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DECEMBER EVENT PT 1

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→ 12/3 Lockdown

The wind picks up at midnight, flowing through the streets but softened by the snowflakes that drift down from the sky. Over the full hour of Lockdown, the snowfall dampens the wind and makes it harder to follow the stream than before, blowing out from the forest and towards the center of town where a snowdrift builds up against the shut doors of the hospital's main entrance. Defeat the Daitengu, and the next dungeon appears the month after... During Lockdown, black blobs of Shadows continue to seep out of the hospital, shrine, lake, and school, but with the third Daitengu defeated, the wind doesn't howl as strongly and the snowfall is light, leaving the town dusted with snow the next morning that easily melts by mid-day. The town is cold, quiet, and still, almost as if holding its breath, but perhaps it's an illusion created by the townspeople staying indoors to keep out of the cold, and that everybody who had arrived from the alternate Hirajiro has been spirited away overnight, gone without fanfare by the time the wind dies down at the end of Lockdown. The only thing left behind is a complete deck of tarot cards with no duplicates, neatly stacked and set by the entrance of the honden, with a heavy stone on top to keep the cards from blowing away in the wind.

With the wind picking up around the shrine, a slow, deep ringing can be heard from a large bell that has been tied up above the offertory box with a thick rope, swinging with the wind; the offertory box itself is emptied of gemstones at the beginning of the month, but will slowly fill back up if the Persona users continue to donate the stones dropped by defeated Shadows, with the understanding that any boon they receive comes with strengthening the Kotengu as well. As if called by the toll of the bell, it seems like all of the crows in town have congregated around the shrine for the winter, perched on the rooftops, lit stone lanterns, and even the torii, all peering down at whoever enters the shrine and keeping an eye on them all the while they stand on sacred land. Although the crows seem unbothered by the ringing bell, the resident fox skitters away whenever it hears the noise, although it will always return when the wind dies down, or if the bell is otherwise bound and still. The sign that's supposed to contain the shrine deity's name still lacks the name, but this time, the sign is painted over with solid black, the paint layered on so thickly, you can see where the trails of paint are pulled to the bottom of the sign, under which dry spots of black paint can be seen before covered by the dusting of snow.

Near the path leading from the shrine to the castle, a large area of trees has been demolished in a vaguely serpentine shape, the trees lying splintered and fallen but far enough to pose no danger to the castle. Unlike the shrine, there are little to no crows that hang around the structure, the same two stories with the broken stairs up to the incomplete third floor becoming hazardous to climb with the falling snow and the wind that blows through the open windows of the second floor, making the castle howl. The throne sports a new cushion and a thick woollen blanket draped over the back of it, but with the ofuda door containing just the same two as before, the castle remains stuck in time, and the night goes on.

→ 12/3 - 1/2 Town events

It snows on and off over the next few days, getting steadily colder as the month progresses. While the snow is powdery and easy to clear, there's a lot of it that piles right back up by the end of the day, creating a constant demand for help shoveling the roads around the neighborhoods and marketplace to keep them clear, although the Persona users will have to keep the path to the castle and shrine clear on their own, as none of the townspeople are concerned about the forest in general. In town, all the extra snow initially gets pushed towards the center to dump into the lake, but after the lake freezes over after the first week of the month, the excess snow gets piled into a large hill and packed down to be perfect for sledding, with makeshift sleds ranging from laundry baskets to trash can lids left lying around for people to grab and slide— and pray they don't veer off course and crash straight through the ice covering the lake. A Persona may be able to thicken the ice and make it safer to skate on, but in the meanwhile, people will just have to watch out for the spots where the ice is thin and easily broken. Please don't fall in, unless it's near midnight and you fall straight into a random floor of the lake dungeon.

Strings of plain white Christmas lights adorn the trees in town and around the outskirts where it borders the forest, leaving the entire town lit with a soft glow after sundown. Throughout town, the decorations are similarly subtle, with fancier decorations seen in storefronts rather than people's homes, and instead of a single Christmas tree towering over the town, a set of four smaller trees line the back of a large stage set on the lakefront across the school building, which has made its appearance for summer festivals in the past. Surrounding the stage are many stalls that make up a holiday craft market that will be open all month. For a small fee, anybody can purchase a spot at the craft market to sell their own crafts, most of which are intended to be decorations for people's homes or to be given as gifts for Christmas and the New Year. Among the crafts are traditional gifts like knit scarves and sweaters, as well as clay figurines, beaded crafts, painted plates, and any manner of handmade items people have to offer. Although the main focus of the market is for crafts, there are also stalls selling refreshments such as hot chocolate and baked goods.

On the stage itself, each of the four trees is topped with a bird-like angel painted in soft reds, blacks, and golds, and rather than lights and ornaments, the trees have emas hung on the branches, with wishes written on the small wooden plaques. While emas are traditionally hung at a shrine for the kami to receive them, the emas here are for the community to offer and receive: for every wish you hang up, you're encouraged to take at least one other ema and fulfill that wish in return. Some of the wishes are very general, such as asking people to do good deeds to make the world a better place, wishing for the exams at school to be a little easier next year, or hoping everybody in the hospital will get better. Other wishes are more personal, such as wanting to learn a new skill, receive a certain toy, or help cleaning out a basement, and these personal wishes contain the person's name and contact information to indicate who to report to grant the wish. Not all wishes can be granted directly, but the effort put towards them still counts. There is no payment or other incentives to fulfill multiple wishes other than good karma, which will surely be returned to you in the new year.

→ MOD NOTES

⬥ Each character may make one free ema wish in the top-level below and the mods will reply with how the wish is fulfilled. Note that personal wishes will be signed for everybody to see, and while ICly all wishes will be fulfilled by the townspeople and not the Kotengu, for this first wish, a crow will occasionally swoop down and take an ema, so you guys can get your stat boosts and skill upgrades.
⬥ Additional ema wishes may be made for every thread reported that involves fulfilling one of the townspeople's wishes and must have a minimum of 5 comments from you. There is no limit to how many ema wishes that can be made, but all threads are due by 1/3/2020 when January's dungeon log goes up. These extra wishes will be fulfilled by the townspeople, so they might not know what to do with wishes like "+1 to all stats." You are still welcome to try, though, and they will do their best.
⬥ Part 2 of December's event will go up on 12/15 to encompass Christmas, New Years, and tragedy.
⬥ This month, the full moon occurs on 12/11 - 12/13. While Personas are stronger around the time of the full moon, they are more difficult to control and may behave strangely and disobey orders around these dates. This is an optional mechanic.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Don't tell Toki it was pity money. The kid is 15, and half the people in their team are kids too young to have any business working in the first place. ]

Great. Stick it in the back of the freezer so it can set overnight. I'm almost done folding the batter, so if you can get a baking tin out and set the mold on it so I can pour the batter inside, that'd be great.

[ He worked proper time for that money, so it's definitely not pity money. One less thing to worry about. Terry puts the chocolate egg in the back of the freezer after setting the other items apart to make room. Then he gets out the baking tin and sets the mold on it. ]

There you go.

[ The batter gets poured in, stuck inside the preheated oven, and the house will be extra toasty warm for the next forty minutes or so while everything's baking. Icing and frosting and everything's made too, so she can stick that in the fridge and decorate later tonight or tomorrow at her leisure. ]

That should be good. Thanks for your help tonight.

[ He wants to hug Kido, but his hands and arms are dirty, so that can probably wait. ]

Yeah, sure thing.

[ ... ]

Hey, Kido? I'm sorry. We argued a bit back in the hospital dungeon. It wasn't a good time for that, and... I'll try to be better about things.

[ The fact that Kido looks confused and has to seriously think about what they could have been arguing about is pretty telling of the fact that it's sort of the norm for her— exploding in people's faces, getting angry at each other, turning around the next day as if nothing happened. That sort of stuff shouldn't be the norm, but that's how it was, in particularly between her and Kano all the time. ]

About... me hitting you when I get upset at you? Why bring that up now?

[ We know how much you miss Kano, but we are not Kano, Kido... ]

I'm not sure myself.

[ It's not a lie. ]

But I thought about it and maybe you're going through your own things too. The cats aren't too stressful to take care of, are they?

[ She misses her punching bag so much. There really is no better stress relief than beat up Kano, and without him here to lighten the mood and smile his stupid smile for her despite whatever horrible thing is going on, Kido hadn't realized how tough it is. ]

...It's not the cats. Tokidoki and Orien help out with them, anyways.

[ And she loves the cats, and would never suggest finding new homes for them even if they do become a huge source of stress. She goes to wash and dry her hands and hang the apron up so she can sit down somewhere. ]

It's just me. I have a terrible temper and it'd been that way since I was little. You saw how I used to be.

[ There was little Kido crying and desperately hugging her sister while they burned to death in the house fire, and then there's two days later Kido punching and kicking and biting Terry and saying that she'll kill him. Something flipped the switch, and it never got turned off. ]

... Yeah.

[ Child Kido was a handful... maybe it was better that he was a lazy sack of shit that one day so that he didn't completely make things worse. Terry hums a little while in thought and washing his hands and arms. ]

Did you... ever want to change that about yourself?

[ Yeah, it was better with Terry being like that and Kido just left him for dead under the kotatsu, and they both went on their merry way. ]

I never did before, because the only person who ever pissed me off was Kano. I never got the chance to interact with as many people as I do here, so maybe it was inevitable.

[ It's a huge problem here because she can't make the mistake of seeing her family in other people. She did that to Hibiki. It was a mistake. None of them have an obligation to forgive her or apologize for her because of being family or anything like that, and it's not the same as what she always claims about fight and make up and not worry about voicing their opinions like that because they'll always be together no matter what. ]

I pissed Akira off pretty badly earlier in the month, and I regret that a lot.

[ All those times punching Terry, though... eh... ]

[ Terry won't bring up himself, so it's fine. This is about Kido. He can only wonder what happened between Kido and Akira though... ]

Do you want to go make up with him?

Akira's already texted me about it, and we'll work it out between the two of us.

[ She's not going to drag Terry into it, when she knows Akira is also pissed at him, but she'd appreciate the support either way. ]

He's more cognizant of these sorts of things, I think. Even last month when we were having meetings and hanging out as a group, he tried a lot harder than me to keep everybody together, despite how he is.

[ After drying his hands, Terry joins Kido wherever she's sitting by sitting next to her. ]

You have a lot of pride, Kido.

[ A statement, nonaccusatory. ]

About wanting to win your arguments and all that. With Nekogami by your side, it would probably be difficult for anyone to go against you.

[ They're scared of overwhelming power, because they're scared of pain and death. ]

But even so... I think it'll be okay to be honest with yourself if you ever think you're in the wrong. You can think of it this way... is it more important that you win the argument or your friendship with that person? ... Sometimes, you can't keep both.

[ With a family, she could always have both. Neither Kano nor Seto are competitive at all; they don't care about winning, so they always let things slide for her sake, and all that did was build up her pride until it's what it is today. Somebody who can't be honest with herself. Somebody who always has to put up fronts no matter what, and in this sense, she's worse than Kano at being dishonest.

But she gets it. Even without Nekogami, even when she was six and could only lash out with everything she had, she was strong and stubborn and never backed down and because she could always yell and punch her way through things, she was always right. Her family stuck with her because they're such kind people, and so she could have both.

Terry's been kind for so long, letting her have both. She doesn't want to lose him, and she doesn't want to lose Akira or anybody else either, when she has so so few friends to begin with. ]

...Yeah. You're right. I know this, but it's still hard— if I'm convinced I'm right, I always want to fight for my right to that opinion. I don't want to back off at the slightest opposition. Always keeping my head down, apologizing for simply existing, I'm never going back to being like that again.

That's what makes you headstrong, and that's good. You should have the right for your own opinion, but sometimes you'll have to agree to disagree, because you know that there will be people who are stubborn no matter what.

[ Like him. Like her. Like some other Persona users who we shouldn't name. ]

You don't have to apologize for your opinions and you can hold onto them. You don't have to go back to being like that. I just think... it would be nice if we could steadily learn how to understand other people, even if it's hard and we want to give up. That's all.

[ His voice is quiet, but not too quiet that Kido wouldn't be able to hear. He doesn't speak in a lecture-like tone either, because-- ]

I'm still trying to learn too, so let's do it together, Kido.

[ What if her opinions are wrong like they usually are......... Even now, she really wants to say something but she bites it back, seeing how hard Terry is trying to keep this civil. ]

I do understand other people. I get why Akira was so pissed off and I get why you were too. That's the problem: I get it, and I disagree, and then I get mad.

Why do you get mad?

[ Terry looks over at her. He's learned that it's best for the person trying to make sense of it to explain themselves instead of him trying to fill in the blanks. So he keeps quiet after with the intent to listen. ]

[ That's a stupid question, and Kido gives him a look and immediately looks mad. Haha. But at least that gets her to pause and actually consider why her first response is anger. ]

...Because it feels like it should be obvious, so it's stupid that somebody's not seeing it my way, when I'm obviously correct.

If you're always trying to push your views on people, doesn't that mean you don't care what the other person thinks? Is that really understanding them like you said you did?

[ They're all genuine questions, and Terry is doing his best to keep his tone of voice in a neutral tone. ]

I can understand and think you're wrong. Like if somebody tries to tell me the Earth is flat.

[ Kido has no neutral tone. She just sounds exasperated, and that never helps. ]

The point I'm trying to get at is... have you considered why they think like that? Why they think they're right? That's what you need to understand, Kido. You wouldn't like it if someone did the same thing to you without trying to figure out why you think that way, right?

[ EMPATHY, KIDO. EMPATHY... ]

If someone came to you and told you that you were wrong without even trying to understand why you think that way, you'd probably sock them in the face first thing. You'd feel justified in doing that. But if the same thing happened to you and you got punched for doing the same thing to them, doesn't that mean they're also justified in doing that? You'd want to obviously say no, even though it's pretty much the same situation, just that it's you who gets hurt.

[ He scratches the side of his head a little. ]

... As long as you know what's wrong and try to fix it with your best efforts, I think... that's good enough.

Edited 2019-12-07 00:03 (UTC)

I already said that I get it. Things like putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and seeing things from their point of view, I get it.

[ They're just wrong. And she has trouble budging then because they're plain wrong. For her, that's not the problem. She's still angry and she huffs, crossing her arms, uncrossing them, and then points at Terry. ]

Right now, you're telling me things I already know. I get that you're trying to be helpful and that I should appreciate the advice, but you're not listening to me and that's pissing me off. How do I fix this?

Know how to make compromises, because you'll never be right all the time no matter how much you believe it's right, because if you don't, you'll ruin a relationship. And learn how to control your temper.

[ Terry's voice is still even, despite Kido pointing at him. ]

I've been listening to you all this time, but you don't think so. You believe you're right and that I didn't listen, but I did. You always twist things that are favorable to you. This is where the problem is, Kido. This, is your problem.

[ Listening isn't just "yes i hear your words," it's taking those words and understanding them and maybe it's because it's something she can't see with her eyes, but she doesn't believe it. ]

Yeah, I don't think so, and so far, you're not convincing me. Just... Never mind. I'll figure this out myself.

[ Terrence Nowell will remember that.

Terry looks at Kido with a blank look for several seconds before nodding and getting up from his seat to retire to his room. The door barely makes a sound when it closes behind him. ]

[ This is why Kido thinks he's broody. She busies herself washing the dishes before leaving the house to take a walk outside, and by tomorrow, she's back to assuming everything is okay and that Terry will still be there for dinner as promised. ]

DECEMBER EVENT PT 1

premise ⬥ taken ⬥ faq ⬥ navigation

→ 12/3 Lockdown

→ 12/3 - 1/2 Town events

→ MOD NOTES

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