Before we get started, there's a nifty quiz if you're stumped, and also a good quick interpretation reference.

Long-Winded Explanation
This is a little complicated, so bear with me.

First of all, you have to understand what a Persona is. When Minato, or another Persona-user, shoots himself in the head with a special bullet-less gun called an Evoker, he summons a Persona. Persona are a representation of your inner soul. Most people only have one; Minato, however, for plot reasons has the ability to summon any kind he likes. He can lug around up to a dozen at once. In game, he has three due to power-capping.

Each Persona is a member of one of the twenty-two Major Arcana, which starts at 00 and ends at 21. Each person has a soul that corresponds to one of them: Mitsuru, for example, is another Persona-user who is of the Empress Arcana, number 3. She summons Penthesilea, who is a Persona also of the Empress Arcana, and only Penthesilea.

Minato, as I've said before, can summon whoever he damn well wants as long as their base level is less than or equal to his level. When he fuses a Persona (creating one, basically - this process is not relevant to your interests) he can get one that's higher than his level through the use of Social Links. Say he wants to make a Virtue, one of the middling level Justice Persona, with a base level of 32. If he fuses a Virtue without a Social Link, he gets a Virtue at level 32.

But, and here's Minato's initial guiding motivation to be social at all, if he does have a social link, for each rank it goes up - to a maximum of 10 - the Persona gets more experience points. Typically two ranks equals one level, though that's not exact. Continuing our above example, if he wants to create a Virtue of a higher initial level, he has to become closer friends with Chihiro, the girl he knows at school that is of the Justice Arcana. The closer he gets to her, the more ranks he gets, and thus the higher level his Persona are. This makes him automatically interested in befriending people of various Arcana, because it literally improves his fighting abilities.

In Practice
For my own amusement, I've decided to keep track of Minato's relationships in terms of Social Links. If he offends them, they become inverted or reversed (yes, more tarot card references), and he must repair things before they can improve again. I think he can lose ranks, too, though that's never happened to me. The max rank is 10, and once that happens the relationship can't reverse. As the ranks go up, it gets harder to obtain the next one.

I'm not going to track specific threads for each rank unless I get a lot more free time later, so for now you'll have to do with just plain names and ranks.

character.
CHARACTER NAME: Minato Arisato
SERIES: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3.
CANON POINT: A couple years post-canon.
AGE: 19.
APPEARANCE: Picture!

PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY: I played him at dramadramaduck for two years, so quite a lot happened to him. I'll put it in bullet point so that it's easier to follow (I hope).

→ Minato befriended Shinji Ikari from Evangelion, and through that also became friends with Asuka and Kaworu from the same world. When the Eva kids went through canon and ended up post-End of Eva, their world was left decimated, and they had nowhere to go. It was about November of the P3 timeline, and Minato invited them back to live in their dorm. They became de facto members of S.E.E.S, with Kaworu as an analytic backup type like Fuuka, and Asuka taking the drugs that allowed her to manifest her own Persona. (The consequences of her taking those drugs were understood and played out eventually.) Shinji was dropped at some point during this.

→ He also befriended Russia from Hetalia, calling him Ivan, and ended up a determined and steadfast friend of his. He learned some basic Russian through their association.

→ Itsuki Koizumi from Haruhi was one of Minato's first friends on the community, and slowly over time they became extremely close. When P3 canon finished, Minato was dead, or at least left stranded holding back Nyx in another dimension; Itsuki searched for and found a way to bring him back by making a deal with the Marquis from Neverwhere. Though they both owed the Marquis enormous favors, Minato did come back to life. I wrote up a brief summary and link roundup in case this needs more detail.

→ Alive again, Minato got a job working for Kanzeon Bosatsu from Saiyuki, and acquired his worldhopping capable mirror from her. Working for her mostly included forging signatures for her, doing more paperwork, and making popcorn when she watched interesting things in her lotus pool.

→ He got an apartment living with Asuka and Kaworu in Iwatodai. They both play violin, and convinced him to take up the viola. Minato took to it naturally, but wasn't in any way a prodigy at it.

→ Somewhere around this time we got an active Persona 4 cast, including Naoto Shirogane. Due to popular fan theories, the Naoto player and I agreed to have them be cousins who used to see each other when they were young and then lost touch after their respective parents died. They reconnected through the community with some awkwardness (at least on Minato's part). I timeskipped Minato one year to bring him up to the timeline the P4 cast was in for simplicity.

→ Shortly before I dropped him, he began dating Itsuki romantically. They weren't extremely serious about each other and were more testing it out. About this point is where he'd be pulled from to be played in Exitvoid.

PERSONALITY: As a person, Minato is withdrawn. That isn't to say he isn't social - merely untalkative and unemotional. Throughout the game he grows more and more responsive to people, starting out extremely biddable but becoming almost pro-active by the end. He is capable of becoming friends with virtually anyone, and ranks those friends, as is apparent, higher than his own life. He is almost absurdly loyal and just as absurdly silent about it. For him, actions speak almost everything; he says little more than what is absolutely necessary. What he does say, though, is usually perceptive and intuitive, both spot on and helpful. He takes almost every opportunity he can to help someone.

He's extremely mature by virtue of being extremely repressed. He has a whole barrel full of issues that rarely reach the surface, and for the purposes of most of his interactions, he's a strangely quiet and unresponsive little Japanese kid. But the reasoning behind why he's so quiet is more complicated than that. Although we know that he was orphaned at a young age, and that when he does appear as a high school junior he's unnaturally or at last unhealthily apathetic, the only clue we have as to what life was like for him in the time in between is that he'd lost his memories of his parents' death, and subsequently also the memories of the massive Shadow, Death, being sealed into him. This amnesia was not from a supernatural source: this was his psyche's way of dealing with those events.

This would set a trend for him. Minato frequently and commonly represses any and all emotions, particularly the stronger, more negative ones. He has abandonment issues and something of a martyr complex, because he doesn't attach himself to people easily. The events of the game forced him to become attached, and while post-game he's more comfortable with others and being friendly, and is more in tune with social cues, he still latches onto what friends he makes with both hands. He will literally do anything for them.

But, as mentioned briefly above, Minato is definitely a moral person. He is a people pleaser and desperate to belong, in a way, but this is balanced by a strong ability to read and understand those around him. He is sympathetic and empathetic, and will never resort to violence if there is another option. To Minato, there are no 'villains' - there are only people. He isn't one to judge. After all, it takes a certain kind of person to accept with equanimity voices only he can hear and people only he can see.

ABILITIES: → He has the RPG protagonist ability to be good with any weapon he picks up.

→ He can also summon his Persona. He's an oddity even in canon in that he can summon any of them that he wants, but he can only carry a dozen of them at once. Per the rules, if accepted I'll pick three Persona for him to bring with him.

What exactly is a Persona? It's a physical manifestation of someone's inner personality. Minato's mutable nature means that he has a lot of these. What it actually looks like is a kid shooting himself in the head (it's not a real gun, though) and summoning a big mythological spirit or demon. He can perform a lot of various magic spells and physical techniques with this, including elemental attacks, healing, and attribute boosting (support).

→ Usually by the end of the game he has max courage, intelligence, and charm. This means he's good at getting people to do what he wants, has little self-preservation instinct, and was the top student in his grade at school.

→ He's basically a very powerful jack of all trades. If this needs capping in any way, just let me know and I'll be happy to cooperate. :)

POSSESSIONS: His mp3 player, his Evoker, and a one-handed sword. The three Persona he would arrive with are Messiah, Helel and Thanatos. Their abilities wouldn't be exactly as listed under P3:FES because of skills carried through fusion.


samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE: Examples of posts can be found here: One Two Three Four. If you need anything else, let me know!

Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep,
And shall my soul that lies within your hand
Remember nothing, as the blowing sand
Forgets the palm where long blue shadows creep
When winds along the darkened desert sweep?

Or would it still remember, tho' it spanned
A thousand heavens, while the planets fanned
The vacant ether with their voices deep?
Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot,
Nor yet alone, beloved, shall we see

The desolation of extinguished suns,
Nor fear the void wherethro' our planet runs,
For still together shall we go and not
Fare forth alone to front eternity.

Sarah Teasdale.

This journal isn't being used in a game anymore, and will probably be used for private RP from now on, so please defriend it. :)

dormition

ANON MEME

Use it if you need to. I also have his HMD up and anon-enabled, as always.

...Whose clothes are these?

[They're Kamina's, in fact, though Minato's wearing them with much less confidence. The cape hangs limply and his chest is very pale and very scrawny, though there's an undertone of muscle to anyone that looks that closely.

Minato himself just looks bemused and faintly peeved. He has better things to be worrying about, after all.] They won't come off.