Talk:Shiori Hibiki

Put all actual discussion above this line, please.

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Random Stuff

Putting it here so I have a handy wiki-syntaxed paragraph if needed.

Rival Blazing Arcana Fighters

A non-canonical arcade fighting game. Has home console ports.

A fairly popular series, currently numbered at Rival Blazing Arcana Fighters IV, although there have been all sorts of Turbo and Super and SuperVS and Ultra versions of the previous numbers. Ever since RBAF III, characters from Phoenix Featherman Ranger R have been included as part of a tie-in. (The hero character from PFR-R is considered top-tier, while the other characters vary.)

Jack Frost is also in there, as a bottom-tier joke character who can nevertheless be quite effective in the hands of a good player. (Shiori is one such player, although she still has trouble with Jack Frost.)

OOC-ly, the name was inspired by fighting games such as Rival Schools, BlazBlue, Arcana Heart, and King of Fighters.

SPOILER INFORMATION

By: Shiori

Until we get a sort of spoiler-tag system, I'll be putting my own notes about Shiori Hibiki here.

These are highly spoilery plot points that are useful largely for clarification purposes. I'm putting them here for my own reference, and in case some visitors might be interested and truly not care about spoilers.

Obviously, you should not know about these IC-ly, unless you really want some plot hooks. (By prior arrangement only.)

Once again, SPOILERS BELOW THIS POINT.

That Incident In Middle School

Shiori fell in with the "rich crowd" during middle school. The leader was one Harumi, who was rich, beautiful, good at academics and athletics, and thoroughly arrogant and demanding, believing herself to be the rightful "queen" of the school, controlling the student body by malicious rumour-mongering and gossiping. Despite this, Harumi was also by far the most popular girl in the school. Also in the group, and more or less Harumi's right-hand woman, was Reika.

Shiori was provisionally accepted into Harumi's group because she was also rich, and willing to be a hanger-on and yes-woman. Shiori actually hoped that some of Harumi's popularity would rub off on her.

In their last year of middle school, though, the student body revolted against Harumi, by spreading counter-rumours and giving her personal contact information out to unsavoury types for harassment purposes. Shiori suspected that someone had to be coordinating all of this, but at the time she was jealous of Harumi, and covertly joined in the campaign to topple Harumi; Shiori had a faint notion that perhaps if Harumi was pulled down, she would be able to take Harumi's place.

After having her name, reputation, and popularity dragged into the dirt, Harumi suddenly transferred out, just before their final exams, and nobody knew what happened to her. A persistent rumour suggested that she couldn't take the bullying, and committed suicide, which was hushed up by her influential family.

It turned out that due to quite a lot of luck, Shiori's role in the whole affair, both her participation in Harumi's group and her turncoat rumour-spreading, had gone unnoticed in the general drama. Shiori was free from any repercussions of her acts...

... except that Reika confronted her, and coldly laid out in full detail exactly what Shiori had done. Reika transferred out herself soon after Harumi did, presumably to follow Harumi.

Shiori felt a tremendous amount of guilt from this incident, even more so due to her "clean" reputation despite her role. After graduating from middle school, she moved to Port Island to start afresh, leaving her "old self" behind.

Aftermath of That Incident

Shiori is determined never to let herself be like that ever again, and to always take care not to spread any rumours she might later regret. She tries to help others and be as loyal a friend as possible, in order to make up for what she did to Harumi.

Shiori tries to act as a Nice Girl, kind and understanding, completely harmless, in the hopes that through much practice, that mask she wears will become her true self. She is not always successful, occasionally letting her old (and "true") self slip out during times of great stress, especially when reminded of who she used to be.

Shiori has learned the pasts of several other residents of Port Island, which are filled with far greater tragedy. As such, she feels even worse due to conflicting emotions: Shiori feels that she should not be so hung up on what she calls "some stupid pointless middle school social jockeying", when people around her have lost loved ones and family. The guilt is compounded due to the fact that Shiori acted of her own choice, rather than having her circumstances thrust upon her by fate; the whole thing was Shiori's own fault, and she has nobody else to blame.

After confessing to Lucas Xavier, Shiori has felt slightly better thanks to the pastor's words. She still has not fully forgiven herself, and likely never will until something drastic happens.

Plot Hooks for That Incident

If possible, Shiori would like to track down Harumi, to confess and apologize, meekly accepting whatever punishment Harumi wanted to give her. An alternative would be to seek out Reika, for the same. Thus far, this has been impossible, at least with Shiori's current resources.

Shiori's Potential stems in part from playing the Persona Game when she was little (with others such as her little brother), as well as the shock and guilt from her part in That Incident.

Harumi is actually still alive, but she has changed her name, and is a great deal more humble (in behaviour; she's still quite rich, but not as prone to spending sprees as before). Reika has not changed her name, but she is still best friends with Harumi. The two are nowhere near Port Island, or anywhere around the Okina City area (ie out of the MUSH grid).

If Shiori ever does find out who the person coordinating the anti-Harumi campaign was, things will go very, very badly for Reika.

Voices

Everyone hears what might be "voices" in their head, going by the names of "second thoughts" or "doubts" or "temptation". They're the sort of voice that tells you that what you did isn't good enough, or that maybe you should check yet again that the gas has been turned off, or to touch the wet paint.

In Shiori's case, she has had the voice for as long as she remembers (ie ever since she played the Persona Game), but she started to really listen to it after That Incident in middle school. And she has begun to hear it speak in her own voice ever since her first Dark Hour in Port Island (which is close enough to her first arrival in Port Island that Shiori hasn't yet made the connection beyond "since I moved to Port Island").

In poses, it is represented by the italics-notation convention of slashes in place of quotation marks.

This is a large part of why Shiori seems distracted when talking to other people, especially about sensitive topics: she's trying to ignore that voice whispering self-loathing and doubt in her head, while still trying to catch any good advice that voice might be giving.

That voice in her head is actually Shiori's Persona, although that's not quite right either: it is the side of Shiori's Persona that might potentially be a Shadow. Shiori has no reason to suspect that it is anything like this, mostly because it is indistinguishable (apart from content) from the usual more innocuous "thinking to oneself" sort of voice.

The voice seems determined to drag Shiori down any time she feels good about herself, by reminding her of her apparent hypocrisy between her old self and the mask she currently presents to others, as well as her general uselessness.