-A tiny drabble on the F!Protagonist of Persona 3. Always wondered what kind of inner conflict might be happening on the inside of a character where you have to direct them to contradict themselves in order to cater to their relationships with other characters… You could pretty obviously switch this out for Minato, but A. I find Minako more compelling, and B. I’d argue that Theo’s more of a lost soul than Elizabeth is. (You could definitely argue that C is that I just wanted some implications of my OTP though orzorzorz)
Generic
The basic components of her soul must always remain an unprimed canvas.
There is a very precise, intricate manner with which she must treat those around her- a neurosurgeon of emotional responses and actions. If you ask Minako who she is, what she defines her purpose in life to be, what she aspires to and enjoys, you must understand that your answers will be custom-tailored. She is “zero”, after all, first and foremost. There is a personal sacrifice involved in weaving her way around what types of people and words make you tick, could bring you closer to a more stable emotional condition and thereby solidify the tethers of the world itself.
She will love you if you so desire it, and deny any affections should another card in the deck require that dismissal of feelings.
If you respect intelligence, exams will always be her top priority when speaking with you and you inquire as to how she spends her nights in. This will be the case regardless if she merely lays awake, motionless, attempting to push any instinctual fear of a childlike apparition at her bedside that she also needs to appeal to for survival’s sake.
She will express sympathy for your strained relationship with your family when she can barely remember her own, take any stress-fueled beratement with grace as she manages a juggling act of a true fool, all of the traits and skills and crafted friendships that one could theoretically possess.
Of course, your age makes no difference to her, even if one should respond to the obsessive, possessive adoration of an elementary school boy with tactful rejection. But Ken requires false hope, and so she provides.
She will be a confidant for pointless gossip and lie through gritted teeth about both the trivial matters of foul cooking, as well as regarding any hope for the future of your lover in the hospital.
She will play the part of a cynic and commiserate with you over the twisted cruelty of the world, watching the sun rise and set with you on what could be your final Sunday, only to flip her mask and act as though the survival of a courtyard tree is a goal worth more than your struggle towards death.
Drunks are sympathetic when they are you and horrid when spoken of with Junpei. Akihiko has his head lost in clouds of idealism and escapism when you are Shinjiro and Shinji needs to come to terms (or outright ignore) the past and sign up with this band of increasingly orphaned warrior children when you are Aki. Mitsuru and Yukari are equally trustworthy if neither should be present, but one’s arrival casts an immediate shadow of doubt on the drive and goals of she who is absent. She sleeps through class in anticipation for battle if you plan to do the same, and balances all aspects of life effectively if that is what you expect.
She is, perhaps, a fool in that she eternally seeks to please, to the extent that she is willing to completely forfeit who she is at heart and what she truly desires. She confesses to Theo, the only other in her world equally as lost with his sense of self, one of the few unconnected to links that must be forged under very particular pretenses, that she cannot remember what or who her nature would drive her to be.
They stand parallel in the never-ending abyss marine that seems to drown out everything in the clockwork room-world, save the pallor of their skin and the abnormal glow of gold that faintly shines from his eyes.
He says that he could define her very well, he thinks, but he doesn’t have the words for it. Perhaps he doesn’t have the words for it because he also mustn’t, he says.
Perhaps it’s just human nature to be inconsistent, she says.
Perhaps a greater force is manipulating us, he says.
Perhaps it just makes her manipulative, she says. He will move to protest- then stop as he realizes to state such an emotional opinion is out of line – just as she stops herself before she is able to continue the thought.
The cards laid out in the book the man before her carries taunt her. She cannot be “manipulative.” Neither can she be sincere.
For everyone’s sake, she must remain nothing.
