♫ f i f t e e n - [ a u d i o ]
[SEEKERS OF THE TRUTH ~ 89%]
Guys... you've seen the feeds, right? Thanatos, Guilford, Link...
Are you... thinking what I'm thinking?
[/SEEKERS OF THE TRUTH]
[VALERIA ~ 80%]
Hey, Val - you've been fighting the Shadows, right? You know how to deal with them?
[/VALERIA]
[SCHNEIZEL ~ 80%]
Um.
[Fidget fidget...Schneizel... you... you disappeared ( Read more... )
Guys... you've seen the feeds, right? Thanatos, Guilford, Link...
Are you... thinking what I'm thinking?
[/SEEKERS OF THE TRUTH]
[VALERIA ~ 80%]
Hey, Val - you've been fighting the Shadows, right? You know how to deal with them?
[/VALERIA]
[SCHNEIZEL ~ 80%]
Um.
[Fidget fidget...Schneizel... you... you disappeared ( Read more... )
[His voice is brisk, to the point, but not without warmth when he issues that curt little greeting.]
You are correct. However...
[A roughened, as if frustrated little sigh, as if he's trying to think, to remember, has been doing so -]
My memory has been uncharacteristically unreliable in regards to what happened. From the little recollection I do have, I believe I can confirm that we were taken by the fae, but the nature of that...
[When he trails off, it sounds thoughtful, deeply pensive. But then he shakes it off, turns his focus to Yosuke again.]
But it seems that you may know more of our current situation, Yosuke. What can you tell me?
Reply
[He sounds uncertain. This - again - is the sort of thing he should really talk to Souji and Chie about before he tells anyone else, right? This is just like when he told Schneizel about Adachi - right?
But... he'd still been right to do that, hadn't he? That was all that mattered in the end... and Schneizel - he really did inspire confidence and trust. He couldn't just ignore that.]
I think... we might be seeing bits of people they don't want us to see.
Reply
[The term had come up when Yosuke explained a little bit about Persona to him. This was related, then - and how had Yosuke considered it? Suppressed power, wasn't it?
There's a moment's silence before he speaks again.]
A repressed part of ourselves. You believe that there is a 'shadow' present for every person who disappeared?
Reply
I...
Well. I mean... Link and Guilford and Thanatos are all acting a bit weird, and they all vanished, right?
Reply
[That has him frowning. He's seen nothing from Guilford - so is it filtered? Hidden? That might make sense...
Silence, as he fits the pieces into place. People are taken - how many and who, he has to find out - by the fae, but returned. And now? Now each of them has their counterpart - no, that's not quite right, is it? Their repressed self. The part they seek to hide, even from themselves.
One for each of them, their shadow - even him.
For a moment, he's quite lost in that thought, that curiosity which is both idle and anything but. On one hand, he regards it from a spectator's standpoint - his own shadow. Something he was hiding - what could that be? How would it manifest itself?
And conversely, the idea itself - that there's something he seeks to hide aired out so openly - is quite unnerving, to say the least. So much hangs on the delicate balance of pieces played and masks shifted here, all of that could crumble so easily -]Yosuke, I believe you're correct. Tell me anything pertinent about dealing with these ( ... )
Reply
[He scratches his head, unsure. He wasn't sure how he ended up getting so ahead of himself, but he guesses he would end up saying this stuff anyway, so it's not like it matters, right?]
Right... I'm not an expert or anything, but basically whenever we came into contact with one of them, we had to fight it as long as the person it came from denied it. When they accepted it, it turned into a Persona...
Reply
And if the shadow, the... repressed side of oneself, is not accepted?
Reply
[Kanji's looked like it had been about to go berserk again before he accepted it, but Mitsuo's just... vanished. No Persona for him, and he'd not accepted it.
... And then there was Saki...
He swallows.]
I think - it might kill them.
Reply
People repress parts of themselves. In some cases - most, perhaps - they hide away the less savoury aspects of their nature, the parts they feel would reflect poorly upon them. Conversely, they might hide what they see to be weakness. It matters little what they're hiding, it's an irrevocable fact of humanity. Self-awareness, genuine acceptance, how common are such things in society?
He smiles, unseen, and then smoothes the expression away, sounding grave, but focused.]
What should we anticipate from the shadows themselves?
Reply
[Yosuke's own had been about dissatisfaction, feelings of dislocation, and self-loathing that spiralled out onto other aspects of his life. Chie's had been about control. Kanji's had been about acceptance. Rise's had been acknowledgement...
They were all approached differently. But they were all the same thing, in the end.]
It's just... everything you don't want to hear about yourself. They'll say it, and they'll do it loudly and won't care who gets to hear it. And if you don't accept them, they'll attack you and everyone who tries to help you. The strength of them sort of varies on... I think on how much people repress those feelings. But I don't know...
[That was conjecture, but it made sense. Out of their teammates, Naoto's had been the toughest to beat, after all.]
Reply
Is there anything else you think that I should know?
Reply
Just that it's best to accept them... even if it's hard. That'll stop them from going berserk and going for... anyone around.
If they're not... there's usually a pattern to the way they attack. It's got something to do with what they're repressing, usually, and sometimes, if you're lucky, they'll be weak to certain attacks. Unfortunately those usually don't make much sense, but... Well, you get it, right?
Reply
Leave a comment