#erebus persona

[emilianatsuki]

Since I see more speaking positively about The Answer recently I have to admit when I originally played Persona 3 it wasn't until The Answer and Aigis' arc there that I actually fell in love with the game. It's personally my favorite part of Persona 3. The Answer is also a big reason for my attachment towards Aigis especially. She feels like the protagonist of Persona 3 as much as Makoto/Kotone are.

[leelreallylikespersona]

I went a little crazy

[azuries]

isnt this what you wanted?

[katsona-the-katsequel]

[xeverlee]

ngl nyarlathotep is my favorite persona antagonist

spoilers below the cut for all mainline persona games! (including p2!)

why? because he actively girlboss gatekeep gaslight’s literally everyone (specifically jun, more on him later-), he is the shadow of everyone’s souls, and almost every other persona villain basically comes from nyarly to some extent (except for nyx, who is probably on the same or a greater power level than nyarly, considering that nyarly (and phil) came from nyx, because she created the collective unconsciousness)

shit this is turning into another p2/p3 post again isn’t it. shit. let me atleast rant about jun real quick.

jun (Joker) is easily my favorite human antagonist. he’s just been manipulated so much and ifjdjdkfhdkdk when nyarly pretended to be jun’s father- jun didn’t have anyone. except his father who miraculously returned from the dead. of course he would latch onto the one and only parental figure in his life and believe everything he’s been told.

also really fuckin good fic by VampireBadger, it’s one of my favorite p2 fics: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50072407

fuckit. i’m going off the rails now. i will die on this hill but in terms of power levels, here’s my tier list on persona antags:

nyx. (the reason nyx got “defeated” was bc p3mc sealed away EREBUS)

nyarlathotep. (every other god antagonist came from nyarly.)

azathoth. (in h.p. lovecraftian mythos, azathoth is literally nyarly’s dad, but in my tier list rn he’s lower bc he got demoted to maruki’s persona 💀💀)

yaldabaoth?? (surprisingly! the fact that he was able to fuckin imprison IGOR in the velvet room is pretty impressive, but other than that he’s a massive bitch)

Erebus. (literally just depression. that’s it. erebus kinda had to rely on getting to nyx to actually start The Fall)

Izanami. (the fog is coming the fog is coming the fog is coming the fog is coming the fog- in all seriousness, izanami was prob the weakest in mainline persona games.)

not adding the spin-off antags but ye

[elle-p]

By Nyx Core, you can't summon a Persona.

In game, the option isn't available, and Great Seal is cast without one.

In the movies, Messiah dissolves when Makoto gets close.

In the Weird Masquerade, Shiomi attempts to summon their Persona, and fails.

[p3ta]

Everyone be nice to my dog

[houndfaker]

Elizabeth and/or Theo ready to fight Erebus (who's just conveniently off screen (I doubt you want to draw that))

business as usual

[korpintaideblogi]

erebus is my favorite monster-design... it just works for me

[efsher]

They're dating

[hirudoratheexplorer]

The Phantom Thieves have a very special Halloween

[persona-minty]

All of the Phantom Thieves have their own kind of thief archetype that they fit into or were styled after. Like Ann is a cat burglar, an archetype commonly seen in western cartoons and comics. Ryuji is a pirate, Futaba is a hacker, etc. And then of course Joker is styled after the quintessential phantom thief, and Akechi is styled after the detective characters that usually go hand in hand with that archetype.

My point is, when trying to add on an additional Phantom Thief it’s cool to try to think of a sort of archetype to style them into. So anyway, I was thinking about an AU where Minato Arisato (P3 male protagonist) is a Phantom Thief.

Orpheus is Minato’s initial persona, which I think fits remarkably well with the Phantom Thieves already. While Orpheus is a figure in Greek Mythology, he’s also a figure in a folk tale like the rest of the P5 initial personas are. And in that story, Orpheus ventures down into the underworld to retrieve his dead wife’s soul and return her to the land of the living. Now, this might be a bit of a stretch, but it could be interpreted as him stealing his wife back from the underworld.

You see where I’m going with this.

I think that’s a cool idea; a thief specifically geared towards stealing the souls of the dead, or essentially stealing from death itself. I also think this melds remarkably with both Persona 3 and Persona 5’s themes, in differing ways. (Also it’s worth noting that the Reaper in persona is weighed down by chains, and Persona 5 has a thing of breaking chains.)

[leelreallylikespersona]

Come get your silly post while I make more art

[bunchafoolcards]

For Aigis, Akira, Yu: What do you personally think about The Seal and its meaning and reason for being? Why do/don't you think you could have done the same as Makoto and Kotone?

To need a universe arcana specifically for a Seal to protect humanity is...heartbreaking. It shows how much pain is in this world, so much so that the world had to be safeguarded from itself. I never had as many bonds as Kotone or Makoto did, and their sacrifice is unique to themselves. But I do wish I could take their place.

-Aigis

The seal..? Oh right, that thing. I believe that although the world is a great burden to bear, the part that wishes to move forward helps with the Seal. The seal is a piece of shit though. Can't believe Makoto and kotone have to bear it. I personally think I could do it if i wanted to. We basically received the same final arcana.

-the chair💺

Hm, the seal...It shouldnt exist at all. For it to exist is terrible. I hope Nanako never adds to Erebus... Im not as eloquent as Aigis is but you get the point. My story was about finding your true self, not about making the best of life or something. We didn't exactly share the same journey....I dont think I could ever replace Makoto.

-the chad👨‍👧

I wrote this while listening to my favourite singer cry...

-admin🐷

[katsona-the-katsequel]

Assumptions and Headcanons - Pre-Canon Timeline

Consider this the intro before I finish the actual timeline. This section focuses on clarifications and ideas that enrich the Persona Timeline, specifically the Pre-Canon one.

Who created the Sea of Souls? Who lives there?

It's unknown who created the Sea. It either created on its own, or the Great Will had something to do. Every timeline is connected by the Sea, so this is your only chance to realistically crossover with FeMC. There might or not be a whale that lives there, depending on how canon you consider Trinity Soul to be. Its in the deepest part of the Sea where the Seal locking Nyx is located. The guy in charge (or closest thing in charge) is Chronos.

It isn't all that impressive when a higher being claims to come from the Sea. Every soul came from it and will return one day. They're probably taking advantage of the fact that humans don't know of the Sea to sound more important than they are.

This is why I consider PQ to be semi-canon, since otherwise Chronos wouldn't have been okay with the Velvet Assistants holding a dancing competition in the Sea of Souls.

That's right SMT fans, the Sea is the same as the River Styx.

Why couldn't Erebus reach Nyx' psyche before P3?

As mentioned in the timeline, Nyx' psyche was still scattered across the Collective Unconscious. Erebus could try all he wanted, but he would never find enough of her to call her physical body down to Earth. During P3, enough of Nyx' psyche was finally gathered into one single being: the Nyx Avatar (aka Ryoji). This caused Ryoji to be the literal embodiment of Death, since that's their entire purpose. I wonder what would happen if they met Chronos...

So, P3 happens and the Nyx Avatar is sealed by Minato/Minako before they can finish calling down Nyx' physical body. Erebus now knows where to find Nyx' psyche. There's a specific place now. However, the Seal prevents him from ever reaching it. Elizabeth thus comes annually to kick his ass and the Fall never comes.

I like to believe that a part of Ryoji is still fully aware in the Nyx Avatar after everything that happened, so Minato/Minako is not alone while being the Seal.

Neither may speak (one is being a Seal and the other one is being sealed away), but there is an understanding that they will never be truly alone. Just like when Ryoji was Pharos.

Did the rumors that became true during Eternal Punishment stay true after Nyarly's defeat?

I don't think so. The power to rewrite reality using word-of-mouth is really potent, but was only being powered by Nyarly. I believe the moment he was weakened, all rumors that came true dissolved into simple rumors once again. So, Kiyotada Sumaru stayed a fictional figure.

That was a low blow, Nyarly.

Where did the first Velvet Room attendants come from?

We know Igor was a doll, but if you ask me, Nameless, Belladonna, and the Demon Painter used to be human. Their exceptional and otherwordly talents in the arts made them stand out to Philemon to make them the "Muses" of the Velvet Room. Nameless was probably a German pianist (as a reference to a certain composer who also lost one of his senses), Belladonna was an Italian opera singer, and the Demon Painter was a painter from Sumaru City. It seems only Belladonna kept her human name. It also seems like you can leave your post whenever you want. It was confirmed that Nameless and Belladonna were still in the Velvet Room by P5, but no such reference was made for the Demon Painter.

Igor is almost impossible to pin down since his name is really old and dolls have existed everywhere since almost forever. Since he is sometimes referenced as powering the Velvet Room, I just placed the creation of velvet itself as a possible start for the timeframe of his creation. Can't have the Velvet Room without velvet being a thing.

Now, is the Velvet Room the same as the Black Lodge? Nah. But for fun we can imagine that Mark Frost and David Lynch have been to the Velvet Room.

If Tsumi to Batsu isn't canon, what happened to the Red and Black Books?

I believe the fun part lies in their unknown whereabouts, which serves as fuel for fanfics and other stories. For all we know they're in the hands of an unknown Persona User and/or another mysterious organization. Who knows? I mostly included them to fully connect Jung to Philemon and explain why he seems like such an important human to the latter. Igor may have begun to interact with humans under his master's orders and in part to look for the potential owners of the Books, but he ended up growing fond of his guests and attendants.

On a side note, can you imagine Philemon's heart attack when "The Red Book: Liber Novus" was published and mass produced in 2009? Before realizing, "Ah, this is just Jung's diary, not the magic book". Then again, the publisher was called Philemon Foundation, so we might have a case of ghost company in our hands.

Why did Stephen upload the Demon Summoning Program to a single high school instead of sending mass e-mails like in SMT?

I have a few theories: The first one is that there wasn't an urgency to gather Demon Summoners for an upcoming apocalypse. According to semi-canon sources, Thorman and Gotou existed at some point in the Persona Universe, but either due to Kandori's capitalist machinations or as a consequence between Phil and Nyarly's bet, they were never able to truly gain power. Adding this to my second theory, that Stephen used to attend Karukozaka high school, would explain why he tentatively only uploaded it to his old school's servers. Less desperation and more indirect experimentation, one might say. This would also explain why he became more of an offscreen mentor to Tamaki once she gained the program, since Stephen would have more time to continue developing and experimenting with it. One successful user was enough for now.

Personally, I believe he ended up working for the Nanjo Group after P1, who sponsored this and any future projects he had until his death. Considering he is apparently a trascendent entity, this cushy existence would have been a nice break from the other universes.

Wouldn't it be fun if Stephen was the original creator of beta Evokers but set aside the project due to the lack of a "supernatural power source"? And this project ended up in hands of the Kirijo Group after they split from the Nanjo Group? And then Kouetsu Kirijo only had to finish it by adding the Plumes of Dusk?

What was Nyx doing at St. Hermelin, anyway?

This is something I struggled with. In the end, I settled for someone finding a large Plume of Dusk, thinking it was a pretty rock, and getting the Snow Queen Mask made out of it. A Plume of Dusk this big ended up attracting a lot of Nyx' psyche, which made a mess when combined with Drama Club teenage girls as seen in the number of victims. In the end, it evolved into the Snow Queen Curse. For all we know, the Mask was trying to use the girls as puppets to help bring the Fall, but Nyx' psyche always got to them and they committed suicide soon after.

Personally, I would have stopped producing the Snow Queen at my school after the first two deaths, but to each their own.

Which war did Masataka Amano die in?

This is a huge supposition on my part since even the dates are approximates. I have four contenders: the Falklands War, the 1982 Lebanon War, the Second Sudanese Civil War, or the Sri Lankan Civil War. Pick your poison.

The game says that Gekkoukan was founded after the Kirijo Group laboratory exploded around 1999. The school logo says that Gekkoukan was founded in 1982. What is the truth?

The way I made this work was by making the original founding of Gekkoukan in 1982, like in the logo. Maybe it started as an actual learning insitution, where the graduates would have a possible career in the Kirijo Group. After the entire Death ordeal, they decided to hide the old labs by building a better state-of-the-art school building on top and relocating Gekkoukan there.

[stealthnoodle]

As someone with two cats, I can say with authority that Erebus pawing at the door is exactly like two cats trying to get into the pantry where their dry food is.

"Humans! :3 Use your thumbs to turn the knob! :3 Nyaa~"

Anyway I was at level 99 after fighting the Monad Chambers pre-superboss gauntlet, so Erebus put up less of a fight than both cats going to the vet at the same time.

The ending to this still makes me feel things, man. Also, my favorite thing in the world is out-of-context shots of Mitsuru saying shit like this while casually holding a gun:

As a nice touch, when you save your clear data, the title screen becomes the exterior of the empty dorm instead of the interior with everyone's silhouettes. FEELINGS

Now that we've saved the world, I hear there's some lost fourth-grader at the end of the Monad Chambers. Why don't we check on him?

He's pretty athletic for a fourth-grader. Also, tall.

Call me Yaldabaoth because this kid hit the entire party with Sinful Shell for a one-hit KO. On the first round. I think we shouldn't bother him.