animus_network | four ✾ intended to be voice, but due to terminal shenanigans, is video

[Yukiko has seen the writing on the wall, and she feels like she has to say something about it. She thinks she's hit 'voice' on the terminal. But because the terminals themselves like to play tricks at the worst times, of course, it's coming up as video.

And she has no idea.

Her face is approximately the color of her sweater as she starts to speak.]

A-ah, hello. This is Yukiko Amagi. Um, I think everyone's...probably seen what's written on the dorm walls.

[She still doesn't realize that this is video, so her little sigh and toss of her hair and added blush? All perfectly visible.]

...that whole 'Amagi Challenge' thing? It's kind of embarrassing, but that's how people referred to trying to actually get me to go out with them back home. I was always really busy with working and school, and, well, I didn't always read the situation well. So I pretty much wound up always saying no to everyone that tried asking me out on a date.

[She giggles, then, playing with a bit of her hair and smiling.]

But, well...I guess there's no sense in hiding it anymore, is there? I was going to say something to my friends privately, but since everyone can see it for themselves, I really shouldn't deny the truth. I'm dating Ryoji Mochizuki. And I'm really, really happy.

I think I might even be -

[She claps a hand over her mouth, shaking her head furiously.]

No, no, I can't say that much, not in such a public space! It's one thing to say the truth, but I can't tell everyone everything that I feel! There are things in a girl's heart that she just can't say in such a public space.

I just - it's not moving too fast, okay? Maybe we do spend a lot of time together, but that's perfectly normal! It's fine to want to be around someone you're going out with! Sheesh, saying things like that is way too much.

So that's that, all right? That's the truth of the situation, nothing more.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's fine like this...? Telling everyone how she feels about someone she hasn't really known that long? That doesn't sound quite like the shyly proper and elegantly reserved Yukiko-senpai Rise knows...]

...Hmm... Still, this doesn't really sound like you. You were a lot better at playing hard-to-get back home, you know. You can't just give in right away--you've gotta make it at least a little bit challenging for them, or it's no fun!

[Well, normally, she would be a lot more reserved, and a whole lot more shy. And this network post wouldn't be there at all; there would be notes in mailboxes stating 'I don't know what's going on, but this is really embarrassing and it's really gotten out of hand.']

That wound up just getting me another embarrassing TV broadcast on the Midnight Channel calling me 'The Unconquerable Snow Black'. I don't want to go back to being that kind of person.

[Yukiko, that was the doing of Labrys' Shadow...]

[Another--but..well, okay then. In that case, maybe it did sorta make sense that Yukiko would want to change herself a little... But that kind of change isn't easy, and this is a pretty drastic one, plus it doesn't really seem like a change for the better. Mostly it just seems strange. Still, strange or not, she's gotta ask.]

How long have you known this guy, Yukiko-senpai?

[If she was thinking clearly, she would agree. It's a small change, if anything, that she would think she needs to make - making herself just a bit less shy, just a bit more open. It isn't anything on this scale.]

It's been - not quite a couple of months, now?

[She arrived in the Tower in March, they met in April, and now it's close to the end of May.]

[...Hmm, well...that's better than just a couple weeks, but still. Yukiko saying that she loves this guy? And not correcting him or flustering or anything when he says that they want to be be together forever?? That is so not like the senpai Rise knows, even if Yukiko does want to change herself and loosen up a little bit.

Gotta get more information about all this first though, before she can decide what to do, or if Senpai and the others need to be called in to help straighten all this out.]

So...how did you guys meet?

[Obviously here in the Tower, but she wants specifics, Yukiko-senpai!]

[The exact specifics? Jason month. It wasn't pleasant, and she doesn't count it as their real actual meeting.

She's willing to talk about the one that she counts, though.]

It was after all of that really awful stuff that happened where people got brainwashed and they had their bodies changed - the one where I kind of got made to look like Konohana-Sakuya and wound up having to apologize for attacking a couple of people when I wasn't in control of myself.

Anyway, it was just a chance meeting on the stairs after all that - he looked like he was going to have a panic attack, and I thought talking it out with someone might help.

That conversation wound up going on for a really long time, and it turned out that we knew a lot of the same people and the same places. You remember the class trip to Iwatodai, right - of course you do, I don't think any of us will ever forget it, given, well...stuff, but it turns out he was a student at Gekkoukan High.

...and this is where stuff gets complicated.

[And how.]

Just so I know how much I have to explain, how much do you know about the stuff that happens after we beat Izanami? The stuff with Labrys-san?

A Gekkoukan High student, huh? I wonder what year he was... [Maybe Minato-senpai was the one to ask about this, then...

And well, that meeting sounded normal enough, considering how things were in the Tower...so what would make him get SO creepy-possessive-sounding so fast? And that he'd just so happen to know lots of the people they knew...true, a lot of people from home kept showing up, but still...~~TOWER RUMOURS EFFECT SAYS SHE MUST BE SKEPTICAL, K~~]

I dunno, that sounds pretty convenient to me.

[Rise had talked a little with Labrys-san here and there, but...there weren't a lot of details. Especially nothing that made it sounds like something serious had happened. Which makes her wonder: is this for real, or is this more Tower-crazy working its will through Yukiko-senpai? 8|a Her reply is honest, but a little wary.]

Not really...Labrys-san knew me right away, though, and I felt kinda bad that I didn't know her at all. The time that I came from, Yu-senpai had only been gone for a little more than a week.

I think I can trust all that. It was before things changed, and I don't think he was just telling me that to try and press me into anything.

Not given the rest of what he said, and how it ties into Labrys-san's story.

I'm from her timeline. It's about two months after Yu-kun left Inaba, during Golden Week. And the details - well, someone put Labrys-san into a TV. Her Shadow went crazy, and it set up this whole thing where it forced everyone but you to fight each other - you'd been held hostage the whole time and her Shadow kind of hijacked your Persona so it could do commentary the entire time.

The thing is, though, her Shadow was re-enacting what had been done to Labrys-san herself, in a laboratory. She's not human - she's an android, designed to have a heart. And a Persona. They forced her to fight her other sister units and destroy them in order to get her Persona to come out like they wanted.

...and now I have to mention Teddie, because, well, it's all connected. You know how Teddie's a Shadow that wanted to change things and wanted to help us, and did?

In the course of that very first conversation with Ryoji-kun, it came out that, well...Ryoji-kun is like Teddie. He's a Shadow, but he's always looked human. And he's like Labrys-san, in that he was created in a lab. And a lot of really, really bad stuff happened then. He doesn't remember all of it, but it was because the people that created him wanted to start something bad.

...he wanted to stop it. He never wanted to hurt anyone.

I knew all of that before I agreed to go out with him at all. I knew what I was getting into.

Her Shadow hijacked Kanzeon?! [Oh no WAY. Labrys-san's Shadow had better not show up here in the Tower, EVER, or that Shadow is gonna be toast.

She listens to the rest of that intently, but because of that Rumour, she's not as convinced as she might be otherwise.]

But Teddie...we've been through all sorts of things with him, and he fought by our sides to protect our world, so we know for sure that what he is isn't important. What Ryoji is might not matter either, but...

[But if he was created to be a certain way...well, changing yourself could be hard in any case, but sometimes it really was just impossible, no matter how badly you wanted it. And in that sort of case, not being able to change might not make you evil, but it did make you dangerous.]

...I still don't think we know him well enough to know for sure.

four ✾ intended to be voice, but due to terminal shenanigans, is video

[Video; private] b/c Rise of all people knows that adding fuel to rumours is not a good idea

[Video; private] sob, normally Yukiko would agree and she's going to kick herself so hard later

[Video; private]

[Video; private]

[Video; private]

[Video; private]

[Video; private]

[video; private; what is continuity between threads]

[video; private;idk, what is tagging in a timely manner? orz]