#also had the biggest crush of tatsuya as a kid XD

[teecupangel]

unhinged idea i had: desmond and the modern persona series. i am leaning on 3 or 5 because 3 matches desmond well with the whole death thing and it's my favorite in the franchise but also phantom thief desmond... i have no idea how we can incorporate this into ac but maybe desmond is a wild card??? possibly???

Here’s the Desmond in Persona 5 idea we had before and here’s the Desmond in Persona 3 idea we also had before.

Since you did specify Modern Persona series and Persona 4 has always been my favorite of the three, we’re going to go for Desmond arriving in Inaba in the strangest of way…

He was found dangled on one of the telephone poles, right arm heavily burned and unconscious.

He was in a coma for a week before waking up and he thought “they’d definitely give me to Interpol and I’d get taken by Abstergo if I tell them my real identity” so he pretended to have amnesia. So for a few weeks, he’s known as John-san.

And during those few weeks, he was allowed access to a phone to check the net and try and see if he can remember anything.

The first thing he noticed was the date.

2011.

Okay.

That was a lie.

The first thing he noticed was that there was no mention of Abstergo anywhere at all. No ads. Nothing.

So he didn’t even think he timetraveled a year before his death.

No.

Without Abstergo…

He was in a different world.

Fuck.

.

.

Unorganized Notes:

He had to be discharged from the hospital once he was deemed healthy enough and Dojima helped him find a home he can rent and work.

Work turned out to become an employee at Junes because, quoting the manager, Desmond’s foreign looks will attract customers. He works in one of the stands and that specific stand (selling grilled meat and juice) got a 50% increase in profit.

The actual real reason why Dojima helped Desmond stay in Inaba is because he’s super sus of him. His face and fingerprint came up zilch and he even asked ‘favor’ from an American government official (who may or may not be part of a certain intelligent agency) find anything about him.

He casually flirts with Adachi whenever he sees the police officer around Junes. Adachi always splutters and make a fool of himself while Dojima sighs and tells Desmond to stop screwing around. The reason why Desmond is trying to get under Adachi’s skin is because there’s something about him that makes Desmond feel… something. Like he should be looking at something but he doesn’t know what he should be looking at in the first place.

By the time Yu comes to Inaba, Desmond has been staying for three months… trying to get a feel of this world by pretending he was ‘relearning the world’. His Japanese is better know and not as archaic as it was before (he still doesn’t know which Bleed knows Japanese but he’ll take it).

Overall, he’s integrated himself in the small town of Inaba quite well.

Then the murder of Yamano Mayumi happened and Desmond gets roped in because she was found on the cables near a telephone pole, very similar to how Desmond was found.

The police is, of course, suspicious of Desmond. He’s connected to this, either as the first victim who survived or as the culprit/accomplice.

Desmond is definitely curious about what’s happening and that’s when he heard kids… well… talking about the murder.

Desmond wasn’t going to pass it off as kids being kids because he knows what teenagers are capable (Ratonhnhaké:ton being a good example and also Altaïr but Altaïr’s childhood was fucked up from the start in his eyes anyway) so he follows them.

… into the TV because fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen? He’d die?

.

In this one, Desmond serves more as their adult supervision who can’t fight because he has no Persona. They also leave him in the entrance and he’s annoyed by this until… the day Chie joins them after awakening her Persona, he hears a voice.

It’s a man clad in what looks like Assassin robes of some kind, dirty and worn out. Yu, Yosuke, Teddie, and Chie returned (without Yukiko because they need a break) to find Desmond and the hooded figure talking about how Desmond is powerless. He had always been powerless. Nothing has changed.

“All those sacrifices. All those suffering… and for what? You are still as powerless as you have always been, Desmond Miles. Even the strength you have now was never yours from the very beginning. Your strength exists because of their death.”

This finally makes Desmond hit the hooded figure with a right hook and his hood falls off, revealing it was Desmond’s shadow.

But this shadow was old with the golden glow of the Apple on his skin. Desmond, of course, tells him that he wasn’t him and this turns into a boss fight with Yu and the team.

Desmond notices while they fight that his shadow’s fighting style slightly shifts at times and he recognizes each of those shifts because the tell were the small tells he knows his Bleeds would make. He manages to help the team defeat his shadow but telling them what his shadow’s move will be and it ends with Desmond accepting the fact that, yes, his strength did come from others but it was his to use as he sees fit. That he has to accept that the choices he made did mean his ancestors’ actions and sacrifices were for nothing.

And that…

he has to keep moving forward from that.

That’s how his shadow turned into his Persona and how he’s now able to join the team.

(I think for this one, Desmond should only have one Persona unlike in the other Persona ideas. He’s Arcana can still be the Fool because he is starting from the ‘beginning’ or he can also be the World/Aeon if you want to shake it up. His Persona can still shift into three ‘forms’ and his ultimate Persona makes him able to shift into 2 more forms)