#and I don't know how he's returned from the dead either but I'd wager it's either 1) some kind of coverup and he actually faked his death

[kingdomoftyto]

WAIT, FRICK, I think I've got it

holy SHIT that's a well-played twist

[animeyanderelover]

I think up to this day I still haven’t watched an Isekai anime. You wanted a female s/o, right?

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessive behavior, obsession, stalking, clinginess, mentions of death, abduction

Modern and stoic s/o who died in her old world

Grell Sutcliff

🟥 Grell expresses her feelings rather openly which makes for a strong contrast between her and her stoic darling. I'd wager that Grell constantly tries to help her s/o getting out of her apathetic shell since she'd love for her love to express her emotions more openly too. Not gonna lie, the reaper is a bit worried about you. You rarely talk about your feelings nor your past and are a very silent person in general so she has a bit of a hard time knowing what you're currently going through. It makes her genuinely upset and she's also concerned, starts wondering if you've gone through something terrible which resulted in your current stoic state. She wants to help you but it's hard if you don't open up to her. Grell is likely to start pestering her darling in hopes that she tells her about her problems.

🟥 Whilst the suspicion is there, Grell won't really suspect how troubled the situation of her darling really is, or was to be precise. So the initial glad feeling that you finally decided to tell her the truth turns into quick dread when she hears what your story is. It sounds crazy but the reaper believes you, believes that you're sincere. She pushes her curiosity regarding the other world away for now, knows that this would be highly insensitive from her side to question you right now. Grell becomes quite a bit overbearing the following days, smothers you in love and affection. She tries to cope with what you just told her and that's the way she goes about it. She understands now why you're mostly very apathetic though, it's your way to handle everything that you've gone through.

Ronald Knox

😃 Ronald is also an individual who expresses his own emotions more openly, though he isn't as exuberant as his red-haired friend. He's a bit more tactful around his darling although her silence is sometimes killing him a bit. He loves his s/o a lot but he also wishes that she'd show her own emotions here and there too instead of always keeping a stoic poker face on. The man suspects the reason for your stolid type to lie somewhere in your past which you only vaguely talk about when he asks you. He's never found out much about your life and no one from the people you used to be around has much of a clue either. You're shrouded in mystery and that's precisely why it's very likely in Ronald's mind that you had some sort of traumatic experience. He's patient though, doesn't want to trigger you.

😃 From all the scenarios he thought would be likely, hearing that you're literally from another world in which you died isn't one. There's a shroud of doubt at first since this story sounds like something out of a book but when he sees the look in your eyes, he just has a feeling in his gut that you aren't lying. Ronald tries to comfort you but is sort of uncertain how to do that. You literally lost everything, including your own world. You can most likely never return since you're already dead in your world too. The grim reaper still tries his best to cheer you up and be there for you. A selfish part of him wants to prove to you that you can still be happy with him in this world even if the rational part of him knows that you're never going to get fully over your loss.

William T. Spears

📒 William himself tends to be more of an impassive person so he wouldn't really mind your own apathetic state that much at first. You don't throw much of a tantrum and just sort of accept the abduction. The reaper is glad about that in a way since it saves him trouble. It becomes more concerning for him when he starts believing that your personality is like this due to an unspoken trauma. Obviously he could just decide to ignore that but William isn't completely heartless. There's also the fact that despite the best abilities of his stalking, he wasn't able to retrieve all the information about you. Apparently you were living on the streets before you were taken in and found a job. You being homeless doesn't fit with your educational knowledge though. Your unknown past has always bothered him a bit.

📒 When he tries to ask you, he sounds quite demanding. He at least realizes that and apologizes to you afterwards. He's basically gone through all scenarios you could have witnessed but he would have never come up with your story. William doesn't even believe you at first since this sounds too ridiculous. You need to somehow prove to him that you're speaking the truth before he starts reconsidering your explanation. He ends up being nicer to you the moment he decides to believe your story. He tries to be more there for you and does more acts of service for you. William also tries to bring you to tell him how you feel since he thinks it's best not letting everything consume you from the inside. He grows more controlling and observing which is his way to show that he's worrid about you.

Undertaker

⚰️ Undertaker tends to find you a bit boring at times due to your phlegmatic attitude but he still adores you a lot. He often finds himself trying to get some sort of emotional reaction out of you by teasing you and annoying you a bit. He just genuinely wishes to see you cracking another facial expression besides the indifferent one. Preferably a happy one since he finds himself worried about your lack of emotional display. So he often attempts to make you laugh somehow, at times even tickling you forcefully so you at least look more happy. Considers the chances of a possible tragic event in your past as very likely but is careful to approach the topic since you could react hostile. Undertaker gives you time to warm up to him, you wouldn't tell your possibly sad past to your strange kidnapper after all.

⚰️ It's possible that he has wondered sometimes whether or not there are other dimensions out there somehow connected to his world despite that he needs a moment to consider if you're telling him the truth or not. You're not the type to lie and come up with such an answer though, not to mention that the pained shimmer in your eyes tells him that you're telling the truth. He embraces his darling at first, if she lets him. He needs some time to think how he can help you right now. He's interested in your world too but prioritizes your own well-being. Undertaker wants his darling happy more than ever now that he has heard what has made you so sheltered in regards of your emotions. It's too sad to see you so silent and stoic despite knowing your pain. He starts doting on his s/o a lot and finds himself having a harder time leaving her alone.

[metayos]

okay guys here's our first big boy: SAKI KONISHI'S DEATH & YOSUKE'S SHADOW

some big honkin spoilers ahead, so if you're not done with P4 for some reason, consider skipping this until you are! i mean it! i very casually mention big things!

Yosuke doesn't know yet at this point that Saki is dead, yet Chie takes one look at him and knows something's up. so what IS up?

now, Saki's been missing for a day at this point. it's strange enough that her family have contacted the police. there's a chance they also stormed into Junes to ask about their daughter, but i think the far more likely scenario is that Yosuke has been trying to get ahold of her.

after the interview -- i'm sure one of the elder Hanamuras watches the news as it airs -- Yosuke would have reached out to make sure she was okay. now, even if Saki managed a reply at the time, chances are good that it would have been lackluster (she would have been upset and not wanted to tell Yosuke), and shortly after, she was accosted by Adachi.

Yosuke hasn't heard from her in a day and a half. weird? well, if we believe that Saki never liked him, it'd be all too likely that she ignored his texts more often than not. however, i don't think that's the case.

i think Saki DID like him. Yosuke was a little brother to her. but we'll return to that in a bit.

immediately upon learning that Saki is gone, Yosuke makes a pained, sad noise, and otherwise doesn't respond. there's a chance he'd entertained the thought, but it would have been a worst-case-scenario idea, albeit becoming slightly more likely as he went longer and longer hearing nothing back. this is a shock, and his response to that is to turn inward, retreat into his metaphorical shell.

Yosuke is loud at times, very outspoken, but he also hides his true feelings well from everyone but Souji, who he genuinely opens up to. this is before that, though, and in this moment i think Yosuke feels alone. as his Shadow tells us, loneliness is one of his biggest fears. Chie may be worried about him, and he knows this, but can she truly understand? can anybody? he's not well-acquainted enough with Naoki to have him to turn to (and at this point he'd be rejected anyway), so Yosuke has realized his fear of being lonely, in this single moment.

he quickly rectifies this by recklessly dragging Chie and Souji into the issue. Yosuke likes Chie. they're friends -- i'd wager Chie was one of his first friends in Inaba, just knowing how she is. but as much as he likes her, they're obviously not close, not yet. yet in this moment, when Yosuke is alone and scared, she and Souji are the closest friends he's got. he experienced the TV world with them, solidifying an otherwise tenuous bond (and Souji pulled him out of a trashcan). this is what he's got, and he's going to pull them under the riptide with him, one way or another.

of course, he can't make them feel grief they don't have a real reason to feel. he can, however, drag them into a reckless endeavor that could very well get him and Souji killed. is he thinking? not much. he's doing, a Yosuke staple.

not to say he doesn't ever think. because no matter what happens:

Yosuke is the first member of the not-yet-existent Investigation Team to figure out what's going on. he's not stupid, not by a long shot. reckless? sometimes, yes. but not stupid.

Yosuke does, as his Shadow says, want something exciting to happen. he wants to be a hero, he wants to be important. Saki's death has shaken him, though, and his response to that is to seek answers. that's not a lie. not a whole truth, either, but not a lie. he needs her death to have meaning -- it can't be random happenstance, it can't be a coincidence. it needs to mean something, because she meant something, and she didn't deserve this.

so in they go, with Yosuke's smart, if ineffective idea to use a lifeline. there's no question of whether he's going to bring Chie or Souji; there's a lot of potential reasons for that, i think, varying from knowing he can trust Chie with the lifeline to having a good gut feeling about his new friend Souji. but, anyway.

another big issue i have with Golden is that Yosuke is always ragging on Teddie. playing vanilla P4, i never got the idea that Yosuke resented or disliked Teddie. in fact, i, like many others, latched onto the Hanamura Bros as a concept. i think Golden forgets that Yosuke doesn't like to be mean. he distresses Teddie by claiming he gets no respect (calling Souji "sensei" versus simply calling Yosuke his given name), and immediately tries to make Teddie feel better. he cares, goddammit!

when they start hearing the voices in and out of the liquor store, Yosuke is notably upset. however, it's worth pointing out that none of this is wholly related to Saki, is it? no, it's Yosuke's perception of Saki's issues.

issues Yosuke was always afraid of. issues he feels deeply upset to find realized like this. he's not mad at Saki; he's mad at his own blindness, his inability to see what was happening right in front of him. yet, for all his righteous indignation, he's doing it again: he's missing what's happening right under his nose.

Saki Konishi may have made this place when she stumbled into the TV, but she's dead now. are her lingering thoughts permeating the liquor store where she likely died?

(crappy youtube screenshot incoming, i forgot to grab one for this line)

dear reader, i posit to you that these are not her thoughts at all, if for no other reason than this line alone.

in this caricature of a liquor store, amidst implications that she hated Yosuke specifically, Yosuke hears her final thoughts... or so he thinks. he doesn't stop to wonder how a dead girl is lamenting her inability to tell him he was an annoying brat to his face. and to be fair, he doesn't yet understand the TV world. maybe it just doesn't occur to him that this makes absolutely no sense.

why didn't we hear voices in Mayumi Yamano's room? why only here, in a place with significance to one of the people present? because they're not real. they're delusions and fears... deep, dark fears. the kind you stuff away because they seem too self-centered, too preposterous.

what i'm saying is: everything that happens here, everything Yosuke sees and hears, is because of himself.

meet our culprit.

Yosuke himself says "Senpai's not like that". and he's right! she's not. but his Shadow knows he's afraid she is; he's afraid she's hated him all along, in secret, only playing nice because he's the manager's kid. his shadow is taking a deep, dark fear and presenting it to the open air, because that's what P4 Shadows do.

Yosuke thinks he's not smart enough to be perceptive, not even towards himself.

and the worst fear of all... that he's not empathetic. that he's selfish, that he wants to do this all for himself. does he, really? partially. but his Shadow is still mocking him, blowing his fears into massive proportions -- Yosuke came here seeking answers. he cares about Saki Konishi. but he does want to be a hero. he craves the kind of excitement you feel when things are happening to you. he wants that, he wants to be important and special. he wants to avenge Saki, or uncover the cause of her death... but he also wants to be the hero who did so. and he's afraid of that, of the idea that he's not 100% noble in this endeavor.

Souji has a few good options here, but i'm partial to the first one. he reminds Yosuke that no matter how he feels deep down, he's still the same person he was walking in here. and while it's hard to accept, and hard to face, Yosuke overcomes those obstacles thanks to Souji's words and his own will to move forward. he is granted his Persona, but as with all S-Links, he has a long way to go before he's well and truly over everything he just witnessed.

above everything else, Yosuke has realized something very important:

he's not alone.

And every time we touch, I get this feeling~