#and akechis like ‘THATS NOT WHAT I MEANT’ *kills him*
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ok so imagine if joker killed someone and the guilt stained his hands with blood forever
so he understands why akechi wears gloves all the time lol
btw i traced the hands from an anime called Beyond the Boundary (just search anime bloody hands and it’s like the first result), i wanted to focus more on the effect and the expression
also have some drawings of akechi i did with a different fit. imagine if joker had a dream with akechi in it with phantom thief outfit before akechi revealed his persona to the thieves lol
ALSO if you want more context for the joker killing someone idea, and an edit i did with these drawings to please the instagram algorithm, please see under the cut
ok so i was thinking about the PT’s plan against Akechi, and a common gripe i see is how the cognitions don’t die like that in other palaces, they just dissipate into black smoke. BUT ALSO other palace rulers don’t really see people as actual people unlike Sae.
so Kamoshida sees people as nothing more dolls/slaves he can use how he wants, hence cognitive Ann just dissipates when sliced (a puppet with cut strings is useless). Okumura sees people as robots so cognitive Haru explodes because she’s a robot. Kaneshiro sees people as ATMs so they just malfunction and break down.
i imagine the cognitions in Madarame’s palace are kinda just like… 3D living statues, just there to admire Madarame’s work, so if they were killed they’d probably dissipate or crumble like Kamoshida’s. and obviously there are no cognitions in Futaba’s palace (apart from Wakaba, who has a whole boss) because she’s a shut in.
anyway, the PT would notice that cognitions have different behaviour even in death depending on the palace ruler, so to confirm the plan would work, they would have to kill a cognition to see what happens in Sae’s palace. Makoto is probably sure her sister still sees people as people so it would work, but she also knows it’s vital they check this. in a way it would ease her too, since it would be confirmation.
and of course Joker being the leader he is would volunteer to do the ‘deed’. so he kills an innocent, harmless, cognitive person, watches them beg for their life as he holds a gun to their head and fires. he knows it’s just a cognition so it’s irrational, but the guilt he feels is all the same, especially as he watches the cognition slump to the floor just like a real corpse and bleed out onto the floor. Unlike other cognitions in other palaces it doesn’t dissipate after a while, it stays there, because Sae, how distorted she may be, still sees people as people, in life or death.
ALSO even when cognitive Ren and the guard dissipate after a while, it’s not because they’re cognitions, it’s because Sae has by then found out the whole thing was a ploy. she now knows both Ren and the guard are very much alive - so then of course the corpses would disappear
leave out the Joker kills a cognition bit (let’s say they were confident enough in their reasoning) and it could basically be canon
lol anyway yeah i wrote that in a fic and wanted to draw it in a sort of quick sketch lol
anyway here’s the edit lol
#amamiya ren#persona 5#persona 5 royal#joker persona 5#persona 5 joker#ren amamiya#akechi goro#goro akechi#shuake#akeshu#joker p5#joker#kurusu akira#akira kurusu#and then joker tells akechi ‘i killed someone :(‘#and akechis like ‘MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU THAT WAS A COGNITION THAT DOESNT COUNT??? WTF’#and jokers like ‘sorry i know it cant compare to your guilt :(‘#and akechis like ‘THATS NOT WHAT I MEANT’ *kills him*
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Ok. . . but can you give an in-depth explanation as to how you feel about akeshu?
yes.
rest is under the cut since this is going to be a long answer
im a big big big big big fan of enemies to lovers. love it. loved the initial hate, the heightening tension between two characters with conflicting situations or personality types. i love the anger, the arguments, the sighs from everyone around them because they’re tired of the repetitive beef. during quarantine, i even wrote out and gave a verbal presentation to my beta explaining how an enemies to lovers arc would work through writing and all the needed dynamics in order to justify a person falling in love with their enemy.
and yeah, the process is the best part of it. i want to be able to see the transition between worst enemy to begrudged partner to lover. that’s the best part!!! the character development!!! the molding around each other and learning to accept their character flaws!! the willingness to defend that flaw in front of other people!!
but here’s where the problem lies: akechi goro.
oh akechi. oh akechi goro, the bane of my existence and the object of affection by everyone in this god forsaken fandom. look, i get it. it’s really really fucking hard to resist the charm of akechi goro, i admit it. he’s so interesting, he’s so in-depth, he’s so cool and rugged and he’s such a bastard that you end up kind of being obsessed with him, and that’s fine. I'm also kind of obsessed with him.
but i don't like him. because he isn’t a likeable character. there’s a huge difference between thinking he’s a fantastic character and loving him. because i don't love him. i hate him. i despise him. he’s caused so, so, so much grievance, so much pain to so many characters in persona that it honestly impossible to give him a redemption arc. it’s not possible. even if you go down the Black Star route (amazing fanfic, brilliant work) it still doesn't redeem him. he killed futabas mom (which literally led her to her spiraling depression and self hatred and manifested intense mental illness that led to her isolating herself from the world and made her lose her mom that she loves so much) and killed haru’s dad (how on earth can you justify that one??? god, haru wanted nothing more than to just see her dad happy again) and killed so many other random people!! and don’t feed me that “oh he had a sad life” shut the fuck up literally everyone in p5 had a sob story and you don't see them killing people. he’s complex, not likeable.
but here’s the good part: the game doesn't want you to like akechi. i mean it. they never said what he did was okay (never. they never said it was okay), they never said that you had to like him. all they said was that you had to work with him. even in the third semester, the one people are so insistent on calling a redemption arc, isn’t a fucking redemption arc. they just want you to see who akechi really is!! without the facade!!! all they want is for you to see how complex he is, see him spiral and angry and bitter and they want you to see him turn out the complete opposite of akira.
and here’s where we actually start talking about akeshu
akechi and akira are two halves of the same coin. akira chose the side of justice (by ironically being a criminal) while akechi chose the side of vengeance (which is ironic, since he’s a detective.) see, even with that whole crime vs justice thing, they’re connected. the person who ruined their life is the same person (shido), they both have had hard lives. but they turned out as opposites, with akira having a much better life than akechi--which is why akechi is so obsessed with akira. what does akira have that he doesn't? why did he turn out happy when he’s still miserable? and that creates a tension (which we will talk about later)
akechi and akira are rivals. they are connected, they always will be. it’s a hero/villain narrative that we all love, it’s an interesting character dynamic. it’s fun to see them interact.
but by god, it does not mean that akechi and akira are good for each other. i would go as far to say it would do akechi a huge disservice as a character if you made them end up together.
remember how akechi is a complex character? if akechi ends up with akira, you would essentially be ripping out all of his complexity just to have both of them date. akechi doesn't want to be with akira, and if you honestly think akechi is in love with akira id be surprised because he’s not--he’s obsessed with akira, infatuated with him. what he’s feeling isn’t love, it’s the feeling of frustration. he doesn't care about akira, or anyone. he cares about himself, and that’s it. which is what makes him so interesting because this never changes throughout the entire game!!! that's so FUN!!!
and the game never wants you to forget that complexity!! because they never gave akechi a redemption arc!! they want you to remember him as someone who’s willing to die for himself. (and, in a way, that’s the extent of akechis mercy. because before shidos palace, he wasn't even willing to die for himself, you know what i mean? he was willing to die in shidos palace because that’s what he wanted, he wanted to defeat shidos cognition of himself, he wanted to save the thieves because they were the first to listen to him and understand him, but he didn't really do it out of empathy. he did it because he’d rather die than continue living shidos lie--funny because that how he ‘dies’ in the third semester. nice one atlus)
and i get it. the game gives them such an undeniable tension that its super easy to see it as love, but its not. it’s not love, guys. that tension isn’t love, because what it’s actually tragedy. it’s tragic that akechi can’t have happiness (in canon, at least.) it’s tragic that akira, the person who loves his friends more than anything, who would die saving someone he doesn't even know, it’s tragic that he can’t save someone who���s the most desperate to be saved. and that is why i love platonic/non-romantic akeshu, because i think that concept is way more interesting than them falling in love. it’s about akira’s obvious trauma that he couldn’t save everyone, it’s about akechi’s hard-headedness about not wanting to be saved because he’s been let down too many times for him to ever put trust into anyone again.
it’s tragic. it’s meant to be tragic. persona 5 is a game about fighting for reality, and reality is fucking hard. so the fact that these two people have such a tragic ending despite what we, as an audience, are used to (happy endings), is part of the game. they’re not meant for each other. they won’t work, they don't work. that tension isn't made out of love or sexual tension--it’s stemmed from tragedy and hate and confusion and such a deep rooted sadness from inside of them.
they both deserve better than each other. akira deserves to be with the friends he made in tokyo, and akechi deserves to be with someone (if he lives) who isn’t associated with the metaverse at all. he deserves a clean slate, he deserves a fresh start. he deserves a reset.
and another reason is that akira loves his friends too much. he would do anything for them. it’s supposed to be funny--the wildcard, with no vulnerability, no weakness, has the most weakness out of all of them because he cares too deeply about his friends that if one single thing were to hurt them akira would fold like a deck of cards. you think akira would do that to haru? to futaba? yeah, right. he would never. akira can forgive but he would never forget. he’d never compromise. not for his friends.
so going back to the topic of enemies to lovers--akeshu is not enemies to lovers, because there are certain rules for enemies to lovers. enemies should be fun. it should be people on the opposite team with different perspectives. enemies should not be morally horrific. the ‘enemy’ should be forgivable. both characters should still come off likable. they should both be able to stand up on their own legs as characters even if you take away their love interest. for example, hermione/draco wouldn't work because draco calls Hermione a slur on many occasions. that is not forgivable. if draco instead, i don't know, cheats off her test or something and she gets mad and they have a back and forth thing, then sure, hermione/draco could work.
a fantastic enemies to lovers would be snowbaz from carry on. uh, zootopia? thats a great one. natsume and mikan from gakuen alice is good too!! basically, there’s a lot of actual good enemies to lovers out there. enemies to lovers shouldn't be morally ambiguous. it should be fun. it should be the right kind of tension. the characters should be likable from both sides. and akeshu does not have that.
tldr stan akiryu and akesumi instead
#this took me like an hour to answer#my bubble tea is melting#ask#asks#sorry anon lmfaoooo enjoy my thesis paper
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3, 9, 12
3: What’s your favorite line of narration?
hm!!! this is a tough one wwwwwww bc there’s a lot of it that im proud of of so i went thru and pulled a few lines i Really like
“On the third day after his miraculous return to life, Akechi Goro rolled over on his side and considered, for the first time since his miserable failure, getting out of bed.” one of my strongest starters imo, plays well on the expectation of goro’s second chance versus the reality of it which in turns reflects the concepts of goro’s image versus reality that comes up a lot in pef wwww
“All those stolen moments from before -- catching him at the station, sitting at the counter in Leblanc -- none of them meant anything at all. Amamiya had never once let anything slip past his mask of indifference when he looked at Goro. They hadn’t been friends. None of the conversations they’d had had been important. Nothing they’d said ever mattered. In all those months spent in orbit as Goro had put the finishing touches on his master plan, they’d never meant anything to each other, not even a little bit.” i like this bit a lot bc i think it sums up p well the entirety of p5 events from goro’s pov pre-casino in terms of both his view on events and his justifications re:ren. i think a lot of the anger in the ship comes from him Genuinely Wanting a connection but hes so convinced it was all an act on his part that it doesnt matter u kno. and thats an attitude reflected both in pef in general and in this specific section so i like it wwww also the rhythm is good WWWWWW
“The next morning Goro woke up feeling like an abject failure, which was not unusual.” another strong starter WWWWW its got a good rhythm and a good punchline and a good bit of characterization in just a few words so im proud of it
“It felt as though he’d just invited the Metaverse in to sit with them at the table, the strange thick air of it juxtaposed with the bright lights of the diner” notable for being one of hte Very First pef lines i wrote nad also one of hte ones i was desperate to put into the story proper WWWWW
“Once, long long ago, Goro had heard that certain species of animals saw eye contact as a form of aggression. It was something he thought about, occasionally, when he and Shido came face to face.” another long-lived line. really gets the shido+goro dynamic down i think
ok this is getting long so im stopping there. wwwwwww just know that i am a narcissist who likes her own writing style v much
9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?
LOL originally each palace was supposed to be a single chapter and it was supposed to switch povs btwn ren and goro. futaba wasnt supposed to be a big focus at all. very very early version was going back in time + meeting philemon meant he was no longer under yaldy’s protection and that exposed a palace, which was rapidly scrapped bc a) its more interesting if him killing ppl wasn’t distorted bc of the implications that has re:his psyche+worldview b) Akechi Goro Is A Fake Name And I Will Die On This Hill
12: What do you like least about this fic?
that im the one writing it and not a total stranger so i cant just enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor
realtalk there are small errors + things that bother me from a production viewpoint but i wouldnt be writing this fic if there was anything in plot/characterization etc that i didnt think was good
#i dislike that i cant skip straight to all the scenes i want to write and have to put PLOT and EXPOSITION btwn#do u kno how long i sat on the Sojiro Thing!!!!#do u kno how long that scene was written!!!!!!#do u kno!!!! i was dying!!! almo and i were screaming and i couldnt SAY ANYTH#ng au stuff#thematchalight#asks
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CONT. // ♡. // @gorot
AT TIMES LIKE THIS she thinks about how cruel life really is . how brutal & merciless the world & all the people in it are . they of all people should know this . they who had both been brought into this world only to have everything taken from them . they who’d lived their life lonely & full of despair . kairi thought this connection , this kinship meant something . that in even the darkest of times they could still depend on each other to guide them to the light . but she was wrong .
SHUT UP , HE SAYS & kairi feels the words plunge into her chest , sharper than the knife she held to his throat . he’s never spoken to her this way . in general she’s never seen him behave so maliciously . all this time she’d thought she’d gotten through to him , that she understood him & he her . but it was all a lie . everything was a lie .
REALITY CRASHES DOWN on her like a heavy avalanche . how foolish was she to think she was special . to think she could ever be important enough to be let into his castle of isolation & secrecy . she may be a princess in name but those words mean nothing to the lonely prince , who preferred the company of his secrets rather than other people . he fooled her with his warm smile & gentle touch & kairi ever the fool , welcomed him with open arms .
HIS HAND GRASPS HER WRIST , his touch once tender & soft now foreboding & unrelenting . she flinches , her grip on the knife faltering at the touch . the moment is brief however as she tightens it once more & brings the blade closer to his exposed throat .
AKECHI’S WORDS HIT HER from every direction , piercing her & wounding her in every way imaginable . had she not been so determined to hold herself together , kairi’s sure she would be crying at this point . i guess you never really knew me at all ? he asks & she , ever questioning despite her bleeding heart wonders if his words are true . had this all been a lie ? was the person she’d grown to care for & look after merely a disguise like the one he wore now ? was the foundation of their bond built from lies & deceit . she doesn’t know anymore .
HIS FINAL WORDS wound her worst of all . his provocation to end his life sprinkled with the concept of her being the worst of all the people in his life . the words sting & bleed like they were freshly cut slashes in her skin . how ironic that it’s the people you care for the most that end up hurting you the most . but this isn’t a fairytale . in their story the prince betrays the kingdom & breaks the princess’ heart . the princess finds herself forced to choose between said kingdom & the boy she’s come to consider family . but how all families come to tear & unravel over time . they should know that better than anyone .
KAIRI STEADIES HER SHAKING HAND , her expression hardening as she attempts to free herself from his grip . closer & closer to his throat the blade comes until it’s smack dab against his skin , practically nicking him as she still slightly trembles .
SHE WONDERS WHY she finds it so difficult to take the plunge & end it . he deserves it doesn’t he ? he willingly strode down the path of the enemy , walking alongside the man responsible for her parents murder . how funny how no matter how much you call your friends family & how much they mean to you , some will throw it all away for even the slightest bit of acknowledgement from their blood family . maybe in the end everything they had & everything they were means nothing . for here they are on opposite sides , waiting to see who will kill each other first .
BUT SHE WON’T DO IT . no , she won’t lower herself to that level & be like him . even after every brutal hit this world has thrown at her she mustn’t grow cruel & bitter like him . she must keep hope & light . for what is the point of being a hero if you allow yourself to turn towards the dark the moment life gets too much to bear . perhaps that’s where the two of them are different . & thats why she chooses to drop the knife to the floor with a thud .
DESPITE EVERYTHING ; despite the lies & the betrayal , despite the harsh words he spat into her face kairi finds herself unable to sever whatever this bond between them is . maybe it’s because he was the first one that she had when she had no one , maybe it’s because she can’t let go , or maybe she desperately hopes that deep deep down there’s a piece of him that wants to do good & be good . despite everything she can’t let herself give up on him . therefore she can’t follow through & end this story for the both of them .
ONLY NOW DO THE TEARS begin to come , falling from her eyes to her cheeks as she turns away from him & begins to walk away . it’s not an act of mercy but an act of hope . that maybe just maybe she can really get through to him . ❛ get out of here while you still can . ❜ the words are stony & firm but the small crack in her voice reveals exactly how effected she is from all of this . ❛ i doubt the others will be as inclined to spare you as me . ❜ with that she runs off in the other direction , tears falling unbidden as she wipes her eyes with her sleeve . she refuses to look back at him . she can’t bear to look at his face again .
#long post#gorot#* // HE MAY BE A PRINCE & SHE A PRINCESS BUT THIS IS NOT THE WORLD OF FAIRYTALES . THIS WORLD IS COLD & HARD & BLEAK ( gorot. )#* // A PRINCESS AMONG PHANTOMS ( v11. )#idk what to tag this bc its not a thread but yknow
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