application | CITY OF ARIEL

[fifteenhundred]

→ OOC
□ Name: Kiki
□ Age: 25
□ Contact:
□ Journal: diciassette
□ Do you play anyone in Ariel?: No

→ IC
□ Name: Souji Seta / Yu Narukami
□ Journal: fifteenhundred
□ Series: Persona 4
□ Canon point: Post-True Ending; compliant with Persona 4 Golden

□ World: First off, here are wiki links for information about Persona 4 in general, Inaba, and the Midnight Channel.

The world Inaba inhabits is a normal place not dissimilar to our own. While magic and other odd physics do exist they are not common, and the huge majority of the popular doesn't believe in them. Inaba itself is a small, rural town in Japan where not much ever happens, everyone knows everyone else, and visitors from out of town are a strange and unusual occurrence.

As mentioned, though, forms of magic do exist and there's one very peculiar aspect of the world: the Midnight Channel. The Midnight Channel is known to most only as an urban legend, a trick of staring at the TV, alone, at midnight on a rainy night in order to see your soul mate. In truth the Midnight Channel is a manifestation of human consciousness. It takes the form of a dangerous and often foggy alternate dimension that can only be accessed via climbing through a TV, and even then only by those that have been granted a certain special power.

Being formed by the thoughts of human beings, the Midnight Channel is an odd and twisted place. It's easily influenced by both of thoughts of those outside it and those within it, and a everything from castles to strip clubs to a child's vision of heaven have been seen inside of it. The 'real world' Midnight Channel rumor is actually a misunderstanding of it's true nature: rather than showing someone their soul mate, the Midnight Channel show the viewer the person, if there is one, that's trapped inside.

There are two very important aspects to the Midnight Channel, as well: Shadows and Persona. Shadows are monsters born from the suppressed thoughts and emotions of humans, said thoughts and emotions often being extremely negative. There are numerous weaker Shadows that populate the midnight channel and seem to be born from emotions that are either weak or 'distant' from the Channel itself and take forms that are unusual but reoccurring--tanks, giant robots, ghostly knights, and strange lions can be found all throughout the Midnight Channel, often only with changes to their coloration or the particular skills they have.

Persona are fundamentally similar to Shadows, being made up of the unconscious thoughts of humans (or in most cases, one particular human). However, rather than being thoughts that are suppressed or ignored, Persona come into existence when these emotions are acknowledged and accepted by those that feel them. Once acquired, Persona can be summoned in battle to cast various spells (though only inside the Midnight Channel).

However, should a normal human enter the Midnight Channel they'll most likely be confronted with a unique and much stronger Shadow. These Shadows are specific to one person, and often look identical to them aside from their eyes and an odd purple-black aura surrounding them. The Shadow will confront their other self with all of the thoughts and emotions they hide from both the world and themselves. Should the person deny their Shadow's words (and they often do) the Shadow goes berserk, transforming into a monster and attacking anyone in sights.

However, should the person accept the Shadow and it words the Shadow will not attack, and will become a Persona instead.

□ History: Souji Seta at the Shin Megami Tensei wiki. Souji is being played from after the True Ending and on the assumption that he reached the maximum level for all of his Social Links.

There's no set 'path' of dialogue choices in Persona 4, but there is some consistency of tone between each set. Souji choices in conversation tended to be direct, calm, and fairly neutral towards the beginning. Though he wasn't unfriendly, he was rarely impassioned about his friends or their mission. It wasn't until he, Yosuke, and Chie rescued Yukiko from the Midnight Channel that he began to open up properly, showing a more friendly and somewhat playful side to his personality.

As the year progressed Souji got closer and closer to the Investigation Team, both as a group and on an individual level, and forged many new friendships with his classmates, coworkers, and family members. His willingness to joke around with his friends and spend more and more time with them increased, even as he still remained studious and focused on work, school, and the Team's ongoing investigation of the Midnight Channel and the kidnappings and murders connected to it.

His personality grew in numerous ways as well (reflected in game through the increasing of five personality 'stats': courage, diligence, knowledge, understanding, and expression) through his participation in school clubs, frequent reading, long bouts of reflection while swimming in the ocean in the middle of rainstorms, and paying attention in class, among other activities. His high degree of intelligence and frequent studying ensured that he was often near or at the top of his class after midterms and finals. Still, he spent plenty of time with his friends both day and night, often (though not always) prioritizing them over isolated activities like leisurely reading or building models. He was always someone with a very busy schedule.

When the time came to pinpoint the true criminal in the string of kidnappings, Souji had grown to the point that, despite the recent apparently death of Nanako, he was able to keep himself calm enough to spare Namatame's life and push to identify the true culprit: Adachi Tohru. From there he was able to lead the Investigation Team to Adachi's capture, and later to locating and defeating Izanami, the one responsible for starting the entire mess with the murders and Midnight Channel in the first place.

Souji still left Inaba as planned when the spring came, but did so knowing that he and his friends had forged an unbreakable bond and would meet again in the future.


□ Personality: Souji comes across to most people as a sort of ideal young man. Polite without being meek, confident without being arrogant, cool without being cold, friendly without being too familiar, and quiet without being silent. He's the sort of person that has an easy time meeting and getting along with a large number of people--which might seem a little odd, since he never speaks about or to any friends he made before moving to Inaba. In fact, get close enough to him and most people will realize that Souji might be friendly, but it takes a long time to really get to know him.

It makes sense, though. As a child his parents and their jobs saw him constantly moving from place to place. While most children his age would have been growing up surrounded by the same people, Souji was constantly falling out of touch with old friends and forging new bonds with new classmates. It's not a series of events that left him depressed or sullen, but it's no surprise that even still he tends to be a little distant when he first meets someone. Despite that distance he keeps it's easy for him to get along with a wide variety of people--little girls, teenage girls, teenage boys, middle-aged detectives, bad detectives, and all the range of people in between.

It helps that he excels at dealing well with the strange and the unusual. He's been described as 'legendarily calm' by his friends, and it shows constantly throughout the game. When he, Chie, and Yosuke encountered the Midnight Channel Souji was just as surprised and confused as they were--in the inside. Outwardly, he maintained a calm, level-head facade and managed to keep the group from running around completely scatter-brained. It applies to real-world and far less dire situations as well. Being forced into a cross dressing contest? Souji managed to take it in stride. Unbalanced boy-girl ratio on a group date? Souji will sit on the girl's side, sure. It helps that he doesn't speak too much, either, and when he does he tends to get right to it. He's not someone that wastes words. Don't take it to mean that nothing surprises or upsets him, though. He wasn't happy about the cross dressing at first, and it wouldn't really be accurate to say he enjoyed. He did manage to have fun with it, though, and didn't resent his friends for signing him up.

This includes people -- Chie, Yosuke and their behavior towards each other are hardly what most people would think of as normal, but Souji accepted them in fairly short order. It helps him get along with the people around him. He showed this trait in the Midnight Channel as well, very quickly falling into the role of the one in charge. Teddie was weird as hell but Souji was quick to get along with him. When there was suddenly a second Yosuke (who then suddenly turned into a strange frog monster) Souji was able to keep himself calm enough to fight against and even defeat the creature.

He's a highly adaptive individual, capable of quickly adjusting to the strange and unusual, and he'll take on responsibility for leading others without fuss for fanfare. The most shining example of this is when Souji prevented the Investigation Team from making the worst mistake of their lives--forcing Taro Namatame into the Midnight Channel, where he would have died. Even though Taro had seriously endangered and even, as far as any of them knew at the time, killed Nanako, Souji ket his head on straight and forced the group to press ahead in their search for the truth, to look beyond simply what they saw in front of them.

Obviously, Souji is someone that's very self-sufficient and independent. Even while still in high school he can cook and take care of other household chores, competently juggle work and school, move across the country unaccompanied, and live alone for more than a month without disaster befalling him. On the other hand it seems to have left him with a bit of a reckless approach to food; Souji will eat nearly anything, no matter how dubious, if he's hungry about. Brown spherical objects that may have once been pears, Nanako's science projects, mushrooms growing out of other things in the fridge, dokudami tea that was actually udon soup (don't ask why he drank the whole thing instead of stopping after one sip), and a variety of other things--Souji has eaten them all. His stomach has rebelled against him in the past, like when he ate Mystery Food X, but he never seems to learn.

But, finally, it should be noted that just because he's dedicated and serious doesn't mean he's part of the anti-fun squad. Souji can, quite simply, be an incredible dork. Doing magic tricks for Nanako, singing along with the Junes song, over-the-top spit-takes at horrible food, and trying (and failing) to crowd surf at a last minute Junes concert are all well within Souji's range of acceptable behavior. He's not at all afraid to goof off around his friends and family members, even in certain serious moments. He's also shown to have a flirtatious side, and to be rather bold when admitting to his affection (platonic or otherwise) for other people.


□ Age: 18
□ Gender: Male
□ Appearance: Here! Grey-blue hair, grey-blue eyes, pale skin. Souji is canonly 5'11 and can be assumed to be in good shape, going by his aptitude with katana, comments from other characters, and his good performance in whichever sports team he joins. Overall, he build is much more on the side of fit-but-slender than anything. He tends to be well-groomed regardless of the situation, even when he's just relaxing at home. He wears nice clothing that tends to make him look fashionable and well put together, and prefers to wear blues and greys to most other colors.


□ Abilities/Powers: Souji's most significant ability is that he is a Persona user, a person capable of summoning an empowered embodiment of his personality. And he's not just any user, either; Souji is one of the few people in his world that possesses the Wild Card ability, allowing him to carry and summon multiple Persona (whereas many people can only hold a single Persona at once, albeit one that may change and evolve throughout their life).

Each Persona has several special abilities and each of them takes energy to use. These abilities can only be used when the respective Persona is Souji's 'active' one; just because one Persona may be resistant to ice-based attacks doesn't mean Souji himself is always resistant to them. He can switch between her Persona freely, but not rapidly. Similarly, Souji can only 'carry' eight different Persona with him at once. Though he has access to nearly two-hundred, he needs to visit the Velvet Room to switch out which ones he has available.

NOTE: I've already spoken with Jade about Souji's powers plan, and I understand that he'll eventually be able to summon his Persona in the 'real world' after a bit of an IC learning curve. She also asked me to link all of the Persona Souji is capable of summoning, which can be found HERE. However, Souji will be limited to the eight Persona he arrives with, since he won't be able to access the Velvet Room in order to acquire new ones. The eight he'll bring in are...
- Atropos
- Cybele
- Helel
- Izanagi
- Loki
- Lucifer
- Mada
- Tzitzimitl

In addition, Souji has the ability to enter the Midnight Channel through any television--theoretically, as Ariel may not have its own version of the Midnight Channel. However, he's not currently capable of creating a means to let himself back out. Though his Persona may allow him to survive for a time, a trip into the Midnight Channel without Teddie there to locate an exit for him is absurdly dangerous. Most television sets will deposit him somewhere dangerous, and it's impossible to predict where exactly he'll land unless he always enters through the same TV.

Finally, Souji is capable of wielding swords, golf clubs, bats, bits of wood, and other long, narrow objects used to hit people. Though he's good at blocking he's not really the dueling type and would get his ass handed to him by a seasoned pro. He prefers to simply wail away at his opponents -- not ungraceful in his bludgeoning, but not very subtle about it either.

□ Personal Items:
Baseball bat from Margaret
The Velvet Key (allows him to access the Velvet Room; non-functioning)
Family photo from Nanako
Shrine charm from Yukiko
Signed photo from Rise
Detective Badge from Naoto
Letter from Adachi
Bamboo comb from Marie
Coffee mug from Dojima
Copy of the Punk's Way


□ First Person Sample: Thread with Naoto at Exit Void
Thread with Nill at Marina Asylum

□ Third Person Sample: Test Drive Meme thread