Will of Rebellion
Spoiler Warning: While the details of the narrative are not present, there are spoilers of some of the metaphysical elements of Persona 5 Tactica. It is not necessary to know every single detail of this document to play a character with a Will of Rebellion, but if you'd like to understand more nuance or to have an alternate method of awakening to Persona 5, then this is present as to give more information. For more on awakening as per Persona 5 Tactica's conceits, see our file on Kingdoms.
Note: This file should not be taken as something you can read independently from our file on awakening under the Will of Rebellion Please read this first to understand how one awakens ordinarily, before going deeper here.
What is it?
Strictly speaking, the Will of Rebellion is your psyche's immune system against the status quo. 'Stagnation' is a real cognitive presence within the Collective Unconscious that causes a hyperactive self-preservation instinct within people. This pull forces most people to respond to injustice by keeping their head down and not making a fuss about it.
It is also a potential that develops within your psyche to add the Trickster archetype to the narrative of your Persona. However, it need not be confined so narrowly to an actual trickster. Countercultural, rebellious, criminal and/or revolutionary archetypes of history, myth, and fiction are also just as common depending on one's personal narrative.
Upon awakening, these individuals gain a cognitive outfit that fits their ideal state of rebellion, and protection from recognition by Resonance as detailed in the interference section.
Understand: a Will of Rebellion is not your Persona. One must think of it as an additional element that adds something to your psyche and your Persona by its very existence. Some people possess a Will of Rebellion without ever developing a Persona. Often this Will of Rebellion is utterly annihilated from their psyche before the circumstances for awakening can occur.
At this time on Velvet Room MUSH, characters are fully unaware that Stagnation exists, including Will of Rebellion Persona Users. When the time comes, everyone will learn it in character.
How does it come to be?
Individuals that experience institutional injustice against them often have deep wounds that fester within their psyche, especially as society demands they submit to the status quo that caused them that harm.
When such individuals are inspired to fight towards the idea of 'reform' or 'revolution,' then these wounds become fertile soil for a seed known as the Will of Rebellion to germinate. Usually it must be inspired by others to make certain it occurs, though. Even if the festering wounds of trauma are present, most individuals will never develop the Will of Rebellion on their own due to the effect of Stagnation within humanity pulling them back towards the status quo.
In the Persona 2: Innocent Sin timeline on The Other Side, no Will of Rebellion Persona Users are known to exist. That doesn't mean they never existed, just that the circumstances of that world made it so impossible that it wasn't witnessed as a phenomenon by Japan's supernatural communities in at least the last decade.
On This Side, circumstances are different. Because of an unknown mechanism, more Persona Users with the Will of Rebellion are arising. No one appears to have any understanding on why this is occurring, even people who know specific facts about The Other Side.
Would You Like To Know More?
The cognitive outfit that the Will of Rebellion provides is the ideal form that one's rebellion takes by their subconscious. It is thus often influenced by the media one enjoys, specifically stories one associates with rebellion itself.
While this can be played as embarrassing in Persona 5 by characters seeing themselves in something unfamiliar and unexpected for the first time, people are encouraged to have their characters ride the euphoria of the awakening and be proud of it.
For more on Awakening with a Will of Rebellion, see Persona.
A Will of Rebellion can be an Ordeal, when an unawakened person's psyche is invaded by the Stagnation, humanity's self-preservation instinct, to attempt to kill the potential for the Will of Rebellion within them before they can awaken. For a much more detailed description, see our file on Kingdoms.
This presents an alternative method of Awakening to the Metaverse for appropriate concepts who wish to explore the idea of Rebellion or more accurately 'Revolution' within one's heart.
Revolution Within Your Heart
For more on the specifics of the Will of Rebellion and the dynamics of its existence within someone's personal cognitive inner world, please check out our page on Kingdoms, but note it contains many spoilers for Persona 5 Tactica.