This is - not a cmo?! Help me voicetest Personas!

[yamadori]

🌸 this is mostly for psl use for more specific scenarios, but if you're stuck on a prompt I still have my wip wishlist + a list of my favorite bakerstreet memes in the comments! some recently swirling around in my head in particular: fake dating/relationship, arranged marriage (kind of in that same vein), soulmates, kiznaiver au or another kind of pain/memory/thought/dream sharing, holy grail war (fate) au, canon divergence, childhood friends, etc.

🌸 when I remember I'm going to make this my sticky because I'm probably going to reuse this both when I make a journal for Yoshizawa and also when I play P4/P3 and have to go through "who am I picking up roulette" again

🌸 only Akira has shipping prefs in his journal at the time of writing this but the caveat for adults applies to the P5 characters; if/when I pick up characters from P3/P4, I doubt the issue I have with it will be present there so it doesn't apply. and :re castmates I ship pretty much all the PT with each other so give me anybody for both shippy and gen stuff!

🌸 nsfw is okay and loved as long as it's 15-19 for age, but make sure you tag it

🌸 TAG UR ROYAL SPOILERS and if we're using this in January-March make sure you tag your P3 spoilers

🌸 I'm still voicetesting so be gentle with me but tell me if I'm off with anything!!! I don't know how many are going to stick besides Akira and Futaba but I want to get better if I'm keeping them around

🌸 you should already have my plurk if you found this but if you need to plot with me on there for anything feel free!

Comments

[arsenist]

[His mouth moves without conscious thought.]

And I tell you that I'll hold onto your glove.

[For a moment, just a moment, he feels like he's back in the dream, nose invaded by sea salt and metal and the tang of copper in particular. His heart thuds with a pain like grieving - but what is there to grieve, in this life where he has everything he wants? - until the moment it snaps and he's back on his bed again, sharply inhaling in reality.]

That's... [He doesn't know what to say. Doesn't know how to explain this. There's absolutely no reason he should've said that, even through the strange familiarity twisting up his throat.] I don't know why I said that.

[Akira's voice comes out quiet, quieter even than what's normal for him.]

It's silly, isn't it? Filling in what happened in your dreams, like we're sharing them in some manga. [He tries for a laugh; this one sticks, even if it's weak and unconvincing.] It's not like...

[It's not like I was there. It's not like I can smell your blood. It's not like I can still feel the panic in my ribcage.

None of those, however, can find their way out of his throat.]

back from vacation, sorry for the wait on my end :)

[injust]

[There's a pause. He can hear Akira's voice in his ear, an echo of something he's said before, and it ripples through him like a drop in a pond, plucking at the hazy memories. He was bleeding. He was staring at his own face, as if in a distorted mirror. He was listening to Akira tell him - ]

It's not like what? Like it was real?

[Goro swallows hard, shifting in his bed to sit up. Akira's voice echoes in his mind. Losing so much blood made him feel cold, shivering as if submerged in an ice bath. There were monsters all around him. The door was dark - no, metallic - no, it wasn't a door at all, it was something else, some kind of shutter...

He squeezes his eyes shut, unsure if he's trying to push the memories back or draw them in closer. Something tells him that he shouldn't try to remember this. Something tells him that he's being foolish, it's just a dream, like what Akira is saying.

But part of him - a small, struggling part of him - feels like this is more important than anything he's ever done in this life.

'I'll hold onto your glove.']

You... [He pauses. His voice is soft, breathy.] ...I sometimes feel like when I close my eyes, I'll open them again and be somewhere else. Somewhere without you. Or worse - I'll be nowhere at all.

[Goro reaches his spare hand up, fists his fingers in his hair. Akira doesn't seem to want to be the one to verbalize his doubt first - doesn't want to be the one to say 'but what if this is, somehow, real?', and so Goro does it for him because he's not sure if he can live with not knowing anymore, not when it's becoming apparent that he's not the only one with those thoughts.

He takes a deep breath.]

Close your eyes. Think about being there again.

[He does the same. His mouth opens almost subconsciously as it plays out again, clearer now that he's forcing those few moments to repeat themselves over and over again. When he speaks, he echoes his own words]

'After all this, that's what you have to say?'