#tysm for showing interest im craaaazy

[houndfaker]

I absolutely adore your phantom thief kikuno!!! I'd love to hear more about it, anything you want to share :] (especially the persona I really love the design 👉👈)

uhm well uhm hiiii 😊 THANK U hiii i love being the talker. got a lot to say so it’ll go under da cut

being really frank a lot of it is a heavy wip but the concepts in my brain were clear enough that i wanted to start drawing for it right away. it’s very loose structurally

it’s essentially me pulling shit from the drama cds to do something ultra self indulgent.

she becomes a phantom thief kinda late in the game as my hypothetical palace concept that would get her involved with the thieves in the first place is one that has to do with the kirijo group, placing it just after haru joins the thieves on the timeline; this follows the implicit canon timeline where p5 takes place sometime after p4au. the kirijo group announces it is taking a different direction that has bad consequences and the thieves gotta Stop It (still trying to work the specifics of this out) and they initially think they’ll be happening upon a palace belonging to mitsuru.

surprise, it’s not mitsuru, its takadera (for those who might not recall, he’s the one-off antagonist character in the drama cd kikuno is introduced in, who attempted to take control of the group while mitsuru was grieving) who is back with a vengeance and has something planned that corners mitsuru into working with his demands. they don’t figure out as much until they find him in the palace since he’s not acting as a public figure at the time.

amidst their snooping, ever-observant kikuno catches sight of the thieves and tails them, which of course leads her straight into the metaverse as they get their hits on the new palace that’s sprung up.

kikuno adjusts almost immediately to the absurdity of the situation because it feels just like the dark hour, which she’d experienced nightly for 6 years of her life up until the dark hour disappeared. the metaverse comes off to her as essentially that with a few extra quirks, which isn’t accurate to anyone but herself. upon coming face to face with shadow takadera, much like many of the past thieves, his spiteful raw feelings, especially in reference to mitsuru, trigger kikuno’s awakening.

she takes it like a champ, she’s expected for a long time to eventually awaken, even if after 10 or so years going without one and getting by on her prowess alone had her convinced it might never need to happen. she slots easily into at least temporarily aiding the thieves. kikuno by now has mellowed out a reasonable amount and become more of an individual, but her loyalties haven’t changed. she’ll do anything in the name of protecting her lady, and the shadow operatives by extension.

with the bulk of the lore happenings out of the way, ill leave bullet points for the other stuff

when initially asked what arcana i would assign to kikuno if she were a social link in p3, i proposed hermit because i felt that it well-encapsulated her at the time in her life it would have played out. but for this particular au where she has grown considerably, I think justice would suit her somewhat better.

for designing pierrot i felt something reflecting her role as a personal servant but with a touch of like…jester/clown vibes would be fun, just because i feel it reflects her personality well.

reginald is of course based on reginald jeeves, the quintessential butler character originating from pg wodehouse’s early 1900s literary works. maybe not the perfect choice for a ‘rebellious’ figure, but i couldn’t glean a better fit from my searches, and as soon as i did a little reading i had a very clear image in my head for the persona design and had to go with it. i used inspo from various depictions (the bowler hat and tie in particular), as well as just what Felt Right (the bushy brows and monocle)

i have to do a lot of the work in the way of designing a palace for takadera (hell i have to design takadera in general because he was never given an actual design LOL) but my singular important thought is that there’s a cognitive mitsuru who’s still a child running around, because takadera never stopped viewing her as too immature. kikuno is very protective of her even knowing she’s personified through takaderas mind and spends much of the palace trying to keep her out of the grasp of the shadows.

pierrot is a bit of a silly goofster but with great capacity to be ruthless. this is good enrichment for her because there are a handful of moments in canon that lead me to believe she wants to commit unspeakable violence.

as a member of the thieves despite being in her 20s and the oldest member she doesn’t step out of line Too often but as with anything, if she finds that there is a more beneficial method to something than playing it safe, she’ll go off and decide to do it on her own. unfortunately when it comes to the metaverse, this isn’t always the best option so she’s probably gotten the thieves into hot water before as a result. but she promises to take more heed next time, joker-san. her sincerest apologies.

this is Most of what i have ironed out so far. id like to think more about her dynamics with the individual thieves, as that’s the fun part. thanks for showing so much interest though :]!!