The Velvet Key

A fairly recent panfandom Dreamwidth roleplay. The characters have been brought into Prospero, a city that looks relatively normal, until midnight. Then, the Dark Hour, straight from Persona 3, emerges. Normal people turn into coffins and monsters called Shadows flood the city. To fight these Shadows and learn why they were brought here, the characters must use their new powers of Persona.

Tropes used in The Velvet Key include:

• Acronym and Abbreviation Overload: Not really taken overboard in-story or out, at least not any more than any other LJ/DWRP does, but the game's LJ community was called thevelvetkey whereas its DW community is just called tvk.
• Action Girl: Asuka and both Saber and Saber Extra, of course.
• Action Survivor: Issei, though he's trying to build himself up as a combatant.
• Actor Allusion: On the mun side. For the masquerade ball, Kaoru wore a plain white eye mask with a few rhinestones glued onto each corner. Remind you of anybody?
  • Voice actor allusions went rampant during the March murder plot, since the perpetrator, Ryuunosuke, shares a VA with Minato.
• Adorkable: April.
• Affably Evil: Ryuunosuke made a post asking about the feasibility of getting a kitten on the same day that he killed Kaito.
• Ambiguously Human: Anyone who isn't human at all, outside of the Dark Hour.
• Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity: Kayneth during the Empress event, when he suddenly had a bunch of children he didn't know what to do with -- none of whom were particularly into it, nor did they know what to do.
• Ax Crazy: The current character roster includes a pile of mass murderers. There hadn't been a murder for ten years before the characters came - suffice it to say that it's going to get a lot worse.
  • Notably averted with Jin Kisaragi. He's taken from the end of Continuum Shift, so he's resistant to Yukianesa's influence. Not that it matters here, of course...
• Baddie Flattery: Ryuunosuke could fall into a number of categories - Combat Sadomasochist, In Love with Your Carnage - but what's for certain is that it took only a few comments upon his revival to start praising the person who killed him as awesome. Lancer was a little weirded out.
• Becoming the Mask/ Royals Who Actually Do Something: Rider, Rider, Rider.
• Bifauxnen: Most of the island is under the impression that Saber is a guy.
• Big Screwed-Up Family: Everyone, during the Empress Arcana event.
• Biker Babe: Extra Rider. Vriska would like to think she is one.
• Born Lucky: Gilgamesh should just be banned from the casino.
• Bonus Boss: Nobody has to fight the bosses, but they give extra levels if you participate.
• Boss Battle: The monthly mod events usually end in this. Everyone gets to pitch in!
• Break the Cutie: Happened to Ryu as a result of his canon update, and happened again when he came across Albedo mutilating a corpse.
• Brought Down to Normal: Why a Vocaloid and a Heroic Spirit can be basically on the same team.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Saori on confessing her feelings for Kaiji until the Personal Shadow event where she clocked her own Shadow and tells it not to touch 'her man'. Kaiji takes it rather well.
  • April on her feelings towards Ledah, mainly due to how she doesn't want to make things awkward betweem them. But she later manages to spit it out.
• Casual Danger Dialog: Karna, when asked on how he felt if his life was in danger upon arrival, and basically shrugs off the thought. Granted, he's seen a lot in his time, so it's no wonder.
  • Lovers Event. Yandere!Vriska and Paranoid!Kaoru go from being about to seriously harm each other to calmly discussing the apocalypse.
• Corrupt Church: The Church of the Three. Probably. Some of the characters have resolved to investigate it after it randomly appeared showing connections to the founders of Prospero and the Dark Hour.
• Demoted to Extra: Happens to anyone apped from the actual Persona series. Poor Minato.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Not as bad as Saber, but Ledah has gotten a shocked reaction on mentioning that he's a man, and he doesn't even encourage the misconception like Saber does.
• Emotionless Guy: Ledah actually has emotions now, though he tries not to show them much.
  • Oh, and then there's Kaoru, she who never smiles.
• Enemy Without: In November, there was an event in which the PCs had to face Persona 4-like Shadow clones of themselves, albeit greatly toned down relative to the source material.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Theoretically Lancer doesn't have his curse anymore, but considering his involvement in the love polyhedron includes Neah, Ryuunosuke, and Issei, you'd be forgiven for thinking it had gotten stronger.
• Evil Counterpart: V/V views Kaoru as hers to an extent. The feeling's mutual.
• Expansion Pack World: Players are encouraged to make places up.
• The Gambling Addict: The Fortune Full Moon Shadow afflicted the whole town and some player characters with this for the week leading up to its boss battle.
• Genre Savvy: Klaus Wulfenbach figured out pretty quickly that space/time shenanigans were afoot re: his arrival. Being a Mad Scientist pays off sometimes.
• Go-Karting with Bowser / Villains Out Shopping: Even the Complete Monster characters need jobs. Ryuunosuke is a local bartender and happily chats up people he recognizes.
• Gratuitous German/Foreign Cuss Word: Asuka is a real pottymouth in her native language. She also orders her Persona around with German phrases since she thinks in German, refers to her Persona with the modern German spelling (Brünnhilde as opposed to Brynhildr) and occasionally just throws in an honorific or greeting in German because her player feels like it.
• Hate Plague: The second half of the Lovers event.
• Hero-Killer: Kiritsugu and Maiya went on a Servant-killing spree (including people closely related to the Servants in question) in April 2012.
  • Followed by Kiritsugu being outdone by Lancer and Shirou of all people with shades of a Thanatos Gambit.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Or are they?
• Hypocritical Humor
  • Shirou: You're in love with her, YOU DENSE IDIOT!
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: V/V loves humanity and would really like to get along with people who have murdered her.
• Insufferable Genius: Asuka.
• Insult Backfire: The Fan Community Nickname "Fate/Persona" has been taken as a badge of pride by the large Nasuverse cast, and the game occasionally calls itself that.
• Jerkass: A few characters, including Gilgamesh, Asuka, and Jin.
• Kick the Dog: Naoya strangles V/V to death in an alley after she gives him Valentine's chocolate and tries to get him to talk about his life. If that isn't pointlessly evil, what is?
• Kink Meme: Periodically!
• Let Me Get This Straight...: New characters tend to react to the summary of the situation kind of like this. It is a pretty weird situation, at least.
• Love Dodecahedron: Within a few months of beginning.
• Love Is in the Air: The first half of the Lovers event.
• Meaningful Name: Trey Matre.
• Mega Crossover
• Mission Control: Madoka is here to remind you that there's only one enemy left!
• Monster Compendium: The Shadow Database, as maintained by Atsuro and others.
• Morality Pet: V/V for both Beatrice and Gilgamesh, while keeping them from killing each other.
  • Morality Chain: Given Gilgamesh's rampage when Naoya killed V/V...
  • Also Ryu for Albedo.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Sola-Ui did this to Saber very soon after her arrival.
  • Waver Velvet's shadow during the Personal Shadow event tried to do this to Issei Ryudo. The reason? He was upset that Rider had taken Issei as a vassal and thought that he was being replaced.
• Mythology Gag: Kaoru just had to discover the wonder of sleeping in beds a third time.
• Naked on Arrival: Enkidu. Because he's Enkidu.
• Name's the Same: The Shin Megami Tensei Cu Chulainn and the Fate/stay night Cu Chulainn look nothing alike - Diarmuid has the former as his Persona, while the other cast members have encountered the latter.
• Neck Lift: Kaoru, affected during the Devil event to not stifle her feelings for her sort-of-friends, chokeslammed a guy who insulted V/V's music.
• Never Mess with Granny: Ingrid.
• Ontological Mystery: Both played straight and subverted. While characters can't return home, they can leave Prospero. And there's a whole world out there, too.
• Our Angels Are Different: Averted in Asuka's eyes by V/V's previous nature as TYPE-Venus. The former was half horrified and half glad there was someone from a similar world out there. The latter was just more or less horrified at the ensuing death threats.
• Pay Evil Unto Evil: V/V's entire CR wants to get their hands on her murderer, even if she's keeping her mouth shut on who it is. Now that Naoya's for all intents and purposes been outed as the one who did it...
• Playing with Fire: Fire-using Personas go here.
  • Asuka's Persona isn't just a fire-type to match her hair and attitude, she's literally on fire due to how her legend ended.
  • Minato's Orpheus, in contrast to his personality.
  • Ledah Rozwelli, presumably as the celestial sort of flame
  • Ryu's Persona, to match with his elemental association in canon.
• Refused the Call: Just sleeping through the Dark Hour is a feasible option, particularly if you don't care.
  • The Call Knows Where You Live: Jin tried to do this, only to get attacked by Shadows way too close to the hotel.
• Rei Ayanami Expy: Well, Asuka calls Kaoru "Wonderlessgirl".
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Ingrid.
• Serial Killer: There were two such plots in short succession.
• Shipper on Deck: Ryuunosuke for Lancer and Saber because it freaks them out and it's funny, and also because he genuinely likes them.
  • Saori for Klaus and Ingrid but she hasn't made it public yet and it doesn't help they all live on the same hotel floor.
• Staff Chick: Lucia, complete with actual staff.
• Stern Teacher: Ingrid.
• Summon Magic: Persona. Also the player characters, possibly.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: Hakuno seemed lucky enough to have this during her intro.
• Suspiciously Vague Age: Averted. Character ages are listed on the application, and smut involving minors is not permitted on game-controlled grounds (that is, in the game's communities).
• Tarot Motifs: It's a game based on Persona 3. What did you expect?
• Translator Microbes: Present, but suppressible. Everyone speaks English by default unless they concentrate on speaking another language they know.
• Trapped in Another World
• Tsundere: Asuka.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: several. Gilgamesh and Asuka are notable for their sheer apparent enjoyment in barraging each other with insults and arrogant assertions of their own superiority.
• Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: Characters under a certain age are supposed to go to school in between fighting Shadows.
• When I Was Your Age: Ingrid.
• Yandere: Vriska during the Reversed portion of the Lovers event. She kidnapped all the people closest to her, calling them her property and only able to be slowed down by the failsafe built into the event, until she had to be stopped by Nepeta.
  • Saori, during the same event, was worse.
  • Affected with an F in Yandere: Elsie. The object of her "affection" was, as in canon, fire trucks, and she couldn't bring herself to destroy even a toy one when the arcana reversed.
  • Asuka, on the other hand, was more or less "Reversed" the entire time.
  • Looking away from the Lovers event for a moment, here's an example of being yandere for your kid. Uh...
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Saori.
• Zombie Apocalypse: The October 2011 event was this in a nutshell, courtesy of the Death Arcana.