app for deme
Player Name: Okami
Player LJ: starfruits
Contact: AIM // ouuuuka | email // ouuuuka [at] gmail [dot] com
Character Number: first agai HURR
Character: Minako Arisato
Fandom: Persona 3 Portable
Personality:
Minako is quite different than Minato in terms of personality. Judging from a lot of her responses in the game during Social Links, she's spunky and peppy, and is not only good at lending an ear to a friend in need but will stick up for them and open her mouth when necessary. She does retain the qualities of a leader in that she remains calm in unusually strange circumstances (seriously, arriving at the station in the dark hour and seeing coffins all over, and not freaking out?), and she was able to use her persona right off the bat without knowing how it actually works. In all honesty, watching Yukari take a gun and put it to her head should have freaked her out, when instead the gun gets knocked to her and Minako puts it to her own head and pulls the trigger.
Another really good instance of her spunk and upfront personality is in the Social Link with Saori, the Librarian with the Hermit S.L. As you progress through this particular S.L., Saori is being framed for indecent behavior and nasty rumors are spreading around due to her not wanting to make anyone hate her as she is incredibly lonely. During the third or fourth rank up, a female student enters the library in a pissy fit, saying Saori was the one who 'seduced' her boyfriend into going out to kareoke with her, as the boy (in a previous rank up), asked her out. Saori had no idea the boy was dating someone, and didn't even care for him that way and only wanted a friend. The girl didn't believe her, called her a slut and slapped her. Minako is given the option to stand there doing nothing, tell the girl off, or punch the girl and get into a fistfight with her. As I chose 'tell the girl off', she only bitched again and left, Saori in near tears but trying to smile it off and thanking you for standing up for her.
That entire scene leads me to believe Minako is not just another silent protagonist, but she does stick up for herself and her friends. In other S.Links with her friends and even with the love events that go on, you get many different options to say sweet things, to say teasing things -- during the fight with the Full Moon event of The Hierophant and The Lovers, after defeating the Hierophant and looking into the mirror, shadows tempt Minako to walk into the room where Akihiko is showering. After dealing with clearing her head, Akihiko comes out stark naked and you get the option to say PUT ON YOUR CLOTHES. Yes, in all caps. (In the boys version, it's Minato being tempted by the shadows to walk in on Yukari, but I don't recall the specifics on what you can have him say. All I remember is Yukari slaps on sight.)
Something that can be learned early on about Minako is that she takes jokes in stride. Junpei frequently makes passes and while Yukari makes a face and calls him Stupei, you have the option to have Minako laugh and play along, if only because you two are friends and they both known their limits. Junpei is not available as a love interest, so he really does keep everything platonic aside from calling Minako 'cutie'. With a maxed social link, on Coming of Age Day in January, he takes her up to the roof to explain how he trusts her with his life. The life Chidori gave him. While Junpei isn't the only guy who makes loljokes about her looks and hits on her (Ryoji also flirts with her openly, but then again, he flirts with all girls), he is the only one who keeps it at strictly a friends level as you progress through social links.
Back in the first paragraph, I mentioned on how Minako is a very good listener, and I haven't yet explained why through her social links with two people. The first one I will touch on is the Girl at the Shrine, or rather, Maiko. The kid you get the Hanged Man link from. Her parents are getting a divorce, and she's too young to understand it yet so she thinks it's her fault. Throughout that link, Minako was simply there for her, and hung out and played and listened when she cried because she missed her parents not arguing. In the end, Maiko tried to run away from home and Minako ran into her parents, and together they found her. Maiko got her parents to explain why they couldn't stay married, and she finally grew to be okay with it. Minako has the option to say the girl is like a friend, or like a sister, and either one makes her very happy (I personally chose 'like a sister'). On her last day there, Maiko gave Minako a small beaded ring that she made and said she would always remember her.
The next, Minako has the opportunity to visit an older couple who own a bookstore that opens early in the game, and upon hearing about a certain tree, she goes and gets a leaf to prove it's still there. With that, a really sweet and sad social link is born. Minako learns about how the couple had a son who passed away, and eventually that he died in a car accident from being hit by a drunk driver. The son was a student at her school, who graduated, became a teacher, and planted that very same tree she brought a leaf from. The unfortunate thing they hear though is that the tree is going to be cut down. As time passes, Minako was able to get a petition going to stop that from happening, but eventually the old couple lets it go as they learn the tree is being cut down to build a new set of classrooms. Wanting to give back to the school and do what would have made their son happy, they give her the first fruit that tree bore and request that she visit them regularly, as Minako's sweet behavior reminds them of their son.
To wrap up in summary of all that TL;DR I just wrote, Minako is kind, courageous, spunky, peppy, a wonderful listener, and a great friend to those she knows. I'd even go so far as to call her a spitfire when someone threatens them, as seen above with Saori's social link!
Note: Not quite a personality thing, but since the other guys (Akihiko, Ken, Shinjiro, Ryoji) are date-able, I would like to say she 'chose' the friends routes for their Social Links, rather than the lovers routes. (I don't want to trap any players into playing a ship out.)
History: Aw yeah the megamitensei wikia has a section on her! The history for the male protagonist is here for reference though since it isn't listed in the females. She is also coming with memories from Discedo!
Discedo Memories!: Minako learned of Minato even though she didn't meet him. On arrival and being relieved to see several of the SEES members, none of them recognized her and were going "Minato?" instead. After getting together with Aigis later that day and discussing the things they knew, Aigis pieced it together as the theory of the butterfly effect. So she understands that there is another self in a sense, another person who is in her place in a parallel world; since she never did meet him before leaving, she is still very curious on meeting him someday.
She also learned the fate of Shinjiro, where as the one from her version is saved, the one from Minato's passed away (he was alive in Discedo but I believe they discussed it and she was honestly horrified at knowing what happened.) Minako is a bit fearful he won't wake up after having met Minato's version.
Some cross-canon relations were formed mostly through working at the cafe next door to Shinji's bar; Minako became friends with Cube (Princess Maker anime I'm not thinking the name of) and Anemone (Eureka Seven). She also became somewhat friends with the Watch team leader Seifer (FF8) and joined the Watch to help out wherever she could during a crisis. There was also a friendship with Jileena (Immortal Rain), to which she learned what tonfa's were XD.
She was unfortunately not there more than three months, so she didn't gain much in character development, but I think the knowledge she acquired about Minato and some of the details from his life will be an interesting thing to know of already.
Timeline: January 30th.
Abilities:
Through her Wild Card ability and that meaning she can swap Personae at a whim, Minako has a wide range of powers at her disposal. Odin would be best for electrical attacks, Thanatos for avoiding Mudoon skills (instant death via darkness), Messiah for healing and Megido spells (which hit anything)... She can even summon Mara for massive fire damage (and to confuse people, because uh, Mara? Is a chariot riding, enormous penis monster. No, I am not joking 8|a). Minako is also capable of using naginata and sticks as her weapons, and she doesn't use anything else, so she probably has no skill with other types of weapons. While she carries an Evoker, which resembles a gun, it only unleashes her Persona and cannot carry bullets.
Why a gun with no bullets? It's explained in game that by putting ones self in a stressful situation, such as pulling the trigger to a gun shaped object to ones head that can release their Persona; their protection against that sort of fear. There are two canon times where Mitsuru herself summons her persona without use of an Evoker; once, when she first awoke as a Persona user to protect her father, and then (in a much less serious situation, but still apparently stressful enough for her) a second time where the boys were peeping on the girls while at the hot spring. This information is somewhat unrelated to Minako, but I felt it was necessary to explain and mention since it also means it's possible that Minako could also undergo this amount of stress to summon her own Persona without use of her Evoker.
Something that is unrelated to her Persona strengths but is still an ability of hers, is that Minako is a very good listener. She's good at picking up on how people are feeling, she understands when words are being chosen precisely, and she's intelligent enough to pick up on the chain of puzzles before her in canon. Minako was most likely the first to realize the full moon was important to a large Shadow appearing, even during the rescue operation to get Fuuka out of Tartarus and Akihiko picks up on it; Minako had Pharos coming to her during the night for the last month and a half, being concise about a full moon approaching. He may not have actually said what was going on, but she definitely could confirm for Akihiko about the full moon on her night of awakening as a Persona user. Then again, during the previous month when she, Junpei and Yukari dealt with the one on the monorail.
While I'm not sure it counts as an ability, it's a canon fact that Minako can eat a lot. It's mentioned in both the Magician (Junpei) social link and the Star (Akihiko) social link on a few occasions of getting ramen, where she gets THE LARGEST BOWL OF RAMEN EVER and eats it all with no problem. Tiny girl, skinny waist, ENORMOUS APPETITE. Both boys are all WHERE DO YOU PUT IT??? 8|?????
For the Persona on her arrival, I would like to choose Thanatos with the moveset of Megidola, Absorb Slash, Tempest Slash, Weapons Master, God's Hand, Brave Blade, Salvation and Maralagidyne. Repels darkness, weak to light. Level 90, of the Death arcana. Stats are St 99, Ma 97, En 93, Ag 94, and Lu 99. If there are any troubles with this choice, please let me know!
Link to an image of the character: This is a link to the image!
Sample writing: (Herp, recycled samples!)
"Persona!"
Holding her necktie for reassurance, Minako held up her evoker, placed it against her temple, and pulled the trigger. The expected crack was unheard, and all the gun did was click helplessly as her eyes snapped open in surprise, and mild horror as it dawned on her that it didn't work.
The twitching little black creature that looked like a Shadow, but nothing she's ever seen before, tipped its head, flicked its antenna and crawled closer. Curious yellow eyes stood stark against the inky black, and that had Minako narrowing her eyes and remaining on guard, but it.. didn't seem to be doing anything more than looking at her.
They had a staring contest at first, for a good long minute, before the creature chirped and started to shuffle closer, looking more excited by how those antenna flickered to and fro. Shuffling back with every step that inky black creature took forward, she swept her naginata ahead and prepared to defend herself as darkness just boiled from the ground, more of those odd creatures forming from what seemed like nothing.
"I don't have time for this.. I need to figure out where I am. I wonder.. if this is Tartarus somehow?"
Mumbling to herself while keeping a sharp watchful eye, Minako pushed all of her distracting thoughts of 'Where am I? What are these? Where are my friends?' out of her mind and leapt forward to swipe the blade ahead. To her surprise though, the weapon seemed to pass right through the creature, leaving it totally unphased and moving closer. Quickly backing up further, she didn't want to test out that miss again as there were more and more of the black creatures beginning to try and circle around her.
"Oh no you don't!"
Moving as fast as she could, Minako outright ran through the small opening that was left, refusing to get trapped like that when her weapon clearly wasn't working.. and what was up with her evoker? Was it broke?
Running all out for a good ten minutes and charging down the street, Minako finally slowed as she neared the end of the main street she was on, having to choose left or right.. but good god she wheezed and held out her evoker again, checking it over. It didn't look broken, but when she drew it to her head and pulled the trigger, it still clicked with no effect. Looking behind her and finding the coast clear, she let out a sigh of relief and rubbed her face.
"This.. can't be good. I was lost in the first place but now I'm even more lost. If this really is Tartarus, then I have no idea how long I've been in here."
Talking to herself to mask her uneasiness, she looked up and down the barren street before a brief 'eenie, meenie, miney, moe' helped her choose which way to go, trying to walk as quietly as possible. Her shoes still stubbornly caused echoes, but they were muted compared to earlier when she ran, plus the closer knit buildings were helping to absorb the sound.
There has to be a way out. Right?
Finally digging into her pocket where she had shoved that 'use this' note and PDA-like thing, she fiddled with the buttons to figure out how to turn it on until it hissed a bit of static. 'Oh, it's a radio?' was the first thought that came to mind, so shrugging to herself, she held it up to her mouth and spoke.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
Sample journal entry:
G-guys! Holy crap--guys! [ATTENTION SEES. LISTEN TO YOUR LEADER-CHAN.] I found.. well, this entire chest is full of yen, I haven't even started counting it to figure out how much is in here! [Men, this is your hint to come help her carry this friggin thing, she doesn't have enough space in her pockets for this, it's all in coins.]
Oh man, this is just.. jeez, we can all get new shoes and new weapons and-- [Minako kept pausing her words, her mind running at the speed of light before she abruptly stopped, her mumbling ending as she lifted her voice with excitement.] Yukari! Fuuka! Mitsuru-senpai! I vote on a girls shopping day tomorrow after school, there's so much that would be left over; I doubt we'd be able to use it all in one go! [Does this glee sound like it can be contained? Not anytime soon.]