2nd ♫ | come on let go of the remote

[astrogony]

THE PERSONA 4 MEME

→ Step 1: Post as your character with their name and canon and a description of your character's Shadow and their dungeon, their Persona, their Arcana and Social Link... Go into as much detail as you want! You can either AU your character into the P4 setting, or leave them as they are in canon and simply play out their dungeon as it would happen there!
→ Step 2: Others respond, and you tag around to others!
→ Step 3: Play out P4 themed interactions -- either braving a dungeon, to rescue a friend from their Shadow, playing out Social Link rank ups, the works.
Go wild!

Comments

Super Sonico → Super Sonico: The Animation/Dangan Roleplay R2

[torya]

Arcana - The Lovers

The Lovers Arcana represents "the establishment of a personal belief system and becoming clearer about your own values [...] also choices on a grand scale. A dilemma will be presented demanding an action or decision, and you will want to decipher the best way to proceed or make the right choice. Something is going to change your plans or the course of your experience, something that may look negative on the surface but will later prove to be a blessing in disguise."
The Lovers Arcana is all about change and choices, huge ones that alter the course of your life. As the MegaTen wiki puts it, it represents "the idea of hesitation and decision between the "right" way and the "easy" way ".

It also has ties to both the Fool (Adachi) and the Hierophant (Walker) -- " Having gone through the indoctrination of the Hierophant, you are now ready to establish your own belief system and make up your own mind about what is and what is not important in life. This is also a time when you need to stay true to yourself and be as authentic and genuine as possible." [...] "Unlike the Fool’s choice which has no wrong answer, the choice of the Lovers is very much right or wrong because one of those options will almost certainly take you down a negative path."

Within the context of Persona, the Lovers Arcana usually holds a support role, developing along support magic or ability lines, with its Personas usually being fairies or other important historical or mythological women -- who were wives or lovers of other important mythological figures.
Characters who represent the Lovers are characterized by popularity -- they draw people towards them for whatever reason. Social interaction also plays a big part in the Lovers links.

It's also worth mentioning that the female characters who represent the Love Arcana in-game are always portrayed as canon love interests for the Fool (i.e, the protagonist) and in P4 in particular, the Lovers Arcana is represented by Rise Kujikawa who's not only an idol, but has the hots for the P4 protagonist that Adachi is written as a foil for. Food for thought!

Dungeon

Shadow Sonico's dungeon takes the form of an elaborate puppet show, with each section of the dungeon being a recreation of places in her life, on a stage, as if a production were taking place, which represents her feelings of "putting on a show" of being happy. Everything's very bright and cheery... on the surface, anyway. Look too close and you'll see that the sets, while lovingly put together, aren't very well constructed and look like they're ready to fall apart at any moment.

Shadow Sonico herself is content enough to watch the "show" proceed without interference though she will call down to the party to talk to them and occasionally show up in person.

Shadow

oh god I'm just going to bullet point this because it's easier this way.

The main things that contribute to Sonico's Shadow are the following;

• Avoidance of what happened in murderschool and her inability (and refusal) to think too hard about her feelings, in case she doesn't like what she finds
• Fear of her feelings for the people she loves (Adachi in particular) turning sour because of the above and vice versa
• Fear of her happy ending in Kalos falling apart and leaving her with nothing due to the above
• Feeling as though her happiness is a "show" she's putting on for the others
• Bitterness towards the others for not being able to work out that she's feeling all this
• Bitterness towards herself because of all the above.
• and general messy angry feelings towards the Future Foundation for letting all this happen

With all this, Sonico's Shadow manifests as a younger version of herself -- the same age she was when she was recruited for the Hope Army -- wearing her distinctive tiger parka outfit, with the hood up and a hand puppet on each hand -- she has one of all of her friends and will hold animated conversations with the puppets while imitating each person's voice and occasionally speaking to the party through them.

Unusually, she seems quite disinterested in her host and is more occupied with watching the party's progression, urging them to come find her faster, and imploring that they bring her "guests of honor" (i.e, Adachi and Walker) -- though this is because she wants them to find her and her host as quickly as possible so they can finally listen to her. Once she's confronted by the party, she'll begin to rant about how sick she is of pretending to be happy with no problems whatsoever, and accuses the party (Adachi and Walker in particular) of willful ignorance and knowing perfectly well that she was suffering but not caring enough to address it.

Berserk, the Shadow becomes a damaged marionette with broken, elongated limbs and a smile painted on its face, despite the way it shudders and shakes, as if appearing to sob. It hides its face from the party with a length of blue material that hangs around its shoulders. It mostly concentrates on debuffing the party and piling status effects on top of them before laying down a blistering physical attack.

Persona - Ame-no-Mikoto (because ame-no-uzume is already a canon aeon persona thanks, p4g)

Once pacified, Sonico's Shadow becomes Ame-no-Mikoto, based on the Shinto goddess, Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto of dawn, mirth and revelry. Ame-no-Mikoto's most prominent appearances in Japanese mythology are in the Amaterasu legends. In most versions of the story, it is Ame-no-Mikoto who lures Amaterasu out of the cave she sealed herself in. Ame-no-Mikoto "...overturned a tub near the cave entrance and began a dance on it, tearing off her clothing in front of the other deities. They considered this so comical that they laughed heartily at the sight". In kyogen, Ame-no-Mikoto is depicted as "a woman who revels in her sensuality".

It's also worth mentioning that Ame-no-Mikoto eventually becomes the wife of the god of the crossroads, which ties in with the Lovers Arcana nicely.

As a Persona of the Lovers Arcana, she -- oh who am I kidding, she basically has a beefed up, support-centric version of Ame-no-Uzume's moveset. THANKS P4G