Persona Rebirth

Persona Rebirth is a Play By Post Game forum that was started roughly two years ago, loosely based off the Persona series of video games. Since then, it's gone through one reboot due to inactivity but now finds itself with a comfortable community size and much more active members. Of course, new members are always welcomed and the admins are always looking for ways to improve the forum.

Only the main gameplay mechanics from the Persona games are used, almost everything else is original.

The plot involves the characters awakening in a rather mysterious abandoned laboratory, having been led there by a rather mysterious butterfly. Shortly after they wake up, they usually find themselves attacked by Shadows, the main monsters in the story. Fortunately for them, they find that they have a Persona right in the nick of time, and summon a projection of their inner self to help them combat the monsters.

Of course, not all of these 'Persona Users' have been using their power for good. On top of exploring the ruins and fighting the Shadows, many of the characters find themselves combating with their inner-selves. In extreme cases of these internal conflicts, characters often end up doing something they didn't know they could do, or something they didn't know they wanted to do.

Currently, a relic of the past has visited the town of Nagashima: Hoculus, a disease that appears to do with the ruins and the shadows within them. With dozens of people, including some of their own, afflicted with the disease, the persona users are scrambling to find some find of cure, or general information, about the disease.

It can be found here if you're interested, or if you just want to read through all the topics. Be warned though: it's been known to dip into some scary stuff at times.

A Note To Editors: As usual, please place all character related tropes on the Characters page instead of the Main page!

""YOU GUYS I THINK WE HAVE, LIKE, TWO AND A HALF NORMAL CHARACTERS NOW""
 * Academy of Adventure: Taiyoutono High, home to stalkers, traps, wolf girls, professional criminals, former criminals and more foreigners than you can shake a stick at! Oh, did we mention the creepy laboratory crawling with monsters?
 * All Girls Want Bad Boys: Part of the reason Sora manages to get so many admirers, even though most of the student populace should really know better.
 * All Myths Are True: The number of mythologies serving as sources for personae is staggering.
 * All Women Are Lustful: In Rockward, a topic involving alcohol, every single make out session was initiated by the female.
 * Alternate Universe: There's a subforum for it. The topics range from full on alternate versions, mini-RPs, and For Want of a Nail scenarios.
 * Attempted Rape: Manabu did this to Miyuki. Granted, he was possessed by his Persona at the time, but his persona is still him so...
 * He then tries it again on Miyuki during a camping trip, this time while not possessed.
 * Most recently, Takumi, one of Taiyoutono's more repulsive teachers, attempted to rape Haru after he gained Luckily, Albert came to save the day. Well, in his own special way.
 * Big Bad: At this stage in the game, it appears to be Miss Yellow, an absurdly powerful Humanoid Shadow. Fittingly, she first appears in a thread called "So Many Yellow People".
 * Blond Guys Are Evil: Manabu has blond hair, though it's acknowledged it's dyed. He actually becomes more evil as his hair starts returning back to its natural black. The fact that he's stopped dying his hair is one of the first signs of his Sanity Slippage.
 * Captain Ersatz: A very common character type.
 * Continuity Nod: Taka and Touya used to live in Yasoinaba, until a series of strange murders led their family to move to Nagashima.
 * Manabu has made references to both Apathy Syndrome and the Inaba murders at different points.
 * Gekkoukan High is also mentioned a few times in later threads.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Both of Ms. Gold's fights with Takumi. The first one just ended in him losing an arm, while the second one had him completely disintegrated.
 * Demonic Possession: Many Persona users begin to suffer from varying degrees of this, ranging from their Persona simply influencing their actions to it actually taking control of their body.
 * Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Treo and Kumori have had tea and several pleasant conversations with "Ms. Gold", one of the humanoid Shadows inhabiting the ruins.
 * Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: Possibly delves into this regarding Treo and Ms. Gold.
 * Drinking Game: Found here.
 * Eldritch Abomination: Shadows in general.
 * While not an actual one, Manabu's Persona, Cyeggha, is rather similar to Cyäegha.
 * Empathic Environment: Pretty much any time it rains in the RP, something dramatic is happening.
 * Enigmatic Empowering Entity: The Golden Butterfly, presumably. It renders specific individuals catatonic, and guides them into the ruins, where they awaken their persona. Entering the ruins without being guided does not enable awakening.
 * Enlightenment Superpowers: Half of the time, this is what Ascension means, at least in comparison to "normal" Persona users.
 * Ensemble Cast: A given, due to the nature of the game.
 * Extra-Strength Masquerade: Apparently. Though some mundane individuals -- Masazaku, Manabu's father, comes to mind -- seem to catch on, the populace of Nagashima seems to ignore the huge population of empowered individuals who seem to be doing very little to hide their presence. Or at least that was the way it was before the massacre at Ruwashi Park broke the Masquerade.
 * Eye Scream: So, Manabu, what's the best way to show you've become identical to your Persona?
 * Fantastic Racism
 * Fingore:
 * Foreshadowing:
 * Game Face: When someone dons their mask, it is generally a signal that a fight is immanent.
 * Geographic Flexibility: No one really knows where Nagashima is. Guessing from the name ("-Shima") it's probably near a mountain, but beyond this nothing is known about the location.
 * Ham-to-Ham Combat: Rainbow in the Dark has a talented but troubled young man being snapped out of his monologueing angst by a wiser, more experienced master of his trade. The two then proceed to exchange blows in their unique art. ...did we mention this unique art was Heavy Metal?
 * Heavy Sleeper: All of the NPC teachers at Taiyoutono are never awake during class. If the polls are to be believed, it's because
 * House of Broken Mirrors: The bathrooms in ruins all have broken mirrors, save one. This mirror ends up talking back. Or being talked to. It's not really clear what happened in that scene.
 * Humanoid Abomination: The most powerful Shadows are apparently this. The first of them appears here.
 * In Vino Veritas: The events of prom night can be summed down to this.
 * Late Arrival Spoiler: Stuff that was once rather shocking (Chouko dismembering someone for Sora, Manabu trying to rape Miyuki,, etc.) tends to end up being spoiled to new users fairly quickly before they can even read the threads.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: Comes with the territory of being a roleplaying site, with most people having 2-4 characters. Some people have reached the limit of seven.
 * Mask of Power: With the acquiring of one's persona, one also receives a mask. If he/she would like to summon their persona, they must be wearing the mask.
 * Meaningful Name: Played straight with a lot of characters, but notably subverted with Chouko. Her last name, Yaguruma, means almost nothing that has to do with her. It was suggested by one of the administrators, who happened to be watching a certain television show at the time. If you need a hint as to what show, just try laughing at Chouko's partner...
 * Meta Fiction: There is now a forum within the forum, called "Bedlam."
 * Misfit Mobilization Moment: The persona users are a rather disparate group, but a hostage crisis has put many of them in danger simultaneously. This can only end poorly.
 * An outbreak of what seems to be a shadow related disease causes the organization of a meeting of Persona users to discuss what to do.
 * The violent breaking of the Masquerade has caused the Persona users of Nagashima (at least the ones who aren't on the side of the villains) to take steps to prevent another incident like the massacre at the park from happening again.
 * Mind Rape: Fear-inducing spells like Evil Touch are seen as these by those affected.
 * Mood Whiplash: Frogface in Repose. Manabu finds himself being forgiven by people he attacked/tried to eat/forced into sex. They all make up and become best friends.
 * Really, this could be applied to the forum in general. In one topic, we could have mutilated corpses stuffed in bags, and in another topic, we could have a waffle truck and syrup truck crashing together and coating anyone in the vicinity in their cargo.
 * Shadow designs in the RP vary wildly: on one hand, they can look absolutely ludicrous (a demonic baseball player, flying cats, the Box Ghost), on the other, they can look horrifying (a chimeric monster made of fused-together corpses, necrophiliac zombie mermaids, eyeless snail-human hybrids).
 * No Party Like a Donner Party: Manabu eventually tries to eat Ryouta and Ayane after being down in the ruins for nearly a week without food.
 * Order Versus Chaos: As Rebirth is Shin Megami Tensei related, there's some law and chaos going on. In a reversal from the games, Many of the Chaos characters are much nastier than the Law characters, with the former being populated by most of the villains and the latter being populated by many of the more heroic characters. There's still a few Knight Templars and whatnot running about, however.
 * Ordinary High School Student: Almost none exist in Taiyoutono. Constantly lampshaded by the roleplayers in the chatroom.
 * No Party Like a Donner Party: Manabu eventually tries to eat Ryouta and Ayane after being down in the ruins for nearly a week without food.
 * Order Versus Chaos: As Rebirth is Shin Megami Tensei related, there's some law and chaos going on. In a reversal from the games, Many of the Chaos characters are much nastier than the Law characters, with the former being populated by most of the villains and the latter being populated by many of the more heroic characters. There's still a few Knight Templars and whatnot running about, however.
 * Ordinary High School Student: Almost none exist in Taiyoutono. Constantly lampshaded by the roleplayers in the chatroom.

""There are no pawn shops in Japan, guys."
 * Perplexing Plurals: Now is it Personas, Personae, or what?
 * Based on the Greek it would be the second, Personae, but both are found in the forum.
 * Personality Powers: Note the definition of the word Persona and guess what it implies about the titular powers.
 * Person of Mass Destruction: Comes in several levels, but even someone who is newly awoken is probably capable of freezing, burning, shocking, irradiating, or drowning another human being with a thought and a flick of their wrist. Truly advanced Persona users tend to be capable of much more dangerous things.
 * Play By Post Game
 * Playing with Syringes: A recent bit of plot, and also found in the back story.
 * Police Procedural: Most threads featuring Shin and Kokumura that don't take place in the ruins.
 * Power Born of Madness: Those who have Ascended yet have "bad ended" are this.
 * When a character tries to use their Persona while under a lot of emotional stress, they turn instead into their monster form. This usually happens for Rule of Drama.
 * Running Gag: The chat and the roleplays both have their own sets of running gags.
 * RP
 * Ryouta's horrible luck generating animals that don't even live in Japan.
 * If anyone manages to find out Kaede's true gender, chances are they found out by groping her.
 * As if Adults Are Useless wasn't already strong enough in this setting, any teacher that shows up and isn't an actual character will be asleep when they show up.
 * Any time tentacles come up, chances are Kira will be terrorized with them.
 * Chatbox
 * Don't hit on either of the admins. If you do, the other might come after you.
 * Any pairing will immediately be followed up by the poster and anyone else in the chat replying with "otp"
 * Referring to Itsuki Kondo as Kanji.
 * Referring to Oliver Garland as Olivia.
 * Shout-Out:
 * A collection of ideas for enemies on the forum includes the Incubator, the Box Ghost, and the "Dragoons", Shadows resembling spear-wielding armored warriors. A boss Shadow also has the ability of ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL over any of the lesser Shadows that form its army.
 * After resolving, Persona users can control their armored form, being able to use it once a week. This occasionally leads to a few, usually unsubtle, references to Japanese children's television.
 * Natsuki is shown reading a manga named Storm, Snow and Thunder, a thinly-veiled reference to another story of political drama, war, and love set in a fantasy world.
 * There Are No Therapists: Averted. Though they don't seem to help anyone much.
 * Transformation Trinket: The mask characters get when they awaken can become this when they ascend. A lot of them tend to share a transformation style as well.
 * True Companions: Even with how dysfunctional most of the characters are, some examples stand out: The "Nuclear Nakama," The Awakened Staff of Taiyoutono High School, and Anarchy & Damage
 * The Unmasqued World: A Persona user goes berserk in the park and kills a bunch of innocent bystanders, leading to the truth of Personae being discovered.
 * We All Live in America: Though a few RPers try to avoid this, things that are undeniably American tends to pop up every now and again. The large number of American characters could be related to this as well. There is one Japanese-American RPer, but due to living in the United States for a long time it isn't uncommon that the others know more about Japan than the RPer does at times.
 * next post is a link about the best way to shop at pawn shops in Japan*"


 * Wham! Episode: Every thread made on July 8th. After a long series of less-than-serious threads, a few rather important and serious threads popped up in the days before then. Then on July 8th, all at once, The developments were shocking to say the least.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Averted by the grand majority of characters, who actually have realistic hair shades (Manabu's blond color results from dyeing), but there are a few with white hair or green hair.