#and the biggest support they have is each other uwaaahh

[cherubchoirs]

Hello, I just found your account a few days ago, and to putting it lightly, I’m obsessed. I love all your AUs, and they just remind me of why I love the first two persona games and the smt games so much. They just have the same feel. I was wondering if I could know a bit more about Akira and Akechi’s relationship in the Godhunter AU.

aaaa thank you so much!! this is exactly why i know i need to get into the first two games and the smt series - they always sound like they’d vibe with me exactly whenever i hear about them, which makes sense since a few ppl have told me my aus have similar beats skdfhsfd but yes omg i’d be happy to ramble about these two!!

the two of them meet pretty much just like in canon - goro, in order to explore yaldabaoth’s plane, needs to be in the public eye and so he works as a tv personality akira gets to meet on a school trip. goro’s super interesting to him given how he’s attracted to anything people are invested in, so akira’s eager to get to know a person like him who’s garnered so much attention and adoration from the public. on goro’s end, akira is strikingly different from anyone he’s spoken with - he doesn’t seem put off by goro’s fame and he’s insightful, eccentric but in a way that’s refreshing. it makes them both decide to stay in contact given their similar ages beside and they quickly grow increasingly interested and invested in one another - akira is fascinated by goro’s sharp mind, his perceptive nature and strength of will, but he knows he harbors deep sadness and anger in him, something akira naturally wants to help. and goro enjoys akira’s surprising perspectives, how he seems obsessed with anything popular but not at all in a shallow sense, waxing all philosophical on the newest trends. i think akira falls in love first, ecstatic with the emotion and so happy, if a bit confused and oblivious at first, about experiencing a feeling so treasured by humans...but more than that is his own personal joy in it, how just being with goro makes his heart feel as though it will burst. goro is more reserved, not believing he has the time or the want to fall in love, worried that his life is too dangerous to involve who he believes to be a normal high schooler in it...however, akira is anything but average to him, he feels so much newer than everyone he spends his time with, than every other person he sees day after day. but it’s that quality that makes him act with caution, how different akira is and how much more plain it is to see the deeper and deeper they fall in with one another. i think goro falls in love without noticing, they’re together before he realizes and he knows he must just be paranoid thinking akira could be the god he’s looking for. after all, why would he put himself in so much danger if that were the case? why would he openly approach goro, why would he want a relationship unless he was that twisted? it’s inconsistent with what they understand about him and so he puts it out of his mind, he tries to enjoy akira for who he is and besides...he has friends, he goes to school and likes all the things any other teenage kid would like...he has a dad, even if goro’s never seen him.

however, when goro receives information that god likely has a child with him, he knows who akira is and who his absent father is. it breaks his heart but, once he confirms it by following akira to his home and confronting yaldabaoth for the first time, their relationship (obviously) becomes infinitely more complicated. goro’s actually the one that initiates their reconnection, and now with everything out in the open, with goro unsure how to advance and akira unsure how else to move forward, they begin to learn from (and fight with) one another. they still value what they’ve always loved in the other, but things are much more complex than they would like - goro can see akira cares deeply for humans, his sympathy in fact runs much deeper than most people, but at the same time he needs to make him understand how privileged and disconnected he really is. yes, he lives with humans now but he’s still above them, he will never understand their pain fully as he can’t. and for akira, while he initially immediately hates what goro stands for on principle, he begins to learn the hurt his father actually has caused, how he may indeed be responsible for the pain many humans go through. goro’s pain is legitimate, his grievances make sense, and in turn, goro learns that akira does care and how cruel it would be to kill yaldabaoth. a tension inevitably remains between them, but goro soon knows he can’t go through with the one thing he was raised to do while akira believes more and more that he needs to be the one to hold his father responsible and make him change. they’re deeply in love by then and they both know by how much they have been willing to accept, willing to change for the other.

still, i think their dynamic overall stays pretty much the same - goro’s much more serious and protective while akira tends to be cocky and laid back, although both of them are absolutely just as competitive in this au as they are in canon lol but that’s kind of the part one and part two of their relationship, although afterwards it continues to change - there’s a time when they’re alone as akira needs to live with goro since his dad is reduced to his grail form and then after sophia shows up, things get even MORE complicated around them...but i think that’s when they really become each other’s anchor, the support they have for one another turning fully unshakeable as things get...pretty uncertain