#smallishsona au

[phoenixtherobot]

I am once again ill and posting mcyt drawings. what can you do

Another drawing from forever ago that i decided to finish up! and it's from @theminecraftbee's smallishsona au (because i'm becoming obsessed with persona 3 again, AS IS MY RIGHT!) feat. @crystaldoodler's design for Joel! LOVE the idea of their battle outfits having non human traits, HUGE fan.

[phoenixtherobot]

I am absolutely falling in love with @theminecraftbee 's smallishsona au, and more specifically, Jimmy being the Velvet Room attendant!

[theminecraftbee]

Sorry if I skimmed past something but where would Bdubs be relative to the AU?

GOOD QUESTION! he was one of the last people who i was trying to find a place for in the social links and i just sorta. ran out of space. (i was between him and beef for high priestess, for the record, but beef fits the actual persona archetype for that WAY better than bdubs does, which left bdubs as one of the unlucky ones that i ran out of space for.)

that said i have had an IDEA for what he could be doing: owns a pharmacy, sells drugs to kids.

by which i ACTUALLY mean he's a normal guy selling normal pharmaceuticals, he's just bdubs so he's kind of weird about it. he is increasingly deeply concerned by the number of otc painkillers this kid is buying though. like, legally he doesn't have to stop the guy, but morally? yeah he's got some QUESTIONS. i think it would be funny if there's a questline of bdubs like. trying to follow this kid and find out what he's doing with, uh, well.

bdubs voice: okay look why on EARTH did you buy our entire supply of energy drinks, like a collective galleon of rubbing alcohol, half a shelf of tylenol, and a box of, for some reason, herbal vitamins. i don't even think you can MAKE anything with that. if you're in pain you can tell me i can give you a SPECIAL SOLUTION but i think that just makes a hideous potion at best? joel, exhausted: you know what don't even worry about it.

[theminecraftbee]

is there anything you can share about the relationships between scar, grian, and joe? ive always been a sucker for pre-main story relationships (akihiko/mitsuru/shinjiro, yukiko/chie, ryuji/ann, etc. etc.), so im very curious!

oho, yes I DO have stuff I can share on that!

so, grian awakened his persona basically on his own, after an incident where he slipped into altered space but got more Pissed Off about it than he ended up sinking into despair about it, because he’s grian and he’s a contrary little fucker. he spent some time trying to figure out what was happening on his own until joe, a teacher at his school, noticed him, told grian that he also had seen altered space before and had some information on it, and took grian slightly under his wing.

for a little bit, it was Just Them, with grian as the only persona user. grian, being grian, often clashed with joe even then about stuff like “how aggressive we should be being” and “the general concept of authority”, but grian on his own would exhaust his resources before he could do much more than “attempt to help people he happened to come across in altered space”.

this changed somewhat when one day, grian rescued scar (although arguably that whole incident was a little grian’s fault to start with), and, to grian’s shock, scar managed to awaken a persona in the process. as soon as scar recovered grian press-ganged him into joining him in his attempts to make sense of things, and scar instantly fell into a support role, because that’s what the team needed, right?

grian and scar started to become used to being in danger together A LOT and being forced to rely on each other A LOT. while they both are seemingly good friends as a result of this, grian is known to grumble about how scar’s inefficiencies hold them back, and scar is known to grumble that grian is an asshole who refuses to communicate. they are both known to grumble this A LOT, actually. surely, there is no resentment starting to build up there—right?

scar ended up bonding much closer immediately with joe, enjoying joe’s esoteric humor and their ability to ramble at each other, as well as being less likely to clash about concepts like “authority” and “working yourself until you are about to pass out”. that said, joe is still a Weird Adult to scar, and if you REALLY dug at scar, you’d realize that, despite the arguments, grian is the one who actually trusts joe. scar just likes him, which is a totally different thing.

the three of them were working at the problem of altered space for varying lengths of time, with grian having awakened about ten months before the plot begins, scar about six, and joe becoming aware of altered space… you know, that’s funny, he’s never said, but he’s certainly implied he figured out about it around when the Vanished began to properly show up about a year and a half ago.

and that’s the pre-game relationships of the school rescue committee as they stand when joel enters the picture!

[theminecraftbee]

Female Protagonist Lizzie

on the one hand: that would be an inherently different AU, lizzie is a totally different character than joel that would form relationships differently and tackle problems differently, and unlike switching protagonists in a video game that are ultimately mostly player-inserts I am writing a fic, so the fact that sticking lizzie where joel is would completely change the plot matters. I. only have the energy for one sprawling AU at a time.

on the other hand: honestly “but the plot would be inherently different” is in the spirit of femc (even as the WAYS that is the case are a large part of why she’s controversial within the fandom). so this kinda works!

so like if you wanna write this I won’t argue. (not that I argue with anyone writing anything based on my stuff in the first place I have a blanket permission statement but YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.)

[theminecraftbee]

I think I’ve mentioned this before but the problem with putting Lizzie in the smallishsona au is that, because I’m somewhat basing this more on hermitcraft, I worry sticking her in here would inherently kind of reduce her to her relationship with Joel, which doesn’t feel… fair? like I’m willing to do that to Jimmy because he has ten million aus already, but I didn’t want to stick Lizzie in the velvet room because that is an inherently kind of subservient role with a character arc that is DIRECTLY about bonding to Joel. and then also I made Joel’s backstory “everyone he loves is dead” and like, as much as I joke about constantly fridging, say, Grian, I am WAY MORE RELUCTANT to kill off Lizzie to make a man sad for The Obvious Reasons.

with that prologue: as I was typing this I realized the FUNNIEST WAY for me to include Lizzie in this au and I think it’s canon now because it’s a way for her to cameo that does not reduce her to her relationship with Joel or center around that relationship in any way. and it’s ALSO really funny.

I think she should take over Tanaka’s Amazing Commodities actually. every Sunday she comes on TV and sells you the worst scams you’ve seen in your life. and you have to buy them anyway. because sometimes they’re unique items you can’t get in any way but with these stupid catchy infomercials. she is not sorry about it. she is making so much money. Joel has received so many sketchy packages. he is suffering.

DO YOU SEE THE VISION,

[theminecraftbee]

okay the smallishsona au is awesome and im obsessed with it- i have one question and one silly idea: do psi and nuke abilities exist in this verse? bc you didnt mention them in the technical part. my one silly idea is that lizzie is joel’s cat. shes just a normal cat but he refers to her as “the missus” like, “sorry mate, can’t hang out, the missus needs me today”

on the one hand part of me is like “I don’t want to do lizzie dirty by making her a cat”. on the other hand, that’s really funny and she DID sort of make herself a cat first so MAYBE???

anyway, nuke and psi don’t exist here because it’s been long enough since I played p5 that I. forgot they existed. and I don’t feel like dealing with them. giving light and dark non-instakill skills is the most I’m doing with the new p5 elements I think, we’re sticking to agi/zio/bufu/garu/hama&kouha/mudo&eiha for this au I think!

[theminecraftbee]

smallishsona au: in which joel smallishbeans is the world's most reluctant persona protagonist.

My ongoing au in which Joel is a wild card in an original Persona setting, based on Persona 3/4/5 but not the same as any of them. He and the other members of the cherry blossom hill in Season 10 will awaken to their Personas and try to explore Altered Space, a mysterious realm people are vanishing into, in order to rescue the Vanished and save the world. Also, Joel will do this while despairing the whole time that he somehow ended up in a story that wants him to make friends to get superpowers. That also.

The Story So Far (actual ficlets, listed here in in-universe chronological order):

1: Basic premise/Joel arrives in New Hermiton, hints at Joel's backstory. Written as a bit more of a general au post than a fic, but the important first chapter of this story. Some of the mechanics weren't finalized when I wrote this so some of the keywords are wrong.

2: Joel wakes up in the hospital after awakening his Persona, first proper ficlet.

3: Joel forms his first Social Link with Skizz.

AU Tag:

smallishsona au (contains everything to do with this au on my blog)

chronological tag (only works on desktop, shows all the au posts in chronological order, by which we mean "order i made them" not plot order.)

Important Premise/Mechanics Posts :

Premise/World Mechanics: contains all the basic information on what Persona even is, as well as an explanation of the specific mechanics this specific "Persona game" that I made up runs off of. Contains important concepts like what Altered Space is, what the Vanished are, and how Personas work.

The Main Party: contains the current information on what the main party is, what order they join in, what their Persona and combat abilities are like, and a few little hints as to what they are like themselves.

Social Links: a list of all of Joel's social links, as described by Joel. Gives an arcana to every single social link Hermit.

Velvet Room Mechanics: the specifics of how Joel's velvet room works for him, how Igor fuses Personas, and a little about Jimmy.

Additional Notable Brainstorming Posts:

Velvet Room Jimmy initial thoughts

Early social link brainstorming for Cleo, Xisuma, Doc, Scar, Skizz

Early version of party brainstorming

Early explanation of AU/premise

Additional small "Persona theming" thoughts

Party weapons brainstorming

Lizzie thoughts

Joe, Scar and Grian before the main plot

Bdubs the teacher and pharmacist

Etho, the lovers

Bonus:

Art of Velvet Room Attendant Jimmy by @/phoenixtherobot!

Comic of Etho and Joel's first meeting by @/crystaldoodler!