Application.

[dormition]

Fandom: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
Name: Minato Arisato
Canon Point: Post-canon by a couple years by now.
History: Wikia page.
[Optional] Character Development and Relationship Transfer from previous RP: This is a bit odd, but I'm apping him as a game import from two previous games. Originally I played him at dramadramaduck for about two years; then I played him at exitvoid for about nine months. This is the point from which I'm apping him. Hopefully that's okay!

His history at DDD is as follows:

→ Minato befriended Shinji Ikari from Evangelion, and through that also became friends with Asuka and Kaworu from the same world. When the Eva kids went through canon and ended up post-End of Eva, their world was left decimated, and they had nowhere to go. It was about November of the P3 timeline, and Minato invited them back to live in their dorm. They became de facto members of S.E.E.S, with Kaworu as an analytic backup type like Fuuka, and Asuka taking the drugs that allowed her to manifest her own Persona. (The consequences of her taking those drugs were understood and played out eventually.) Shinji was dropped at some point during this.

→ He also befriended Russia from Hetalia, calling him Ivan, and ended up a determined and steadfast friend of his. He learned some basic Russian through their association.

→ Itsuki Koizumi from Haruhi was one of Minato's first friends on the community, and slowly over time they became extremely close. When P3 canon finished, Minato was dead, or at least left stranded holding back Nyx in another dimension; Itsuki searched for and found a way to bring him back by making a deal with the Marquis from Neverwhere. Though they both owed the Marquis enormous favors, Minato did come back to life. I wrote up a brief summary and link roundup in case this needs more detail.

→ Alive again, Minato got a job working for Kanzeon Bosatsu from Saiyuki, and acquired his worldhopping capable mirror from her. Working for her mostly included forging signatures for her, doing more paperwork, and making popcorn when she watched interesting things in her lotus pool.

→ He got an apartment living with Asuka and Kaworu in Iwatodai. They both play violin, and convinced him to take up the viola. Minato took to it naturally, but wasn't in any way a prodigy at it.

→ Somewhere around this time we got an active Persona 4 cast, including Naoto Shirogane. Due to popular fan theories, the Naoto player and I agreed to have them be cousins who used to see each other when they were young and then lost touch after their respective parents died. They reconnected through the community with some awkwardness (at least on Minato's part). I timeskipped Minato one year to bring him up to the timeline the P4 cast was in for simplicity.

→ Shortly before I dropped him, he began dating Itsuki romantically. They weren't extremely serious about each other and were more testing it out. About this point is where he was pulled from to be played in Exitvoid.

His history at EV is as follows:

→ On and off we had various different members of P3 and also P4 present on the island. Everyone was from very different canon points, and for the most part Minato tried to keep his eventual canon death a secret from them, with mixed success. Shinjiro and Junpei were the most notable castmates to find out, but overall he wanted to let them have as many traces of blissful ignorance as he could, much as he did in canon when he didn't tell them during February that he was dying.

→ Other notable within cast incidents included Minato investigating what the heck was going on with Adachi, helping Shinjiro try to cope with the lack of suppressant drugs available, watching Yukari get viciously tortured and killed over the network, and seeing Naoto (who's player also agreed to play them as cousins, as the one in DDD did). Eventually everyone was dropped except for Elizabeth, however, who Minato consequently got somewhat clingy over. Whether or not their relationship is romantic now is anyone's guess, as they certainly haven't talked about it in detail and more just fell into a comfortable closeness.

→ Several other more casual connections were made. Minato grew fairly close with his most recent roommate, Raz from Psychonauts, and had a somewhat brotherly relationship with him. He also ran into canon, not DDD versions of Asuka and Kaworu, and had relatively awkward conversations with them. Kaworu he told the truth, that he'd known him before, but Asuka he spoke to only once and never got the chance to reveal it to. At two points he ran into other DDD imports, Birkin from Resident Evil and Elektra from MCU, and they briefly bonded over the community.

→ By far his strongest cross-canon CR ended up being with the Homestuck cast. After several months of close friendship with Sollux, he was asked to be his moirail, and after some inquiry about what that actually means, he agreed. What it does mean is a sort of platonic soulmate, like non-sexual conciliatory boyfriends, and Sollux eventually became his only maxed Social Link on the island. They have a very mutual supportive relationship and generally are quite stable and protective of each other, along with some expected teasing.

Other notable CR within the Homestuck cast included Feferi, Gamzee, and Aradia. As Sollux's girlfriend, Feferi was someone Minato was interested in automatically, but she turned out to be a cheerful, friendship-obsessed fishgirl, and they got along very well and smoothly. They agree on most everything, share moral standards, and often conspire to make Sollux more social. Aradia was another extension of his CR with Sollux, and went much the same way as his friendship with Feferi did.

His relationship with (sober) Gamzee was much more complicated. At first Minato approached it as he would any other Social Link, and intended to patiently befriend him, but then he personally witnessed Gamzee becoming violent and murdering in cold blood. During an event where Minato lost his powers, he and Feferi were killed by Gamzee; and although he forgave him for that fairly readily, a short time afterward, Gamzee threatened and taunted Sollux publicly on the network, trying to provoke him into violence and using what sounded to Minato like racist terminology. Suffice to say it didn't go well. His friendship with Gamzee is very on and off. Sometimes they bake cookies together and sometimes Minato has to attack him in order to defend his friends. It's complicated.

→ Aside from all the shenanigans with his CR, during his time on the island Minato worked hard to keep himself busy. He regularly helped with repairs to collateral damage inflicted on the island's structures, defended against and fought enemies, explored the surrounding area, staffed at the hospital, wrote a guide to orient new arrivals, and in general was a complete busybody.

→ EV previously had a mission system, where going on a mission would get you one escape token, and four escape tokens would let you go home. This was done away with some time into his stay, but Minato's intention from the first day was not to agree to go home until he had enough escape tokens for all of his friends and teammates as well. This is a huge decision that set him up to be there for the long haul, but he didn't hesitate in making it, though by the end of his time there wasn't any way to get more escape tokens.

→ A couple months ago there was a tournament, where characters were pitted against each other. One of them had to die, or they both would, and neither would progress. This ended up being extremely emotional for Minato, though of course he dealt with that by repressing any and all difficulties he had with it. Elizabeth sacrificed herself for him in the first round; then he killed someone he hadn't met before in the second, Yaha from Drakenguard; and in the third he killed Gamzee, who was by then in an unthinking rage. The fourth and final round saw him defeated, killed himself by Black★Gold Saw, and shortly resurrected back on the island. Needless to say he hasn't been dealing with any of that at all, as repression is his default coping mechanism.

→ Finally, the first round of the game ended this month, and there was an endgame plot involving the island being attacked by a gigantic kraken-like octopus. Afterwards the characters were shuffled onto mysterious trains, whereupon they fell asleep, to be transported to the second, beta round in a different setting. My intention is for Minato to wake up in Tartarus instead of in the beta round of EV.

Personality:

Probably the most obvious facet of Minato's personality is his odd dichotomy between how social and how simultaneously untalkative he is. He is very much pro-active, filling up every moment of his day with something productive, from carefully managing his social life to keeping up with school work and level grinding in Tartarus. It's hard to doubt how outgoing he is in light of that-- he really only lays around after truly exhausting trials, when he's sleeping and forcibly unconscious. The rest of the time we have to interpret his tendency toward Social Linking, and being an effective team leader, as him being incredibly and relentlessly busy. He rarely seems to get tired of it, either. Despite all that, he is fairly reserved. He is not inclined to speak about himself and will go quite a ways to redirect a conversation back onto the other person. It takes a lot of time and built up trust for him to capitulate and reveal his inner feelings.

He also tends not to say too much at once, overall, though in my interpretation he is capable of going on longer monologues (perhaps two or three short paragraphs) when the occasion calls for it. For the most part, Minato can get over his own misgivings for the sake of the other person in the conversation when he feels it's warranted. The vast majority of the time he places everyone else as a higher priority than himself even in conversation, which is not surprising given how self-sacrificing and loyal he is. He will give absolutely anyone a fair chance and put all of his not inconsiderable effort into befriending them. Although this trait could be said to be a habit directly learned from Social Links, I would argue that Minato wouldn't have been so successful at them in the first place if he weren't innately inclined to be so tolerant and forgiving.

There are few things he won't accept with a straight face, as we see demonstrably both in his first exposure to the Dark Hour and in the Devil link with Tanaka, and it leads to him being a fairly flat and unreactive person in casual interaction. He is not without a sense of humor, though it's a very dry one, to the extent that many times the listener isn't sure whether he's actually making a joke or not. Minato can be more obvious when he's intentionally trying to lighten the mood, too. He has a casual speaking style and is prone to extremely short sentences; he phrases things passively, but is very direct. He doesn't hesitate to say what he's thinking, and will cater his responses to the other person, aiming for a specific reaction from them and unashamed about going for it. Yet he is not fond of conflict, and his immense charisma tends to smooth over any points of contention, although he isn't perfect and there are definitely cases where he flubs and has to repair the relationship.

In the context of his willing martyr's death in canon, something he explicitly did with the support of and for the sake of all the close relationships he'd made over the previous year, we're left forced to conclude that he is extremely loyal. Minato doesn't spare a single second thought over his choices-- he is deliberate and decisive-- and that extends fully to his commitment to his friends, and particularly to SEES. He signed Pharos' contract in the first scene without much thinking about it, but later on after he begins to understand it, he doesn't try to take it back or struggle with that choice. It really takes a remarkable person to let himself die for the sake of the world without a single outward instance of second guessing or regret.

However, I don't think that means he doesn't have any regret at all. Minato is simply very good at hiding things and keeping them to himself, and moreover denying their existence entirely. When he forgot what happened with his parents' death and then having Death itself sealed in him, that was not a supernatural occurrence. It was a psychological reaction, something he did as self-protection, though perhaps not consciously. Regardless, that one instance, and Minato's later extreme unconcern about all of the fairly insane things he's subjected to, make it obvious how much he relies on repression to get through the difficult parts of his life. The thing about habitual repression is that it very much becomes that: habitual, and it's hard to rise above that. When things get tough, Minato shuts down, becomes even flatter than normal-- much as we see him in the very start of the game-- and focuses exclusively on what needs to be done. This is a coping mechanism, and doesn't mean that he doesn't have any feelings beneath that; it simply means that he isn't acknowledging, admitting, or dealing with them.

Beneath everything Minato feels quite strongly, and the magnitude of those emotions overwhelm him. That's why he pushes them down so often. Being an orphan, being almost entirely alone for seven years, being forced into a tragic fate and even then not realizing he would be stuck with Erebus, the embodiment of human misery, until it happened... This is a lot for anyone to handle, much less a relatively normal person of seventeen years. Though he's older at this point where I'm playing him, all of this still remains true. Minato accepts his fate easily but secretly struggles with how much he's allowed to be selfish.

At heart he is as human as anyone else, and yearns to make his own choices and be given the chance to finally in his life find happiness. But he can't place that desire over his much stronger loyalty to his friends, and his death and ongoing self-sacrifice has to happen for their sake. He struggled for a long time after his resurrection to come to terms with this, and truthfully hasn't entirely managed it yet. He's more at peace with it now, but on very rare occasions the issue does come up again, and he is forced to contend with whether he can accept his own right to feel suffering in light of how little choice he has in facing it.

This is a complicated issue and one Minato himself, when he isn't outright avoiding it, largely fails at putting into words. He wouldn't have nearly so much trouble if it weren't for how strong his morals are. He has a clear line on what is and isn't acceptable, and though he readily forgives even incredibly heinous crimes, he doesn't waver at all on what he does consider a crime. He holds himself to a high standard, and anyone he trusts is similarly held to that standard. There is a point after which he is not so magnanimous, and that is harming his friends in any way. He won't escalate any fight or argument needlessly, granted, but he won't forget anyone who's proven themselves dangerous to those he's loyal to, and he isn't afraid to take action about it in order to protect them. Letting others determine their own fates is something he feels strongly about, but he also feels confident on what friendship means, and will step in if he thinks it's welcome.

At the end of the day, the connections he's made with others are really what define Minato. He feels loneliness keenly, having subjected himself to it for so many years after his parents' death, and that makes him afraid to have to experience it again. Over the course of the development I've brought him through, this fear has been exacerbated. He's made and lost close CR several times, and he's died several times aside from his canon death, as well. His insecurities have been worsened, and he's become less complacent, overall. In rare instances he can become sharp and almost aggressive in order to defend what's important to him, a far cry from his canon equanimity, and it's made him altogether less of a people pleaser. He is more dedicated to maintaining his current relationships than to establishing new ones, because he clings to those as his only stability in a very unstable life.

He is afraid of losing the people he has managed to hang onto, exhibiting a bit of an abandonment complex; but he is not unaware of how he's changing, and is inwardly conflicted over whether he agrees with it. Minato is deeply kind, and dislikes seeing himself become someone that is less so. Lately he has been trying to deny this character development and get himself back to his more canon personality, which is hard to accomplish when he's been continually facing so much adversity and loss. But he is persistent, patient, and unflagging in his determination, so he's not about to give up. Where he goes from here will be, as always is true for him, very much determined by who he meets and how they grow alongside him.

Skills | Powers:

→ He has the RPG protagonist ability to be good with any weapon he picks up.

→ He can also summon his Persona. He's an oddity even in canon in that he can summon any of them that he wants, but he can only carry a dozen of them at once. If accepted I'll pick which Persona he's bringing with them, and put a post in his journal outlining which ones they are and what skills they have.

What exactly is a Persona? It's a physical manifestation of someone's inner personality. Minato's mutable nature means that he has a lot of these. What it actually looks like is a kid shooting himself in the head (it's not a real gun, though) and summoning a big mythological spirit or demon. He can perform a lot of various magic spells and physical techniques with this, including elemental attacks, healing, and attribute boosting (support).

→ Usually by the end of the game he has max courage, intelligence, and charm. This means he's good at getting people to do what he wants, has little self-preservation instinct, and was the top student in his grade at school.

→ He's basically a very powerful jack of all trades. If this needs capping in any way, just let me know and I'll be happy to cooperate.

First Person Sample: A network post at ExitVoid that shows a good variety of interaction.

Third Person Sample: Two log posts from EV: a more generic open log that also shows his relationship with Sollux well, and something more dramatic after he resurrects from Gamzee killing him and Feferi.


Note: As per mod request the bits about him being related to Naoto have been retconned, as it's a fan theory and not canon.