#So. many. words

[meloriri]

AKECHI GORO — PERSONA 5 NAME ANALYSIS

Major p5r spoilers, minor “The Boy Detectives Club” spoilers.

First and foremost, I’m starting with Akechi because I thought his name was the most obvious, so I know the references in his name better. I will be making a post about Joker too, and hopefully more if I find enough material.

Akechi, meaning wisdom and intellect, Goro meaning “Fifth son.”

You might think that it was smart of the persona devs to name him Akechi for this reason, but it actually goes far deeper than that. (There’s reason for the name Goro too!)

(i promise this is relevant) Edogawa Rampo is a Japanese author who is highly important to mystery and thriller genre. He lived through the 19th-20th century and wrote many books considered classics.

Being a mystery writer, of course Edogawa had a main detective character. Known in the stories as “Japan’s greatest detective” is Akechi Kogoro, a private investigator inspired by Sherlock Holmes. That being said, naming your detective character “ Akechi” is pretty much equivalent to naming your detective character “Holmes.” Funny, right?

Akechi Kogoro is undeniable a genius, but quite eccentric. (For any BSD fans, the character Rampo is somewhat based off of Kogoro!) He appears in MANY of Edogawa’s books, as well as Edogawa’s juvenile fiction series, The Boy Detectives Club. Kogoro is a master of disguise, particularly good at disguising as young women. (Perhaps explaining Goro’s more typically effeminate appearance?)

Of course, Akechi Goro in Persona 5 is inspired by Akechi Kogoro, but it goes farther than that! I believe Goro is specifically based off of Kogoro in “The Fiend Of Twenty Faces,” the first book in Edogawa’s juvenile fiction series. The fiend of twenty faces is a gentleman thief based off of Arsène Lupin. I don’t want to spoil his name, So I’ll be calling the gentleman thief Kichi. Kichi and Kogoro have a relationship of mutual respect despite being rivals. Kichi is particularly well known for a character inspired by him, that character being Joker from Persona 5. I’d say Kichi is a notably worse person considering he threatened a group of ten year olds, but thats another story.

I won’t get too into whatever Kichi has going on since that’s more related to Joker than Goro, but you get the idea. Initially however, Kichi was going to be called “The phantom thief of twenty faces” but it was ruled out because… It wasn’t appropriate enough for kids..? Regardless, Joker and Goro are clear parallels to Kichi and Kogoro, from Mutual respect to their rather dramatic rivalry.

SECTION TWO - Akechi Goro & Akechi Mitsuhide

Goro’s name holds a genius double meaning — The other being historical figure Akechi Mitsuhide. Considering this is based on reality rather than fiction, this part may be a bit disturbing. I’ll be using Goro for Akechi Goro and Akechi for Akechi Mitsuhide, because it feels wrong to use his given name.

PS: Im a random canadian teenager, Please tell me if i got any history wrong!!!

Akechi was a samurai in the Sengoku period, but also a grand traitor. Best known as Oda Nobunaga(One of the three great unifiers of Japan)’s killer. Akechi was Oda’s bodyguard, but rebelled against him and forced him to commit seppaku, which is essentially suicide. Goro’s use of mental shutdowns is likely a reference to this, as is his rebellion against the Phantom Thieves.

SECTION THREE - Crow, Kuro, and Karasu.

Goro’s codename “Crow” is pronounced in Japanese as “Kuro”, which is “coincidentally” also the word for black. Because of this, as soon as the Black Mask was mentioned (i had already been spoiled on Goro’s codename) I immediately knew it was going to be him.

Crows represent misfortune and death, but also self-reflection and intelligence.

And finally, something that was most likely unintentional but I found funny nonetheless. When Akechi first teams up with the Phantom Thieves, he suggests his codename be “Karasu”, meaning crow. The other members suggest Crow instead since they all have english codenames. The first time (I think?) Joker is given an official name is in a spin-off manga, in which they call him Akira Kurusu. It probably means nothing, but I found the idea of codename Karasu working with Kurusu pretty funny, so I decided to mention it anyway.

That’s all I caught on to!! Let me know if I got anything wrong :)

[freitag1607]

1.05 / Battle of the Labyrinth

[stuckinapril]

If you’ve had a period of basically dissociating from a hard time of your life, you’ll know that doing even the littlest thing that has an effect in the real world vs on a screen can be so profound. Something as little as you doing a favor for someone, or someone noticing something about you that you didn’t think anyone would even pick up on bc your brain is all messed up about being perceived. Your living footprint is all muddied and murky. It takes a lot to even feel like you’re inhibiting your body. So consequences that come as a direct result of you just living, whether big or small, blow you away on an inexplicable level

[girlfictions]

thinking about this poem by noor hindi today.

(donate to palestine here)

[thefabledpheasant]

Seeing other writers on tumblr talk about writing is so validating because all of them are basically:

“I hate writing but I love it more than anything but it’s agony but I have a million stories to put to paper but I barely ever write a word”

And like I’ve always felt this way and I worried it meant I wasn’t supposed to be a writer, which tore me to shreds. But no. That’s just the curse of being one, I guess.

[stoopidstapler]

SO IVE BEEN GOIN INSANE SINCE THIS TRAILER DROPPED. JUST. SIMON. SIMON. SIMON.

[diamondsunbursts-and-marblehalls]

The first real conversation Katniss has with Peeta is when he tells her that he wants to die as himself, that he doesn't want the games to change him into something he's not, and that he wants to keep his identity and prove he's more than just a piece in their games because that's the only thing he has left to care about.

The first time we see Lucy Gray she sings a song that basically says that nothing they could take from her was worth keeping. "Can't take my past. Can't take my history... You can't take my charm. You can't take my health."

The capitol has taken everything from them both, but at the same time, they could never take away who they are.

They are both likeable charismatic and funny, with the kindest hearts, and incredibly loyal to the people they care about.

At the same time, everything they do before the games, and during is calculated. Lucy Gray singing a love song and winning the hearts of the capitol. Peeta confesses he's in love with his district partner, therefore cementing her identity as desirable. Both of them know how to sway people with words, how to charm people, and how to manipulate crowds. Neither of them has any problem doing so to keep themselves, and the people they love safe.

Lucy Gray's song The Old Therebefore, about learning how to love and live her life to the fullest before death, a final and calculated stroke in a last-ditch effort to save herself from the arena. This evokes enough emotion in the watchers to get them to rise to their feet and plead for her life alongside Snow.

Snow, watching the 74th and preparing for the 75th Hunger Games sees Lucy Gray in Katniss. A young girl, from the 12th district. Unafraid at the reaping. Selling a false love story, manipulating a boy who loves her in order to get out and supporting the revolution with the mockingjay as her symbol.

He threatens her family to get her to sell that she and Peeta are in love, to prevent the revolution, because obviously, she's pretending. He's had experience with a girl just like her before. He has no doubt that she has the acting ability to sell this story because clearly, she manipulated the first Hunger Games in her favor, the same way Lucy Gray manipulated him.

Watching the interviews for the 75th Hunger Games he realizes-

Katniss is just an impulsive girl, in a Mockingjay dress she didn't know about, made by someone who supports the revolution.

Peeta is a boy who has the ability to move people with just his words. He made Katniss desirable, he was the one who sold the love story, and he was the one to make their romance seem real. Katniss only started the revolution because she would rather risk dying with him than live without him. A concept President Snow was completely unfamiliar with. And it is with all these realizations crashing around him Peeta drops the baby bomb. He knows the baby's not real, and so does Snow. But it evokes enough emotion in the watchers to get them to rise to their feet and plead for the lives of the tributes.

Is it Lucy Gray or Peeta?

By the time Snow realizes he's made a mistake, it's too late.

Peeta is still charming and manipulating the capitol. Katniss is in love.

He goes up against a kindhearted boy expecting to beat Sejanus again, only to find out that it's Lucy Gray he's fighting; knowing he will never be able to escape their ghosts.

-from a conversation i had with @grandtyphoonpoetry breaking down every character in the hunger games.

[reliabledragon]

To me, the best embodiment of modern capitalism is in the phrase "please hold, we are experiencing higher than usual call volume". I know it's a lie. You know it's a lie. But you still hear that line every time you call, regardless of the day or time, because it shifts the blame. It tries to prompt you to blame the other callers instead of asking, "Hey, why are they deliberately understaffing their call centers and making it so difficult to get help?" It takes a failing caused by a deliberate, profit-focused management choice, and turns it into a problem with the people using the system, rather than one with the system itself. And that pattern, to me, is the epitome of the modern corporate system.

[petricorah]

thankfully, he didn't get it [id in alt]

[parasitoidism]

80s anime dubbing is truly a lost art form

[vriskan8or]

let her go

[whilomm]

i like to think that the tentacles in dungeon meshi are kinda like mushrooms or perhaps even lichens in that they are very confusing to identifty and have 200 completely different species that look very similar ("delicious brown tentacle vs BROWN DEATH TENDRIL") and you need to be an Expert to determine the difference between some of the more confusing species and some of them have like 300 different sexes and some of them are actually composite creatures composed of several different species and somehow yeast is involved and also no one really knows half of whats going on with them and in like 50 years someones gonna figure out that uhm actually these are two completely different types of tentacle creatures that arent related like at All they jusf happen to look similar and oh btw that one common house mold is actually a tentacle

[cookinguptales]

Now that the post is over 10k and my notes are straight-up unusable...

One thing I wish I'd spelled out more explicitly in the original post because I see this point getting lost on a lot of rebloggers who don't understand why the healthcare thing was such a big deal is like

The subtext I thought would be understood bc I lived back then but apparently has been lost today is that making sure queer employees and their partners had healthcare in the early 90s meant Disney was paying for a lot of AIDS treatment.

This is one reason fundie Christians were so upset and queer employees were so grateful. It's one reason why it was such a controversial decision. It was a major talking point amongst my family, who believed back then that AIDS was a punishment from God.

(Some still do, I think. We don't talk.)

I keep seeing people saying that Disney only chose that option "because of their bottom line" and it's like??? Were you listening??? Disney has been paying for that decision for literally decades, but they've stood by it.

Like... the 90s weren't like now! It wasn't profitable to cater to the queer population of the country back then. They weren't raking in money with this.

It's in no way a perfect company but I fully believe in criticizing people for the specific things they do wrong and praising them for the specific things they do right. Disney has fucked copyright, monopoly, and labor laws and I'm not about to defend that. But they are well known in FL for being friendly to both queer people and disabled people, and that is unambiguously a good thing.

(Like side note, I could talk about Disney and accessibility for days. I have traveled extensively while disabled and no one does it like Disney.)

I've had people reblogging the post like "I straight-up don't believe Disney is an industry leader in equal protections for queer employees" and it's like ??? do you think I just pulled this out of my ass? If you want more information, go look it up! You'll see that this is well-established history. It's not my fault y'all don't read! :|

[butcharium]

I often do think it is important to call myself a woman. In past I've had kids ask me "are you a man or a girl" and in hindsight I think these kids were quite perceptive of the world. Especially when you're in your 20s it's men and girls, I've seen students write pieces describing themselves as men, but their female peers of the same age they call girls, but I have also heard bisexual women say they like both men and girls. In past I've fallen into that myself and said that yeah I'm a lesbian I like girls, but do I? No I am in my twenties and I am actually only attracted to my fellow adults - women. It does feel more serious, less trivial, both to be and be attracted to women as opposed to girls, and that can be a bit uncomfortable to be faced with. It is also important to me as a butch. I am no longer a tomboy I am a butch I am no longer a girl I am a woman. I am a woman and women can be like me. I don't feel like I've succeeded enough at adulting to call myself a woman, but that doesn't matter. I am 25, and if the word bears other connotations so be it, that's not my problem.