Persona Rarepair Week

Persona Rarepair Week is a fanweek for underappreciated rarepairs for the Persona fandom in 2020 and 2024.
==2020==
Persona Rarepair Week 2020 was held from November 24 to November 30.
===Rules ===
Rules were announced on a Twitter thread on September 30Persona Rarepair Week 2020 Rules
===Prompts===
==2024==
Persona Rarepair Week 2024, later cancelled, was programmed to be held from February 12 to February 18. In an anonymous ask which asked who the event runners were, the organizers replied they'd rather stay anonymous for their safety and privacy.[https://retrospring.net/@prsnrarepairwk/a/111712494207838138 From Persona Rarepair Week retrospring] The event was announced on December 9, 2023 and was liked eighty-three times and reblogged sixty times. On December 25, the organizers started a poll to vote for the dates of the event. The options were four possible dates from February and March. The earliest option won by 58 per cent of the votes.Persona Rarepair Week Date Poll 
===Rules===
Rules were posted on the Twitter account on January 6, 2024. Rules and PromptsThe Day After, a list of disqualified ships was released on popular demand.Persona Rarepair Week Disqualified Ships list
===Prompts===
===Controversy and Criticism===
Followed the release of the rules, an anon asked through the event retrospring account what is considered a "problematic ship" as adult/minor and incest pairings were given as examples but they made it sound like those were not the only thing that counted as problematic, as the term is used so broadly that it would be useful to have clear guidelines in advance of everything that is not permitted. The organizers replied that by problematic ships, they meant ships that are deemed toxic and morally reprehensible including age gap, incest, non-con/dub-con, abusive/predatory and imbalance power dynamic. And that they only put out adult x minor and incest since it is usually the most prevalent within fandoms among other problematic tropes, although participants were also advised to not create content of abusive ships for this event to keep away any uneasiness that may arise among participants and avoid targetted harassments towards anyone.Persona Rarepair Week retrospring ask about definition of "problematic ships".
This clarification was met with mixed reactions. Some fans pointed out that in a rarepair event, the only disqualification criteria should be popularity and nothing else.
When asked clarification about how big of an age gap is too much, the organizers replied that the age gap only aplies for adult x minor ships and not for adult x adultRetrospring ask about age gap As people kept asking if their preferred ships were allowed, an anon asked if Sae x Adachi was allowed, as it could be seen as problematic due to some morally wrong things Adachi has done in canon. The organizers replied the ship was allowed.Ask about Sae x Adachi Another anonymous ask criticised this decision, saying that Adachi is a mysoginist rapist and that no change could make that ok. The anon gave their opinion that characters like Adachi or Akechi should be banned because it is always going to be toxic. To which he organizers replied that toxic dynamics are not allowed, so if someone writes about them, they have to keep in mind they must be portrayed in a good light.Complaint about problematic characters being allowed
Next day, the organizers tweeted to let people know that the ship involving Akechi and Sumire/Futaba was allowed. This generated a big amount of drama, as Akechi is 18 while Sumire and Futaba are still 15. The tweet was liked by four people, and quote-retweeted by sixty-six complaining about this decision and asking for the event cancellation.
=== Cancellation ===
Followed the backlash from the previous days, on January 10, the organizers announced that the Persona Rarepair Week would be cancelled and the account deactivated due to the doxxing threats and pedophilia accusations they received. They also apologized for managing the event poorly in a way that made everyone unhappy.Archived Persona Rarepair Week account
==References==
Category:Persona
Category:2024 Challenges
Category:Fanweeks
Category:2020 Challenges