route_29 application
Mun
Name: Beatrice
Livejournal Username: shoeprint
E-mail: adopplereffect@aol.com
AIM/MSN: (aim) a doppler effect
Timezone: CST.
Current Characters in Route: antiscience and usedtact
Character
Name: Maya Amano
Series: Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
Timeline: Post-EP, after seeing Tatsuya at the crosswalk.
Canon Resource Links: smt wiki here /o/
Affiliation: Trainer
Personality:
There's something odd about Maya's role as the silent protagonist in Eternal Punishment, and it isn't because she doesn't play a major part in the plot (because she does, for both games). Most main characters of the Persona series are introspective, brooding types who rarely speak unless it's absolutely necessary; they're silent protagonists because they're mostly silent characters, personality-wise. However, Maya Amano is an exception. Extroverted, opinionated, and with an obvious presence, she has proclaimed herself to be quite talkative. Her role as central character to the events of EP downplays her buoyant personality and willingness to speak her mind due to Shin Megami Tensei's tendency to make the protagonist fade to the background most of the time, allowing other characters to develop themselves in her stead. So, most of her characterisation is best viewed in the prequel Persona 2 game, Innocent Sin.
In this game, she is introduced as a red-hot reporter of the magazine "The Coolest", which discusses the lives of young people-- particularly high schoolers. As a reporter, she's naturally curious, skilled at probing for knowledge, and takes her job very seriously. But this doesn't mean that she fits the stereotypical idea of a reporter as conniving, nosy, or willing to fabricate nasty tales about innocent people. On the contrary, her objective is to seek out overlooked truths about the world and allow the public to understand important news that has flown under the radar-- whether interesting to the general populace or not. Her career path is the same in both Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment, due to the fact that her goals are deep-seated in the death of her father. He was a reporter as well, but rarely took the time for his family. When he one day died on the job, Maya was devastated; she vowed that, as a reporter, she would continue what her father did and hoped to one day have a family of her own so that she could love and care for it in a way that her father did not.
Down to the core, Maya is a compassionate person and tries to coax the very best out of everyone. She's often seen giving words of encouragement in sticky situations, and becomes somewhat of a guiding hand for the group throughout the events of the game, as she is the first of all of them to find an optimistic viewpoint no matter the crisis. After all, her catchphrase (which she repeats several times in both games) is any variation of "let's be positive!" Maya is even one of the only people to cause Tatsuya to smile with Ms. Bunny, and anyone who knows Tatsuya as a character will admit that this is no small feat. Ms. Bunny is the equivalent of a comfort blanket to her, a trinket given to her by her dad that she carries everywhere. It seems to give her hope, and she often uses it to uplift the team. At the end of Innocent Sin as she is dying, she claims that "Ms. Bunny will laugh at anyone who is sad!" to encourage everyone to be strong and continue on.
In this way, Maya is also the "big sister" figure in Innocent Sin, beginning those years ago when she met everyone as children. The team esteems her highly and, though they didn't remember in the beginning, they confess to feeling warm and easy around Maya, as though they've known her for a very long time. It turns out, this is more true than they realise; as children, Tatsuya, Jun, Eikichi, Lisa, and Maya played together a game that Maya taught everyone called Master Persona. It turns out that this is what caused everyone's persona to awaken. Through their time together, the group became very close; so, when Maya announced that she was moving away, the children were upset and slightly angry. Lisa and Eikichi invented the decision to lock her in the shrine until the next morning, thinking that if she wasn't found until then, she would be able to stay. Tatsuya was very opposed to this idea, so they locked him inside as well.
Unfortunately, their plan backfired as an arsonist named Tatsuya Sudou set fire to the shrine. When it was discovered the next morning, it was merely ash. The Tatsuya of the group was found alive, but Maya was never found, leading everyone to believe that she had been killed. Distraught by what they had done, the four children blocked the event and Maya out of their memories forever. Maya, however, who had lived due to the awakening of her persona, obtained some slight physical scarring and a crippling fear of all fire.
However, the scarring and pyrophobia are not present in Eternal Punishment, as it is an alternate universe in which the events of Innocent Sin never happened. She does, however, have a bruise on her chest which twinges whenever she sees or thinks about something from the "real world", or the world in which her frightening past actually had occurred. The bruise symbolises the stab wound she received in the real world at the time of her death. It surfaces when she sees Tatsuya for the first time.
Despite her upbeat personality, Maya isn't just another bubbly, air-headed female protagonist. Her optimism doesn't obscure her obvious intelligence; after all, she's the one who solves several difficult logic puzzles surrounding the rumours told in Sumaru City. Her way of thinking is very critical, and when something seems impossible to figure out, she wills herself and those around her to look at it from another angle. Despite her seemingly unfailing optimism, though, she is sometimes viewed second guessing herself. When the group was trapped in a bomb shelter due to a rumour, she asks Tatsuya when everyone's asleep if he really believes that they will ever escape-- a very defeatist and contrary attitude to the can-do outlook she normally provides. This suggests that her "positive thinking" is sometimes just a show of strength, thrust on her after the death of her father and her role as the maternal figure of the team.
Essentially, Maya is an all-round upbeat, intelligent, and kind person, willing to see the goodness in people before the bad. She's a seeker of truth and a compassionate friend, though not at all a pushover. She speaks her mind and presses onward with all of her might, never to be caught leaving a mystery unsolved or a friend behind.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
+ she's pretty good with handguns. probably not relevant to route, but it means that she has had combat experience.
+ intelligence. she's always one of the first to solve the many mysteries she and the groups encounter.
+ people skills. she can make almost anyone happy if she tries.
- though intelligent, she can sometimes be overhasty or impulsive. a classic case of not thinking before she acts.
- her selflessness gets her in a lot of trouble sometimes. it's no wonder that the team thinks she needs protecting!
- she can't cook. like at all. and she hates cleaning.
- her driving is potentially lethal.
Pokemon
Starter: Lapras.
Password: french toast.
Samples
First Person Sample:
[ there is no video for this one; instead, there is a distant click which indicates that something has been turned on. after a very small pause, an upbeat-sounding voice can be heard speaking conversationally at the end of the line. ]
Hello, anyone who's listening! My name is Maya Amano, ace journalist for the magazine "Coolest" and I seem to have gotten myself in a strange situation. I woke up in a room that wasn't mine... of course, I would know! And it was so... clean. It was a little eerie, now that I think about it.
I know this may sound very odd, but it really is the truth. This book keeps mentioning a place called Johto... is that where we are now? What happened to Japan?
I would be very grateful for any help! Thank you very much!
Third Person Sample:
The last thing she remembered was seeing Tatsuya, there, stalled at that crosswalk and thinking better of making contact. It was better this way, she thought-- and what mattered most to her was the happiness of everyone. Tatsuya, Jun, Lisa, Eikichi... even the more recent team she'd come to know. So she turned away from that crosswalk, the ghost of a smile on her face, and found herself...
... in a place entirely new. A bedroom, to be exact-- a bedroom that looked to belong to a small child, probably around ten or eleven. She hesitated for a spell, rooted to the spot from shock, unsure what to make of this new development. A person didn't just walk from the city sidewalk into a roomy house, especially since the city wasn't populated with places like this. It was rustic, almost-- nothing like her own room in the apartment she shared with Ulala. After gathering her wits, she began to examine the place, upturning everything, searching for any clue that would point her to some sort of explanation. When nothing turned up (the room was pretty bare, after all: just a television, bed, and odd assortment of furtniture), she sought the downstairs floor, and was relieved to find a woman in the kitchen, merrily... pacing back and forth.
The woman noticed her immediately, cheerily greeting her with an assortment of rehearsed phrases-- punctuating her backpack offertory with a shocking declaration:
"As your mother, I thought it would be best if I included a bit of lunch for the journey--"
"...?" Maya blinked. "D-Did you just say that you're my... mom?"
"Well, of course, dear! Oh, as they get older, they always pretend to forget you..." A lamenting sigh, true to any real, fretting mother figure. Maya didn't know exactly what to make of this.
"I'm sorry, but I think you may have made a mi--"
"We don't have time to chit-chat, honey! Your adventure is about to begin! Now, all of the information you'll need is in your bag. Good luck!"
Maya was hastened out the door as it slammed behind her with a note of finality. She turned immediately to try the knob, hoping to ask more questions of this strange woman, but the door was locked. In fact, the lights in the house appeared to be completely cut out-- as if the place had never been inhabited in the first place. All Maya could do, then, was put distance between it and herself, continuing through the tiny town. What to do now? She remembered her "mother" mentioning something about information in her bag. She took a moment to rummage through, taking notice of each thing-- particularly the small, red and white ball in the very front pocket.
"My adventure..." she mused curiously, examining the ball in her hand. Whatever this adventure was, it had something to do with why she was here. After a moment of deliberation, a determined smile crept onto Maya's features, and she cast her expression dead ahead. "I guess I'd better get started, then!"
Name: Beatrice
Livejournal Username: shoeprint
E-mail: adopplereffect@aol.com
AIM/MSN: (aim) a doppler effect
Timezone: CST.
Current Characters in Route: antiscience and usedtact
Character
Name: Maya Amano
Series: Persona 2: Eternal Punishment
Timeline: Post-EP, after seeing Tatsuya at the crosswalk.
Canon Resource Links: smt wiki here /o/
Affiliation: Trainer
Personality:
There's something odd about Maya's role as the silent protagonist in Eternal Punishment, and it isn't because she doesn't play a major part in the plot (because she does, for both games). Most main characters of the Persona series are introspective, brooding types who rarely speak unless it's absolutely necessary; they're silent protagonists because they're mostly silent characters, personality-wise. However, Maya Amano is an exception. Extroverted, opinionated, and with an obvious presence, she has proclaimed herself to be quite talkative. Her role as central character to the events of EP downplays her buoyant personality and willingness to speak her mind due to Shin Megami Tensei's tendency to make the protagonist fade to the background most of the time, allowing other characters to develop themselves in her stead. So, most of her characterisation is best viewed in the prequel Persona 2 game, Innocent Sin.
In this game, she is introduced as a red-hot reporter of the magazine "The Coolest", which discusses the lives of young people-- particularly high schoolers. As a reporter, she's naturally curious, skilled at probing for knowledge, and takes her job very seriously. But this doesn't mean that she fits the stereotypical idea of a reporter as conniving, nosy, or willing to fabricate nasty tales about innocent people. On the contrary, her objective is to seek out overlooked truths about the world and allow the public to understand important news that has flown under the radar-- whether interesting to the general populace or not. Her career path is the same in both Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment, due to the fact that her goals are deep-seated in the death of her father. He was a reporter as well, but rarely took the time for his family. When he one day died on the job, Maya was devastated; she vowed that, as a reporter, she would continue what her father did and hoped to one day have a family of her own so that she could love and care for it in a way that her father did not.
Down to the core, Maya is a compassionate person and tries to coax the very best out of everyone. She's often seen giving words of encouragement in sticky situations, and becomes somewhat of a guiding hand for the group throughout the events of the game, as she is the first of all of them to find an optimistic viewpoint no matter the crisis. After all, her catchphrase (which she repeats several times in both games) is any variation of "let's be positive!" Maya is even one of the only people to cause Tatsuya to smile with Ms. Bunny, and anyone who knows Tatsuya as a character will admit that this is no small feat. Ms. Bunny is the equivalent of a comfort blanket to her, a trinket given to her by her dad that she carries everywhere. It seems to give her hope, and she often uses it to uplift the team. At the end of Innocent Sin as she is dying, she claims that "Ms. Bunny will laugh at anyone who is sad!" to encourage everyone to be strong and continue on.
In this way, Maya is also the "big sister" figure in Innocent Sin, beginning those years ago when she met everyone as children. The team esteems her highly and, though they didn't remember in the beginning, they confess to feeling warm and easy around Maya, as though they've known her for a very long time. It turns out, this is more true than they realise; as children, Tatsuya, Jun, Eikichi, Lisa, and Maya played together a game that Maya taught everyone called Master Persona. It turns out that this is what caused everyone's persona to awaken. Through their time together, the group became very close; so, when Maya announced that she was moving away, the children were upset and slightly angry. Lisa and Eikichi invented the decision to lock her in the shrine until the next morning, thinking that if she wasn't found until then, she would be able to stay. Tatsuya was very opposed to this idea, so they locked him inside as well.
Unfortunately, their plan backfired as an arsonist named Tatsuya Sudou set fire to the shrine. When it was discovered the next morning, it was merely ash. The Tatsuya of the group was found alive, but Maya was never found, leading everyone to believe that she had been killed. Distraught by what they had done, the four children blocked the event and Maya out of their memories forever. Maya, however, who had lived due to the awakening of her persona, obtained some slight physical scarring and a crippling fear of all fire.
However, the scarring and pyrophobia are not present in Eternal Punishment, as it is an alternate universe in which the events of Innocent Sin never happened. She does, however, have a bruise on her chest which twinges whenever she sees or thinks about something from the "real world", or the world in which her frightening past actually had occurred. The bruise symbolises the stab wound she received in the real world at the time of her death. It surfaces when she sees Tatsuya for the first time.
Despite her upbeat personality, Maya isn't just another bubbly, air-headed female protagonist. Her optimism doesn't obscure her obvious intelligence; after all, she's the one who solves several difficult logic puzzles surrounding the rumours told in Sumaru City. Her way of thinking is very critical, and when something seems impossible to figure out, she wills herself and those around her to look at it from another angle. Despite her seemingly unfailing optimism, though, she is sometimes viewed second guessing herself. When the group was trapped in a bomb shelter due to a rumour, she asks Tatsuya when everyone's asleep if he really believes that they will ever escape-- a very defeatist and contrary attitude to the can-do outlook she normally provides. This suggests that her "positive thinking" is sometimes just a show of strength, thrust on her after the death of her father and her role as the maternal figure of the team.
Essentially, Maya is an all-round upbeat, intelligent, and kind person, willing to see the goodness in people before the bad. She's a seeker of truth and a compassionate friend, though not at all a pushover. She speaks her mind and presses onward with all of her might, never to be caught leaving a mystery unsolved or a friend behind.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
+ she's pretty good with handguns. probably not relevant to route, but it means that she has had combat experience.
+ intelligence. she's always one of the first to solve the many mysteries she and the groups encounter.
+ people skills. she can make almost anyone happy if she tries.
- though intelligent, she can sometimes be overhasty or impulsive. a classic case of not thinking before she acts.
- her selflessness gets her in a lot of trouble sometimes. it's no wonder that the team thinks she needs protecting!
- she can't cook. like at all. and she hates cleaning.
- her driving is potentially lethal.
Pokemon
Starter: Lapras.
Password: french toast.
Samples
First Person Sample:
[ there is no video for this one; instead, there is a distant click which indicates that something has been turned on. after a very small pause, an upbeat-sounding voice can be heard speaking conversationally at the end of the line. ]
Hello, anyone who's listening! My name is Maya Amano, ace journalist for the magazine "Coolest" and I seem to have gotten myself in a strange situation. I woke up in a room that wasn't mine... of course, I would know! And it was so... clean. It was a little eerie, now that I think about it.
I know this may sound very odd, but it really is the truth. This book keeps mentioning a place called Johto... is that where we are now? What happened to Japan?
I would be very grateful for any help! Thank you very much!
Third Person Sample:
The last thing she remembered was seeing Tatsuya, there, stalled at that crosswalk and thinking better of making contact. It was better this way, she thought-- and what mattered most to her was the happiness of everyone. Tatsuya, Jun, Lisa, Eikichi... even the more recent team she'd come to know. So she turned away from that crosswalk, the ghost of a smile on her face, and found herself...
... in a place entirely new. A bedroom, to be exact-- a bedroom that looked to belong to a small child, probably around ten or eleven. She hesitated for a spell, rooted to the spot from shock, unsure what to make of this new development. A person didn't just walk from the city sidewalk into a roomy house, especially since the city wasn't populated with places like this. It was rustic, almost-- nothing like her own room in the apartment she shared with Ulala. After gathering her wits, she began to examine the place, upturning everything, searching for any clue that would point her to some sort of explanation. When nothing turned up (the room was pretty bare, after all: just a television, bed, and odd assortment of furtniture), she sought the downstairs floor, and was relieved to find a woman in the kitchen, merrily... pacing back and forth.
The woman noticed her immediately, cheerily greeting her with an assortment of rehearsed phrases-- punctuating her backpack offertory with a shocking declaration:
"As your mother, I thought it would be best if I included a bit of lunch for the journey--"
"...?" Maya blinked. "D-Did you just say that you're my... mom?"
"Well, of course, dear! Oh, as they get older, they always pretend to forget you..." A lamenting sigh, true to any real, fretting mother figure. Maya didn't know exactly what to make of this.
"I'm sorry, but I think you may have made a mi--"
"We don't have time to chit-chat, honey! Your adventure is about to begin! Now, all of the information you'll need is in your bag. Good luck!"
Maya was hastened out the door as it slammed behind her with a note of finality. She turned immediately to try the knob, hoping to ask more questions of this strange woman, but the door was locked. In fact, the lights in the house appeared to be completely cut out-- as if the place had never been inhabited in the first place. All Maya could do, then, was put distance between it and herself, continuing through the tiny town. What to do now? She remembered her "mother" mentioning something about information in her bag. She took a moment to rummage through, taking notice of each thing-- particularly the small, red and white ball in the very front pocket.
"My adventure..." she mused curiously, examining the ball in her hand. Whatever this adventure was, it had something to do with why she was here. After a moment of deliberation, a determined smile crept onto Maya's features, and she cast her expression dead ahead. "I guess I'd better get started, then!"