[undying] App
12 Dec 2023 01:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seestheworldPlayer Information
Player: Zoe
Pronouns:
Over 18: Y
Invited By: Mod invitation
Current Characters: N/A
Pronouns:
Over 18: Y
Invited By: Mod invitation
Current Characters: N/A
Character Information
Character Name: Kotone Shiomi
Character Pronouns: She/her
Canon: Persona 3 Portable
Canon Age: 17
Canon Point: Post-Game/New Game+
Canon Link: Here!
Character Pronouns: She/her
Canon: Persona 3 Portable
Canon Age: 17
Canon Point: Post-Game/New Game+
Canon Link: Here!
AU Information
AU Name: Kotone Shiomi
AU Age: 17
Physical Differences: Brown eyes (red in canon).
AU History: Kotone was orphaned at a young age when her modestly well-off parents were killed under mysterious circumstances; while she was present at the time, her memories of it are confused and fragmented. She was sent to stay with relatives of her father, who promptly fobbed her off onto other relatives once they found they couldn't deal with a traumatized child. This eventually became a pattern, as she was shunted from relative to relative (paternal and maternal) and town to town for years on end before eventually ending up in a workhouse at a relatively nondescript village far from her original home. She got used to getting by on scraps - of food, of coin, of affection - swallowing what pride she had left just to survive. And she did it with a smile, for the most part, because what other choice did she have?
Of course, that didn't mean she had to like it - and she didn't. She couldn't help but resent those people around her - family, employers, nobles - who seemed to take her loyalty as their due while treating her like livestock or maybe a pet. She had even less regard for those seemingly well-meaning people who still managed to ignore or even exacerbate her misery through sheer obliviousness; at least people who were actively malicious to her recognized what they were doing. And of course, by the time she left her family's orbit, she had no regard for them as a whole at all. She did have a decent amount of sympathy for those who were as bad off or worse off than she was, even showing them genuine kindness, but her own resources were limited, and in any case she'd been burned so many times by people she'd thought she could trust that there was only so much she was willing to do for them. (Children were an exception; Kotone adored children, hated seeing them hurt or abused, and would happily seek retribution against anyone who did so. This inevitably resulted in her being removed from the care or employ of that individual, at least until she learned to be sneakier about it.)
It didn't help that Kotone tended to be seen as a bit... off... by those who got to know her. Even people who were only used to her perky facade tended to find it subtly off-putting in ways they couldn't necessarily articulate, and that only got worse when they inevitably learned a bit more about her life history. Meanwhile, her family, and others who'd gotten to know her before she learned to stuff her trauma deep down and hide it, often didn't know what to do with that trauma. As a child she frequently ended up being punished for acting out - which in turn led to her shutting her emotions down altogether for a while, which people were even less capable of dealing with. It took some time for her to learn to hide what she was feeling (or not feeling) behind a more socially acceptable mask, but even that didn't always work. Kotone eventually grew to feel like she couldn't win, and the sad part was that she wasn't really wrong. Her resentment of that fact eventually started to lead to small acts of rebellion: chores not being completely done, or with "errors," or other small bits of sabotage when she felt she could afford it, which wasn't as often as she would have liked. Those didn't help her situation either, but they did make her feel better for a few brief moments at a time.
For all her sacrifices and small rebellions, though, she couldn't see a way out of a life of endless drudgery... until the day a vampire showed up with a bag of feathers. She was surprisingly unbothered when she drew the white feather, which didn't exactly make her any less unnerving to the adults around her, but at that point Kotone didn't particularly care. Not when she was finally out.
AU Personality: Like her canon counterpart, Kotone masks her trauma and anger behind a cheerful, friendly facade. This version of her, however, hasn't had the chance to make friends or find a place for herself like her canon counterpart did in-game. This Kotone is angrier, and her facade is a bit brittler. She doesn't have the close bonds with others that canon Kotone develops in the course of the game, and while she has the same capacity for loyalty as canon Kotone, there isn't anyone she trusts enough to give that loyalty to. She cares for other people, but most of the time that's not enough for her to let herself get truly invested in their well-being; she's more apt to prioritize herself, because who else is going to do it?
(For those who are more familiar with her canon, AU!Kotone is probably the version of Kotone we would have gotten if she'd been part of Strega, the antagonistic group of Persona-users who worked in opposition to canon!Kotone's SEES group. Needless to say, she's going to be cringing a lot when her memories start coming back, because wow, that's a bit pointed, isn't it?)
She does retain her canon counterpart's occasional forays into sarcasm and slightly less occasional forays into violence, though. Also, like her canon self, she really doesn't like being isolated and alone, no matter how used to it she is here. She also really doesn't like it when you try to take her food.
AU Age: 17
Physical Differences: Brown eyes (red in canon).
AU History: Kotone was orphaned at a young age when her modestly well-off parents were killed under mysterious circumstances; while she was present at the time, her memories of it are confused and fragmented. She was sent to stay with relatives of her father, who promptly fobbed her off onto other relatives once they found they couldn't deal with a traumatized child. This eventually became a pattern, as she was shunted from relative to relative (paternal and maternal) and town to town for years on end before eventually ending up in a workhouse at a relatively nondescript village far from her original home. She got used to getting by on scraps - of food, of coin, of affection - swallowing what pride she had left just to survive. And she did it with a smile, for the most part, because what other choice did she have?
Of course, that didn't mean she had to like it - and she didn't. She couldn't help but resent those people around her - family, employers, nobles - who seemed to take her loyalty as their due while treating her like livestock or maybe a pet. She had even less regard for those seemingly well-meaning people who still managed to ignore or even exacerbate her misery through sheer obliviousness; at least people who were actively malicious to her recognized what they were doing. And of course, by the time she left her family's orbit, she had no regard for them as a whole at all. She did have a decent amount of sympathy for those who were as bad off or worse off than she was, even showing them genuine kindness, but her own resources were limited, and in any case she'd been burned so many times by people she'd thought she could trust that there was only so much she was willing to do for them. (Children were an exception; Kotone adored children, hated seeing them hurt or abused, and would happily seek retribution against anyone who did so. This inevitably resulted in her being removed from the care or employ of that individual, at least until she learned to be sneakier about it.)
It didn't help that Kotone tended to be seen as a bit... off... by those who got to know her. Even people who were only used to her perky facade tended to find it subtly off-putting in ways they couldn't necessarily articulate, and that only got worse when they inevitably learned a bit more about her life history. Meanwhile, her family, and others who'd gotten to know her before she learned to stuff her trauma deep down and hide it, often didn't know what to do with that trauma. As a child she frequently ended up being punished for acting out - which in turn led to her shutting her emotions down altogether for a while, which people were even less capable of dealing with. It took some time for her to learn to hide what she was feeling (or not feeling) behind a more socially acceptable mask, but even that didn't always work. Kotone eventually grew to feel like she couldn't win, and the sad part was that she wasn't really wrong. Her resentment of that fact eventually started to lead to small acts of rebellion: chores not being completely done, or with "errors," or other small bits of sabotage when she felt she could afford it, which wasn't as often as she would have liked. Those didn't help her situation either, but they did make her feel better for a few brief moments at a time.
For all her sacrifices and small rebellions, though, she couldn't see a way out of a life of endless drudgery... until the day a vampire showed up with a bag of feathers. She was surprisingly unbothered when she drew the white feather, which didn't exactly make her any less unnerving to the adults around her, but at that point Kotone didn't particularly care. Not when she was finally out.
AU Personality: Like her canon counterpart, Kotone masks her trauma and anger behind a cheerful, friendly facade. This version of her, however, hasn't had the chance to make friends or find a place for herself like her canon counterpart did in-game. This Kotone is angrier, and her facade is a bit brittler. She doesn't have the close bonds with others that canon Kotone develops in the course of the game, and while she has the same capacity for loyalty as canon Kotone, there isn't anyone she trusts enough to give that loyalty to. She cares for other people, but most of the time that's not enough for her to let herself get truly invested in their well-being; she's more apt to prioritize herself, because who else is going to do it?
(For those who are more familiar with her canon, AU!Kotone is probably the version of Kotone we would have gotten if she'd been part of Strega, the antagonistic group of Persona-users who worked in opposition to canon!Kotone's SEES group. Needless to say, she's going to be cringing a lot when her memories start coming back, because wow, that's a bit pointed, isn't it?)
She does retain her canon counterpart's occasional forays into sarcasm and slightly less occasional forays into violence, though. Also, like her canon self, she really doesn't like being isolated and alone, no matter how used to it she is here. She also really doesn't like it when you try to take her food.
Novice Information
Starting Season: Second season
Maker: Lydia
Anticipated Court: Red. Part of that is that the Red Court works as a warped mirror of Persona 3's game mechanics, which require her to concentrate on bothseduction her social skills (the social link sections of the game, where she gains additional power by forging bonds - sometimes including romantic bonds - with other members of the cast), and the blade (the combat sections, naturally). Both elements are necessary in order for her to be able to resolve the game's main conflict, just as both seduction/manipulation and combat skills are important aspects of the Red Court, although admittedly, Persona 3 is a bit less overt about the former.
That said, riffing on her game mechanics isn't the only reason I'm thinking Red for her. Kotone has had a difficult life, with a lot of pent-up emotions she's had to bottle up over the years; the Red Court, with its emphases on manipulation and seduction on one hand and combat on the other, would give her ways to channel those emotions, if not safely, then certainly productively (for certain definitions of "productive").
Maker: Lydia
Anticipated Court: Red. Part of that is that the Red Court works as a warped mirror of Persona 3's game mechanics, which require her to concentrate on both
That said, riffing on her game mechanics isn't the only reason I'm thinking Red for her. Kotone has had a difficult life, with a lot of pent-up emotions she's had to bottle up over the years; the Red Court, with its emphases on manipulation and seduction on one hand and combat on the other, would give her ways to channel those emotions, if not safely, then certainly productively (for certain definitions of "productive").
Samples
Samples: TDM
