Persona 3: Fairly English Story
started as an AU Fic of what the author thinks Persona 3: FES would have been like if Minato Arisato had been raised in England after his parents' death. Then things started to deviate from the original source material, and Stuff Happened.
It's told in first person from Minato's perspective, giving him more of a personality while still keeping the sleepy, expressionless teen that Fanon has made him out to be, while taking a few levels in badass along the way. Towards the later chapters, things start to get a little out of hand, yet it still somehow manages not to break canon most of the time, even the canon for its somewhat direct sequel, Persona 4.
The author has posted the first chapter of the sequel (titled For Every Soul, because get it? FES?) and there's an omake series called FESxtras, formerly called "Investigation Team Yo!". Then he goes on a two-year mission. Casey W has also begun work on an official sequel from the viewpoint of Seta Souji as he goes through the events of the altered Persona 4 canon. It's called Face Every Shadow. All tropes related should go below.
The Author did a prequel called Stay Awake With Me, which covers the events between Minato's parents dying and him moving to England. A rewrite is also currently in the works, titled Rebuild of Fairly English Story, though the author has claimed that there will be differences between this and the original. If you considered reading Fairly English Story but were put off by the poor writing quality, you might want to check these out.
Tropes contained in Persona 3: Fairly English Story that were not included in the original game.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Mr. Ekoda dies during the school massacre. Despite what Minato thinks of him, he admits that he didn't deserve it.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Minato and Shinji against the Lover's army of zombie Shadows. It also happens whenever Minato and Naoki team up. As of the sequel, Naoki and Yukiko, Funky Student and Kanji, and Kenji with Jun, although they were completely outclassed by Rio
- Big Brother Mentor: Minato taught his sister a few tricks, such as how to effectively disguise herself as a male detective. He also makes himself to be this to Kenjamin, wanting to make him feel at home as well as treating him as a disciple.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: On Minato's mother's side, her brother is in the SBS, his cousin (his Distaff Counterpart of Persona 3: Portable) has been trained to fight since she could walk, his other cousin goes for midnight runs atop buildings. His father's? Shirogane, formerly Kuzunoha. Granddad faked his and Naoto's death to prevent Minato from ruining her life due to his carrying around the living personification of the Death Arcana inside him.
- It gets even worse that he didn't even know about it being faked for ten years.
- Bilingual Backfire: For the first few chapters, Minato has to concentrate to understand Japanese. If someone says something and he isn't ready for it, it's written in Romaji.
- During the Christmas Trip to England, this starts happening again.
- Minatos can't differentiate between languages.
- Break the Badass: There was an entire chapter about Minato coming to terms with his fear of dying after being called out by Ryoji. Also, Shinji's resolution after Akihiko's death.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Minato loses almost all his Personae and all the skills he's gained and still barely manages to beat Nyarlathotep.
- Chekhov's Armory: Subverted. The author takes the tiniest things and creates whole plotlines with them, so readers start looking for Lost level patterns. In reality, the author's really just playing Xanatos Speed Chess.
- Combat Pragmatist: Anything's fair game when Minato gets in close. His opponent usually descends to his level, and then Minato just plain beats them with raw experience.
- Digging to China: What happens if you drop an indestructible spear that pierces anything? It turns up a couple of days later in Canada.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Minato does this to himself repeatedly in Chapter 28 by thinking about French maids while he's hanging out with Bebe.
- Eldritch Abomination: Many of the demons that Minato faces. Special mention to [[spoilee: the angel that was so large that he needed to bike across its body.]]
- False Flag Operation: Minato does this to shift the blame of destroying an old military warehouse to Strega by taking his shirt off, covering himself in demonic tattoos, putting on a hood and running aware from the scene of the crime with a gun. He thought this up seconds after the fight ended.
- Frozen Face: Minato, due to mild brain damage suffered in the car crash that killed his parent, severing the link between his emotions and facial expression. He can still emote, however it requires deliberate effort on his part to do so.
- Fun with Acronyms: The sequel is named "For Every Soul".
- Then there's Fairly English Story.
- And now Face Every Shadow.
- Averted with Stay Awake With Me.
- Glass Cannon: As a boxer, Akihiko's body isn't trained to heal properly and takes much longer to heal than the average person, as demonstrated by him taking weeks to heal off a broken arm. This is used to justify how he died from a single bullet.
- Godzilla Threshold: Refered to as the 'Arisoto Threshold' in the Sequel. If things ever get to the point of no victory in sight, Minatos will break the Great Seal, which will allow Nyx to try and destroy the world again, but will also free Minato so he can stomp the other threat into dust.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: Minato listens to less and less music as he gets more responsible. He plugs in the headphones only when he's running from these responsibilities.
- Parental Abandonment: Minato's Granddad faked his and Minato's sister's deaths in order to stop her from being dragged into the insane world that Death would inevitably drag Minato into.
- When in Monad, Kenjamin asks Minato for popcorn while he takes on a shadow.
- Phlebotinum Rebel : At one point, all the Justice Arcana Personae except Mechizedek rebel and go on strike. The reason was because of that little war on Heaven that was being waged at the time.
- Rage Against the Mentor: While he's still getting his act together, Minato takes this more than Mitsuru does.
- Minato sends that rage towards Ikutsuki.
"WHO THE BLOODY HELL IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS FIASCO!? IT'S IKUTSUKI'S FAULT ISN'T IT!? I'LL SKIN HIM ALIVE!!!"- Rage was due to Aigis's problems on her first day at school.
"MEMO'S!!!"
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: One set of Shadows sent Minato back in time a week. He trained in Tartarus then jumped the Shadows just after they sent his past-self back.
- Played straight later on concerning Freeing Minato from the Eternal Seal. If humans don't desire death, then there's no need for the seal, so you just need to social link everybody.
- Take That!: "One time, I tried reading Twilight." I shuddered. "It was physically painful to read."
- Underestimating Badassery: Everyone who fights Minato for the first time underestimates him. Everyone. Even if they know he's a Badass.
