#yknow... metaverse stuff

[235uranium]

I KNEW I REMEMBERED IT. WAKABA DID PREDICT SHE'D HAVE A MENTAL SHUTDOWN.

[sexybritishllama]

after many, many, MANY hours, i have finally completed persona 5 royal and am now presenting my thoughts. overall i think i have to rate it a 4.5/10, with a note that rather than being generally mid, it swings so wildly between the good and the bad that it evens out just below average for me

spoilers for ALL of the game under the cut including 3rd semester

the good:

this game is STYLISH. that is probably the first thing everyone says about this game but it's true and it has to be said. everything from the hud to the settings menu is themed, it's slick and fun and just really well done

the music slaps. again, gets said a lot, but has to be acknowledged. so good

in theory the gameplay loop is fun. the swapping between dungeon crawling in the palaces and the daily social links is interesting, and for the first good 40 hours of the game or so i found it really addictive and well balanced (yes in spite of the tutorial)

the characters were (mostly) likeable and there were some good social link stories- notable mentions include futaba, sojiro and yoshida

i loved walking around tokyo, it felt very immersive. i used to travel to shibuya all the time for work and it was a lot of fun recognising the spots and even the way you walk out of the train station!

the bad:

IT'S TOO LONG. it's just too long. my save file is at 119 hours after completing the game. i spread this out over an irl year of playing the game. i was still so burnt out when i got to the end my main emotion was RELIEF. you could cut this game down to like half of this run time and it would only benefit it. there is so dialogue spent just repeating points you already know, or scenes that you have to play on a regular basis (eg me spamming through doing affinity readings or kawakami making coffee or WHATEVER), and it is not to the benefit of the game at all

the excessive length also makes other parts of the game that would otherwise be forgivable into absolute slogs. stuff like the combat being mostly way too easy (with the exception of random frustration spikes like okumura), or the fact that so many of the confidants follow the exact same pattern down to which rank you’re going to be asked to arbitrarily go to mementos to solve their problem- these would be much less annoying if i didnt have to do it SO MUCH AGAIN AND AGAIN

on that note oh my god mementos. i fucking hate mementos. most boring content in existence and when i found out they made more of it in the third semester i screamed out loud

ren/akira/joker as a self-insert main character did not work for me and that negatively impacted just about every character relationship with him for me (especially the romances) because it just felt like there was nothing for people to connect to. he’s just so… nothing, but at the same time wasn't enough of a blank slate for me to feel like i could fully project onto him as a self-insert

i think joker could have worked better for me if they either a) made him a more defined character (my preference), OR if they insist on sticking with a self-insert, make the dialogue options were varied. i don’t expect branching options but i do appreciate it when you at least pretend to give me some agency about the replies my character gives, it can mean a lot in a roleplaying game to actually feel like you're, yknow, roleplaying

i generally like the bombastic wild designs persona has for enemies and stuff but i really struggle to take some of the characters seriously when their masks look like this

IN PARTICULAR why is futaba's whole metaverse outfit so ugly. do my girl justice

akechi is a character who i feel will make for very compelling fanfiction but unfortunately i found his actual canon depiction underwhelming

the entire way they handled kawakami as a confidant and the fact you can choose her as a romance option. INSANELY uncomfortable and negates the point of her entire story arc about deciding to care about her students again and not get extorted anymore, but then you as the player character can date her, can continue to get her to do your manual labour for you and give you massages, which you're heavily incentivised to do because it's so useful as a gameplay mechanic. it is SO UNCOMFORTABLE

maybe i'll make a separate post breaking down my thoughts about each confidant because i have other issues with other peoples arcs but kawakami was the most egregious. as if people havent heard me rant enough already

in general that thing of the game undermining its own messages for the sake of either very bad comedy or fanservice is a reoccuring issue. unfortunately very anime in that sense. as well as kawakami: - you spend the entire first dungeon of the game talking about how shitty this perverted teacher is for his treatment of ann and trying to assault her and then i have to spend the rest of the game sitting through MULTIPLE fanservice jokes about ann (this underage girl btw) being really Hot and Sexy and forcing her to strip for yusuke - ryuji risked his life to save the others and then the girls... beat him up for it? it was clearly meant for comedy, but god did it land flat - the game proves over and over again that the police and justice system is corrupt and ineffective but they never actually seem to... want to do anything about it? makoto literally says she's going to become a cop at the end of her confidant arc!!! girl!!!

their solution to the justice system being shit is to get people to confess to their crimes and Feel Bad, where the villains then proceed to.... be handled under the same justice system we have i guess? as though the issue here was just the fact that bad guys wouldn't confess, and we don't need to look at, hey, why do these people commit the crimes they do, how do we handle punishment vs rehabilitation, etc.

it's weird because they do sort of dance around this topic sometimes (like with akechi's fucked up upbringing) but it always feels like they're scared of diving too deep into it. i don't expect a full marxist re-examining of society from highschoolers but idk man, for SUCH a long game i feel like it was a weirdly shallow reading of the societal issues around authority and crime

also: why does the 'rebel against social norms!' game still not let me romance same-gender confidants. let me date ryuji you cowards

[sunset-bridge]

gorbo thoughts (the real)

if you saw the other ones no you didnt. its just i realized i forgot some Important things so my brain readjusted. i hope no one really saw the other ones or. if you did Erase them from your memory pretty please?

like. ok im certain he Does know from the start ( i. think?) that protag is joker, since he had already heard mona in the metaverse by then. i wasnt certain if you had to actually hear him or if just entering the metaverse was enough, but yeah you have to hear him; sae , despite having entered the metaverse, still cant understand mona since she never actually got to hear him there. anyways

but like. ok its so. funny and also Bad for me. can you imagine. hey going with the plan of. haha im gonna get this guy sooo bad. heheheh im gonnnnna. get him!!! and then like. ah shit im actually having fun but im gonna have to kill this guy a few months later. well.

like. "hehhe yeah im gonna get this guys trust by hanging out with him a bit and pretending to be a nice friend : ) its ok im super good at this i wont even get attached i completely control every single neuron in my brain NOPE i wont enjoy this because im always self aware. all the time forever" <---- the clueless

god with goro being the type of person to crave attention and . you know that he wants to feel needed or wanted around. hmm. i too would start to have a normal amount of fun later like. eheh. this guy likes hearing me blabber about stuff : ) ahah this is kinda cool i can just say whatever i want lol.. WAIT FUCK!!. like. ofc hes aware hes the Enemy but that doesnt stop you from having fun in the moment and then being like. SHIT !! like. you cant fucking control liking someones company like that lol. do you guys get what im saying. shaking you. mfw i need to be evil and shit but FUCK im still just human and have human emotions and shit

also. its. really funny to me. the. fucking traumadumping like. did he. was he trying to like. appear even more genuine to fool joker even more. but failed in the process and just. actaully Talked about Real Things instead. BECAUSE guys when i was playing. i sincerely thought "hey i wonder if any of these things hes saying about his past are even real lol.." LIKE I THOUGHT he would like. yknow make something up? but. nope. he just. he just used his Real Lore. hello goro?

but like

tbh understandable. i cant imagine he had many people he could share stuff about his life with; hell , not even shido, since he couldnt know about goro's mother and what not. and other people, way too risky. they could make rumors about the detective prince

guy was just waiting for an opportunity to drop that on someone BHSGHSGHKF

quoting my beautiful friend sage: like his brain probably abandoned the plan as soon as he started talking bc he didn't realise how much he needed to get it off his chest. and then he like "fuck he knows too much about me now. he needs to die".

boyloser. mfw i try to gaslight my silly rival into trusting me by acting genuine but at some point i start being Too Real

^^ this is it . like. yeah ok goro you can pretend to be cold and cool but. idk man this shit would eat anyone away. i would Want to tell it to at least Someone at some point you know.

honestly this is on shido for trying to use a traumatized 18 year old as a spy hitman. an 18 year old who wants to be needed by anyone even. like cmon. honestly skill issue. like cmon man

anyways. im. normal about it. ahah can you imagine that your only slightly real friend is the guy you have to kill a bit later. like. the only time you can be somewhat genuine is with your fucking archnemesis rival . man. and even then its like. im a guy hiding under 37 layers of irony but hey this other guy (also hiding under 37 layers of irony) is kinda cool fr.. . ggggggggggg

[islandsaoirse]

It’s strange talking of Twitter dissapearing as “now we don’t have a place that unifies everyone” because like that wasn’t true lol? Yeah you had algo stuff that sometimes let people see your funny but out of all the socials, Twitter was like the most US centric one? Not just like perception wise but user wise we have demographics that Twitter popularity falls off a lot outside of certain countries!

Though I think this maybe remainder sentiment of a lot of the internet being locked away behind discord servers, telegram, the Facebook wall, metaverse shit. I think a big part of the anxiety comes from “what if *my* everyone doesn’t all move to the same platform” rather than “oh now I can’t see terminally online US politicians anymore:/“. I think it’s a fair thing to miss specially if yknow that’s where you got your news but I don’t really understand missing it as “Where everyone United to see the latest news across the world” because Twitter was a bubble! A big bubble but a bubble!

[hetyra]

Here have a self-indulgent drabble of a post-rehab Goro not having a great time.

------------

Back when he’d been working with the Phantom Thieves to take down Maruki, Goro had, against his better judgement, made small attempts to be more civil, more friendly, with them. He’d always regretted it immediately of course; having been met with a response that was either cold or indifferent from whoever acknowledged he’d even spoke each and every time. 

Which was fine. After what he’d done, it made sense they’d all actively dislike or outright hate him. They were just working together towards a common goal. They didn’t have to like him. No matter how much he wanted them too.

And yet Kurusu did, for some inconceivable reason. Kurusu had gone out of his way to simply... Hang out with him. He had gotten visibly upset when it came out that the boy in front of him was supposed to be dead. He’d actually considered letting that bastard Maruki control all reality just so that he, a murderer, would continue to be alive. Why?

Kurusu deserved to know that he was. After all the selfless things the fool had done, being told the boy he’d almost given up all reality for had somehow miraculously survived was something he deserved to know.

But here Goro was. Not telling him. 

How could he, anyway? He’d lost his phone, and thus Kurusu’s number, somewhere between being shot in Shido’s palace and waking up in the hospital in February. Bastards probably kept it as evidence. He’d been dragged off to court as soon as he was fit to leave the hospital, and immediately shipped off to the rehab center as soon as the ruling was made. At least the doctor had been the same one who’d tried to help his mother.

Being back in Tokyo now didn’t mean anything. Kurusu was likely back in his hometown, meaning the only way Goro could contact him was if he spoke with someone else Kurusu was acquainted with, which wasn’t going to happen.

The other Phantom Thieves didn’t like him. Sakura Sojiro almost assuredly knew of his deeds by now, and would also detest his presence. Sae was an option... But no matter how many times he dialed her number into his phone, he could never bring himself to actually press the call button.

After weeks of deliberating, Goro decided it’d be best if he just... Didn’t. 

Don’t tell Kurusu you’re alive. Don’t create that divide between him and his friends. Between him and Boss. Don’t drag Sae down again. Don’t make all of them deal with the grief and pain you caused them all again. Stay away. 

You don’t deserve them anyway.

--

As it turned out, staying away was easier said than done when you still lived in the same city. Sure, Tokyo was large and countless people wandered the streets during all hours of the day; but the universe seemed determined to try and drag Goro kicking and screaming back into the lives of all those he'd sworn to leave alone.

Only a week after making his decision, on his way home from talking to his therapist, he saw none other than Sakamoto. He’d just walked into a store to grab some groceries, but upon seeing the thief in one of the aisles he’d dropped everything and left before he could be spotted. He should have at least gone to a different store, but the senseless panic that had seemingly overtaken him had him rushing straight home to his empty kitchen. He wound up ordering delivery that night, and then went shopping during school hours the following day. Since when was he such a coward?

A couple weeks later he finally worked up the nerve to go do some much needed non-food related shopping. Only he wound up skipping over a few shops he’d meant to check because he’d spotted Takamaki and a friend of hers. He had watched the two of them for a few moments, a smile beginning to play across his lips as he figured out who her friend was, before he’d caught himself and left. He wasn’t allowed to be happy for them.

At the end of October he’d, again, been on his way home from therapy when he spotted a familiar face. He’d stupidly decided to treat himself to some fast food for once, only to freeze while passing by a Big Bang Burger when glancing through the window revealed none other than Okumura Haru herself standing in the lobby. He suddenly hadn’t had an appetite anymore. Why? It’s not like you killed her father or anything.

Goro had bitterly noted it was Nov 18th when he’d left the house, and nearly froze up when he later spotted Sae walking his direction in Shibuya. He’d managed to duck behind a corner and it was clear she thankfully hadn’t seen him as she passed by, but he couldn’t help but feel the universe was out to get him.

(It was out to get him and it succeeded as he proceeded to have a mental break down that very night and just about every single night after that for the rest of the month and every night the following month of December.)

He went to a shrine on New Years. Saw the Sakura’s were there. Left immediately. Had another mental break down.

He started getting better again. Had a good therapy session. Went to get on the train. Wound up walking home when he saw the younger Niijima sister waiting in the line. Why hadn’t he just gotten on a different train car?

He tried to force himself to go get some fresh air when the sakura started blooming, but the first place he went he saw Kitagawa. He went back to his apartment. Shouldn’t have left in the first place.

--

He’s doing better now. His meds are doing their job. He hasn’t seen anyone from his past for weeks. He’s okay. He’s a perfectly functioning healthy 19-year-old who isn’t just going day to day on autopilot with no drive or ambition, or having PTSD induced nightmares almost every night, or having anxiety over the dumbest things that never would have bothered him before or--

He’s fine.

He’s fine.

He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. HE’S FINE.

...

Someone is staring at him. Past their friends. Past the crowd. Right at him.

...

It’s Kurusu.

...

He’s not fine.

[kaitcake1289]

ok maybe i’m stubborn maybe i’m nitpicking but i haven’t rlly been able to get into the groove of the last 2 eps (especially episode 4) and while i can say i liked them to an extent i feel like the leaning into the nft metaverse stuff doesn’t rlly do it for me

spoilers for episode 4 but rachel jumping on the nft bandwagon was really something i didn’t expect from her since her character in season 1 and 2 has been pretty outspoken about what she believes in and i didn’t think supporting something that actively harms the environment would be one of them… also i would’ve loved dana and ian’s relationship a whole lot more if a lot of it wasn’t centred around the metaverse but yknow what can you do

[fictionkinfessions]

I know a lot of things kinda show me as, like, not afraid in the situations i was put through in my source, and stuff but like. i was. i was so afraid at times. i just didn't want my friends to worry for me because they already had enough to handle, and in a decent amount of those situations were probably just as scared as i was. but i dunno, i just.. I may have enjoyed being a Phantom Thief, but Palaces and the Metaverse still scared me sometimes. ...I was just a teenager, yknow - Akira Kurusu

[bobzora]

official persona 5 character review

i have only played up to the end of the third palace but i won’t be able to play for a few weeks because my sibling has ABANDONED ME (single tear) and we play together. and i’m bored. so HERES MY REVIEW of all the major characters so far. under read more because i do tend to ramble

- mc/joker (bob johnson)

why is my silent video game protagonist a catboy. it’s funny to me how much personality he manages to have despite being. yknow. a blank slate to project on. charisma! the dialogue options when you’re talking to shadows that are like “girl power!” live in my mind. joker is a girlboss to me. feminism win

- ryuji

he’s like one of those very excited big dogs where you’re like “oh good for you buddy! oh yeah buddy!” but you’re also just like man this is a bit much. on one hand he’s a very good guy but on the other hand sometimes i feel a very strong urge to insult him or just be mean to him in general, often for no particular reason. i like him i really do he just has that kind of personality. he’s a bro. his pirate thing is funny i know they’re named after like. historical figures/characters in literature(?) but captain kidd sounds so. it’s funny ok. it’s funny. he’d be a backyardagain. i like how he’s a mamas boy that’s cute. sorry about your leg buddy. he’s very. naive isn’t the right word but something like that. i still want to bully him. his grin looks dumb (endeared)

- morgana

i think it’s funny how big his head is when he’s in his metaverse mascot form he’s like a bobblehead i want him to fall over from the weight. the gags about his puppy crush on ann and his dislike of being called a cat are ANNOYING like sorry about your identity crisis but i really don’t care. he is cute sometimes though it’s not like i hate him but he’s a little annoying! you know! i’m not big on mascot characters in general haha

- ann

i adore ann she is cute and great and she deserves a lot better get this girl a better costume PLEASE. at the start of the game i was already rooting for her hardcore cause everyone was being terrible to her (very common occurrence that happens to like every character i have noticed. Society) and then she had that thing where she was like “let’s have him continue to live so he can suffer more” and i was like HELL YEAH ann is always saying the truth man. other thieves like “yah it wouldn’t be moral to kill them” (tho they’re cool with the mind control lol 🤔) but ann’s like “idc about that lol i just want him to suffer” SO TRUE. so true. i like her pigtails

- yusuke

ngl before i started playing i kind of already knew that i’d like this guy. i didn’t know much about him other than gay little artist but i knew. i was right. i am incredibly fond of this guy. partially because i too am a weirdo artist with parental issues (his persona awakening had me like *vibrates*) but mostly because he is just so funny. look at this guy! look at his stupid little tail! i lost my mind while doing his first confidant event thing he is GREAT. VERY cool. i just really like him. i could sit there and listen to his long impassioned speeches for a long time

- makoto

i was a big fairy tail fan in early middle school (unfortunate) and i play in dub so every time she opens her mouth i can only hear lucy/every other dub character her va has voiced cause there’s lots of them. ok first of all i’m not a big fan of her character archetype. yknow the straight laced student council president type. nothing personal just not my thing yknow! i do sympathize with her Issues of being useful and being used by the adults around her ofc but i’m not like INVESTED invested. tbf i haven’t known her too long. what’s his face mafia guy’s palace didn’t feel as personal as the last couple which probably contributes to that (underwhelming). on the other hand i really like that she has a motorcycle i was like ?! QUEEN and then THAT WAS HER CODENme??? very cool of her. i don’t care about her that much but i do think she is cool. if i were to encounter her irl i would be so intimidated

- akechi

he has not joined the team yet but he obviously will. i have not seen much of him yet but i do have many opinions. i did know he was this games komaeda archetype before playing because of the sheer amount of arguing i can vaguely remember scrolling past about him but even if i didn’t i would’ve instantly been able to tell. he’s fake as hell. i lose it every other sentence whenever he’s on screen WHO IS THIS GUY. “thesis antithesis *pretentious stuff*” “woowwwww you’re so interesting ^-^” “woahh look we happen to have met waiting for the train teehee” (whenever he pops up in those train scenes it feels like a jumpscare) there is a high percentage chance that i will like this guy a lot. there is a precedent for me really liking that sort of character and he is very entertaining. i hope he is just so unhinged. i mean there’s like a 99% chance he’s the ~mysterious guy causing all the accidents~ and also the “heh kid u were betrayed by one of your own” guy. so. he gives me the vibes of one of those really tiny cutesy dogs who are just incredibly aggressive. funny to me how ryuji hates him to an absurd degree like buddy chilll yeah he sucks but wowww. i LOVE that stupid doodle of him on the classroom chalkboard. the anime sparkles. his hair is ugly btw. we met on 6/9 which turns me into a 12 year old. i enjoyed our silly little tv debate

- futaba

i’m 99% sure that’s the name of the girl with the orange hair and glasses? i haven’t met her yet. she does the hackerman typing thing in the opening which is cute. i’m just mentioning her because i think she’s cute. she’s a techie with orange hair so i’ll probably like her

- fluffy brown hair girl

only character in the game art i haven’t mentioned so i kind of have to so it’s fair. she looks kind?? very fluffy. fluttershy is probably her favorite my little pony. she would eat bread

IN CONCLUSION everybody here needs therapy and also i’m mad that i got invested in a game with time / resource management / stealth mechanics :/ . the battle system is very cool. also the menus are the best character they’re SO sexy

[akechicrimes]

i’ve been thinking about the nature of the velvet room and what that means for goro akechi and also sae’s promise at the end of the game for adults to do better by the younger generations. by this i mean that i work in student services, and i have a headache.

there’s a pretty strong conclusion in the field of education that students do not succeed alone. they’re constantly being guided, assisted, and advocated for by adults. parents go into schools to argue for their child’s rights. they call the school to change grades. they help children at school with their homework--it’s an expectation that parents have the time and education to do so. learning disability staff work with teachers to help the students in the teacher’s class receive appropriate accommodations. college guidance counselors are in fact critical for the jump to college, because admissions officers don’t have the time to meet every single student in the world, and rely on college counselors to introduce them which students are worth speaking to. coaches guide students through athletics, but athletics is socialization, character-building, and sometimes also therapy. coaches in turn also function in the same way that college counselors do, because they also will promote and advocate for certain student-athletes to talk to recruiters. 

on and on and on. adults at every single turn are helping children. it’s advocating, evaluating, assisting, and guiding all rolled into one. 

i work in student services right now, which is an entire industry that’s popped up in higher ed under the assumption that the higher education system on a structural level is a) too complicated for one teenager to go through alone, and b) that left to their own devices, students are unlikely to succeed alone. when in need of help, student services is an entire office dedicated to providing adults as a resource for students, so that students can come in, speak to someone with administrative power, and get help. in the office that i work in specifically right now, these students have committed some sort of infraction or are reporting another student’s infraction, and are seeking to get through the university’s disciplinary system, hopefully unscathed.

there’s something that relieves the tedium of being a desk jockey by thinking about the place as a real life velvet room, but the more i think about the comparison, the more i feel like it’s not a silly, surface-level comparison. the underlying assumption of student services, and the velvet room, is that you cannot succeed alone. you cannot succeed without a significant amount of help, either from your peers, local adults, or long-nosed men who never give you a straight answer.

the reason why student services, and family/coach help, is so emphasized in student success is because this support network can and often IS the difference between failure and success for a student. student success is so often correlated with how much money the parent has to fund their education, how much free time they have to do their homework, whether or not they have reliable transportation, whether or not they had an adult to walk them through their lowest emotional moments, whether or not they had someone who believed they could succeed, whether or not they had someone to tell them to shoot higher and farther, whether or not they had a benefactor to give them the resources to do that.

now that i type this out. i would like to propose that most of navigating schools, systems, and life depends on your benefactors. 

ok. benefactors, so i can get my own story straight, are defined by advocating, evaluating, assisting, and guiding. i would say that this is very similar to a lawyer. (the french word for lawyer is “l’avocat,” by the by.) the main distinction that i think a benefactor has from a lawyer is that a benefactor is also supposed to provide resources for the person they’re advocating for, and that the benefactee is supposed to, yknow, be able to do things for themselves, and actually use the resources they’re given, rather than just sitting pretty and having the lawyer do everything.

and now i’m going to shift this entire essay to be about benefactors, but i just figured out that that’s what shido is, but i’m also too lazy to go back and restructure the stuff that i’ve already written to reflect this discovery. so i’m typing this paragraph instead. i have a headache and i can’t sleep. fuck you

what’s compelling to me about akechi--and adachi, since we’re on the topic--is the ways that he’s set up as “he could have been the main character if not for X.” for adachi, the statement goes “he could have been the main character if he hadn’t self-isolated and blamed other people (specifically women) for his ensuing loneliness.” for akechi, it’s “he could have been the main character if adults in his life hadn’t consistently let him down, put him in the worst possible situations, given him very few resources to work with, and refused to advocate for him in any way, shape, or form, leaving him to do all of this himself.” that is to say, the phrase goes it takes a village to raise a child, and akechi was forced to do the work of what should have been fifty-something different people. 

the shorter version of this is “akechi could have been the main character if he’d had a benefactor,” aka someone who actually took interest in his life success, gave him the resources to do it, and guided him on how to use those resources. 

which brings me back to the velvet room.

akira, like most of the persona protagonists, loses parental and adult support in the beginning of the game. minato’s parents are dead, and his mental health seems to reflect the fact that he’s got very little adult support in his life. souji’s parents don’t call him once during his year in inaba, and dojima is, how do we say, not exactly much of a functioning adult himself. akira being cut off from adults in his life is more explicit in that his parents literally try to get rid of him.

but from the beginning of the game, from literally the first thing that happens in the game, akira gets a benefactor. the game starts off with finding sojiro sakura. it is the first thing the game asks you to do. 

the thing about sojiro is that the game starts off presenting him as a manifestation of adults further driving akira into the dirt, but the fact of the matter is that sojiro is akira’s first benefactor. sojiro complains and whines and vaguely threatens akira in several different ways, but (1) sojiro’s threats for akira to stay in line are actually him taking an investment in akira’s success, because he’s telling akira to not get in trouble. they just don’t look like it, because he’s being gruff and hard-assed about it. (2) sojiro gives akira a place to stay, a physical and very fucking important resource for akira. akira doesn’t have to worry about being homeless, and akira doesnt have to worry about rent. the game would be very different if akira was homeless. (3) sojiro, again, complains and whines and threatens akira in several different ways, but he goes to shujin, where three adults (the principal, kawakami, and sojiro) all get together to, theoretically, talk about how to help akira succeed at that school. (this doesnt happen, but that’s what the talk was supposed to be. again, it’s an example of the ways that kobayakawa isnt doing his job as well as he should, and the ways that kawakami in particular is not being a good benefactor/advocate for her new student for whom she’s responsible for. kobayakawa tells akira he expects good behavior; kawakami says in front of akira and everyone and also god that she’d rather him transferred to another class. as a teacher, her entire JOB is to help him succeed, and the first thing she says is that she’d rather not do it. in comparison, sojiro IS doing his job as a parent, especially by asian-father standards, by showing up at the school, telling his charge to stay in line, demonstrating investment in akira’s educational success, providing transportation, etc, etc.)

the game would be very different if sojiro were not here. akira would be homeless or paying rent, and making rent would be consuming most of his time. akira would not have the time to be a phantom thief, and probably not even the time to maintain good standing in competitive academics. he’d get through his probation, i’m sure, but with great difficulty, and also despite great odds. being underfunded and under-resourced would only create greater incentive for akira to look into illegal activity, potentially falling prey to someone like kaneshiro who promises quick cash. like lavenza pointed out, the game is rigged and unfair, and it’s remarkable how we don’t find it supremely fucked up that the people most in need of support are those who are denied it and told to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” to “work hard and deserve your success,” to “keep your head down and do as you’re told.” 

not to say that sojiro was THE deciding factor that determined akira’s life trajectory, but sojiro was really really really really really really fucking important, is what i’m trying to say.

literally like forty-eight hours after this, akira gets a whole bunch of new benefactors, including:

1) caroline/justine, providing resources and access to personas

2) yaldabaoth, providing a stable link to the metaverse (and if i can elaborate on this for a second, consider: rejection syndrome, that fun thing where shinjiro’s persona goes fuckin wild and tries to kill you, occurred in persona 3 but not in persona 4 or persona 5. persona 3 is the game in which people just sort of come by their ability to manifest a persona and wind up in the dark hour by accident. persona 4 and persona 5 has izanami and yaldabaoth, respectively, ensuring that persona-users get in and out of the TV world/metaverse safely, aka acting as a benefactor and providing a resource for persona-users. there’s a more stable link by far. this is, of course, complicated by the fact that izanami and yaldabaoth are also the gods that are proposing the harsh conditions for which usage of personas is required, but i would also like to point out that izanami and yaldabaoth are both beholden to the collective unconscious of humanity, and that yaldabaoth himself was born from that, and both of them actually have very little choice in the matter as a manifestation of humanity’s will.) 

3) igor, even if igor is not igor, in that igor provides general guidance, the third eye, and encourages akira to pursue healthy relationships and support networks

4) MORGANA. 

LITERALLY THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF MORGANA IS SO FUCKING WILD TO ME. 

LIKE. 

THINK ABOUT IT.

morgana being a literal manifestation of humanity’s hope and then condensed into a fucking CAT and then sent out with a mission to help AKIRA SPECIFICALLY is like. a FUCKLOAD of aid. hypeswap pointed out that morgana is basically kind of a minor deity, in that morgana (like yaldabaoth) is a manifestation of some aspect of humanity’s subconscious, and then morgana is MADE TO HELP AKIRA SPECIFICALLY. morgana doesn’t even LEAVE akira at the end of the game!!!!!! morgana was SO PERFECTLY TAILOR-MADE TO BELONG TO AKIRA that morgana STAYS with him!!!!!!!!! LIKE!!!!!!! imagine having a fucking SMALL GOD HAND-MADE FOR YOU, TO HELP YOU THROUGH YOUR DAILY LIFE, BEAT UP SHADOWS, TALK TO YOU ABOUT YOUR ACADEMICS, POINT OUT WHICH FRIENDS YOU SHOULD MAKE (LEGITIMATELY HALF OF MORGANA IS JUST HANGING OUT IN AKIRA’S DUFFEL BAG AND SAYING “HEY YOU SHOULD TALK TO TORANOSUKE NOW”), AND ENFORCING A HEALTHY SLEEP SCHEDULE. ON GOD. literally anyone who complains about morgana enforcing a healthy sleep schedule better be some ungodly motherfucker who gets nine hours of sleep EVERY DAY because i REFUSE to have yall discounting the importance of a healthy sleep schedule for a growing teenage boy

and as more than a few akechi-centric fanfics have pointed out, morgana is like, THE singular reason that akira and the phantom thieves even KNOW about stealing hearts in the first place. they don’t know anything!!!! ryuji and akira wouldnt have even made it out of kamoshida’s palace without morgana!!!! it was because morgana specifically told them about finding treasures, removing it, and leaving the shadows alive that they knew THE FIRST THING about pulling off a heist.

okay, so, akira had help. so what. why am i telling you this.

the reason why im telling u this is because traditional morality tells us that people do things because they are bad, and that circumstance is an excuse, not a reason, and that everyone always has a choice when it comes to doing bad things.

AND THAT’S TRUE. that’s super true. that’s very extremely true. correct. absolutely. especially when it comes to doing harm to other people, everyone has a choice to either cause harm, or not cause harm. period.

WHAT IS ALSO TRUE is that from a macro-scale, odds are NOT in certain people’s favors when it comes to succeeding. (and again, persona 5 would like us to look at things from a macro-scale, because it keeps referencing the rigged game and how odds are not in akira’s favor.) the rules are set up to have certain people lose, and keep losing. 

bringing this back to akechi, akechi lost from the literal moment he was born, because he was the son of (a) wedlock, (b) political scandal, (c) and non-consensual sex, apparently. literally the only way he could have been any more disadvantaged by nature of his birth would have been some extremely dramatic birth-related complication, or a genetic birth disorder, or some other medical complication. so he’s already lost.

the part about “keeps losing” comes from his mother’s difficulties in raising a son alone while supporting herself, further underfunding her to do a task that should be done by at MINIMUM two people. her mental health suffers because of the strain, the lack of resources, the sheer fact that she’s raising a son she didn’t ask for and also didn’t consent to conceiving, resulting in her death. things get worse. akechi’s shoved into the foster care system. more adults who don’t care about him who do not invest in his success or well-being. more schools full of more teachers that are in themselves under-funded and under-resourced, meaning that akechi, amongst a bunch of other under-funded and under-resourced kids who by this point probably have a shitload of emotional and mental trauma, are all stuck together in an environment that is in itself increasingly less equipped to support these students. 

the great irony of education is that schools receive more funding if the students in the school do well. hilarious, right? a school produces good students, and suddenly they have alumni funding, stakeholders, donations, so on and so forth. a school starts failing, and people pull out. students in struggling schools get even less help when, arguably, they’re the students who need more help. 

like i said. rigged game. you lose, and you keep losing. 

in comparison to akira, akira “loses” his skirmish with the justice system, and everything in his life sets him up to keep losing--and literally sojiro is THE ONE PERSON standing in between akira and continuing, successive losses, that would have piled up and compounded upon each other. 

all this in mind, i’d like to propose that one of the reasons why akechi is so attached to shido is because shido is akechi’s benefactor. shido provides equipment for akechi, likely provides cash, most certainly gave akechi the gun he uses, probably had a hand in akechi attending whatever school he attends. 

and to further complicate this, i’d like to mention that benefactors can and do come in terrible types: madarame, for example, was yusuke’s benefactor. i’ve mentioned yaldabaoth is a type of benefactor. kaneshiro is arguably a type of benefactor, although a particularly malicious and overtly parasitic type. as i’ve pointed out before, kobayakawa is a type of benefactor for makoto, in that kobayakawa offers explicit aid to makoto’s educational career.

having a benefactor puts you at their mercy. again, not to draw parallels between yusuke and akechi, but yusuke’s entire social link revolves around potentially getting a new benefactor post-madarame. yusuke ultimately declines for a variety of reasons, but i’d like to point out that one of the reasons is arguably that yusuke is hesitant to put himself at the mercy of a new benefactor’s wishes. if yusuke accepts that money, he’ll be beholden to please whoever’s funding him, and this greatly restricts his artistic freedom.

this is also part of the reason why it’s so fucking funny that you can mouth off to sojiro and sojiro, apparently, gives not a single shit. you tell sojiro that you’ve been a criminal for eight months and he helps you. you tell sojiro that you’ve gotten his adopted daughter involved in criminal activity and he’s just like “well it’s good futaba has friends i guess.” 

sojiro is a type of benefactor whose help is... probably not unconditional, but hilariously close. morgana is the same way. caroline and justine are the same way. notably, morgana and caroline/justine were, yknow, made to help akira, and likely cannot do anything else. akira has a lot of benefactors who will help him regardless of what he chooses and how he utilizes their help.

a lot of the abusers we see in persona 5 are benefactors using their pull to make the benefactee behave in a way they want--people who can threaten to stop sponsoring, people who can threaten to leave if the benefactee doesn’t do as they like. this puts the benefactee in a precarious position of having to behave in a certain way in order to continue to receive aid. 

circle back to shido: shido is akechi’s benefactor.

but akechi’s plan is to become shido’s benefactor.

NO IM SO SERIOUS. THAT’S WHAT AKECHI’S PLAN BOILS DOWN TO.

as some people have pointed out, akechi’s plan isn’t actually to kill shido. akechi’s plan is to make shido dependent on him. akechi is trying to position himself as having a valuable resource that shido cannot do without (access to the metaverse). what akechi’s trying to do is to position himself in such a way that shido gets a taste of his own medicine.

(which, personally, amuses me greatly, because akechi’s plan boils down to “oh well you abused me? i’ll abuse you back,” which is just. so fucking stupid and also very much exactly what anti-goro fans do 99% of the time, so the entire thing is just an endless source of schadenfreude.)

but as we know, this doesn’t really work out. first of all, shido likely operates as akechi’s benefactor in financial ways, and the fact that akechi requires shido alive and in power in order for his STUPID fucking plan to work means that shido has akechi by the throat. even if both of them are benefactoring each other, this means that, at best, they’ve come to a situation in which both of them are an equal threat to each other, so it’s really no surprise shido wanted to cut akechi loose. 

and i think it’s important to note that shido is probably one of the very few adults in akechi’s life who actually helps akechi--again, in the same way that madarame helps yusuke (with a lot of fine print, coercion, and other hidden knives involved). people have pointed out that akechi did rely on shido’s praise--the value of emotional stability and improved mental health, no matter how slim, cannot be understated. (there’s a reason why people wind up in self-destructive behaviors; the behavior itself fulfills some need that the person has.) i’m not sure that akechi would even have a job at the police force if shido had not pulled strings to get him there. i’m not sure akechi would have the grades that he does at the school he attends if shido had not helped him get there. like any other employer relationship, when akechi proposed to help shido by utilizing the metaverse, shido is expected to provide the funds to ensure akechi can actually do that job, and those funds would have made a remarkable difference in akechi’s life. and all of these are conditional on akechi killing people. 

when sojiro decided to invest in akira, sojiro drastically changed akira’s life trajectory, and protected akira from a lot of future misfortune, all at basically no cost to akira and without any strings. shido investing in akechi does the same, not only stopping akechi’s “losing streak,” but reversing it altogether into a winning streak. 

suddenly, akechi’s in a school that actually gives him schoolwork that pushes him intellectually, actually prepares him for college, actually teaches him things. the better akechi does, the more he’s rewarded for it, because there’s actually teachers who are there who will notice. he gets paid for working with the police, which means better pay, better hours, better living conditions, more free time. people take note of his success. people start talking about him. all of a sudden, he’s getting interviews for being so remarkably young and still so adept as his job. and again, it’s all conditional on akechi fulfilling his deal with shido.

compare and contrast to akira, who has sojiro, morgana, and the velvet room all acting as his benefactor. the entire POINT of the velvet room is to  be an unconditional, no-strings source of aid. meanwhile, akechi only has shido, whose help is highly conditional. the difference is remarkable. the difference between akira and akechi comes down primarily to the adults and other forces who took the time to invest in their success, future, and well-being.

*

all this in mind, persona 5 (although it has very little backbone in a lot of its execution and doesn’t like following through on its own train of logic) has the audacity to say: maybe people doing bad things is not certain people’s faults. it’s the fault of the rigged game itself. 

so the question becomes: who’s setting up the game?

this is usually answered by “who’s the shitty benefactor?”

who has more resources and more ability than someone else, and provides those resources/abilities on a conditional basis? who has power over someone else and is using that power not to help, but to harm the person with less power? who’s using what they have in order to make someone else act according to their needs? who’s rigging someone else’s life circumstances?

the plot of persona 5 is the phantom thieves seeking “who’s setting up the game,” which turns into a sort of matryoshka nesting-doll escalation as they move further and further up the chain to find bigger and more comprehensive sets of games. start with kamoshida, who’s setting up unfair conditions and a rigged game in which ann, shiho, ryuji, mishima, and akira are at his whims in an increasingly-unfair situation. kamoshida, as the rule-maker of the game, needs to go. but kamoshida is ALSO part of a different game, which is shujin itself, which is being funded by (apparently) shido’s conspiracy to some extent. kamoshida is an olympic medalist who has no other prospects in his life and is stuck in a job he doesn’t really like because shujn has a deep investment in providing a competitive athletics program, because competitive athletics programs is a mark of a good school, and there’s a lot of money involved in making shujin a good school. kobayakawa is the next chain up, in that he’s strongarming makoto to catch the phantom thieves, but even kobayakawa is not the person making the rules; kobayakawa is at the whims of an even larger game. so on and so forth. 

which brings me back to shido. 

(for the record. it was this point that i realized that this essay had gotten out of control. because i’d started a whole other meta essay one other time, so i already had a bunch of thoughts about loki and the importance of akechi’s plan to take down shido in the way that akechi was hoping to, and i realized that this entire train of thought was rapidly taking me into “norse mythos analysis hours,” and i was like. fuck. fuck. god fucking dammit. i started this essay as a way to pass the time and cure my headache and now we’re doing this??? we’re really doing this????? fuck me)

“who’s setting up the game” is a neat observation that systems of oppression are intangible and operate without humans, but at the same time, are maintained and composed of humans simultaneously. (i know. it doesn’t make sense. it sucks.) palace rulers, then, are an attempt to locate intangible systems of oppression into a single human person.

in reality this doesn’t happen quite so neatly, but masayoshi shido is a nice fantasy that maybe, a very large portion of systemic corruption can be boiled down to one bald man with ugly glasses. he embodies literally EVERYTHING wrong in the world: corruption, misogyny, embezzlement, gross adults, manipulation and blackmail, murder, child abuse--basically everything you can think of. and from akechi’s point of view, shido is not only at the heart of government corruption, but also most of akechi’s personal hurts as well. 

watch closely this very cool narrative trick that persona 5 forgot to capitalize on: you store all the shitty things in the world in one person, and then you take him out, destroying him and all the world’s sins all at once. if you locate all the sins in one place, you don’t have to worry about the fact that systemic injustice is permeated throughout every aspect of the fabric of our world, from the policies in place to the ways that we think to the ways that our imaginations are arrested from imagining new possibilities (the prevalence of anti-goro fans who insist that he’s scum of the earth being fair evidence of the ways that traditional morality prevents people from re-imagining a kinder world in which people can be held accountable for their actions in conjunction with empathy).

akechi, in particular, would like us to think that all the sins of the entire world are stored in the masayoshi shido--again, from his perspective, it certainly looks that way. but i don’t think we should underestimate the degree to which akechi engineered his own shitty situation with shido, and the degree to which akechi is a highly unreliable narrator of his own circumstances.

the SECOND after shido goes down, the PT are wondering why very little has changed. it turns out that shido is not the source of all the world’s evils. 

shido was a symptom of the world’s evils, that’s for sure. shido is a uniquely-perfect piece of garbage that, by some freak accident, was a well-placed and well-timed fit for the government system’s flaws. the fact that shido got as far as he did is a symptom of the situation, but he isn’t the cause, or the source.

okay, now the phantom thieves have to go one level higher. they’ve got to kill yaldabaoth. yaldabaoth is the cause of everything, isn’t he?

also no. yaldabaoth is also a symptom of humanity’s desires. yaldabaoth was made by the human subconscious and, despite yaldabaoth being a bitchass motherfucker, yaldabaoth wasn’t just being a shit to the phantom thieves when he said that ultimately he’s just fulfilling humanity’s own wishes. 

well, akira takes down this fucker too, but by this time the damage is done. we’ve realized that corruption cannot be contained in a single person. one person alone cannot be conceptualized as the Source Of All Evil. we’re forced to confront the fact that corruption is widespread, everywhere, and exists within individuals as well as in the relations between individuals.

compare and contrast this with the ending of persona 3, in which humanity calls down nyx to enact the end of the world out of some mass collective suicide drive. since nyx cannot be killed, and humanity cannot be stopped from wishing to die, minato becomes the seal to prevent humanity from calling out to nyx. in killing yaldabaoth, akira destroys the manifestation of humanity’s desire to be controlled and kept apathetic, but in both of these situations, the enemy is still humanity itself.

so as it turns out, despite the phantom thieves’ desire to take down shitty individuals in order to dismantle large-scale systems of injustice, the game would have us turn to the fact that this is not enough. the solution is always in the mass population--in everyone everywhere, and that our responsibility as individuals works in conjunction with the fact that everyone is collectively responsible simultaneously.

which brings us back to sae niijima.

i know, i know. i talk about akechi and the velvet room and shido and akira and sojiro for howeverthefuckmany words, and now i’m going to talk about sae. 

sae is the center of persona 5. or at least, she should be.

all the threads that persona 5 has been tracking (or at least has been attempting to track) ultimately boil down to sae and her decision to become a defense attorney. sae takes up the idea of being a benefactor and makes it her profession. and sae, very specifically, tells akira that she, as an adult, will start taking responsibility for the younger generation.

sae says: we might be collectively responsible, and the injustices of the world may be a product of everyone everywhere. but it’s also true that the actions of the collective start with individuals. and that individual is going to be me.

persona 5 begins and ends with an adult saying that the game might be unfair, but i’m going to take it upon myself specifically to do what i can to try and stop that. i will be the benefactor that this kid needs. i will be the difference in someone else’s life. i will stop unfortunate events like akechi and shido from happening.

the truth is that benefactors can and do make a meaningful difference in someone else’s life. that’s the entire reason why they’re so critical to a child’s success in life. as it turns out, people cannot and do not succeed alone. and that it’s not unusual for a child to seek out adult help in any way that they can, and that in fact they should, and it’s normal and understandable, and that adults should seek to help children in any way that they can, lest situations like shido occur.

this is part of the reason why i really like that the velvet room has become such a staple in the persona series. the entire premise of the velvet room is based on the idea that people do need help, and that it’s not a moral failing if you aren’t able to succeed without someone in your corner. 

anyway. say thank you sae, sojiro, and igor.

[luuxxart]

Terribly sorry about the formatting but that’s what happens when you copy paste from notes haha

* Ok so these ones are kind of angsty but let’s go

* so even tho I state up there that Makoto prefers he/him (because, I think like, during P5R and especially P5S, he’s starting to come into the idea that “oh shit I might be butch?”) I will be using she/her in this piece just so that I’m not constantly repeating names and stuff.

* Makoto is he/him in the same way your car mechanic is a guy. Like. It is the job , the living if you will, and it’s not performative, he’s certainly got his wits about him. He is very knowledgeable about many things

* Akira is also like. Very much into gender. he’s like. A gender collector if you will. But I don’t think makoto would find out about punishment cop for like. A while after they break up.

* Speaking of that I’m ngl. A lot of why I like them so much is because they really are just so fleeting. Imo they only date from the Kaneshiro’s Palace up until sometime mid-Okumura’s. This isn’t so Makoto can get with Haru or Akira Can get with Akechi it’s just. Naturally I think things would come to a boiling point.

* To me, They are like. Yknow. The good ex to each other. The one where they kind of miss the other. Replay events in their head for some fleeting nostalgia. Wonder what could’ve been if they stayed together, but are overall thankful that they didn’t. And, you know, they grew and learned about each other and more importantly themselves through the relationship.

* ((That being said I think Akechi would be flirting with Akira up to the point of the breakup and Akira is taking the stance of “I’m not flirting, just hot and talking.” But ofc when the shumako breakup happens, all the cards are back on the table and Akira becomes a hot mess of awkward funnyman flirting))

* Back to shumako tho

* I gotta talk about the funnyman flirting. I’m sorry but that is just so Akira’s modus of operandi. His whole thing is being an annoying little shit until he wears his partner down. It’s the pushback on his jokes that spurs him on further

* I mean , he’s harmless. It’s nbd at all

* And Makoto certainly enjoys giving him the run around, pretending not to give into his antics. It just brings a bit of light to her otherwise kind of boring world

* Akira, and by extension, the Metaverse is pretty much her only escape . I guess it really is for all of them. But I mean. Looking at Makoto as the Student Council President Vs Makoto as Queen is like. Daylight to dark really. One is obviously more repressed than the other

* She’s like, one character that would probably have benefitted a lot from confronting a shadow P4 style

* I think genuinely. She is just such a motorcycle guy. She is the motorcycle guy. By extension, she dabbles (knows way too much) in cars, especially sports cars.

* Like, if she and Akira end up seeing like. A really cool Maserati on the street she will absolutely just geek out and Akira is so there for it

* Akira is like that meme that’s like “here comes the most specialist boy ever and if you don’t cheer and clap for him I’ll fuckign blow this whole building up”

* I think she genuinely tries to get on Akechi’s level. Like . Outside of the Metaverse she wants to be the prince detective so bad you don’t understand . And Akira is like. Yeah go off queen that’s certainly a goal, while also trying to steer her more into her own thing

* Because for what it’s worth. Her analysis works well in the short term, and works well for what she knows to be true. But she’s not a big fan of change. She secretly assumes the worst in everyone because it’s easier than having to accept the grey undertones of the situation

* And speaking of change, I think Akira absolutely has his bouts of brooding and just overall off-putting silence. Which. Makoto has no idea how to handle. She just kind of dances around it until it goes away.

* Not that Akira is any better. If Makoto is having a moment where she is absolutely going through it, he will either try to joke through it or just get out of there. Because like. Gentle reminder they are teenagers and have the emotional maturity of a plum

* I think Akira is also super prone to relapses. If he and akechi are having a rough patch, his first thought is to go back to makoto and then she’s like “ok just wait it out bro fr”

* Because by the time he actually gets w Akechi fr, she has had a whole other gender awakening . Like. She has buzzed half of her hair off and now fully exudes “do not fuck with me” energy.

* They were unfortunately passing ships in the night at this point bc Akira would normally be down so bad

* Anyway I think that’s all I’ve got for the kind of angsty hcs

* So in terms of regular old nice and fluffy headcanons,

* I think Akira and Makoto sneak around a lot despite having absolutely no reason to do so. Sae does not give a shit. But Makoto is terrified that she does.

* Which leads to some funny antics like— calling back to Makoto following Akira on her investigation— they would hide in public behind comics and. Makoto is genuinely awkward enough to still be holding hers upside down.

* They always get found by at least one Phantom Thief (or future PT, i.e., Haru or Akechi who are just so confused. why are they doing this. the theatrics involved. it’s too much)

* I think Akira is one of the only non-family people in Makoto’s life who’ve ever heard her genuine laugh. It’s loud and raucous and it’s not pretty but he thinks it’s one of the best sounds in the world.

* Makoto’s sense of humor lies strictly in puns because she thinks she is just so clever. She manages to catch Akira off guard with them sometimes.

* I don’t think originally Makoto is a cat person, but Morgana hanging around kind of helps. Akira is definitely the king of cat cafes. He’s always taking Makoto to one. They joke about the cats being so silent compared to Mona.

* Hold on. I Am thinking. Perceiving . About Makoto trying to have a quiet reading time and Akira literally just pretzeling himself around her. It’s like. Still quiet but. With the added effect of— Akira is there. It’s a soothing thought for her, I think

* Actually fuck it they are like the kings of leg tangling they are never separated when they’re alone together. And Akira is always playing footsie with her in diners and restaurants. It’s like p3 said!!! Want to be close!!! Hell yeah!!

* Very powerful headcanon.

* sometimes I think they just stare up at the ceiling in quiet reflection just to see how long it takes for Akira to HAVE to break the silence with a strange comment

* They never last longer than five seconds.

* I think Akira has encouraged her to steal a car at least once. (It was Sae’s but still.)

* They made it a few blocks before Makoto panicked and put it back.

* Anyway I think Makoto shares increasingly intricate leather jackets with Akira and he shares increasingly weirder button ups with Makoto.

* Akira just walks into Leblanc one day fucking squeaking In this tight ass leather jacket with shoulder spikes up to his glasses and so many bedazzlings that ya boi is basically gleaming and morgana just goes “ok so. Let’s start with the stance.”

* Meanwhile Makoto comes home in a button up that is a little too long for her and is dotted with avacados that have speech bubbles coming out of them saying “holy guacamole” and Sae immediately asks what her GPA is right now currently as they are speaking to each other.

* Akira and Makoto look up apartment listings in their downtime and always speculate on what it would be like to live together. It always ends up with them deciding they’d have to partition of certain parts of the house from each other. And Akira doesn’t really take it seriously . He’ll say he wants a clown room and Makoto’s like “ok I can work with that. So we’ll call that your bedroom.”

* Ok final headcanon. Uh.

* Just. Akira encourages Makoto constantly to just get weird. Just be weirder.

* She keeps this encouragement in her back pocket until she drops out of college in her second year to just become a mechanic who is ripped beyond all human comprehension, and who exclusively drinks “loving your wife (her motorcycle)” juice and zilk that she gets by the caseload from Sendai.

Anyway thank you for coming to my Shumako Ted Talk and bearing with me . I leave you all with this

the colors of your recent shumako piece create such a atmosphere with such an amazing emotional tone !! If you’re up for sharing, would love to hear your shumako head canons? :)

Thank you anon!!! I’ve honestly been saving this ask for a rainy day when I was feelin shumako again so I’m v sorry it took me so long haha

anywayyyy I’ve talked a bit about how I think they got together (and subsequently broke up) in the tags of my first shumako post,,, and since im not super great abt coming up with spur of the moment headcanons,,,,

BAM

which is pretty much all you need to know aha,, (i put the blank bc my sprites obscure some of the text, and here’s the link to the original. also Akira is wearing an OriginalStitch pokemon button up. It’s the magma pattern)

but going off of that uh… yeah I can expand on this meme.

EDIT: Headcanons are in my reblog because this post glitched out bad and the only reason i can deduce that that happened was maybe the readmore function😈☢️

[lokiarsene]

i feel like i've missed a lot of asks/replies so sry if this idea has already been brought up! but like yknow how in p4arena the setting is an alternate yasogami high school, so what if p5arena where the plot is akechi's jailbreak and the setting is his palaCE

This hasn’t been brought up! I rather like the idea personally–it matches with what I’ve been saying about Marie’s dungeon feeling like a blueprint to be used for any “Goro’s still alive” plot twists they’d wanna pull later.

(Incidentally, everyone should go back and play Persona 4 and/or 3. Damn good games, those. And the way they handle Shadows and dungeons would be interesting idea fodder for this Metaverse jailbreak AU.)

I know that P5 said some stuff like “Persona users can’t have Palaces,” but I can easily see them coming up with a non!Palace location that holds Akechi prisoner. It could be a sort of bubble-pocket universe that would disappear completely after a certain amount of time, thus necessitating the PT get to Akechi pronto and save him before it seals shut.

In fa~ct, they could be ultra meta and actually call it a dungeon instead of a Palace (because Palaces have dungeons and… well, fourth wall breaking stuff is totally within this game’s scope, and Futaba would absoLUTELY call it a dungeon crawl). Like a Palace, the dungeon could be born out of Akechi’s distorted desire, but those desires would be him torn between accepting death and wanting desperately to live instead of being power hungry/manipulative/eager for control/abusive, etc.

And Atlus would have to find some way to work Philemon into this shit because bring him the fuck back, he would totally strike up a deal with Akechi to bring him back to life at the cost of notoriety/all his hard work as an ace detective goddammit Atlus whyYYYY

[maiamaiden]

d.ont r.eblog

yknow what since i’m oversharing my opinions anyway tonight i wanna talk about how much akechi’s death bugs me

people argue that it was good because it was the first real choice he got to make for himself but that doesn’t really make it any better. why is it good that his first choice is to die? how is it a positive thing that someone who’s been abused and manipulated his whole life finally gets to make a decision for himself and that decision is death? and how is it at all okay that afterward he barely ever gets mentioned?

i’m gonna be honest here, i liked the final mementos palace and the stuff with lavenza and yaldabaoth but honestly the entirety of the rest of the game after akechi’s death just felt so empty to me. like? he had such an important role for the entire game prior to that and all he gets is a “oh yeah btw yaldabaoth gave akechi his powers” from lavenza and a “oh he’s missing now i guess” from sae. shouldn’t lavenza feel guilty at all though? akechi was someone who needed guidance and the velvet room wasn’t there to give it to him and it’s not like the velvet room’s never tried to help anyone with morally grey motives since they tried to help sho minazuki. so you’d think lavenza and maybe even morgana would at least feel a little bad about not being able to help him before he got to the point of no return but instead he’s barely ever mentioned again

honestly i’ve played through it twice but that part where you have to say goodbye to everyone made me cry both times not because i was saying goodbye or because the game was over but because of akechi or rather the absence of akechi. the fact that the game just moves on as if he never existed honestly made me wonder if dying in the metaverse just erases you from existence or something lmao.

and just. they watched someone die right in front of them. someone who they admit was a victim they couldn’t save. that’s not something they should just be able to get over after one night even if it was someone they may not have necessarily liked

just. hhh i don’t like the ending p5 dudes i didn’t get closure where i needed it lmao

[phantom-thieves-official]

Ok!!! I'm just thinking. Ryuji's role on the team is sort of "the muscle" and others in-game know this - Akechi says as much in Sae's palace. He's supposed to be the guy that hits things, and yknow. Do you think that ever bothers him? Do you think sometimes it makes him feel a little too much like his dad? Think the violence inherit to the work in the metaverse, beating down shadows and stuff, ever makes him linger a little too long on how violent his dad was? He has a reputation for being short tempered and aggressive, and although the phantom thieves are doing good, do you think he ever feels like he's in some way living up to that reputation?

Anyway. Thinking more. He's a fuckin abuse survivor. He had to deal with his dad, and then kamoshida at school... there wasn't any escape from it. And still, , he gets beat up after shidos palace by his friends!! Its a terrible scene and taken in-universe its tragic!! The people he trusted.... Even in his confidant he lets himself get beat up when he doesnt deserve it and he never in game stands up for himself when it matters, he only stands up when its little stuff like morgana picking on him. There are times in game when a comment really gets to him and he just.... accepts it. He's so willing to believe bad about himself, how much of the teasing mirrors shit hes heard from his dad or kamoshida.

I'm just.... having a lot of feelings. Hes brave and kind and doesnt deserve half the shit he gets in-game

I'm having a lot of feelings about Ryuji right now,,,