Suddenly Im reminded of this for some reason, and I can not help but think a clue to this lies in our current circumstances :hmm
Shards of a Broken Sun [Deprecated; see link in final post for remake]
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
- Crossover Sci-Fi
So Su is a sentient tumor
Ran can use a rapier to cut things at FTL speeds
Dia is some kind of weird slime dude that can invade people's bodies and also shoot precious stones from it's bleeding wrists?
And Amu will clone herself from your brain matter before planting tentacle cancer to finish you off?
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The Long Count
Wow, really? I got... let's say one and a half right. (Amu XIX Sun + 0 Fool, Miki XVIII Moon + I Magician, Su III Empress + XVII Star, Ran XI Strength + VII Chariot, Dia II Priestess + XXI World.)
Su as Empress is straightforward. Ran as Chariot, in preference to Strength... I suppose I'd pictured her as being a little more level-headed, but it's not really surprising. I understand why you chose Lovers for Amu, and you will probably understand what I mean when I say I reject it for Sun. (There are multiple interpretations, and I am pretty sure I mean all of them. (EDIT: Except the should-have-been-obvious "total disagreement" one.))
Dia was a shot in the dark, so I'm not at all surprised I missed; but I think it's interesting, and possibly worrisome, that you went for Hierophant in place of Priestess. Specifically, I choose to assume that the most relevant holder of that Arcana is Metis.
Miki as Fortune I'm just confused about.
And Fumi I would probably have labeled Hanged Man... but her first Fate demon is Odin, so shame on me.
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The Long Count
If WTF ratings were available in this forum, you would have just received my first.
(Despite, technically, being completely correct about Su.)
...
Are the Chara's formed from the Collective Unconscious? Formed in a manner similar to Personas, only they draw upon the information present in the Collective Unconscious to form their skills, much like Demons and other such things do, and everything else, from their forms to their powers, are built up from Kagatsuchi?
I feel like I'm on the edge of grasping just what Charas are in this setting.
If Demons are formed by the wishes/rumors/impressions of humanity, and the Collective Unconscious is a realm which can be altered to such a degree simply via wishing for something hard enough, then does that mean that Charas are a kind of shade similar in nature? That simply by wishing for that future possibility hard enough, a Chara can be born?
If so, that means that Charas are essentially one of the most broken expressions of Kagatsuchi falling apart in this setting.
They're not so much...a Persona or Shadow, an aspect of the self, but they're a wish for becoming something that the individual themselves can not become ordinarily given form. Essentially, Miki is an Amu which is not Amu, because Amu could not imagine herself becoming Miki.
Miki was born to bridge that gap between herself and the Amu at the time of her birth. Same thing with Su, Dia, and every other Chara.
They're fucking cheatsheets. Given shape and form from the Collective Unconsciousness in order for the one who made that wish to learn from in order to eventually fulfill that potential. A Chara that was a clone of Amu for an Amu that forgot how to be herself, Miki in order to become a smarter, more artistic woman in the future, Su to be Domestic, Dia to be an Idol, all of these are wishes of Amu on who to be, but didn't know how to bridge that gap.
They're the opposite of Personas in that manner. Charas are the possibilities that are not yet chosen, and Personas are the Other Self that already is.
I'm so close to getting the full picture, I can feel it, but there's something missing. Some part of the puzzle I can't quite express yet to tie it all together into a nice little bow tie solution.
Dammit, this is so fucking frustrating.
Are the Chara's formed from the Collective Unconscious? Formed in a manner similar to Personas, only they draw upon the information present in the Collective Unconscious to form their skills, much like Demons and other such things do, and everything else, from their forms to their powers, are built up from Kagatsuchi?
I feel like I'm on the edge of grasping just what Charas are in this setting.
If Demons are formed by the wishes/rumors/impressions of humanity, and the Collective Unconscious is a realm which can be altered to such a degree simply via wishing for something hard enough, then does that mean that Charas are a kind of shade similar in nature? That simply by wishing for that future possibility hard enough, a Chara can be born?
If so, that means that Charas are essentially one of the most broken expressions of Kagatsuchi falling apart in this setting.
They're not so much...a Persona or Shadow, an aspect of the self, but they're a wish for becoming something that the individual themselves can not become ordinarily given form. Essentially, Miki is an Amu which is not Amu, because Amu could not imagine herself becoming Miki.
Miki was born to bridge that gap between herself and the Amu at the time of her birth. Same thing with Su, Dia, and every other Chara.
They're fucking cheatsheets. Given shape and form from the Collective Unconsciousness in order for the one who made that wish to learn from in order to eventually fulfill that potential. A Chara that was a clone of Amu for an Amu that forgot how to be herself, Miki in order to become a smarter, more artistic woman in the future, Su to be Domestic, Dia to be an Idol, all of these are wishes of Amu on who to be, but didn't know how to bridge that gap.
They're the opposite of Personas in that manner. Charas are the possibilities that are not yet chosen, and Personas are the Other Self that already is.
I'm so close to getting the full picture, I can feel it, but there's something missing. Some part of the puzzle I can't quite express yet to tie it all together into a nice little bow tie solution.
Dammit, this is so fucking frustrating.
JJBA my friend
I forgot what Fortune did, or else I'd have included Miki in there as well
They were briefly as an experiment, I think they got removed shortly after due to abuse.
If they're the opposite, that would imply they probably aren't related to Nyarl? Unless Nyarl is more complex then I realize?
I guess as you suggest, they seem more like elements of say hope, rather then say despair. Things one wants, rather then things one doesn't want. The opposing force to balance the other out?
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The Long Count
I'm pretty sure charas have been confirmed to be in complete defiance of Kagutsuchi; they exist only because, as the time of recreation draws near, Kagutsuchi becomes increasingly tired and can't (or won't) fully enforce its laws to prevent them from arising.
I would have said—because, as you may have noticed, I like to think I'm clever—that a Shadow is who you don't want to be, and a chara is who you do.
I would conjecture that, in running away from your Shadow, you create a negative space in your mind/soul which the ambient magatsuhi fills and is shaped by. Accepting your Shadow and ceasing to run connects you to that mass of magatsuhi, which becomes your Persona. Conversely, a Chara is created by shaping yourself outwards, in a (successful?) attempt to become more than what you currently are. The Guardian Character's skills are shaped into existence along with it. (Presumably, all magatsuhi-shaping draws on the CU, using it as a source of Platonic ideals.)
On reflection, this is probably wrong—not least because it doesn't fit well with Character Change/Character Transform, and what is the Humpty Lock, anyway? But Exa-kun has been examining the Charas and will be able to tell us more accurately what they really are; while there will probably still be important facets of their nature undiscernable to us, that should at least be enough information to figure out where we need to look next.
TL;DR: right now I'm okay with waiting for more data.
No, that dichtomy(?) only applies between Personas and Shadows
Note the distinction Nyarly makes here between the aspects of himself that are Shadows/manifestations of human desires and Charas.
Chara's aren't something as abstract as hope
They're specific wishes, cheat sheets to help their user more easily understand how to become those possibilities. That's why they possess abilities that Amu doesn't, knowledge she doesn't, and why they fuse with her in order to grant those abilities.
It's like...you're trying on clothes while shopping to see how they fit, you won't know how you look until you try them on, but even then, regardless of whether you wind up buying them or not, they already exist and are out there. These clothes can fit you, but you just don't know if you'll be satisfied or not with them until you test it out.
They're the result of wishes, but they're not a "hope" or anything, they're simply the reflection of what that wish could look like.
I guess you could say that if the Chara are the clothes in that terrible analogy of mine, then Character Transformations are what the Chara user looks like in the mirror trying them on. Not the end result, but a reflection of what that wish would look like.
Yeah, but that's true of everything like that
But that's...horribly off. A Shadow is you, it's simply a part of you that you bury. It's not a matter of want or don't want, but whether or not that's part of your mask. What makes them insidious isn't just that you deny that aspect that makes up the shadow, it's that you actively don't recognize it until it's thrown in your face. It's the revelation of that ugly truth that the person didn't recognize, or refused to look at that leads to those "YOURE NOT ME" declarations, they're a catalyst to make things worse, not the cause itself.
I don't think it's anywhere near as directed as that. The CU is all about the passive stuff being given shape and power, at least in the case of the Chara. I can picture the Chara being the result of a strong wish to be something more than you currently are, but I think it's specific in that it's something that the Chara user can't really imagine themselves being. If that were the case, then there'd be no individuality between the Chara shared by a single user such as Amu.
There's some kind of...step between the wish itself, and the birth of a Chara egg. There's a catalyst or condition which serves to cause that specific reaction. That's what I'm missing.
I'm not. Damn, now that I've got my teeth sunk into this problem I just can't let it go, and its distracting me from my betaing.
Shit.
Perhaps it has to happen simultaneously with what would otherwise be the Shadow formation process.
@Baughn at what level is time defined in the physics->maga->kaga->world->human stack? Because the whole kaga cycle is predicated on time being a thing, so it'd be pretty hilarious of that could be circumvented in the creation of a new world.
Which reminds me about something that bugged me with the world renewel thing: "you can have a new world equal to your specifications OR you can revive the old world and all the dead people" seems like a false dichotomy to me. "I want a world like X with all those people in it"
And oh god I just realized that any infinite damage charms (or "your health +1" damage charms) could easily be universe enders in this particular cosmos, if they were just aimed at kaga
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The Long Count
I'm not sure why you think that Amu can't imagine herself becoming what her charas are.
Other than that, though, you're completely right. So, let me propose an even more crackpot idea: take what I just said and (mostly) invert it. A Shadow/Persona is a spiritual "outgrowth"; conversely, a Chara is a semicoherent fragment of the CU—a proto-psyche or proto-demon of sorts—which is partially but not completely compatible with one's existing psyche. The fragment becomes attached where compatible, but where not compatible it continues to accrue a more compatible layer of nacreous soulstuff, which is represented Kagutsuchi-structurally as a Chara Egg. Once the proto-Chara has accreted sufficient soulstuff to be a demon if it were independent, it "hatches", a representation of the Chara becoming sapient enough to have a form. However, it's still fundamentally attached to the host soul.
Other than that, though, you're completely right. So, let me propose an even more crackpot idea: take what I just said and (mostly) invert it. A Shadow/Persona is a spiritual "outgrowth"; conversely, a Chara is a semicoherent fragment of the CU—a proto-psyche or proto-demon of sorts—which is partially but not completely compatible with one's existing psyche. The fragment becomes attached where compatible, but where not compatible it continues to accrue a more compatible layer of nacreous soulstuff, which is represented Kagutsuchi-structurally as a Chara Egg. Once the proto-Chara has accreted sufficient soulstuff to be a demon if it were independent, it "hatches", a representation of the Chara becoming sapient enough to have a form. However, it's still fundamentally attached to the host soul.
Damn, this is the kind of thing where a lack of familiarity with the series itself is biting me in the ass.
The Charas dont just serve as cheatsheets, but they serve as actual companions as well. Amu sees her Charas as family, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case as well for the other Chara users. Those bonds exist naturally, sure, but the Charas themselves wouldn't appear if they didn't need them after a fashion in the first place, just like how after they serve their purpose, the Chara disappears simply because the Chara users moved on? Obtained a different dream? A different wish?
Could Amu's multiple Charas be the result of more than just a certain level of indecisiveness? If that were the case, then there'd be a lot more people with more than one Chara. But what about Rhythm? He was another new Chara that arrived later on as well, reflecting a desire to become more masculine after his user spent most of his life up until then acting feminine.
That reinforces the "not knowing how to" aspect of the possibilities that the Chara themselves embody, ofc
But that's not the causation I'm looking for.
Something...something more direct. What could it be? Something that connects Wish A to Effect B, some kind of critical factor BEYOND the wish itself.....a hole? A void? An absence?
Perhaps...Charas bud off from their users, and obtain their own personality and skills, drawing from the UC to fulfill the parameters of that wish. But what causes things to bud off?
Reaching out, and as such. the Chara themselves somehow fulfill a hole in the lives of their users.
They represent the wish caused by that absence being felt strongly enough by their users, being reached out in an attempt to fill that hole in their lives. That's what they reflect at their deepest levels, those wishes.
So if the Persona is the result of the acceptance of the complete self, the Shadows are the Other Self that is unknowingly divorced from the Self, BRS and it's ilk are the results of....active denial? Something. Then Charas could only be brought about by a strong wish to fulfill a hole in their lives? In Amu's case, could her lack of direction and other such issues be strong enough influences on her to cause her to reach out in order to imagine other selves that are capable of such things that aren't her? Born from her strong wishes to be someone different that badly?
The Charas dont just serve as cheatsheets, but they serve as actual companions as well. Amu sees her Charas as family, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case as well for the other Chara users. Those bonds exist naturally, sure, but the Charas themselves wouldn't appear if they didn't need them after a fashion in the first place, just like how after they serve their purpose, the Chara disappears simply because the Chara users moved on? Obtained a different dream? A different wish?
Could Amu's multiple Charas be the result of more than just a certain level of indecisiveness? If that were the case, then there'd be a lot more people with more than one Chara. But what about Rhythm? He was another new Chara that arrived later on as well, reflecting a desire to become more masculine after his user spent most of his life up until then acting feminine.
That reinforces the "not knowing how to" aspect of the possibilities that the Chara themselves embody, ofc
But that's not the causation I'm looking for.
Something...something more direct. What could it be? Something that connects Wish A to Effect B, some kind of critical factor BEYOND the wish itself.....a hole? A void? An absence?
Perhaps...Charas bud off from their users, and obtain their own personality and skills, drawing from the UC to fulfill the parameters of that wish. But what causes things to bud off?
Reaching out, and as such. the Chara themselves somehow fulfill a hole in the lives of their users.
They represent the wish caused by that absence being felt strongly enough by their users, being reached out in an attempt to fill that hole in their lives. That's what they reflect at their deepest levels, those wishes.
So if the Persona is the result of the acceptance of the complete self, the Shadows are the Other Self that is unknowingly divorced from the Self, BRS and it's ilk are the results of....active denial? Something. Then Charas could only be brought about by a strong wish to fulfill a hole in their lives? In Amu's case, could her lack of direction and other such issues be strong enough influences on her to cause her to reach out in order to imagine other selves that are capable of such things that aren't her? Born from her strong wishes to be someone different that badly?
If I recall correctly, Igor called Amu a daughter of Philemon. Maybe this is in part because this entity is actually involved in the matter? Though it still doesn't answer then why it started happening to specific people first... Hmmm, maybe the Humpty Lock of influence?
No wait, if we go by the full series canon position, then all people have an egg in their heart. A dream they wish to achieve for instance, a kind of person they want to become. A complete loss of this egg has quite bad effects on people as well, and the egg turns black and goes rogue then. The going rogue process so far I know pretty much always happened via artificial outside interference as well, though occasionally an awakened Chara could do some unusual things as well... like how Eru despite not being Amu's Chara, managed via help of the Humpty Lock to merge with her anyway... (Maybe it's some kind of interface support device?)
So... all people have the potential to bud some kind of independent entity? And to interact with them? Perhaps this is something Kagutsuchi suppresses, but near the end of cycle the suppression gets weaker... And then some one could perhaps help jump start the process? Maybe the Fungus is some what related? And the difference is in part how the entity is formatted? Though why choose a Chara then? To bypass some kind of limitation?
Many speculations, some might even be right. Hope some of it helps inspire some ideas.
If that were all there was to it, then everyone would develop a Chara at some point. I think it's less bypassing a limitation, but perhaps there's a reason why some people develop the potential for Personas, and others for Charas, and others still wind up like Matou. I don't think that they're mutually exclusive, either. Perhaps it's a matter of different conditions being met, resulting in the ability to manifest those aspects of themselves in different ways?
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The Long Count
People don't generally have multiple Shadows, and Amu isn't(?) a Wild Card. Also, to the best of my knowledge, Shadows and Personae are only formed in spaces where K-physics is suspended (during the Dark Hour, inside the Midnight Channel).
What is a Wild Card, anyway? I don't think
Almost certainly at the magatsuhi level, and possibly lower: human psyches run directly on m-physics, and time also appears to pass for demons outside the big K's influence. K-physics time could technically be slower than m-physics time, but not by too much, since humans have to experience things. It can't reasonably be faster or completely decoupled.
The Dark Hour, especially, can easily be modeled as a deliberate partial suspension of K-physics despite m-physics remaining entirely active, with certain protective measures to ensure the quiescence of most human souls during that time.
Sounds like a great idea. Who's going to Sponsor it?
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The exaltation, Amu-the-Exalt, or Amu-the-Former-Exalt-that-Now-Classifies-as-a-Demon-and-Thus-is-no-Longer-Exalted
Alternatively, Amu could sweet talk Kaga itself via social charms.
Wild Cards are denoted by their ability to form bonds, and then call upon those bonds as Social Links to grant them power. As they grow closer to others, their powers become more powerful and diverse?
Wild Cards also tend to be...if not quite silent protagonists, but they are very often shaped by their surroundings and how others perceive them over the course of their games. Just look at Aigis, for example, and how she became gradually more and more human. All of that suggests a blank slate of some kind, but beyond that? *shrug*
Could be related to how time is entirely relative to the individual? Some people experience seconds as minutes under certain circumstances, and there are quite a few who claim that the passage of time itself is entirely a fictional concept enforced by our own limited perceptions of the world around us.
That...actually goes back to what I said awhile back about Shadows needing some kind of greater source to join themselves on to in the absence of their original selves.
Who is the most likely to buck convention and enforce change?
I guess if you're going to bend one rule, you might as well start bending some more, sure.
Thinking about it some more, Chara actually manifest themselves in the 'human' world from the start. (So far as we know) Which would in theory be about the hardest place to start manifesting, wouldn't it? So you'd only really expect it to happen at the very end of an age then and most likely in people with minds flexible and suitable enough for such a thing.
And considering then the relative difficulty of actually actualizing a chara in the human world, only a human with rather large potential could even hope to really do it? Such people I guess wouldn't be very common?
Thus these people are rare? And quite possibly even then still need help to jump start the process? (Even if they are strong enough to maintain it afterwards)
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On a slightly different note, Chara tend to be your would be self, as in, the person you want to be. (This is stated in the introduction of the series) For quite a few of the chara this tends to be would be selves that don't want to fulfil the societal norms expected of them, or what the people around them want them to be. Amu for instance is expected to be a cool personality, and while Miki some what matches that, Su and Ran are kind of revolts against that.
So in that aspect I guess all to often one portion of what a Chara is (But certainly not all) thus aren't sections of ones Soul that one wants to repudiate, but sections of ones Soul that one wants to express, but due to the one or other reason can't or isn't allowed to.
(Though this in no way changes the issue of how Chara tend to come with knowledge beyond your knowledge/ability)
Personally, I still think that taking Nyarly and retconning him into an avatar of positive change would do wonders
Which makes sense, isnt that club with Amu's friends in it the largest incarnation it's ever been? And only started a few years prior to the start of the series?
Potential large enough for it to affect the UC, sure...
Makes sense
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So...an expression of becoming a different self? That definitely helps support that analogy from earlier about them inherently being different selves because the Chara users don't see them as themselves
I think you're on to something there, for sure.
I'm not quite sure what you are saying here...
Well it isn't perfect... one of the Guardians Chara and self are some what similar... on the other hand, that Guardian is working toward fulfilling the dream. So perhaps that is to be expected then... no idea if he was always like that, though perhaps he was? I suppose some times it could just be straightforward.
So I suppose it could just be that for most people issues of significant enough level to create a Chara tend to be in revolt of societies views on what one should be. How ever childish the dream one wants to be might be... Yaya for instance.
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On yet another note, Chara do have some interesting behaviours. I think you asked for some extra info on the series on this a bit ago.
But for instance if one achieves a dream, then supposedly the Chara disappears. If one starts to give up on a dream, then the Chara first withdraws back into the egg, and then the egg could disappear if the regression continues.
If one continues to have the dream, but due to other reasons starts rejecting it as well, the Chara might start rebelling against you. This in the series expresses itself in the Chara running off to another Chara capable individual who has a rivalry/fight going on against the other individual and then tries to kind of browbeat them in to stopping to reject them with their help. The chara might not be entirely the same in such cases as well I believe.
Another case variant is out of control X-type Chara, which can occur via on purpose corruption where for instance one tries to forcibly destroy ones dream. This most typically in series is something that occurs with people who can't naturally express Chara. In such cases the 'awakened broken chara' might forcibly possess a person and start obsessively trying to execute the dream in the human world. (The series is in part about Amu 'purifying' such eggs) Obviously they tend to express the dream in a very broken way in such cases.
And yet another case is if I remember correctly where a person loses all dreams. Which leads to something called an X-egg in the series. Which is a completely black egg, which can at times wander around causing havoc and can even form in to larger groups. This is typically not very healthy at all for the person it came from.
Now whether Baughn will use all these aspects I don't know... but there are I guess some parallels to things seen with Persona and Shadows I guess? Just all expressed in the 'human' world directly instead.
Not...quite, the Charas seem focused more on the dreams themselves, whereas the Shadows are more focused on the personal issues of their hosts.
al103
Grumpy Russian Bear (SV edition)
- Location
- Russia, Krasnoyarsk
Uhm, as far as I remember Velvet Room talk... Persona is mask which person creates to protect they true self. [speculation]Why accepting Shadow allows to use Persona? Well, accepting those thing that you want to hide as integral part of you removes dependence of hinding behind said mask so said mask is free to go out and beat stuff. [/speculation]
[speculation]P3 crew totally cheats with simulating near death experience to acquire temporary personal unity.[/speculation]
PS. IIRC Wild Card called that because (s)he can create a "fake" face for every situation and shape him/herself according to it which in turn allows to have several personas.
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Actually, that'd explain why the P3 crew is just so much less impressive compared to the P2 cast.
Still doesn't explain why the shadows try to screw over their original selves, though
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The Long Count
One's darker impulses are rarely known for wisdom.