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[aveclecoeur]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Kait
Contact: fenerkulesi
Age: 26
Current Characters: n/a


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Jun Kurosu
Age: 17
Canon: Persona 2: Innocent Sin
Canon Point: After accepting Philemon's offer

Background: Here!

Personality:

"Jun Kurosu" and "emotional stability" are two phrases that don't belong anywhere near each other.

On the outside, Jun is cold and fairly antisocial. He's very pretty - canonly prettier than one of the girls in makeup, and one character says he "has the beauty of a goddess" - and he uses it to his advantage in battle. He keeps to himself and doesn't like people or loud places. His hobbies are fortune-telling, astrology, and astronomy, things someone could easily do by themself. He's also very smart, being particularly skilled at physics, math, and inventing, and he has a patent for an orthopedic shoe.

On the inside, Jun has a kind heart, and chooses to believe that humanity as a whole generally has good intentions. He cares for his friends dearly - once he realizes that they are, in fact, his friends. He isn't above teasing them, though, as shown in the Zodiac Temples. He became the Joker out of a twisted motivation to help people, but as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He was a lonely kid, and the game all but says that his friends were his only friends. As he got older, he used his Persona to beat up people who were teasing him, leading him to transfer schools several times. He comes to Kasugayama High with a reputation, but almost right after he transfers, he quits going to school so he can focus on being the Joker.

The Joker is described as a "guise" Jun can summon, but not a Persona, indicating that his personality while in that guise, even though it's being twisted by Nyarlathotep, is still largely his own, except with less inhibitions. As the Joker, Jun absorbs "Ideal Energy," energy from people's dreams, in order to make a better world. Once the gang summons him, he wants to take revenge on them for killing their surrogate big sister, leaving flowers meaning "revenge" and "war" as the first two, something he does until he joins the gang (and even then, it's one of his contact options). As passionate as he feels about revenge, though, he doesn't abandon his larger goal. He's dedicated to his cause, and if he can get revenge, it'll be a plus. If not, it can wait until he's done.

However, even as the Joker, Jun still couldn't let go of the bond he and his friends shared as children. He was closest to Tatsuya, giving him his dad's lighter in exchange for Tatsuya's dad's watch. It means so much to him that his ultimate Persona is Chronos, the god of time. As kids, Jun and his friends called themsleves the Masked Circle, since, with the exception of Maya, they hid their identities from each other by wearing Featherman masks. Even when he was convinced that his friends killed their surrogate big sister, he recreated their group as Joker in the form of the Masked Circle cult, with its main executives having clear parallels to his childhood friends.

Mirroring his relationship with Tatsuya, the one he's presumably the closest to is King Leo, one of two people who knows what he looks like under the Joker mask. King Leo just about straight-up worships Jun, and in return, Jun seems to trust King Leo quite a bit. He has King Leo deliver one of his flower messages in his stead - "remember that day," arguably the most important, as it's the motivation for his hostility to Tatsuya and his friends - and is the only character other than Jun himself to do so on his behalf. King Leo is also a pyromaniac lunatic, and as the Joker, Jun still sends him out on missions despite knowing exactly what he's liable and likely to do. Jun is still incredibly lonely, and no matter what Nyarlathotep made him think, he clearly treasures the time his friends spent together when they were kids to the point where it can still permeate false memories.

Family, though, is a different story, and Jun's relationship with his parents is not the best. The reason Maya is so important to him is because he saw her as both a surrogate older sister and somewhat of a surrogate mother. Jun's mother was cold and aloof, blaming him for her acting career taking a downturn. Unbeknownst to him, she joined the Masked Circle and became one of their top executives. The instant she finds out he's her son, she takes a spear for him. Jun finds out she's his mom then, but given everything else that's going on, it's the last thing on his mind. He doesn't think about it at all. He's forced to face her death later in the Aquarius Temple, but even then, he dwells on it for about .5 seconds before doing what they came to do.

That isn't because he's callous. He isn't. Jun has a lot of issues, but he doesn't wallow in them. He's shown to be able to distance himself for the sake of their mission. If the player says that they hate him, he asks you to wait until they're done with what they have to do. It's not really implied that he's doing everything he can to avoid thinking about it, which means that while it's possible, it's much more important for him to focus and not get distracted.

As for his father, his father was a history teacher whose life work was a book called "In Lak'ech," whose contents, to put it simply, would make Ancient Aliens proud. Jun desperately wanted his father to be "cool," even going as far as to say he's his uncle when he came to pick him up. It's implied that Jun's not liking him was a major contributing factor in his father's suicide. Nyarlathotep incarnated himself as what Jun wanted his father to be, and used that influence to get Jun to start bringing about the end of the world. When he first summons Chronos, Chronos calls himself "the dark sun that kills its father." Jun clearly blames himself for his father's death. Just like with his friends, that feeling is, on some level, strong enough to permeate false memories.

Aquarius in one word is the "Visionary." In both Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment, he wants to be a teacher - in IS because of Maya, and in EP because of his dad. Jun was chosen by Nyarlathotep in large part because he's an Aquarius, placing the visionary over the more "traditional" leader sign, Leo. Aquarius is closely associated with hopes and wishes. While it's associated with green in the game because it's an Air sign, its traditional colors are shades of blue, signifying loyalty. It governs the Eleventh House, which is over acquaintances, friends, and organizations, as well as our sense of our true purpose. At its most esoteric, the Water Bearer brings purifying floods, leaving a renewed and revitalized path forward.

However, it's up to whoever's on that new path to walk it on their own. If you tell Jun you hate him, he says he doesn't mind, but if you do, he's a mess for the rest of the game. He still says he doesn't mind when choosing the other options ("no" or "I would have done the same thing"). Jun's self-esteem has always been through the floor. During the Aquarius Temple, he says he doesn't have any of the good traits of that sign. When the gang tries to tell him it isn't true, he doesn't say anything, leaving the implication that he doesn't really believe them. It shows signs of getting better (slightly) during the final dungeon, but even then, Maya has to appeal to Jun's feelings for Tatsuya, rather than anything Jun might think about himself.

Like all Persona users, Jun's Persona is aligned to one of the Tarot's Major Arcana, in his case, the Wheel of Fortune. Before discussing that, however, his Persona as the Joker has blatant imagery from the Minor Arcana that's about as subtle as a punch to the face, just in case the audience somehow missed it about Jun, and as such, it would be remiss not to discuss it. The Three of Swords is a card in the Minor Arcana, tied with loneliness, grief, and betrayal. Being a Minor Arcana card, those feelings weigh heavily on his mind every single day. It's obvious he can't move past what happened a decade ago. Incidentally, while Jun is much more likely to have an Electra complex rather than an Oedipal one, the Three of Swords can also be interpreted as "how one thinks about their mother."

The Wheel of Fortune has a strong connotation of fate and inevitablility, and being powerless in the face of it. This is Jun as the Joker, but it still remains after he swore off the identity. He didn't consciously feel like it, but the truth is, he was only being used as a pawn. The Wheel by its nature implies that something had to start it spinning, and that began when Nyarlathotep disguised himself as the father Jun always wanted. Nyarlathotep and members of the Last Battalion call Jun a "marionette" multiple times, and later in the game, while he says he's done being a puppet, he never tells them to stop calling him that, leaving the impression that on some level, he believes it's still true.

In the end, Jun stops the Wheel. He isn't the only one offered the chance to change the fate of the world, nor does he accept it by himself. He's the first one to do so, though. He would see his actions, and therefore himself, as being ultimately responsible for their world ending. His desire to atone, and his desire to protect Maya, make him jump at the chance for a reset, despite what it would mean for his friendships. As much as he loves his friends, it means nothing if there's no world left.

Abilities:

Persona: Jun's main ability is the ability to summon a Persona, a mask used to face the world. Jun summons the Joker guise the same way he summons a Persona, rather than ducking into a bathroom or something. In Persona 2 Persona users can sense other Personas. In addition to the Wheel of Fortune being his main Arcana, Jun also has different Arcana he has a greater affinity for - the Magician, the Hanged Man, the World, the suit of Rods, and the suit of Cups.

Main Persona: Jun's main Persona is Chronos, the god of time. Chronos manifests as a mechanical gentleman, with one pair of wings over his shoulders and another at his back, and a clock for a face. Its element is Wind, also nulling Light and Dark attacks, while reflecting status attacks. It takes half damage from Ice, Elctricity, and Nuclear, and its only weakness is to Earth attacks.

Secondary Personas: In addition to Chronos, Jun will also have Isis, Kali, Virochana, and Brahma.

Physical Combat: Jun's stats focus on mostly Dexterity, Persona 2's Magic stat, but he can still hold his own in a fight. In battle, he uses flowers. Yes, really. Presumably, he throws them like darts.

Nyarlathotep: Jun is shown on more than one occasion to be able to sense his presence, just like sensing another Persona. He also has a vague telepathic link, saying at one point that Nyarlathotep is "laughing and beckoning [the gang] forward."

Alignment: Elios. Jun's love for humanity as a whole motivates all his actions, and his love for his friends is stronger than whatever Nyalarthotep can do. Jun's self-esteem is also through the floor, and his self-hatred never goes away.

Other:


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉

General Sample: TDM toplevel! (August 2017)

Emotion Sample: Here and here.

Questions: None! :)