2026-05-08: Game Face
- Log: 2026-05-08 Game Face
- Cast: Roger, Yanagi Nagisa
- Where: Electric Town - Gigolo Arcade
- OOC Date: May 08, 2026
- IC Date: November 06, 2012
- Summary: Yanagi encounters Roger at the arcade in Akihabara. Although she had other plans, she immediately discards them to play a game with him. Roger is more than happy to teach it to her, too. Now starring the indomitable Night Parade character... Nurikabe!!
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
The days continue on. Sometimes, that's the best anyone can ask for, despite (or because of?) everything.
Take Roger, a Shadow that somehow gained the power of Persona and has decided to take residence in the human world. By any measure, he lives in squalor. No family, no education, no history, no resources. A dire set of circumstances, by human reckoning.
...
In truth, he's presently content with his lot in life, having settled into something resembling a routine.
That bizarre reddish pig mascot in the overalls has been something of a fixture at arcade events about Tokyo, and no one is really certain as to what agency has licensed them. This has not stopped him from being present, attracting customers, receiving something resembling 'pay,' and then making due with meager accommodations at a rental booth or whatever food he can afford. This is how his life goes, give or take the usual supernatural trappings all Persona-users can't opt out of.
(One day he'll find a Sanguin Humor among the Dark Hour's endless Colerics and find some way to get them to stop for a bit, he's sure.)
Anything left over when he's done for the day, of course... goes into playing the arcade games, with immense enthusiasm.
"Hey! Roger," calls a 30-something guy - an arcade employee that knows him by name. "We're goin' to that karaoke place later... you up for that?"
"I'm okay! I'm having fun here!" Roger says back, cheerily.
"Heh... you never really... get tired of that, huh." Amused, but also exasperated, the guy slinks off. "Well... some other time." There's a sense that this 'some other time' has been anticipated for a while.
All The Gun About cabinets are taken up, but he's always feeling more Night Parade when given the opportunity, for some reason. Roger, in his human guise, is a heavy-set young man whose features are a bit exaggerated but still believably 'human' if only just so - notably a strong underbite, a slightly upturned nose, and a smaller shoe size relative to height. It's not clear if he's a high school student or in young adulthood. He's just... odd. One may even wager that he is outright 'gonk.'
He's quietly considering how much he has to play this time around. Life as a human has many rules when it comes to money. It's a very difficult game to play. But he likes playing it.
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
Recently, a butler cafe called Le Chat Marron opened in Akihabara. Yanagi has never been to a butler cafe before--certainly not one where girls might be butlers too! It sounds intriguing to her, the kind of place where someone like Tsumugi might work, and therefore she decided to go take a look after working the morning at Peacock Silk.
She's partway there, tapping along with her polished walking cane, dressed in the frills of a long-sleeved pink blouse textured with raised rose patterns and a long white skirt whose roses are colored on in that same shade of pink. Pink pearl studs adorn her earlobes, matching the rose quartz and pewter hair clips on either side of her head to partially tie by her long, wavy ash gray hair. A lacy purse in pastel green matches her strappy flats. It's very much the outfit of a gentile lady who would be waited upon by a diligent, elegant butler...
...and then she happens to glance inside the Gigolo Arcade as she's passing by.
"Oh! Roger!" she chirps, raising an ivory-gloved hand to wave excitedly at him. Even if he's in human form, she can recognize that Resonance right away as his. "Roger, it's been such a long time! How are you?" she adds, now tap-tap-tapping her way into the arcade in a hurry. "Tell me what exciting things you've been about lately!"
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
He's about ready to go into his own little world of bliss that is 'play,' when there's a voice and his name. The voice saying his name. That is an important distinction. Yes. He turns about-face at the call, and then, with closed eyes and a cheery wide smile.
"Oh, hello! It really has! I was just about to play." When is he not, when he is not playing very carefully by the rules of being human? There's a youthful exuberance in his movements, in the way that one might see media made for younger viewers who need to better simply parse what an emotion is. He starts pressing his fingers together.
"I've been living in your world! That's exciting!" And very strange to say in the open, but honest and earnest. "I play here every day after work, and..." And? He tilts his head a bit, looking upwards. "...And..." And? Maybe there doesn't need to be an 'and' here. Should there be? "And... it's usually just me and whoever else is here."
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
Strange, perhaps, but Yanagi adores the strange, including being strange. She already knows how and why Roger is strange anyway, so it's not something that needs explaining. "Oh, that is exciting. How has the experience been for you so far? It must be very different from Taro's Atelier," she says.
But then he gets stuck for a moment on that 'And.' Yanagi tilts her head, her lead-grey eyes puzzled. Eventually, he finishes his thought, though, and she rights her head to nod, then looks past him at the Night Parade arcade machine. "Is this the game you're always playing?" she wonders. She recognizes some of those characters! How fitting for someone who definitely was born in Taro Nakata's Atelier.
"I don't play much of these sorts of games," she continues, looking back at him. "Can you teach me how?"
There is a question there to be asked about what kind of work a Shadow does in the real world. It can wait for after they've had time to ~play~.
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
"Uh huh!" Roger nods. "I like to play all of them, but," he tilts his head, "this one a lot, too." Even after all they went through in Taro's Atelier... if he's from there, and as a Sanguin Humor would have reflected their strong desire to play it, it makes sense, doesn't it?
"Sure! Oh, I can spot you the change for a play or two, if you want," Roger offers. Even with limited means, he does want to play with others. When they go there together, he outlines at least the basic idea of the controls, and how he actually likes to play as everyone (we call this 'random' in the human world) and... he doesn't have that great a handle of who a 'complete beginner' might play.
Curiously, he doesn't beeline towards playing Kappa.
"--You can see the motions on the panels!" Roger says, in a snippet of explaining movesets. "But they don't say what the best 'normals' are... that one's jumping strong kick is so good they should write that there..."
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
It makes perfect sense! Roger himself said it too, so what reason is there to question it? None, I say; none at all.
"Oh, I have some coins in my purse," Yanagi replies, pulling said purse forward with her free hand. There's a bunch of loose change in the wallet within, so she can pay for herself. (She wouldn't mind Roger paying for her, but Yanagi is in a mood to not be helpless just this moment. That's what the butler cafe is for. ...Or it was, when she was still going there.)
She listens to Roger's explanation of the controls, and how he plays as 'everyone,' and apparently there are different styles for different characters and the best character for a beginner is not necessarily everyone? It's sort of confusing, and more concerningly, it sounds like it takes two hands to play properly and she needs to stand the whole time. That might get exhausting quickly...
That's not going to stop her from trying, though. At the very least, she went to Mr. Tomi's just yesterday for a muscle-stimulating massage (thank Rumors for that), so she should be able to make it at least through one game standing up without assistance.
"It seems awfully complex," she remarks, looking down at the panels that don't mark the best 'normals.' "No wonder Taro's Homunculus was so powerful... This must take great skill to play." She looks back at Roger. "If you aren't sure who's best for a beginner, how about I just pick whoever looks good to me, and you teach me their moves?"
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
"Oh! Just a moment," Roger asides, eyes wide, stepping away from the arcade cabinet to make sure to get a seat for Yanagi. "Hehe. Sorry, sorry! I should have asked!" It's somewhat tight space, as lot space is at an immense premium - but there is the gentle accommodation. "It's important that everyone that wants to play gets to be able to!"
Said with a genuine smile. There is a snort at the mention of that Homunculus who caused so much trouble for him! Well, everyone. "Okay! And then... I'll pick who you're playing, and we can go from there! Mirror matches are a lot of fun too!"
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
"Oh! Thank you," Yanagi says warmly, sparkling when Roger fetches her a seat. She carefully hoists herself up onto it with the help of her cane and the side of the Night Parade machine; she'll tuck her skirts underneath her and hook said cane on the side afterwards so she can use both her hands.
"I'm happy that's important to you," she adds. She's met a lot of people who insisted on protecting her, and so in the process became invested in keeping her helpless so they could continue to 'protect' her. Yanagi hates those types. It's a relief that Roger isn't one of them.
Roger says he'll pick. "Okay!" Ultimately it's all the same to her at this point, so she'll let him take point on that much. "What's a mirror match?" she adds, though.
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
"It is! I want to play with everyone as someone," as was what his psyche struggled with rationalizing into coherency when it got afflicted with the concept of 'I' driven into their core with a hammer and nail that is having a Persona-user's psyche. Accommodations made, he continues with the lesson-giving.
"A mirror match is when both players are playing the same character! It would make it a lot easier to talk about what your character can do!" The characters are all some manner of yokai of mythology, across abroad range of character appeal - some clearly appealing to younger folks with eccentric and cartoonish designs, others more beautiful, elegant, and refined. One of them is a literal wall with very little 'anthropomorphic' design details, because perhaps there is no improving upon the nurikabe, and no chaser of dreams can ever hope to break down that wall with brute force.
"Oh! You've only got so long to decide before it chooses for you, too. Otherwise someone could sit there on character select for an entire day..."
Beat.
"The music is really good, but," headtilt, "at that point no one's really playing, are they..."
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
"Oh! You can do that?" Yanagi utters, blinking wide. "I had no idea! So that's why it's called a 'mirror match'... Does it not get confusing with two of the same character on the screen?"
The yokai are all colorful characters, some literally, some metaphorically, some both. Yanagi taps the stick to look at each character one by one. She does take longer to look at the refined-looking characters... but when she reaches the nurikabe, which is literally just a wall, she bursts out laughing.
"It's a wall! It's just a wall!" she squeals with delight. "Roger, can we play that one? It's so funny!"
She might get tired of 'just a wall' once the novelty wears off, but for right now, it's hilarious.
She tilts her head too. "The music is good," she agrees, "but if the machine picks someone for you because you aren't paying attention, does that mean it plays for you too?"
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
"You'd think so," Roger says, "but you can select so many colors! I like everyone's red ones." Of course he would, he existed as a mere Sanguin Humor prior. Does this apply if an Atelier's rightful owner likes blue or green instead? ...Existential questions for another context.
"Nurikabe!" Not even a stylized punny name. It's just Nurikabe. "Sure! We can play them!"
Nurikabe is a wall. They can collectively admire how they've managed to get so much motion and distinctive movement from a wall.
"This one's called a 'grappler,' so they want to get very, very close to people! But they don't move very fast," Roger explains, "and their attacks are slow," how does a wall move or attack? Imaginatively. "And the motion you have to do to do their throws is really tough because it's so easy to accidentally jump," indeed, the 360 degree joystick motion seems to go along the range of where one has to move it to jump. There will be so many accidental jumps!
"But if you land one... it does a lot of damage!" Roger helpfully explains.
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
"Nurikabe!" Yanagi echoes, still delighted. "It's like naming your cat Cat!" In another context, she might decry this as boring and unimaginative; right now, the absurdity of how you can play just a wall still resonates with her. And, when Roger agrees: "Yay! <3"
Roger explains that Nurikabe is a grappler and what that means, including the strengths and weaknesses of the character type. Yanagi nods and "mhms" while inspecting the two Nurikabes on the screen, which are indeed two different colors, even though she didn't select one. Hers is yellow to Roger's red. It must have been chosen automatically by the machine, as he implied earlier.
She looks down at the controls and tries the joystick. Nurikabe bobs and slides and smashes facedown and upright along the screen. There is indeed a jump. Nurikabe sort of rockets itself into the air with a little dust cloud, and causes an even bigger dust cloud when it lands. To a skillful player, no doubt this helps provide good cover if you can do enough of it; to Yanagi, there is a mental reaction of 'oh, of course it makes a cloud when it lands,' before she moves on.
"So first I need to make my character get close to you, and then I have to make him attack correctly, and if I do that, I'll hit you for a lot?" Yanagi recaps. She pushes the joystick again to make Yellow Nurikabe get closer to Red Nurikabe. Smash SMASH smash SMASH smash SMASH.
<Pose Tracker> Roger has posed.
It is all clumsy, silly, and outlandish that one can stretch the expressiveness and motion of a wall this way, but such is the power of video games. Video games... and budgets. And timelines. And sunk cost fallacies. Video games, mostly, though.
"Just like so!" Roger says. He gets up to some of the button bashing too. The faceplanting is funny! It's entertaining! They're playing! He is contented. "It's hard to set it up when you have to get around people hitting buttons like that, but...!"
Roger gets in range, and--
Is poked out of it by what passes for a standing light kick.
"Wow, you're really good at that," Roger says, impressed with the counterplay.
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
You just know the video game production staff was on one of their last meetings at their wits' end trying to come up with ideas for characters when someone said in frustration, "What if we just made a wall?"
Alternately, someone at one of the first meetings laughed like a troll and said, "What if we just made a wall?"
The world will never know for sure, probably.
"Oh!" Yanagi utters when Roger indicates she's doing a good job. SMASH smash SMASH smash-- Roger also gets closer, and--
*poke!*
"Oh!!" she utters again, blinking. She beams when he compliments her again. "Heehee, thank you! I didn't even know what I was doing!" She looks back at the screen, puzzled. "What did I do? Was that a punch or a kick? They look the same..."
They might be slowly dawning on the brilliance of Nurikabe, and why it's actually a high-level character for extremely skilled players.
Or why it's an annoying bullshit trash character that almost no one reps.
Either or!