☽ Arisato Minato (有里 湊) ☾ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fools_journey) wrote2012-03-08 12:25 pm
fools_journey) wrote2012-03-08 12:25 pm
Entry tags:
Demeleier Application
Player Name: Snarky
Player DW:jackalope
Contact: AIM: sargentsnarky Plurk:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
sargentsnarky
Character Number: FIRST
***Warning: This App contains Major Spoilers for Persona 3.***
Character: Minato Arisato
Fandom: Persona 3
Personality:
Note: As Minato is a silent protagonist, much of his personality is not outright stated but rather is drawn from dialogue options and by watching his reactions and whatnot in cut scenes and the like. Consequently, there is a lot to Minato that is extrapolation and headcanon. If at any point you wish me to clarify where I'm getting an idea, let me know and I'll be happy to elaborate.
Quiet and calm by nature, Minato is a rather difficult person to ruffle, as he takes just about everything in stride -- and even when he is angered, he is quiet capable of maintaining rationality and control. Because of how understated he is with emotions, it can be easy at times to think him cold, aloof and uncaring. It is true that in the past he has had a tendency to distance himself from others and that even now, he remains reserved, preferring not to talk about himself or his past unless necessary, but the emotional distance he maintains is more for his own protection and out of long habit than because he doesn't care about people. Because he does care about people and does crave friendship and closeness, even if he doesn't openly admit it.
The reasons for his reticence are as follows: Minato has been an orphan since the age of six, and it can be inferred by his homeroom teacher's comment about him moving around a lot that he has been bumped around a lot either between relatives and/or the foster system. But due to his frequent moving around, he has never really had the chance to form roots anywhere or develop much in the way of friends - and that he did, in fact, move around so much implies to me that he never really fit in anywhere and quite possibly had some very bad experiences and very bad fits either with foster families or with schools he attended. Consequently, he became very self-sufficient. Moreover, during all this time, every midnight he continued to experience the Dark Hour, even if he didn't know what it was, and the lack of having anyone to whom he could talk about this without being regarded as insane was a further barrier to forming connections with people.
In consequence, he developed strategies for dealing with a lack of connection and a lack of family, and these strategies largely involved withdrawing and forming a barrier around himself. The trope 'headphones equals isolation' holds well for him, because aside from when he is at the beach or engaged in sports practice, he is never seen without his headphones and music player. Music was a coping device for him and a way to drown things out and protect himself. And furthermore, he learned that keeping himself to himself was the easiest way to fit in places. The result of this now is his aforementioned reticence and also, he is a very good listener and very good at simply going with the flow with other people, letting them take the lead in personal relationships and then following their cues, whether they realize they're giving them or not. This is both a strength and a flaw in that it makes it easy for him to get along with others, but sometimes he can wind up enabling them, particularly when he tells them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. In his efforts to appeal to others and form bonds, he will often let the other person take the lead and will simply allow himself to be pulled along with their whims. Moreover, it is rare for him to assert himself if he is being wronged in some way - instead he simply takes it and moves on. Nevertheless, he usually tends to be more straightforward than not, and if he lies or neglects to tell someone something, it is never out of cruelty or malice.
Moreover, he's good at repressing his own emotional responses for the sake of getting things done and for thinking about things calmly and logically. In addition. he is capable of stepping forward and taking the lead effectively when necessary (as he does when leading fellow members of SEES).
However, all of that is his personality normally and does not take into account the changes from Magicdraft or from years of being the Great Seal.
All of the above is still there when he shows up in Demeleier. He's still prone to withdrawing and keeping things to himself - he's still got the habits he developed in life, as there's been very little to disrupt them except in the case of certain individuals. If anything, he'll be even quieter and more prone to get lost in his own head as he struggles to sort out his mind again and remember all the things he's let fade.
Because Minato has at this point spent many years as a disembodied soul, more or less, it will take him a while to get used to being human again, and he'll be uncertain and a little shy. However, his desire to get along with people and to make friends will get him to still reach out to people, even if he doesn't necessarily open up himself.
History: Canon History: Megami Tensei Wiki Page on P3's Protagonist
**Important Notes on Headcanon**
> Going with Persona 3: FES as my primary reference. There are small but still important differences between FES and the original Persona 3 as well as between FES and Persona 3 Portable. Also, I draw one thing from Persona 4 and that is the implication that Minato faced and defeated Elizabeth is canon.
> Assuming maxed social links for the sake of convenience, but I am open to negotiating this with any cast mates I may get.
> Assuming Track for sports and Art Club for club of choice
> Importantly ALSO assuming that the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable is Minato's twin sister and that the difference between their two paths is derived from a difference in who died the night their parents did. In Minato's version, his sister died and he survived.
Post-Canon History:
I. Dying to Magicdrafted
>> Shortly after dying and fully becoming the Great Seal, Minato's soul was pulled into![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
magicdrafted and re-embodied for a few months by a magical spell that "drafted" people from other worlds to assist in the war against Voldemort. (For note, Minato was present in magicdraft from December 1996 through the end of March 1997 game-time; that'd be December 2011 through March 2012 our time, though)
>> Consequently, Minato became enrolled at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, wherein he was sorted into Gryffindor. He participated in classes and did his best to integrate himself into the school by learning all he could about the magic of the place and by joining the Quidditch team (to give drafted students something to do, additional mixed-house Quidditch teams were created specifically for them) and playing as Keeper, as well as gradually making friends with others brought to this world by the spell. ***
>> Although he was fully willing to die and become the seal, Minato nonetheless still had yet to really fully emotionally deal with that and the fallout therefrom. While at Hogwarts, he started to do this, and for the first time he actually outright admitted to someone (in this case, Rapunzel) that he was dead. He also indirectly alluded to it to others. But really the point is, January 31st wound up being a sort of breaking point for him, where he stopped denying to himself that he had any issues with how things turned out and thanks to Rapunzel's influence, allowed himself to break down a bit and release a lot of his pent up emotion. Of course, he wasn't totally okay afterwards, but it was an important step in his coming to terms with his own life and death and purpose.
>> Also important about Jan 31st is that this formed the seeds of a romance that would blossom between him and Rapunzel. In addition to just getting him to open up to her, she also provides a means by which Minato starts to come to terms with the idea of getting to live on even though he's dead and even though he still has a responsibility to go back to his own world eventually and be a seal.
>> All was not sunshine and roses, however. In February, Minato (among others) was kidnapped by the Death Eaters for the purpose of interrogation about how they'd been brought to Hogwarts, where they had come from and so on. The Death Eaters also used this as an opportunity to test out their abilities.
>> These events led to Minato withdrawing a bit more into himself again and initially drove a rift between himself and Rapunzel with his complete lack of willingness to be open and honest with her. However, they were able to come to a better understanding of each other after a heart-to-heart on 3/5.
>> Alas, nothing in life (or afterlife?) is forever, and sooner than perhaps any of them would have wanted, Minato was released from the magicdraft world. From here he returns to being the Great Seal, and from here we delve into a bit of headcanon to connect this to Demeleier!
II. Magicdrafted to Great Seal to Demeleier!
>> Now back to being the Great Seal, of course Minato no longer exactly has a body. There exists a metaphysical manifestation of himself as the seal, which SEES is able to see in the playable epilogue portion of Persona 3 FES known as "The Answer." (This can be read about on the megamitensei wiki page on the character Aigis, who becomes the player-controlled character, if you so desire.) However, he ceases to exist in any real physical manner, aside from the fact that obviously his remains are probably interred somewhere. In all likelihood, his body gets cremated and his ashes placed at his family gravesite, wherever that is.
>> Now we get to the headcanon. And that is this: that Minato retains some level of consciousness as the seal. And his consciousness essentially winds up inhabiting his own mentalscape. The idea that the mind can visit places that are sort of part of itself is not entirely unfounded, as the Velvet Room, which Minato visits periodically throughout the game, is a place that exists between the subconscious and the conscious.
>> In this headcanon, although he spends a fair amount of time unconscious or with his consciousness / self split between his mindscape and the seal itself, with sort of occupying himself and with keeping Erebus held back. When he's in his mentalscape, though, he is able to remember his own life in his world as well as his life in the magicdraft world, though the latter is a little more dreamlike. Still, because he's really just a disembodied soul existing as a barrier between Erebus and Nyx, the memories of visiting another world do not get filtered out but remain.
>> However, he remains as The Great Seal for years - how many we'll leave unspecified because it doesn't really matter - and the longer he remains in this state, the more dreamlike everything he's ever lived becomes and the more 'real' to him his mindscape becomes, until he starts more or less forgetting things and people and places. It's not so much that he's forgotten them, though, so much as they've just receded from his immediate consciousness and consequently become blurry. Remembering his own identity as Minato Arisato is not really important anymore, after all. He is simply The Great Seal, aware of his purpose and determined to maintain enough hope and desire for life to continue fulfilling said purpose and resisting Erebus.
>> This probably wouldn't be an issue, except that eventually his soul gets pulled into Demeleier, where he manifests in the last really strong mental image he had of himself at the time he initially gave up his life to the seal. However, due to his many years being the seal, his memories are jumbled and fuzzy, and it will take him a little while to get really used to being human again and living again (eating meals regularly? what is this nonsense!), as well as to remember who he is besides simply being the seal. When he sees someone he knew before, he will instinctively recognize them, particularly if they shared any sort of a bond, but it will probably take him a while to remember their name and details about them beyond associations or a vague sense of the sort of relationship they shared and things of that nature.
&&& Note: In the event that you guys feel this is too headcanony, I'm willing to revise to skip the part of him returning to being a seal or else minimize it to merely a brief transitional point that gets him from MD to Deme. Just let me know. :) &&&
*** For characters Minato has met in Magicdraft that he might meet in Demeleier, I will be sure to check with the mun to see if it's okay / not okay for Minato to recognize their character. For example, he was friends with Yu Narukami, and in Deme there is a Souji Seta. If Minato is accepted and encounters Souji, I'll check with Eilidh and see what is and is not okay with her - particularly in that case since Yu and Souji are truly AU versions of each other.
Also notably, the Rapunzel being apped in by Holiday is the same Rapunzel as mentioned above, and we've already discussed and agreed upon how the shared history thing will go.
Timeline: An undetermined number of years post-end game.
Abilities:
** Due to history, not all abilities will be immediately accessible to him. He'll have to re-discover a lot of them via instinct or having memories tripped. For example, he may not actively remember how to wield a sword right away, but the instinct of how to do so would allow him to at least defend himself with some effectiveness should the need arise before he remembers how to do so on his own. **
Combat-Related
♪ He is flexible and able to pick things up quickly on the fly and consequently can pick up and use most weapons with some degree of effectiveness without much training. However, he favors 'one-handed swords' like the katana he may show up with.
♪ That said, although he has experience fighting monsters and fellow persona users, Minato is not a trained fighter, and it probably shows with his technique and whatnot. He has raw potential and a sort of raw skill and instinct developed from months of fighting increasingly powerful monsters. But his lack of real training is bound to show itself against anyone with experience or training themselves.
♪ Besides, his real talent lies in his use of Personas: A persona is a manifestation of a person's psyche wielded by that person for protection - and in the case of Minato and other persona users, this is in a very literal sense, as they make use of their personas to fight creatures called shadows as well as other persona users from time to time. Personas have been said to be shadows - or the suppressed parts of people's thoughts and feelings - that have been faced, accepted and brought under control, though whether this is true of Minato's personas is unclear, for he has the rare ability to make use of multiple personas - an ability called Wild Card. Minato is even further distinguished from other persona users (and even other Wild Cards) by being able to summon two personas at once to perform something called a Fusion Spell, which is essentially a more powerful spell that makes use of the personas' combined power.
Each persona has a set of skills that can be accessed when that persona is equipped, as well as a set of elemental strengths and weaknesses. The strengths can take the form of resistance, repelling or absorbing a given attack type. And the exact arrangement of all of these largely depends on the persona that is currently active in Minato's head.
Canonically, Minato is able to, by the end of the game, hold up to 12 Personas in his head at any given time. He summons a given persona (or in the case of fusion spells, he summons two at once) by shooting himself in the head with a gun-like device called an Evoker. This Minato's particular end-game arrangement is as follows: Messiah, Thanatos, Orpheus, Satan, Helel, Siegfried, Odin, Jack Frost, Kohryu, Norn, Arahabaki and Daisoujou.
Given his spacey driftiness, it might take Minato a while to really remember how to effectively make use of his personas, though there also will remain an element of instinct about switching to a given persona to deal with a particular situation.
However, as powerful as Personas are, they are not without plenty of drawbacks. With the exception of fusion skills (and using those takes a lot out of Minato), only one Persona can be used at a time. In order to access skills or attributes of another Persona, he must take the time to switch. Switching itself only takes a moment, but it needs to be a moment in which he can pause and actually concentrate and also in that moment, Minato is vulnerable, lacking a persona to defend himself with. In addition, this and the time and space necessary for using an Evoker render him primarily a distance fighter. Moreover, if the Evoker gets knocked out of his hands, or he's too busy defending himself with a sword or other weapon, he's not going to be able to really make user of his powers, except perhaps as an aid to defense.
Miscellaneous
♪ Assorted household skills - he's a decent cook (nothing amazing, but his food is edible and sometimes even tasty; he can follow recipes and can make due making simple dishes without them), and he's decent at sewing.
♪ Some talent with artwork. He draws as a hobby and enjoys painting, when he has access to paints, brushes, canvas, etc.
♪ He is also capable of playing a violin, though this is something he mostly does on his own.
♪ Running. He was a member of the track team - and one of the better members at that, as evidenced by his coming in second place in a summer competition. I have a headcanon that he really liked hurdles.
♪ He's also is pretty intelligent, as evidenced by his ability to be at the top of his class for several exams running.
Inventory:
> 1 Gekkoukan School Uniform
> 1 SEES Armband
> 1 mp3 player
> 1 set of headphones
> 1 wristwatch
> 1 Lucifer's Blade (a katana)
> 1 Evoker
> 1 set of pocket things (wallet, keys, phone)
Although he was dead and therefore lacking a body, he did have a mental image of himself, and this is the image that becomes his new body - it's an image of himself when he formed the Great Seal to begin with.
Link to an image of the character: This is a link to the image
Prose Sample:
Please see here for sample. No single post is 300 words, but they should all add up to it and give a good idea of Minato's state of being when he comes into Demeleier. Obviously the longer he spends in Demeleier and the more he remembers, the more like "himself" he will become. Therefore, the following Journal Samples are of the sorts of posts he might make after a couple months.
Journal Sample:
Take your pick:
12/29/2011 entry at magicdraft
12/28/2011 entry at arcanarum
and a chattier entry on 02/09/2012 at magicdraft
Player DW:
jackalopeContact: AIM: sargentsnarky Plurk:
Character Number: FIRST
***Warning: This App contains Major Spoilers for Persona 3.***
Character: Minato Arisato
Fandom: Persona 3
Personality:
Note: As Minato is a silent protagonist, much of his personality is not outright stated but rather is drawn from dialogue options and by watching his reactions and whatnot in cut scenes and the like. Consequently, there is a lot to Minato that is extrapolation and headcanon. If at any point you wish me to clarify where I'm getting an idea, let me know and I'll be happy to elaborate.
Quiet and calm by nature, Minato is a rather difficult person to ruffle, as he takes just about everything in stride -- and even when he is angered, he is quiet capable of maintaining rationality and control. Because of how understated he is with emotions, it can be easy at times to think him cold, aloof and uncaring. It is true that in the past he has had a tendency to distance himself from others and that even now, he remains reserved, preferring not to talk about himself or his past unless necessary, but the emotional distance he maintains is more for his own protection and out of long habit than because he doesn't care about people. Because he does care about people and does crave friendship and closeness, even if he doesn't openly admit it.
The reasons for his reticence are as follows: Minato has been an orphan since the age of six, and it can be inferred by his homeroom teacher's comment about him moving around a lot that he has been bumped around a lot either between relatives and/or the foster system. But due to his frequent moving around, he has never really had the chance to form roots anywhere or develop much in the way of friends - and that he did, in fact, move around so much implies to me that he never really fit in anywhere and quite possibly had some very bad experiences and very bad fits either with foster families or with schools he attended. Consequently, he became very self-sufficient. Moreover, during all this time, every midnight he continued to experience the Dark Hour, even if he didn't know what it was, and the lack of having anyone to whom he could talk about this without being regarded as insane was a further barrier to forming connections with people.
In consequence, he developed strategies for dealing with a lack of connection and a lack of family, and these strategies largely involved withdrawing and forming a barrier around himself. The trope 'headphones equals isolation' holds well for him, because aside from when he is at the beach or engaged in sports practice, he is never seen without his headphones and music player. Music was a coping device for him and a way to drown things out and protect himself. And furthermore, he learned that keeping himself to himself was the easiest way to fit in places. The result of this now is his aforementioned reticence and also, he is a very good listener and very good at simply going with the flow with other people, letting them take the lead in personal relationships and then following their cues, whether they realize they're giving them or not. This is both a strength and a flaw in that it makes it easy for him to get along with others, but sometimes he can wind up enabling them, particularly when he tells them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. In his efforts to appeal to others and form bonds, he will often let the other person take the lead and will simply allow himself to be pulled along with their whims. Moreover, it is rare for him to assert himself if he is being wronged in some way - instead he simply takes it and moves on. Nevertheless, he usually tends to be more straightforward than not, and if he lies or neglects to tell someone something, it is never out of cruelty or malice.
Moreover, he's good at repressing his own emotional responses for the sake of getting things done and for thinking about things calmly and logically. In addition. he is capable of stepping forward and taking the lead effectively when necessary (as he does when leading fellow members of SEES).
However, all of that is his personality normally and does not take into account the changes from Magicdraft or from years of being the Great Seal.
All of the above is still there when he shows up in Demeleier. He's still prone to withdrawing and keeping things to himself - he's still got the habits he developed in life, as there's been very little to disrupt them except in the case of certain individuals. If anything, he'll be even quieter and more prone to get lost in his own head as he struggles to sort out his mind again and remember all the things he's let fade.
Because Minato has at this point spent many years as a disembodied soul, more or less, it will take him a while to get used to being human again, and he'll be uncertain and a little shy. However, his desire to get along with people and to make friends will get him to still reach out to people, even if he doesn't necessarily open up himself.
History: Canon History: Megami Tensei Wiki Page on P3's Protagonist
**Important Notes on Headcanon**
> Going with Persona 3: FES as my primary reference. There are small but still important differences between FES and the original Persona 3 as well as between FES and Persona 3 Portable. Also, I draw one thing from Persona 4 and that is the implication that Minato faced and defeated Elizabeth is canon.
> Assuming maxed social links for the sake of convenience, but I am open to negotiating this with any cast mates I may get.
> Assuming Track for sports and Art Club for club of choice
> Importantly ALSO assuming that the female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable is Minato's twin sister and that the difference between their two paths is derived from a difference in who died the night their parents did. In Minato's version, his sister died and he survived.
Post-Canon History:
I. Dying to Magicdrafted
>> Shortly after dying and fully becoming the Great Seal, Minato's soul was pulled into
magicdrafted and re-embodied for a few months by a magical spell that "drafted" people from other worlds to assist in the war against Voldemort. (For note, Minato was present in magicdraft from December 1996 through the end of March 1997 game-time; that'd be December 2011 through March 2012 our time, though)>> Consequently, Minato became enrolled at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, wherein he was sorted into Gryffindor. He participated in classes and did his best to integrate himself into the school by learning all he could about the magic of the place and by joining the Quidditch team (to give drafted students something to do, additional mixed-house Quidditch teams were created specifically for them) and playing as Keeper, as well as gradually making friends with others brought to this world by the spell. ***
>> Although he was fully willing to die and become the seal, Minato nonetheless still had yet to really fully emotionally deal with that and the fallout therefrom. While at Hogwarts, he started to do this, and for the first time he actually outright admitted to someone (in this case, Rapunzel) that he was dead. He also indirectly alluded to it to others. But really the point is, January 31st wound up being a sort of breaking point for him, where he stopped denying to himself that he had any issues with how things turned out and thanks to Rapunzel's influence, allowed himself to break down a bit and release a lot of his pent up emotion. Of course, he wasn't totally okay afterwards, but it was an important step in his coming to terms with his own life and death and purpose.
>> Also important about Jan 31st is that this formed the seeds of a romance that would blossom between him and Rapunzel. In addition to just getting him to open up to her, she also provides a means by which Minato starts to come to terms with the idea of getting to live on even though he's dead and even though he still has a responsibility to go back to his own world eventually and be a seal.
>> All was not sunshine and roses, however. In February, Minato (among others) was kidnapped by the Death Eaters for the purpose of interrogation about how they'd been brought to Hogwarts, where they had come from and so on. The Death Eaters also used this as an opportunity to test out their abilities.
>> These events led to Minato withdrawing a bit more into himself again and initially drove a rift between himself and Rapunzel with his complete lack of willingness to be open and honest with her. However, they were able to come to a better understanding of each other after a heart-to-heart on 3/5.
>> Alas, nothing in life (or afterlife?) is forever, and sooner than perhaps any of them would have wanted, Minato was released from the magicdraft world. From here he returns to being the Great Seal, and from here we delve into a bit of headcanon to connect this to Demeleier!
II. Magicdrafted to Great Seal to Demeleier!
>> Now back to being the Great Seal, of course Minato no longer exactly has a body. There exists a metaphysical manifestation of himself as the seal, which SEES is able to see in the playable epilogue portion of Persona 3 FES known as "The Answer." (This can be read about on the megamitensei wiki page on the character Aigis, who becomes the player-controlled character, if you so desire.) However, he ceases to exist in any real physical manner, aside from the fact that obviously his remains are probably interred somewhere. In all likelihood, his body gets cremated and his ashes placed at his family gravesite, wherever that is.
>> Now we get to the headcanon. And that is this: that Minato retains some level of consciousness as the seal. And his consciousness essentially winds up inhabiting his own mentalscape. The idea that the mind can visit places that are sort of part of itself is not entirely unfounded, as the Velvet Room, which Minato visits periodically throughout the game, is a place that exists between the subconscious and the conscious.
>> In this headcanon, although he spends a fair amount of time unconscious or with his consciousness / self split between his mindscape and the seal itself, with sort of occupying himself and with keeping Erebus held back. When he's in his mentalscape, though, he is able to remember his own life in his world as well as his life in the magicdraft world, though the latter is a little more dreamlike. Still, because he's really just a disembodied soul existing as a barrier between Erebus and Nyx, the memories of visiting another world do not get filtered out but remain.
>> However, he remains as The Great Seal for years - how many we'll leave unspecified because it doesn't really matter - and the longer he remains in this state, the more dreamlike everything he's ever lived becomes and the more 'real' to him his mindscape becomes, until he starts more or less forgetting things and people and places. It's not so much that he's forgotten them, though, so much as they've just receded from his immediate consciousness and consequently become blurry. Remembering his own identity as Minato Arisato is not really important anymore, after all. He is simply The Great Seal, aware of his purpose and determined to maintain enough hope and desire for life to continue fulfilling said purpose and resisting Erebus.
>> This probably wouldn't be an issue, except that eventually his soul gets pulled into Demeleier, where he manifests in the last really strong mental image he had of himself at the time he initially gave up his life to the seal. However, due to his many years being the seal, his memories are jumbled and fuzzy, and it will take him a little while to get really used to being human again and living again (eating meals regularly? what is this nonsense!), as well as to remember who he is besides simply being the seal. When he sees someone he knew before, he will instinctively recognize them, particularly if they shared any sort of a bond, but it will probably take him a while to remember their name and details about them beyond associations or a vague sense of the sort of relationship they shared and things of that nature.
&&& Note: In the event that you guys feel this is too headcanony, I'm willing to revise to skip the part of him returning to being a seal or else minimize it to merely a brief transitional point that gets him from MD to Deme. Just let me know. :) &&&
*** For characters Minato has met in Magicdraft that he might meet in Demeleier, I will be sure to check with the mun to see if it's okay / not okay for Minato to recognize their character. For example, he was friends with Yu Narukami, and in Deme there is a Souji Seta. If Minato is accepted and encounters Souji, I'll check with Eilidh and see what is and is not okay with her - particularly in that case since Yu and Souji are truly AU versions of each other.
Also notably, the Rapunzel being apped in by Holiday is the same Rapunzel as mentioned above, and we've already discussed and agreed upon how the shared history thing will go.
Timeline: An undetermined number of years post-end game.
Abilities:
** Due to history, not all abilities will be immediately accessible to him. He'll have to re-discover a lot of them via instinct or having memories tripped. For example, he may not actively remember how to wield a sword right away, but the instinct of how to do so would allow him to at least defend himself with some effectiveness should the need arise before he remembers how to do so on his own. **
Combat-Related
♪ He is flexible and able to pick things up quickly on the fly and consequently can pick up and use most weapons with some degree of effectiveness without much training. However, he favors 'one-handed swords' like the katana he may show up with.
♪ That said, although he has experience fighting monsters and fellow persona users, Minato is not a trained fighter, and it probably shows with his technique and whatnot. He has raw potential and a sort of raw skill and instinct developed from months of fighting increasingly powerful monsters. But his lack of real training is bound to show itself against anyone with experience or training themselves.
♪ Besides, his real talent lies in his use of Personas: A persona is a manifestation of a person's psyche wielded by that person for protection - and in the case of Minato and other persona users, this is in a very literal sense, as they make use of their personas to fight creatures called shadows as well as other persona users from time to time. Personas have been said to be shadows - or the suppressed parts of people's thoughts and feelings - that have been faced, accepted and brought under control, though whether this is true of Minato's personas is unclear, for he has the rare ability to make use of multiple personas - an ability called Wild Card. Minato is even further distinguished from other persona users (and even other Wild Cards) by being able to summon two personas at once to perform something called a Fusion Spell, which is essentially a more powerful spell that makes use of the personas' combined power.
Each persona has a set of skills that can be accessed when that persona is equipped, as well as a set of elemental strengths and weaknesses. The strengths can take the form of resistance, repelling or absorbing a given attack type. And the exact arrangement of all of these largely depends on the persona that is currently active in Minato's head.
Canonically, Minato is able to, by the end of the game, hold up to 12 Personas in his head at any given time. He summons a given persona (or in the case of fusion spells, he summons two at once) by shooting himself in the head with a gun-like device called an Evoker. This Minato's particular end-game arrangement is as follows: Messiah, Thanatos, Orpheus, Satan, Helel, Siegfried, Odin, Jack Frost, Kohryu, Norn, Arahabaki and Daisoujou.
Given his spacey driftiness, it might take Minato a while to really remember how to effectively make use of his personas, though there also will remain an element of instinct about switching to a given persona to deal with a particular situation.
However, as powerful as Personas are, they are not without plenty of drawbacks. With the exception of fusion skills (and using those takes a lot out of Minato), only one Persona can be used at a time. In order to access skills or attributes of another Persona, he must take the time to switch. Switching itself only takes a moment, but it needs to be a moment in which he can pause and actually concentrate and also in that moment, Minato is vulnerable, lacking a persona to defend himself with. In addition, this and the time and space necessary for using an Evoker render him primarily a distance fighter. Moreover, if the Evoker gets knocked out of his hands, or he's too busy defending himself with a sword or other weapon, he's not going to be able to really make user of his powers, except perhaps as an aid to defense.
Miscellaneous
♪ Assorted household skills - he's a decent cook (nothing amazing, but his food is edible and sometimes even tasty; he can follow recipes and can make due making simple dishes without them), and he's decent at sewing.
♪ Some talent with artwork. He draws as a hobby and enjoys painting, when he has access to paints, brushes, canvas, etc.
♪ He is also capable of playing a violin, though this is something he mostly does on his own.
♪ Running. He was a member of the track team - and one of the better members at that, as evidenced by his coming in second place in a summer competition. I have a headcanon that he really liked hurdles.
♪ He's also is pretty intelligent, as evidenced by his ability to be at the top of his class for several exams running.
Inventory:
> 1 Gekkoukan School Uniform
> 1 SEES Armband
> 1 mp3 player
> 1 set of headphones
> 1 wristwatch
> 1 Lucifer's Blade (a katana)
> 1 Evoker
> 1 set of pocket things (wallet, keys, phone)
Although he was dead and therefore lacking a body, he did have a mental image of himself, and this is the image that becomes his new body - it's an image of himself when he formed the Great Seal to begin with.
Link to an image of the character: This is a link to the image
Prose Sample:
Please see here for sample. No single post is 300 words, but they should all add up to it and give a good idea of Minato's state of being when he comes into Demeleier. Obviously the longer he spends in Demeleier and the more he remembers, the more like "himself" he will become. Therefore, the following Journal Samples are of the sorts of posts he might make after a couple months.
Journal Sample:
Take your pick:
12/29/2011 entry at magicdraft
12/28/2011 entry at arcanarum
and a chattier entry on 02/09/2012 at magicdraft