the Veil. You play as high-schoolers, wow, big change there, but you go around solving mysteries about weird machines in the countryside.
[X] Ryouko: Guitar, Yourself: Bass, Colette: Drums.
[X] Poirot Investigates
[X] Tears from the Veil. You play as high-schoolers, wow, big change there, but you go around solving mysteries about weird machines in the countryside.
Most interesting choices to me. Also, apologies for the mixup with the last vote, although I'm glad that it didn't severely mess up the tallies.
[X] Poirot Investigates
[X] Ryouko: Guitar, Yourself: Bass, Colette: Drums.
[X] Dragon Record. Basic Fantasy setting, Elves, Dwarves, Warriors, Thieves, Mages. Makes sense for your first time.
There's nothing wrong with the classics!
"Oh my no, I'm more than loaded, so no yen required" Gakuto smiled, before suddenly leading you behind a tree.
"In exchange for every little speck of dirt I have on our Ace of Swords, I have a more... specific request," his smiled stretched out to a wide, thin grin as he pushed up his glasses "Send nudes".
You would've immediately taken a step back, had you not been back up against a tree "-The Hell?!".
"Preferably of Himawari, although Melissa I wouldn't mind if possible, but I could settle for disrobed pictures of you. Not Kikuko though, I'm no daredevil, I don't wanna risk getting my testicles sliced off," he said, before noticing your pulsing glare, "Okay, I can see you're not convinced. Look, I'll sweeten the deal, send me regular pictures and I'll just edit them to make deepfake porn, how's that sound? ...What about upskirt shots then?".
Not holding back, you swiftly kicked him right in the groin. "Drop fucking dead, Gakuto!" you roared.
[X] Poirot Investigates
[X] Ryouko: Guitar, Yourself: Bass, Colette: Drums.
[X] Dragon Record. Basic Fantasy setting, Elves, Dwarves, Warriors, Thieves, Mages. Makes sense for your first time.
I was planning on adding more instrument choices, like the songs I've posted have keyboards and strings in them too, but I didn't want the voting options to end up like a mile long. Of course, there's always write-ins.
I'm also surprised no-one called Colette out for being an author avatar. I mean, she looks like my current avatar, I use the author Colette as an avatar on Discord, she's into writing and music (I'm not so much into sewing, but my Mum is), she lived in Melbourne for a while, her Arcana is The Moon (La Lune), and she carries around a rabbit (Lapin) plush, and I think you see the connection.
I actually had a whole bunch of Arcana in mind for Hotaru, though Sun wasn't actually one of them. The others I was considering were Star, Hanged Man, and briefly Justice. I feel all four Arcana loosely fit the Sheriff theme, though yeah Fortune fits a Game Master best.
Himawari went through a lot of possible Arcana too, she was originally Priestess but I also considered Fortune, Sun, and (you may remember) Star. Colette could've been either Death or Fortune too, and I could go on.
Er, but Colette hates the All-Aces (well, except Himawari, but that was only after finding out about Nightshade).
On another topic, it only just occurred to me that Haruka should be able to duplicate Gakuto's Persona, since he has used it in battle alongside her. Granted, in a Navigator role though (his Persona's mixed like Mitsuru).
On another topic, it only just occurred to me that Haruka should be able to duplicate Gakuto's Persona, since he has used it in battle alongside her. Granted, in a Navigator role though (his Persona's mixed like Mitsuru).
If you want to save it until we actually see it on the Gameboard, that's fine. That being said, I'm (im)patiently waiting to see all of the All-Aces' Personas and Regalias, so whenever you want to show them off is good with me!
Also, a thought; I have no idea if we're going to have the option to get some training done on the Gameboard in anticipation for our duel with Eitaro, but if we do, we're going to need to be extra careful. Gakuto's got a grudge against us now, and he's bound to report anything he sees to Eitaro so that he can get back at us. Just something to keep in mind.
About training on the Gameboard before the Eitaro fight, sneaking into the school in the evening or on Sunday is an option, especially since he cognitively won't likely be expecting you then.
Also, to go completely unrealistic here for a moment, here's some Seiyuu (Japanese voice actors) I had in mind for Haruka and the Aces, though I don't know if some of them also do voicework, at least anymore, or if they may be too old now to play high-schoolers. This might help give you an idea of what I thought everyone sounds like, though a few of these were a little off the top of my head:
Nakamura Haruka - Chiwa Satou
Sakurai Azuma - Mamoru Miyano (who I had no idea until now was also Ryuji)
Maeda Kikuko - Er, Maaya Sakamoto maybe?
Tsutsuji Eitaro - Yutaka Kobayashi
Melissa Lilian - Someone like Mamiko Noto or Marina Inoue
Momoi Gakuto - Tetsuya Iwanaga, or even Gackt if he thought it'd be funny to play someone with the same name as him
Aoyagi Himawari - Stumped for a little here, need someone who can go from sweet princess to bad girl in a second. Er, Nana Mizuki or Kana Hanazawa?
I'll post dream English VAs later, but please feel free to give your own thoughts.
Haruka - Both of these are 'if you can get them'. My main thoughts were either Barrett Wilbert Weed, who's usually an Off-Broadway actress, or Aubrey Plaza (who's done a bit of voice acting).
Azuma - Another 'if you can get him', Jamie Muscato (from the West End production of Heathers). I also thought Crispin Freeman or someone more anime-related, or Gideon Emery or Elijah Alexander (VAs for Balthier and Vayne in Final Fantasy 12).
Kikuko - Laura Bailey was the first that came to mind.
Gakuto - Actually thought Robbie Daymond, Akechi's VA, who from what I know wouldn't mind doing another Persona, though I also thought Arin Hanson.
Melissa - I thought Cristina Vee specifically since she did a cover of 'Candy Store'. Oh, Tabitha St. Germain, that'd be fun.
Eitaro - Well, plenty of growly tough guy voices in anime. Kaiji Tang or Travis Willingham maybe?
Himawari - Er, either Laura Post or Megan Harvey, Kasumi and Sophia's VAs respectively. Ashleigh Ball also comes to mind.
Ryouko - Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, think she can do more comedic stuff even if it's not really what she's known for.
Hotaru - Matthew Mercer
Megumi may be the hardest to cast, as I'm not aware of any enby VAs.
Also, about 'if you can get them', I mean P5 Strikers got the voice for Siri on.
[X] Tears from the Veil. You play as high-schoolers, wow, big change there, but you go around solving mysteries about weird machines in the countryside.
(QM's Note: If you're wondering what the point of your generated character doing character generation is, it's because Stat Gains from the Fortune Link work a little different. Whereas Social Stat Gains in other S. Links are set, here which Stats are raised depends on what sort of character you make Haruka play as.)
[X] Poirot Investigates
[X] Ryouko: Guitar, Yourself: Bass, Colette: Drums.
[X] Tears from the Veil. You play as high-schoolers, wow, big change there, but you go around solving mysteries about weird machines in the countryside.
"Alright, I've settled on Tears from the Veil," Hotaru announced over the table, "It's Haruka's first time coming here, so how about we do her a favour, hmm?"
"Tears from the Veil? Oh, that's the Goonies-like game with the weird art, right?" Damian asked, before he said to Torashi, "Oh, The Goonies was-"
"80s Spielberg movie, yeah, I've seen it," Torashi cut in.
"Okay, but first we should set the music," Hotaru spoke up, starting to scroll through this phone to find a fitting playlist. Took him a while, but he eventually settled on something.
"Well, that should be atmospheric enough," he said, as he then handed you the Players' Manual, "Alright, I'll set the scene. It's near the end of the Showa Era, just before the economy plummeted, and you're a growing teen who's getting bored of their small hometown of, er," he quickly brought up a map of Japan on his phone and went, "Inaba, small town of Inaba, north of Mt. Fuji".
Teen bored of their country town, wow, escapism, you thought dully.
"Oh, the Showa Era was-" Torashi began.
"20s to the 80s, yeah, got it," Damian cut in.
"Anyway, you're growing up in a time where a bunch of new computer technology is being rolled out. You see, new computer programs have been made accessible that allow kids to conjure up Monsters through code, and with your parents all working for Omoikane Computer Labs, you're one of the first in your town to get access to these," Hotaru went on, "Just one problem though, you've been hearing of rogue monsters stalking the streets at night. Okay, got that?" he finished, as he started passing around character sheets.
You stared at yours, twirling your pencil around as you did so. For what you heard would be a fairly close-to-home, coming up with a character on the fly proved surprisingly strenuous, you could see why Hotaru said it could take all session. Ultimately you settled on:
"Right, that seems pretty reasonable," Hotaru muttered as he looked over your character sheet, "Now, Damian, hmmm, yeah I kinda expected you to play as a foreign student, but that's okay, guess it's what you know and... Torashi, what is this?"
"Well, I thought my character concept might bring a bit of variation to the game, thinking outside the box a little," Torashi tried to explain.
"Torashi, you've written in your bio that your character is the reincarnation of an ancient feudal warlord, beat up multiple yakuza gangs before high school, and is a top undercover agent of the Secret Demon Strike Force," Hotaru told him point blank.
"Hey, this is already a supernatural setting clearly, so I don't see how my character bio could honestly be so unworkable by the game's logic," Torashi huffed, crossing his arms.
"Listen, the core concept of Tears from the Veil is mundane students suddenly coming into contact with mysteries far beyond them," Hotaru tried to keep cool, "Whereas if your character is clearly more than mundane from the very get-go, the initial impact of the supernatural world upon is nowhere near as-"
Damian and you just sighed and looked at together as Hotaru and Torashi's argument continued on, "Hope this isn't what his student council meetings are like," you whispered to him.
Your Game Master, at the point of collapse, eventually exclaimed, "Okay, fine! Just... maybe leave the whole secret agent stuff till later in the campaign, how 'bout that?! Okay, are we good to go?"
"Er, according to your door, it's about time you started closing up shop," you pointed out.
"What? Oh, er, right, yeah that," Hotaru put his hand to his head, "Right, so next session we should be ready to officially start the game.
By the way, Haruka," he then said, "Feel free to invite other people along, if you'd like. I know you hang out with the All-Aces, so I thought it'd be really cool if you somehow got Gakuto to join us here".
Er, no. No. Nonononono! you instantly thought, but just said, "Think Gakuto's been pretty busy recently, I mean he's got like gaming and computer stuff to do on top of schoolwork. But sure, I could always invite someone else I know here," I mean, I've been suddenly drowning in contacts anyway.
"Great, so we'll see you soon then," Hotaru smiled, as you began to leave.
"Oh yeah, bye," Torashi feebly waved, as he then said to Damian, "Still surprised Hotaru was able to bring a girl in here".
"Would you quit it?" Damian sighed, "I've been in heaps of gaming groups with girls in them. Even some I didn't know were girls till after they came out through the gaming group".
As you and Hotaru exited the store, you had to turn to him and ask, "Er, Hotaru. Did Rin ever come here?"
At first Hotaru didn't know how to respond, but after some stifled mumblings he at last said, "Yeah, a couple of times, back in the day. I mean, she was always occupied by a whole bunch of stuff, probably even more so than I am right now. She did seem to be taking a bit of interest, RPGs getting her talking about group cohesion and everything, but then, well, you know," his words came to a stop.
You didn't say anything, only nodding. And in the silence:
"I am thou... Thou art I
Thou anointest a new Knight to defend thy Crown
Thou shalt take the mantle of the Fortune Arcana"
"I should be heading home, but yeah, I had a nice time," was all you eventually said.
"Oh, ah, thank you," Hotaru said in return, giving you a thumbs up "Oh, and consider your job application here a success!"
"Hey, Haruka," Megumi said to you the instant you got home, "Got some questions to ask".
"Wow, that's a blunt greeting," you muttered, "Not a 'Hello Haruka, how was your day?'"
"Listen, I've been reading your social media," they started, which made you instantly flinch, "And I'm, er, surprised you never said anything about this. Like, you mean the folks who live in the train carriage aren't your real parents, and you're some sort of aristocrat? And wait, when have you ever been interested in singing, dancing, and animals? Come on, I've got way better dance moves than you, and you call that monotone drone of yours 'singing'?"
"Yeah but well, who doesn't love animals?" you offered, before breathing out and coming clean, "Okay, I had to lie about my past to impress the cool kids, they said my actual life story was too dull. Like, that bio you just read was written by Azuma, not me".
"Who's this Azuma?" Megumi cocked an eyebrow.
"Sakurai Azuma, the most popular guy in school," you smugly smiled, that expression soon fading, "Well, at least my parents will probably never read his little made-up story, and yeah, Nakamura Kanae and Yozou definitely are my real Mum and Dad, unless they've got some major dirt they've been hiding from me".
"Is this all to get a guy?" Megumi spoke up, before sitting down again, "look, I'm sorry about pressuring you to find a date-"
"Oh, it's okay, all this went down long before our little dare," you explained, "On my first day back at school, actually".
"Wasn't this the day you also fell into a coma?" they questioned you.
"Hey, that happened by accident," you started, but were made to admit, "...Okay, the Aces could've warned me about messing around with it first. Oh, the All-Aces is a special school club, a clique made out of the kings and queens of all the other cliques".
"Haruka, I haven't met any of these All-Aces, but it sounds like they're the exact sort of hoity-toity nobs who won't amount to anything the moment they leave school," they sneered, but then sighed, "I should know, I spent way too much of my high school years trying to impress the exact same sorts, lying to them and myself about who I really was, and they still never gave a shit about me".
The two of you sat in silence for a while, before Megumi started laughing "Shit, from the way I've been talking to you, it sounds like I'm turning into my Mum and Dad".
You smiled at them, "Hey, thanks for caring about me either way. And I could never imagine turning into my parents, I'd have to go all bohemian to be my Mum, but I get what you're saying".
Well, the night was still young:
[ ] Go to the arcade and blow off some steam.
[ ] Go on a bushwalk, you could use the exercise.
[ ] Go instrument-shopping, see if Ryouko and Colette can come.
[ ] Go see a Saturday Night movie, they're showing the supernatural high school film Sonny Shadow, and invite:
- [ ] Megumi.
- [ ] Keiko.
- [ ] Yuya.
- [ ] Colette.
- [ ] Reina.
- [ ] Mum & Dad.
- [ ] Himawari.
- [ ] Just go by yourself.
- [ ] Write-in.
[ ] Sneak into school, if there's anywhere you should be training, it's on that Gameboard.
- [ ] Get Himawari to come along, for the 'bad girl' she is, she's still the nicest of the All-Aces.
- [ ] Get Melissa to come along, she does want to see you live till that Azuma date she arranged, right?
- [ ] Get Kikuko to come along, it doesn't sound like she'd miss the chance to get in some training.
- [ ] Get Azuma to come along, guy has a weird fixation on you anyway, might as well take advantage of it.
- [ ] Go it alone, the Aces are, well, the Aces.
[ ] Just do some studying.
[ ] Hang out in the apartment with Megumi.
[ ] Phone your parents again.
[ ] You know what? Head straight to bed.
[ ] Write-in.
[X] Sneak into school, if there's anywhere you should be training, it's on that Gameboard.
- [X] Get Himawari to come along, for the 'bad girl' she is, she's still the nicest of the All-Aces.
[X] Go see a Saturday Night movie, they're showing the supernatural high school film Sonny Shadow, and invite:
- [X] Keiko.
- [X] Yuya.
[X] Chariot Cyclops + Chariot Qin Shi Huang = Chariot Cuchulainn (Physical and Wind)
I'll be honest, for statception, I have a very hard time not just going "You say Inaba; I say best boy!" and make a Kanji expy. 'Course I'm going for the deliquent archetype anyway.
As for what to do, sneaking into the gamebord is a fairly obvious priority and taking Nightshade is definetly a purely sisterly bonding exercise with no Anastasia related motives.
Still, catching up with our old friends wouldn't exactly be a bad alternative.
I'm also surprised no-one called Colette out for being an author avatar. I mean, she looks like my current avatar, I use the author Colette as an avatar on Discord, she's into writing and music (I'm not so much into sewing, but my Mum is), she lived in Melbourne for a while, her Arcana is The Moon (La Lune), and she carries around a rabbit (Lapin) plush, and
I'll be honest, it didn't clicks for me until the "I'm the doll" bit. At that point I was kind of tempted by a Marsh Hare write-in for that costume vote (kind of like a rabbit, wonderland gamebord connection, kinda going crazy from everything going on and of course the tea), but it didn't strike me as occultish enough.
, "Feel free to invite other people along, if you'd like. I know you hang out with the All-Aces, so I thought it'd be really cool if you somehow got Gakuto to join us here".
Listen here, Hot-Shot, the fact you aren't just asking us to bring more girls means you're too good for his company. Don't get your hopes up about him.
...Now I'm morbidly curious what would happen if we unleash Himawari on the group though.
[X] Sneak into school, if there's anywhere you should be training, it's on that Gameboard.
- [X] Get Himawari to come along, for the 'bad girl' she is, she's still the nicest of the All-Aces.
I have no objections to these choice, though we could also go with @PA2 's idea of freeing up one of our Persona slots to summon Theodora, since doing those are free actions
EDIT:
[X] Chariot Cyclops + Chariot Qin Shi Huang = Chariot Cuchulainn (Physical and Wind), swap Forneus to Theodora
I'll be honest, for statception, I have a very hard time not just going "You say Inaba; I say best boy!" and make a Kanji expy. 'Course I'm going for the deliquent archetype anyway.
As for what to do, sneaking into the gamebord is a fairly obvious priority and taking Nightshade is definetly a purely sisterly bonding exercise with no Anastasia related motives.
Still, catching up with our old friends wouldn't exactly be a bad alternative.
Both seeing a movie and sneaking onto the Gameboard would be possible in the same night, since the film's on in the evening while you could do it P3-style and sneak onto the Gameboard around Midnight. Means you're gonna be really fatigued come Sunday though.
I went with Inaba as it's probably the one canon Persona setting, even the one canon SMT setting, that most resembles the settings for Tales from the Loop/Things from the Flood, even if comparing Inaba to Lake Malaren in Sweden is still a stretch. Inaba's apparently based on the real-life Fuefuki city, which is indeed north of Mount Fuji (fun fact, if you fused the Pokémon and Persona worlds, Inaba would end up right next to Blackthorn).
