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Akira Kurusu and Morgana

“The one on a journey! He lives with sojiro, who runs a pokemon cafe in a small town, and futaba, his little sister in all but blood. He likes to run a mixed-type team and calls home often.”

“Although not a Pokemon but a mostly-regular cat, Morgana has the ability to speak like a human! He’s missing quite a few of his memories, though, including the time before he first stumbles upon the Sakura family cafe. His unique speaking ability tends to draw a lot of attention, so he tries to keep it mostly secret, but he longs to find a place where he can live with humans in peace.” - @corvus-ace

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Team Arcana

“Prepare for trouble, and make it double! A pair of best friends with powerful Pokemon teams and a personal mission! Elegant Psychic type trainer Haru and cunning Dark type trainer Goro are traveling the region in search of a certain talking cat on behalf of Team Arcana. But they have their own personal (and far more secret) motives for their journey....” - @corvus-ace

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Sumire Yoshizawa

“The trainer with an uncertain path! Her sister once ran a grass-type gym in their city, but she's been in a coma for months. She's not sure how to move forward. Fortunately for her, mimikyu found her at her lowest and could help her choose a future....” - @corvus-ace

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Makoto Niijima

“The youngest steel type gym leader in her city's history! At only twenty, she was able to beat out several older candidates for the position of gym leader through her sheer skill and her coordination with her pokemon. Her skarmory is a force to be feared.” - @corvus-ace

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Yusuke Kitagawa

“An ice type trainer whose real passion isn't pokemon battles but pokemon art! He has a goal to paint every pokemon, and he's slowly working his way through every one he can find, starting with his beloved frosmoth. But he can't explore the world just yet....” - @corvus-ace

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Ann Takamaki

“A fierce fire type trainer who loves to travel! She's in a long distance relationship with Shiho, who lives in a neighboring city. Her starter pokemon was fennekin, which sparked her love for fire types; she's very protective of all her pokemon.” - @corvus-ace

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Shiho Suzui

“Water type trainer who loves the ocean as much as she loves her Pokemon and her girlfriend! She may seem quiet at first, but her determination shouldn’t be underestimated. That said, she’s facing many challenges from both outside and within her own gym....” - @corvus-ace

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Ryuji Sakamoto

“A trainer who specializes in electric types! He was supposed to start his journey right at eighteen, but wasn't able to due to his leg injury. He grew up with his yamper, which evolved into a boltund a few months into ryuji's recovery; the boltund is his best friend.” - @corvus-ace

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if anyone is inclined to support a broke ass writer, hmu on ko-fi :)

I offer tarot readings, and I also have two handmade chainlink bracelets on sale right now. every little bit helps as I am very broke lmao

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Her small stature might make her seem unassuming, but Futaba is anything but! She's got both the genius and the passion for Pokemon to take up her mother's old research. People may be scary, but one of the benefits of her position is that she can work from the comfort of her own home, or sometimes her dad's cafe. With her tech prowess, she'll uncover the secrets of the world - and keep an eye on her big brother from afar, of course! And it doesn't hurt that her trusty Umbreon will be by her side all the way. Akira's definitely lucky to have such an incredible little sister!

Futaba Sakura

“A young intern whose mother was a pokemon researcher! she mainly works remotely from her dad's cafe, but she's dead set on someday being able to visit her mother's lab. she's great with pokemon, with her umbreon providing comfort from darkness.”

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gotta catch em all: persona 5 edition!

full disclosure, this au started as a joke.

so for the last two-three-ish weeks i've been playing with the idea of a pokemon au for the p5 cast, it's been living in my head rent free, and it's been developing with a speed i definitely was not expecting but am not about to question, and there is definitely an impending fic in the making. so i decided i'd try something new where i actually introduce an au on here before i start posting the fic itself to my ao3 and yes this is partially because my co-developer-slash-beta-reader-slash-best-friend has art pending for this. just gonna do brief introductions (as brief as i can manage anyways; proper character introductions are coming soon!) so without further ado, here we go :D

setup: this is obviously set in the world of pokemon; however it is not set in any particular region. this is partly because i wanted to keep my options open when selecting pokemon for the main cast. in addition, the main cast have been aged up to college age, with the pts in the 20-23 range (as of right now akira will be 22 and the rest will be adjusted around that). pokemon journeys begin around 17 or 18 and there's not as much pressure to start a journey as soon as you're old enough, which is why akira is only just starting his. non-thief confidants will be making appearances, though most will be only minor. also, morgana is not a pokemon - he is still a cat, and he can still talk. this will be explained much much later. for now here's the main cast:

akira: the one on a journey! he lives with sojiro, who runs a pokemon cafe in a small town, and futaba, his little sister in all but blood. he likes to run a mixed-type team and calls home often

ryuji: trainer who specializes in electric types! he was supposed to start his journey right at eighteen but wasn't able to due to his leg injury. he grew up with his yamper, which evolved into a boltund a few months into ryuji's recovery; the boltund is his best friend

ann: fierce fire type trainer who loves to travel! she's in a long distance relationship with shiho, who lives in a neighboring city. her starter pokemon was fennekin, which sparked her love for fire types; she's very protective of all her pokemon

yusuke: ice type trainer whose real passion isn't pokemon battles but pokemon art! he has a goal to paint every pokemon, and he's slowly working his way through every one he can find, starting with his beloved frosmoth. but he can't explore the world just yet....

makoto: the youngest steel type gym leader in her city's history! at only twenty, she was able to beat out several older candidates for the position of gym leader through her sheer skill and her coordination with her pokemon. her skarmory is a force to be feared

futaba: a young intern whose mother was a pokemon researcher! she mainly works remotely from her dad's cafe, but she's dead set on someday being able to visit her mother's lab. she's great with pokemon, with her umbreon providing comfort from darkness

sumire: the trainer with an uncertain path! her sister once ran a grass-type gym in their city, but she's been in a coma for months. she's not sure how to move forward. fortunately for her, mimikyu found her at her lowest and could help her choose a future....

i'm really looking forward to posting this au, both in the form of actual fic on ao3 and fleshing out the details here on tumblr! i've got big plans for the story, which is shocking for someone who struggles with plot so often, so i think this'll be a fun experience. can't wait to share more :3

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what in the name of the force is the ahsoka show,,,,

listen. i am by no means a star wars expert. sure, i'm familiar enough with the movies, the clone wars, and a few of the other shows (mostly bad batch and mando, and while i did watch all of rebels i don't remember a whole lot) but i definitely haven't deep dived through enough of the lore that i'd call myself an expert. but boy oh boy do i have some issues with this show

ahsoka - her character has always been determined and fierce. immature and rash sometimes, sure, but she's always meant well. she is definitely her master's padawan. based on what i've seen so far, which is the first four episodes, that's all gone. ahsoka left the jedi order because the order didn't trust her, and to her that meant she couldn't trust herself either. since then she's always followed her own principles. but in this show she doesn't seem to have maintained any of that. she, like luke in the book of boba fett, seems to be suddenly super attached to the old jedi ways???? and it just makes zero sense to me because both ahsoka and luke have had such strong bonds with the people they care about (anakin, rex, leia, han, etc) and that's always given them strength. hell, luke's attachment to anakin was the whole reason the empire fell! and now that's just,,,, gone???? where's the fiercely skilled, heart-of-gold ahsoka that refused to kill any of the 501st men she spent years fighting alongside even though they had turned on her, the apprentice who trusted her master so implicitly that even when the world was against her, she knew he would be by her side, and he came through for her? where's our snips????

sabine - i don't have as much of an obsession with rebels as i do with clone wars, but i remember her character distinctly enough. she's a mandalorian, of course, incredibly skilled and versatile, though also stubborn. but i do remember that through the course of rebels, she learned from the rest of the crew, particularly kanan; he taught her how to use the darksaber by teaching her parts of the jedi training he had already taught ezra. he taught her to develop her patience and to become one with the weapon. that patience has disappeared completely. i also don't know yet what happened between sabine and hera, or between sabine and ahsoka, but either way, from the last i saw of her outside this show, i definitely don't remember sabine being the type to run away from her problems instead of blasting through them forcefully. very disappointed

and finally hera - what the hell happened???? hera is a passionate, rebellious figure, intensely protective of her family and other loved ones but still following her convictions without wavering. that is not the hera i have seen in this show. she feels so unbelievably flat, not quite docile (she still fought back pretty well against the droids and imperial loyalists) but other than that she's far too quiet of a character than she's ever been before and i hate it

anyways that's all, i lowkey hate this show but i'm too committed to finishing it at this point if only for potential new nightsisters lore + more carson teva scenes (cause he is at this point the only new republic character i respect at all and i love him) so uhhhhhh guess i'll fix-it fic the shit out of all this later lmfao

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2024-03-21

Max Moxie

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2024-02-27

Siblings!

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Okumura Haru, aka Noir: an analysis

so, my friend Keeper wanted me to help them get a sense of Haru's character because they missed her introduction and a fair amount of her confidant, and the result was this analysis. fast forward like a month and I realized "hey, this would be fun to post online actually" and here I am lol. fair warning, it's long and also in bullet point paragraphs cause I was trying to write quickly at the time and have since fleshed a few of them out a bit more (I have a lot of feelings about Haru lmao)

without further ado, here we go!

Haru's past

-first and foremost, Haru is the heir to a fuck off huge corporation. her father basically owns the equivalent of mcdonalds. though she doesn't always act like it, she is fundamentally a rich kid

-now in my original analysis, it had been a while since I'd actually gone through Haru's confidant, and I had mistakenly believed that Haru had at least to some extent been raised to take over the business. pretty sure I thought that cause I can't tell the difference between actual canon and stuff I've read in fics lol. but after playing through her confidant again and realizing she actually had zero business experience whatsoever actually makes her even more impressive in my eyes, because she more or less had to teach herself how to run an entire corporation, and by the end of her confidant she has a pretty solid handle on things already (doubly impressive because her confidant starts so late game, so depending on how fast you play through it... she's learning all this in like, two months max if you're getting through it before 3rd sem)

-in addition to that: rather than her father retiring and placing her in charge, she is literally thrust into it by her father's death. so she's learning all this business management, getting used to phantom thievery, and grieving her father all at the same time???? I could never

-presumably Haru inherited everything after her father's death, putting her in full control of his wealth? (I don't really know how businesses and shareholders work.) Haru's mother doesn't appear to have been in the picture, although to be fair that could mean she's either dead, has left, or is just never shown on-screen. I don't remember any distinct mentions of her

-her father's view of her: the conspiracy has obviously been in action for at least around two years (based on the timeline of the mental shutdowns and psychotic breaks inflicted by Akechi after he joined the conspiracy). Okumura Kunikazu's view of his daughter would presumably have become distorted during this time; obviously we don't necessarily know the timeline of any Palace formations except Futaba's and Sae's, since one was shown on-screen and the other discussed more than once. by the time we begin Okumura's Palace, he views Haru as nothing more than a tool for him to use in his financial and political ambitions ("subservient puppet" and her cognitive form's appearance as an obedient and extremely weak robot). he also is ignorant of her wants and needs, evident by him arranging to marry her off to Sugimura for his own political gain

-now, because Okumura becomes so distant from Haru as his Palace develops, whether intentionally or not, Haru is kept fairly far away from her father's unethical business practices. obviously she has her own suspicions as indicated in game, but seeing as her father doesn't really tell her anything, she presumably still had at least a decent opinion of him up until his Palace

Haru's character/personality

-Haru is very kind by nature. her childhood initially encouraged this (the cafe her grandfather used to run) but because of her father's distortion and changed parenting style she has mostly retreated into becoming a "seen but not heard" people pleaser. this results in a very reserved persona, but she isn't exactly shy - she is willing to reach out to help people, is generally friendly when approached (if you go up to her in the Shujin hallways before you even start the Palace, she's very polite, even if not explicitly cheerful), and as proved not long after we formally meet her:

-if a core belief of hers is challenged, she will stand up for it. one of our first interactions with her in game, she isn't afraid to tell us that after listening to our flimsy explanation of our motives as the Thieves, she cannot work with us. she calls us out immediately on not helping our own teammate, and tells us she cannot work with people who aren't certain of their motives/goals (I don't remember her exact wording but I remember it was definitely something along those lines). in short, she cannot trust us to truly want to help her father

-first proper meeting: other than the seconds immediately after her entrance alongside Morgana in her father's palace, she is very flustered and constantly getting things confused. based on my understanding of her as a person, I believe this is because although she already considers Morgana a friend, he's clearly established a role for her to play as well (replacing the Phantom Thieves with her, taking the spotlight for future changes of heart, etc) and she knows, deep down, that she is still being used, even if Morgana does have good intentions and wants to teach her to help people. deep down she knows this isn't the real her either. her full Persona awakening showcases this pretty clearly with all the fucking guns and rocket launchers hidden in Milady's skirt that are finally revealed (aka Haru's full, true strength simmering for a long time, hidden beneath the surface, because who in her life would have ever wanted her to be anything but obedient and weak?)

-she's also the one to push Morgana to be honest both with himself and the other Thieves, to admit he doesn't really want to leave and that he feels like this is the only place he belongs. she's struggled with being honest with herself in the past, accepting her true self and especially displaying it, and the Thieves helped her finally do that; given her kind nature I'm not surprised she wanted to be able to return the favor

-as we get to know her, we learn Haru is still very naturally kind and genuinely friendly. the thing is, she doesn't have a lot of friends. we don't see her interact with anyone (other than her father and fiance) beyond basic pleasantries until her formal introduction, including at Shujin. I'm fairly reasonably certain this is because almost everyone she's ever met has only seen her as "Okumura's daughter" rather than just Haru, her own person

Noir

-Haru is one of the strongest physical damage dealers, alongside Ryuji and Yusuke (both in terms of normal melee attacks and her powerful gun-type skills). she's also the only Thief other than Akechi who has gun-type skills on her Persona - and it's important to note that Akechi can only use gun-type skills in the third semester, with Loki and eventually Hereward, so Haru having gun-type skills significantly earlier in game than Akechi (especially with high crit chances) is quite useful. also her weapons are a grenade launcher and a large battle axe so that says a lot about her

-her Persona uses psy magic and ailment skills in addition to the gun-type skills. psy is particularly important since it triggers many kinds of technical hits, extra useful if you have a wide variety of ailments you can inflict via Joker's Personas. this also makes sense given the identity of her first tier Persona, Milady de Winter, the uncommonly beautiful and extraordinarily cunning female spy featured in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. Milady is also described as ruthless, which I feel is a good representation of how Haru acts as a Phantom Thief. now in addition to the other skills, she does have the ability to cure certain ailments and also recover more quickly from ailments, and can use heat riser to give significant buffs to a party member and makarakarn/tetrakarn to protect a party member from a magic or physical attack respectively. obviously the specific skills she has available to her depends on how you choose to build her in game (I personally tend to lean towards emphasizing her gun-type and support skills over her ailment usage/curing, since I have no shortage of ailments in Joker's Persona stock and prefer to use Haru as a damage dealer, but that's not really relevant lmao)

-also, Haru is a sadist who loves killing/destroying Shadows. probably all that repressed anger and unresolved trauma. as rich as her father is, I seriously doubt he paid for a therapist for her. rich and emotionally distant fathers are just like that

The Empress

-I have some issues with her confidant that I think are about to become very evident

-Haru is the Empress Arcana (number III) and it shows. she is a girl in a position of power (head of a corporation) and as mentioned before, she is very kind by nature, and quite nurturing as shown by her love and skill for taking care of plants. the people in charge of assigning cards did a particularly good job with her

-her confidant is less based on personal relationships like Ryuji's or Makoto's; instead it focuses on professional development and relationships with subordinates and corporate associates and shareholders. she spends a lot of time throughout her confidant events figuring out who to trust and how to shift Okumura Foods into something she can truly be proud of, with a strong focus on undoing all the unethical practices her father put in place. though she of course wasn't expecting to be put in charge so soon, she does a very good job managing the sudden responsibilities. we also have no reason to believe her grades were slipping during this time, so she appears to be able to manage her schoolwork (from a prestigious high school, no less) right alongside her new responsibilities

Miscellaneous

-Haru has no qualms about spending large amounts of money on her friends - we literally went to the equivalent of fucking disneyland after her father's Palace and she thought it was no big deal, although to be fair to her, that was technically a special situation as the park had already been rented out by her father for a company event that ended up being cancelled due to his change of heart, so she really just took over the reservation. it's worth noting that this point is heavily represented in fanfics (based on what I've seen across ao3), as fanon Haru is, for example, often willing to give Yusuke in particular plenty of money for food, train fares, etc. I have seen at least two fics (though I don't remember the authors or the titles) where she happily spends lots of money on the other Thieves

-out of the Thieves, Haru is one of the most vocal about her hatred and mistrust of the police. this is very, very evident in Strikers, and remains consistent throughout that story (and, side note, it's fucking hilarious seeing how offput Zenkichi is about it every single time)

-she also later embraces her brief stint as the "Beauty Thief" and it's something of an inside joke amongst the Thieves (not sure that's the right term but idk how else to describe it). there aren't any hard feelings; the Thieves are already pretty chill about it the moment she joins the group anyways. the other Thieves affectionately call her the Beauty Thief in Strikers, particularly Futaba and Morgana, and Haru is happy to really lean into it sometimes (Zenkichi does not understand this either and I think she enjoys that)

Final notes - based on my impressions of her; not really analysis

-Haru is one of the most willing to fight god, and one of the most likely to win

-mixture of cottagecore lesbian and warrior princess

-her association with purple is partially rooted in her psy abilities, of course, but it's also a color associated with royalty and elegance, particularly fitting for the Empress Arcana

-Haru is not allowed to drive and should never be allowed behind a steering wheel (Keeper, if you're reading this, you'll understand this much later)

-kinda already mentioned this but she's very good at gardening (can grow hp and sp restoratives for the Metaverse)

-she took ballet for years and was good at it, which makes sense since she's quite flexible, as well as having natural grace

Conclusion

well, if you made it this far, I hope you liked this self-indulgent analysis! I relate to Haru a lot, so I like to think I have a good sense of her, and hopefully I've done a good job of representing her in this post. there are a few other Thieves I have enough thoughts on to write analyses similar to this one, so I'll probably be making those pretty soon. and again, although this is very personally motivated, I do still hope someone out there will like reading them!

(and Keeper - I know you already read the first version of this and still wanted to read this version too, so a big thanks for enabling my brainrot lmao)

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2023-12-24

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE Y’ALL

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sometimes the life of a fanfic writer is just picking a fandom, putting all your prompts/ideas for that fandom into a random spinner, and writing whatever the spinner lands on