#i also really like naoto and kanji and rise and narukami. even if he's just a protag. idk his bowl cut's goofy... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

m0e-ru · 2 years ago

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HI dumb silly liveblog im putting into tumblr post format from a year ago. P4GA vol 4 drama cd "Boo ~ I bear a grudge on you ~" featuring !!! the investigation team +marie horror summer school trip adventures. dojima and adachi at the pub. naoto getting scared to death again.

i am not fluent in JP and i just did this for fun the best i can i hope you can comprehend it at least. here's where i listened to it !!! please listen to it it has all the audio cues and context and it's part of the experience !! it's really fun

youtube

September 27, 2021

10:17 PM

synopsis: the IT is trying out summer activities with marie :)

the track: /kids screaming yelling/ /adachi at the pub/ /kids screaming and yelling/

10:18 PM

i mean it also did say 'a test of courage' so i get why'd they be scaring each other but why does golden always love to pick on naoto

10:21 PM

narukami going 'yosuke....goochab (good job)' was cute actually

10:30 PM

from what i can comprehend so far, the IT's on summer break and want more stuff to do and decide to have this 'test of courage' by hanging around yasogami in the middle of the night with marie

they all pull straws and walk around in pairs depending who they pull and theyre narukami and marie, yosuke and rise, kanji and yukiko, then teddie and chie

10:30 PM

i dont wanna rewind rn but yosukes like 'haha im with risette im gonna scare her in revenge (of something, i couldnt catch it)' but shes being a girlboss and sharing her own horror story of something that happened in a film set and yosuke's like '(we are walking in the dark hallways of this school) ths is fine im a brave boy totally haha'

10:32 PM

their segment ended off with 'aww senpai but it's toootally real !!' and wind wooshing and thumping noises scare yosuke and rise's just 'oh thats just the windows. haha hanamura-senpai's a scaredy cat' and all he could do was laugh nervously

10:32 PM

oh tebbi footsteps

10:34 PM

oh he uses watashi?my little mascot bear i never noticed from all the third person or this is a golden thing

10:36 PM

i... couldnt understand what happened. teddie's paired with chie but he was busy scaring each other like 'wh...what if this happens' and chie's like 'omgg!!!stop!!!!' then something scared the two but all i could understand were zipper sounds and punching

10:53 PM

okok so it's dojima and adachi at the pub with dojima already a bit woozy and adachi sober for the sake of keeping his boss in check and we get some mamasan interaction!! (mama-san is what you call the lady bartender at the pub)

anywho, dojima's complaining about naoto being 'prodigy detective' and 'the kubo kid' and almost smacking the soul out of adachi's body while adachi responds like a good subordinate listening to his boss' drunken complaining

it's concerning to know that he made his own cup (mug?) overflow with adachi's concerning 'dojimasan--stop, stop!' and even reminding him about...nanako

keeping him together with the thought of his daughter and hes like 'nanako....' while adachi gets a call about how dojima's doing and while acting in disbelief that his boss going off again when accused and he gets hung up on and he just finds dojima asleep and. yeah.

look, i also forget adachi and dojima's dynamic whether adachi's genuine or not, dojima is right to be grateful for his company woww a pair of besties if i see one

10:54 PM

im only halfway through this disc and i havent even heard marie for the second time but i know she screams

10:55 PM

omg it's kanji and yukiko ohhh she sounds so excited like 'ohh creepy dark hallways this is so fun dont u think so my dear kouhai'

10:55 PM

'whether it'd be a monster or a Shadow i'll fight it' hi kanji

11:00 PM

ohh my vocab is failing me but some lovey dovey dialogue is going down and kanji's misunderstanding it but yukiko's like 'i love.,.,.,.,scary things (I THINK)'

they enter a room and yukiko's like 🗿 and kanji's like 'senpai¿?' and yukiko's like 'ok yeah whatever——OH PIANO' and she plays a few keys sounding creepy something something midnight something something

kanji keeps talking and yukiko just slams on the piano and goes 'kanji.....kanji....!' and she laughs over some pun i couldnt understand

11:04 PM

ok yukiko keeps laughing over the piano and banging on the keys and kanji's 'what if satonaka senpai and the others hear this' and yukiko goes all monotone again like 'you hear that' it;s footsteps

and she slides open the door and kanji's like 'wtf amagi senpai' and she sprints out and he chases after her 'SENPAI????'

11:06 PM

omg,.,.., mari,.,...,.,.,.,narukami asks 'are you scared?' and she's like 'whats a scared?' like her usual genuine unknowingness

11:09 PM

ohh thats so cute narukami's like 'watch this' and in yosuke and rise pov does yosuke get a call from him and rise's like 'yusenpai???!!!' as usual but all he does is breathe into the phone all creepily and while theyre distracted marie sneaks up on them and goes 'boo' and the two lose their minds screaming jskdfasfgwyefgasf

11:10 PM

narukami: so how was it, marie?

marie: it was...fun

narukami: right?

yosuke: WHAT DO YOU MEAN "RIGHT"???

11:11 PM

SHE WANTS TO DO IT AGAIN OOOOHH.,..,.,.,.,MARI HORROR GIRL SUMMER

11:16 PM

from what i can understand it's like chie hid into teddie's costume along with him and hes just having a hard time moving around. hes the only one who can see though and these two are a bunch of scaredy cats (bears) where teddie's like 'theres a-a-a g-g-g-guy'

11:19 PM

before marie finishes her creepy chant, chie loses it and starts kicking and punching inside the costume screaming, but once she unzips it shes like 'YOU GUYS?????'

then narukami's like 'do you hear the other disembodied voice next to you' and teddie's just Dead and while chie's apologizing hes like 'ahh..sharing chie-chan's warmth was such an experience.,.,. i thought i could see the light (from almost dying??????)'

11:22 PM

it's kanji trying to look for yukiko like 'amagi senpaaaaai where are youuuuuu' and marie tries to scare him and he's like 'oaugh. u n senpai tryin to scare me?' and marie's like 'aw geez, old timer' 'im NOT old'

11:22 PM

seven more minutes to this

11:28 PM

kanji goes 'so have you seen amagi senpai?' and narukami immediately tells everyone else 'new goal (idk what the initial one was) let's look for amagi' and oHHHH marie

shes running with the IT and shes like 'im making a memory...my heart feels....' AND THE V ROOM MUSIC BOX STARTS PLAYING AND SHE STARTS MAKING A POEM ON THE SPOT OHHH,.,.,I LOVE HERSO MUCHH

something something kami, shinigami, any god out there, heart something something "forever dreamer" AAAUAUGHGHGHGHG....

and narukami's talking about yukiko totally unrelated to marie, to which she snaps back into reality tsundere screaming 'NOOO NAAHH I WASNT WRITING ANYTHING NOO STUPIDIDIOTIHATEYOU'

11:32 PM

ohh wait they split up lmao so marie's alone and she just heard narukami in her head. anyway theres no one around and she heard something and shes like 'ANYONE?? DOES ANYONE HEAR ME??' and it cuts to narukami, who kanji followed, finding yukiko and hearing marie yelling

theres a weak exhale, as if the person's dead, and kanji's like 'naoto¿??'

11:35 PM

back to adachi in the pub getting a call about naoto and hes like 'yeah yeah yup yup i got it' ending the call he does his usual 'everything's such a pain' then dojima's heard snoring. adachi asks for beer and ponzu and mamasan talks up and goes 'oh it's all a pain, you say. but it's not like you hate it all either, do you?' FUCK OFF

11:38 PM

golden loves bullying naoto huh like the golden anime christmas special wasnt enough

11:43 PM

anyway, new scene where the IT apologize to naoto and they go on a fit with stuff like 'why are you here??? you couldve damaged schoool property????youre all idiots!!!' and something about being at yasogami because of uhh,., adachi?

WAIT SO 'shin-chan' FROM THE FIRST CALL WAS REAL??? SHIROGANEKUN.,.,.,,.,.,.brb strangling adachi for a bit

then a loony cartoon sfx and we're into naoto's pov flashback where they kept running into the IT and accidentally scaring each other starting from yukiko banging on the piano and laughing, being the first one to scare chie and teddie,

and ultimately running away to be where marie is after they split up to find yukiko. from how naoto perceived it, she recites her poem rather,.,.,.,ghoulishly and finally they drop dead on the spot, which was the thump marie heard

11:46 PM

loony cartoon sfx plays again and the flashback is over and rise's like 'aww but all that matters is that youre fine!' and naoto's still in a daze back to yelling 'NO, SCHOOL IS A PLACE TO STUDY AND YOURE ALL MORONS' and the fun time montage plays and fin

11:51 PM

ok thats it for my sucky tl liveblog oh wait heres the thing https://youtu.be/PasKTZtKx

#p4 #tee el #sulululat #drama track #// hi okyakusantachi our tv broke so im revving up the disc player now #// it was 2021 sorry if my vernacular and typing is annoying im sure it got worse now though

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daxieoclock · 2 years ago

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{h} VANE I HAD A COOL THOUGHT. u have to mix up the persona protags (3-5) and put them with a different group. up to u if this is for the plot of their game or with the group established. who goes with who and why and how do they fit into the dynamic

!!!! That’s such a cool idea!!! I’m gonna do what comes to mind and just swap from the very start, cut and paste sorta dealio

Hm hm hm…I’ll assume that Minako and Minato are a package deal, so they’d both get moved to that other group. And speaking of! Let’s start with them.

I think the Arisatos would both fit extremely well in the phantom thieves. Whether they’re siblings or a system, either way I think p5’s themes of rebellion versus sloth works really well for minato’s difficulties with moving forward, tending towards passivity and acceptance for a while, while minako’s upbeat personality could get them both through those early couple palaces but she would struggle more with the pervasive anxiety and depressing during the thieves’ kinda downswing from the end of the okumura arc until midway through the yaldy arc.

I would also really love to see their foiling with Akechi. Like. It wouldn’t them be the same as ren’s, but I think they could have some real fascinating interactions. Oh, and imagine how jazzed Futaba would be to have TWO cool and dorky older siblings. Dual wielding key items dhfhfg

Yu is probably the hardest one to fit in any persona game outside of his own, since he’s just…the most terminally unaffected character in the modern trilogy. The only other place that made sense for him would be in a game where he could be a background character, since he already kind of is in p4. So, even though it would probably be to the detriment of the game and story, I think he could manage alright enough in p3.

The thieves could operate autonomously if joker were a cardboard cutout, but ren’s role as leader is tantamount to their success, unity and continued ability to find new thieves. SEES on the other hand…I mean, it would be a less compelling game, but Arisato isn’t a linchpin of their ability to actually function. They’re important to the members of SEES, but not necessarily to the existence of the team itself.

So I think Narukami could do fine enough just standing in the background and being a bland motivational speaker. Like we didn’t need or even want a second Junpei, but at least he could help by being the one trauma-free ally in the friend group who helps make sure things get done.

And now. The fun one. Ren in Persona 4. This could go one of two ways. Either nothing significant changes and Ren is fucking miserable the whole time like Naoto and Kanji and Rise but at least he’s a good mystery solver, cause he’s smart and clever and in his own game was set up as a foil to a literal actual detective.

And! The fact that the “foil” style villain of p4 is a COP makes a ton more sense for Ren than yu. Like Adachi still doesn’t foil Ren directly, but he’d be a great fakeout final antagonist, the avatar of the primary villain being a police officer makes sense and would push Ren to his limits. So that’s already an improvement. He’d also be a fantastic big brother to nanako, even though his bond with dojima would be a lot more strained.

But assuming some aspects of the story would change to cater to this new protagonist…g-d the game could be so good actually. Like Ren helping be that emotional core for the investigation team, bonding with naoto (transmasc to transmasc communication), helping both support and defend his new friends without allowing any of their occasional bullshit, it could really lead the team towards an ending where they all are happy and comfortable in themselves and feel genuinely at home in this new found family unit, rather than how canon feels where everyone is all smiles and good times and then as soon as they drift apart even a centimeter the entire team fractures in half irreparably.

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systematicallycapricious · 3 years ago

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Persona x Soul Eater AU

Spoilers for Personas 3-5 (and their remakes FES, Golden, and Royal), PQ1 (Shadow of the Labyrinth), and the P4: Arena series below, as well as the Soul Eater and Soul Eater: Not! anime (and potentially manga? it’s been a while, so I forget)!

Cast (We = Weapon, M = Meister, H = Human, Wi = Witch, O = Other):

SEES:

Minato Arisato - M | Aigis - Multiform-We | Ryoji Mochizuki - We

Minako Arisato - M | Yukari Takeba - We | Ryoji Mochizuki - We | Aigis - Multiform-We

Junpei Iori - M | Chidori Yoshino - We (presently)

Akihiko Sanada - M or We? | Shinjiro Aragaki We or M?

Mitsuru Kirijo - We (Meisterless and badass; probably a rapier?)

Ken Amada - M | Koromaru - We (a non-human Weapon)

Fuuka Yamagishi - Wi (??? animal)

Investigation Team:

Yu Narukami - M | Teddie - We (potentially a non-human Weapon)

Yosuke Hanamura - M | Labrys - Multiform-We

Chie Satonaka - We or M? | Yukiko Amagi M or We?

Kanji Tatsumi - M? | Naoto Shirogane - We?

Rise Kujikawa - Wi (??? animal)

Phantom Thieves:

Ren Amamiya - M | Morgana - We

Ryuji Sakamoto - M or We? | Yuuki Mishima We or M?

Yusuke Kitagawa - M | Ann Takamaki - We (a whip)

Makoto Nijima - We or M? | Haru Okumura - M or We?

Goro Akechi - M | Robin Hood - We (a bow) | Loki - We (a greatsword)

Kasumi Yoshizawa - M | Sumire Yoshizawa - We (a ribbon wand)

Futaba Sakura - Wi (??? animal)

Etc:

Daisuke Nagase - We or M? | Kou Ichijo - M or We?

Rei - H

Zen - We, H, or maybe O?

Takuto Maruki - H

Sho - M | Minazuki - We (separate entities in this; Minazuki's a katana)

Shuji Ikutsuki - H

Takaya Sakaki - M | Jin Shirato - We | Chidori Yoshino - We (formerly)

Marie/Izanami-no-Mikoto - Wi (??? animal)

More Notes:

The 'Wild Cards' in this just have really good partnership/Resonance abilities with everyone in their groups, so they can work with any of the Weapons in their groups (and even outside of them a lot of times... looking at Ren and Loki for an example. xP) uncannily naturally.

The Navis in this are all Witches, but good-natured ones, and use their magic to support their respective groups/help make the world a better place. For example, Futaba would probably be able to 'hack' souls somehow with her magic, and also her reclusiveness in this would be at least in part due to being terrified of people finding out her true nature as a Witch. I'm not sure how welcomed/persecuted/the general climate of Witches are/is in this AU yet though.

The Arisato twins and Ryoji are all children of Death in this, with Ryoji being the older sibling and the twins being twins. Death is still Death like he is in SE-OG in this AU, more or less.

Ryoji and Aigis tend to float between Minato and Minako as their secondary partners, though Aigis tends to stick more to Minato as his primary partner and much less often swaps to Minako, while Ryoji shifts between his two siblings more frequently. Yukari swaps about as much as the rest of SEES's Weapons do among their Wild Cards, which is more or less situationally or for fun. Despite this, Aigis and Ryoji still don't get along particularly well with one another, only putting up with each other for their Meisters' sakes.

Strega did exist in this, though I'm not sure yet what their aim was, or the fate of its members. At the very least, they were some kind of rogue antagonist group, and Takaya used to be the Meister of both Jin and Chidori. Chidori ends up defecting to DWMA though, or whatever organization Junpei is a part of.

Aigis, maybe Ryoji?, Mitsuru, Labrys, and Minazuki are all Weapons that can fight without Meisters. Loki and/or Robin Hood might also be among them? I'm undecided.

Originally, I was considering having the cast have their Personas as their Weapon-partners, and just have them have personalities based off of their Shadow-selves' but more aligned with their accepted-selves, but I decided against it in the end. Akechi gets to be the exception, because he's Akechi.

Speaking of Akechi-- Robin and Loki are very powerful Weapons in this AU. Loki's 'chaos magic' would become an incredibly chaotic/maddening soul-wavelength that most others wouldn't be able to handle contact with on its own, as well as perhaps some Madness magic or abilities of some kind? Robin's soul meanwhile would be much calmer and help to counteract/cover-up Loki's from those who can sense souls, as well as perhaps provide some tactical abilities; I'm undecided on that for now. I'm not sure who's side Akechi would be on in this AU yet, like if he was being manipulated by a Shido-like person or not, and for what reason if so.

As for Robin and Loki's personalities and appearances in this... Well, the latter would be somewhat similar to their Persona forms probably, including some of the less-human traits given OG-SE characters (*stares intensely at Excalibur*), and the former would also be somewhat based off of those, as well as sort of how Akechi acts in relation to both of his 'masks'? So Robin tends to be calmer and more polite, though he still possesses a small amount of vengeful desire or bloodlust, whilst Loki is a lot more chaotic, hot-blooded, and very vengeful/aggressive. Both share a tendency towards showiness however, and sometimes get in small competitions with one another to up the other to impress their Meister or be the better Weapon among themselves (since they both might think already that they're superior to other Weapons in general? Unsure).

Also speaking of manipulated and abused children, Sho and Minazuki, alongside Ikutsuki, more or less replace Crona, Ragnarok, and Medusa in this. Not fully 1-for-1 however. Ikutsuki is very much a human, albeit a Mad or power-hungry one (still kinda looking to create a Kishin or otherwise bring about some kind of catastrophic destruction), and Minazuki is a separate Weapon, as opposed to how Ragnarok is Crona's Black Blood. Minazuki and Sho might be twins however, just with one a human/Meister and the other a Weapon. They look almost identical physically in this AU, even down to haircuts, but Minazuki lacks the iconic X-ish shaped face scarring that Sho possesses (and overall the two have a different patterning of scars across their bodies), and Sho's irises appear to be more gray while Minazuki's appear to be more blue. Weapon-form-wise, Minazuki looks like Sho's OG katanas, just in different colors and as a singular blade rather than a pair.

Ikutsuki is still forcing Sho and Minazuki to become stronger in similar methods to Medusa in some ways however, such as going out and obtaining/consuming great amounts of human (and maybe even Witch) souls.

Sho's a little less messed-up than Crona is, due to Minazuki being supportive of and dedicated to him as opposed to bullying him into submission like Ragnarok does to Crona. That being said however, I don't yet know why Minazuki hasn't yet defected from Ikutsuki. P: Other than that, Minazuki is kind of like Sho's impulse control and logical reasoning at times, due to being able to control when he transforms into his Weapon form and thus deny Sho access to his weaponry in times where he's being reckless or unreasonable. Soul-wavelengths-wise, too, Minazuki's soul just in general helps to keep Sho's soul/wavelength more stable probably?

Also in terms of replacing SE cast and plots; The IT replaces Maka et al for the sake of the main story most likely, with SEES being their upperclassmen or alumni and the PT being their underclassmen, if they even attend DWMA at this point anyways.

Lotsa dead people in OG are alive in this AU; Minato, Minako, and Ryoji, Shinjiro, Kasumi, etc.

Speaking of Kasumi; she fights kind of like Sumire does in Royal, that being making use of their gymnastics and priorly-athletic builds. Both sisters are gymnists in this still.

Alternatively, Sho and Minazuki's situations almost ended up reversed, leaving a highly impulsive/aggressive Weapon-Sho and a Meister-Minazuki who would have the kinda backwards idealology of trying to protect his Weapon partner in times where it would be best left to the Weapon to defend their Meister, but also really good at getting Sho to focus when wielding him as a weapon/in resonance (and can in general reign him in to some degree while others can't), making them an exceedingly deadly duo. I kind of prefer Minazuki as the Weapon however, as fun as the reverse could be, as it gives Ikutsuki a bit more leverage over Sho's situation I think? Also in that vein, it would make a lot of sense, given OG, for Minazuki to be more like a Black Blood entity like Ragnarok; however, I like Minazuki being able to have his own body in this, so that can be left for another AU perhaps. xP

Ikutsuki would infiltrate/be trusted by the DWMA in this AU at first, like Medusa was, but eventually get outed for his true intentions most likely. He might be a teacher or other kind of faculty rather than a nurse however?

Maruki meanwhile gets to play the role of school nurse in this. He's not a few screws loose like his Royal counterpart is though, he's just a humble nurse. However, he does still have his interest in researching dangerous subjects, though I haven't yet decided if that would be magic, Witches, Madness, Kishins, or what. It could potentially put him in knowing-contact with the Navis, if they aren't already known to be Witches by the DWMA anyways.

I'm not yet sure on what to do with Adachi or Nyx yet. Nyx might be some kind of Madness-related catastrophe, power, or individual perhaps however?

Rei and Zen are probably just civilians in this. Zen just happens to be really devoted to protecting/looking after(?) Rei still. xD

I'm undecided on if Marie should be amnesiac about her Witchhood or if she should be more like Izanami-no-Mikoto from OG in this.

Yusuke is still obsessed with artistry and beauty in this, so you can imagine what he's like as a Meister. He is still capable as a fighter and dependable when needed... more or less, but is also still easily distracted by, and places higher priority on, such things.

Ryuji kinda gets the short end of the stick because I didn't particularly know who to pair him with or what really to do with him at the moment. Mishima's a big tentative as his partner as a result of that, though I think it could prove to be an interesting relationship potentially.

I'm hoping to add more SL/Confidant and secondary/tertiary/background cast peeps eventually into various roles, but I'd need to do more refreshing/research on them first. I also haven't decided on if I should include Metis in this or not.

If the SE info is inaccurate, it's because I haven't seen the anime or read-up on it in like years. I might do clarifying/fact-checking research some day, but for now, nah. xP

#Capri's Persona-AU Musings #Persona series #Persona 3 #Persona 4 #Persona 4 Arena #Persona 4 Arena Ultimax #Persona 5 #Persona Q: SotL #Soul Eater #Persona x SE AU #pretty much involves the casts of all of those games #not the SE cast really though as it's more using the setting of SE with the Persona cast; sorry folks

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uselesslesbiab · 3 years ago

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I was looking thru your tags and give me your analysis on Rise. I want to like her more and she started off really strong, but i feel then she kind got demoted to Senpai Simp and I wish she didn’t. I wish they explored her character more.

I don’t really know why but I always took Rise’s flirting as like mostly a joke but it seems like a lot of people don’t really agree with me?? A lot of people either fucking hate her for it or think she’s annoying but idk I thought it was pretty funny. International pop sensation just constantly flirts with the blandest dude on planet earth and ignores all her other suitors. Congratulations all Risette stans you got beat out by a 17 year old dude with a bowl cut with gray hair who dresses like he’s 63 with a pension and got kicked in the balls last week by his asshole grandson when he tried to take him fishing.

Besides the Narukami slander I really believe Rise is a good character and it sucks that a lot of people don’t look past her flirting and stuff. I just view it mostly as her joking or just that she’s a very affectionate person. She also has flirty lines with Naoto, Chie, Yukiko, Kanami, and even Kanji (rarely, he mostly shuts her down but it’s still there). She’s just kinda like that with everyone she loves her friends.

This rant kinda didn’t make sense but I guess my point is I don’t really see her as “Senpai Simp” as much as just a very affectionate girl who’s very attached to her friends. There are a lot of aspects about her character that I wish they explored more but we already got a whole spinoff game based around her so I don’t think we’ll get a whole lot more. Maybe a shitty light novel that no one likes or regards as canon cough cough DxN cough

#persona 4 #rise kujikawa #this was just an excuse for me to talk about how Rise is not straight lmao #Rise flirts with the girls more than the guys

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yourfavisirredeemable · 4 years ago

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souyo angst - post-true ending

y’all the souyo tag has been more active than I’ve seen it in a long time (I think cause of the PC release) which makes me happier than I can measure. I’ve loved persona 4 ever since 8th grade and souyo really is my favorite ship of all time. in celebration, here’s a bunch of angst headcanons I’ve been holding onto for 5 years, specifically related to the izanami battle/true ending. (they’re actually not necessarily souyo-specific, but since I ship souyo they kinda have that overall vibe)

- do y’all really think yu narukami is just gonna come away from that battle with izanami/being trapped in a time loop illusion for an untold period of time and NOT bring any trauma with him? cause I don’t

- specifically, he can’t get rid of a horrible, nagging thought that follows him even after the IT celebrates their victory - what if this is all still part of izanami’s illusion? izanami could have just nested an illusion inside of an illusion, and that way, she can defeat him without him even knowing it

- which would mean, of course, that his friends are all still dead and he’s just living it up with a bunch of illusions. his friends sacrificed themselves for him, while he gets to live out his summer days in peace surrounded by a perfect simulation.

- that thought is terrifying to him, and it only grows over time. there’s the horror of nothing being real and his friends being dead, compounded with the guilt of having abandoned them and the helplessness of never being able to know the truth. he has the cold realization one night that he’ll never again know for certain that the world he’s living in is the real one.

- but he tries to keep it to himself and act like he normally does. after all, if he can’t ever know for sure, why worry about it? this world is probably the real one - his friends seem normal, time keeps flowing like it usually does, and even the velvet room seems the same as it was before

- as hard as he tries, his doubts and fears are really impacting his mental health, which eventually affects the way he acts. it’s subtle, but the others eventually notice it - yosuke does first, since he knows yu the best.

- he notices that whenever there’s a silence, yu will stare off into space with a strained and even slightly fearful expression. he’s worried, but he just tries to be there for his partner like normal, figuring he’ll talk to him if he needs someone to rely on

- rise notices the dark circles under his eyes and asks about them, to which yu nonchalantly responds that his part time work keeps him a little busy. chie notices that he doesn’t seem to have as much fun when they work out or watch movies, and yukiko notices the way he starts withdrawing from conversations until he’s standing at the edge of the group, even quieter than normal.

- teddie and kanji don’t notice anything on their own, but eventually those who have started to get worried bring it up with the rest of the group. naoto, of course, has noticed everything, but nothing in yu’s behavior has indicated it’s anything worse than blues about leaving inaba or stress from work

- yu, for his part, realizes that his friends probably know something’s up, but every day he feels less and less motivated to tell them what’s actually wrong. after all, what would he even say - I’m afraid all of you are illusions, and my real friends are already dead?

- plus, there’s the fact that saying his fears out loud would somehow make them feel more real. so instead, he tries to ignore them, and only spirals more

- he starts feeling really scared when he finds himself having the occasional violent thought toward his own friends - if the real yosuke’s dead, why should this illusion get to live? how dare an illusion pretend to be his best friend?

(more specific headcanons/fic ideas under the cut)

- imo, the possibilities for this headcanon are endless. you can take your hurt/comfort as far as you want it to go (personally, I love projecting my mental illness onto fictional characters so full depression/anxiety is definitely on the table), and the timeframe means any fics could be set either before or after he leaves inaba

- personally, I think it could be interesting if he returns to the TV world, perhaps to look for answers or just to blow off some steam, and finds out his shadow’s gotten loose again. which would ofc mean that now he’s trapped in the TV world with no persona, a shadow that for sure wants to kill him, and a dungeon of his own forming around him

- (btw, I know the TV world changes after the fight with izanami, but I think since it still exists and the IT still has personas, they can still have shadows as well)

- this would be an interesting way for the IT to find out what’s really been happening. they would notice yu missing and eventually check the TV world, whereupon they would find an entire dungeon and see yu’s shadow for the first time.

- the dungeon, I think, would have a lot of different elements - recurring rooms from dojima’s house to represent the time loop he was trapped in, an origami version of inaba to represent how everything seems fake, etc.

- as for his shadow, since I love to go full angst, I think it would be absolutely vicious. it represents the nagging belief that everything’s fake, his hatred toward himself for “abandoning” his friends and living a happy lie, and his hatred toward the IT for being illusions meant to replace his dead friends

- as a result, it would try to kill yu almost immediately after manifesting and attack the IT on sight. this would be particularly devastating for yosuke - he only found out that saki hated him (x to doubt, I’m still not convinced she actually didn’t like him but that’s another post) through her shadow, so being immediately attacked by yu’s shadow would be heartbreaking

- yu’s shadow wouldn’t feel any need to explain itself to an illusion, so it would just silently and violently attack him with a look of pure hatred. which would be a confirmation of his worst fear, that yu secretly doesn’t think of him as a partner or an equal, and in fact doesn’t even think of him as a friend.

- but of course he would soldier on, determined to save yu even in light of his “true” feelings. the rest of the IT would also bring up the fact that they don’t know the full story yet, and there could be a reasonable explanation for why yu’s shadow is so violent

- since I love to make my favorite characters suffer, I also like to headcanon that eventually yu would let his shadow kill him. or at least almost kill him, since the IT busts down the door before it’s too late, but at that point he’s unconscious and in no shape to accept or reject his shadow

- (he didn’t accept it before even though he knew he should because he didn’t want to accept his violent urges toward himself and especially toward his friends)

- so basically the IT just has to grab yu and run. I was thinking this headcanon through and my brain was like ‘why not throw in some extra souyo angst,’ so a barely conscious yu might pull a reverse uno card on yosuke and sacrifice himself to protect him, unwilling to let his friend sacrifice himself again

- which would ofc make things even worse for yosuke. aside from the obvious, there’s the confusion arising from the fact that yu’s shadow tried to kill him, but yu himself was willing to sacrifice his life for him

- either way, I think yu would be barely alive by the time they make it out of the TV world. from there it’s just a matter of him recuperating enough to go back in and accept his shadow, which is complicated by the fact that essentially being split in half across two dimensions is definitely not healthy.

- there’s plenty of angst in the recovery process, but this post is already super long and I wanna get into some of my other thoughts

- just a quick aside, I think as a perhaps less angsty headcanon yu might just be extra averse to yosuke sacrificing himself after they win against izanami, especially in the animated version where I think only yosuke sacrifices himself instead of all of their friends

- so the next time yosuke tries to sacrifice himself for yu he’d get an earful, maybe even accompanied by a breakdown where yosuke realizes how badly he scared his partner during the fight with izanami

- anyway, I also have a fun night in the woods-type idea relating to this - after yu leaves inaba, nothing seems real to him to the point that it actively breaks down his mental health

- it’s only when he returns to inaba or is with someone from inaba that the world doesn’t just look like a grayscale mesh of unsubstantial shapes

- which could lead to something interesting if yosuke (or your yu narukami pairing of choice) comes to visit him at his college dorm and finds it an absolute mess or barely decorated at all with a depressed yu inside, or if yu drops out of college entirely to return to inaba, baffling his friends and family because he was at a really good college and had a great future ahead of him, or if he returns to inaba and is terrified to find that sometimes it’s in grayscale too, or-

- the point is I’ve thought a lot about this and I love both persona 4 and night in the woods so I think it’s fun

- there’s also plenty of potential for yu to just break down and tell his friends what’s wrong in the real world before he leaves inaba, which could make for a great hurt/comfort oneshot

- all in all, I think yu would have definitely been traumatized by living in a time loop for who knows how long and there’s a lot of potential there. (don’t ask me about what I think would happen if margaret hadn’t gotten him out of the time loop cause that’s an even longer even darker post. or maybe do ask me)

anyway, I know the souyo fandom probably still isn’t exactly popping off but I hope anyone who finds this post enjoys it!

#persona 4 #souyo #yu narukami #yosuke hanamura #souji seta #headcanons #fic ideas #this has been in my brain for so long y'all believe me this is the short version #long post #tw suicide #tw depression #tw anxiety

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thecottageinthedark · 4 years ago

Text

Sorting Persona 4

Here again with another Sorting Hat Chats post! This one’s for Persona 4. Full disclaimer; this is based just on the game, not the anime. Also it’s behind a cut cause it is LONG. And has spoilers.

The system I’m using is explained here by @wisteria-lodge.

The Persona 4 MC, whose name is either Souji Seta or Yu Narukami depending on which supplemental materials you go by, is a really REALLY loud Badger secondary. His power is based on making Social Links with NPCs and shifting to become whatever they need-and also on patiently grinding to level up his attributes. And because he lives so much in this secondary-plus the fact that on a meta level he’s kind of a stand-in for the player-his Primary is hard to see.

But where it gets revealed in the end is the decisive moment when the ending you’re going to get is decided. The Investigation Team have discovered that Namatame’s been putting people into the TV, and thus are assuming he’s the murderer-and it’s become horribly personal, because one of the people he did that to was Nanako, and even though she’s been rescued, she’s deathly ill thanks to the TV World’s poison.

And now you-and the MC-have a choice. The IT are baying for Namatame’s blood, ready to kill. One Badger Primary method would be to appeal to the fact that he’s a person, you can’t just kill people….but nobody’s listening. Another would be to dehumanise him and say, he’s a murderer, he needs to die for the sake of everyone-going along with all the fury of the group. A Lion would lash out too-less because everyone’s doing it and more from their own gut feeling, but that would still lead to dead Namatame. A Snake might kill Namatame because he hurt Nanako...or, in the Golden remake, if they’ve done Adachi’s social link, they might cover for him. Either way, they’d be prioritising an inner circle member.

And all of those get you bad endings. Especially the Snake choice to cover for Adachi.

What gets the good ending, the happy ending where the MC is fulfilled and at peace, is to ignore all the emotion that’s running so high, and order everyone to step back and take time to think about whether the theory of Namatame being the killer makes sense. Pounce on the niggling little detail that doesn’t fit, and realise that the assumption everyone is labouring under isn’t true. And then prioritise the actual truth over personal loyalties or emotional reactions.

Bird Primary.

Because of course. This is a detective story. Your party are called both the Investigation Team and the Seekers of Truth. Even the title song hints at it; find the truth (Bird) by getting together with others (Badger).

Yosuke Hanamura’s a young, immature Snake Primary at game start, with the selfishness typical to that. His Shadow throws that back in his face, and he realises he doesn’t like being an asshole whose secret gut reaction to murders happening is ‘well at least I’m not bored anymore now something is happening in this dead-end town’.

So he does two things pretty much at the same time; he widens his inner circle to let in first Souji and then the rest of the IT, and he adds a model on top to let him care about things outside that circle. I think it’s a Lion model-a young Lion, just like his Snake, that edges into Glory Hound, but keeps hold of the idea that you should do certain things because they’re just right.

(It’s not based on the MC, though the MC is undoubtedly his most important person, who he even calls his partner. But then, as I said, the MC’s Bird is very quiet, so it’d be hard for Yosuke to perceive it well enough to mimic it. I think it’s actually based on Chie, who is after all the inner circle member he has known longest!)

And his secondary? Yosuke’s a support guy. He lifts his friends up. His family run Junes, and he leverages that connection to create a base location for the IT and secure a portal into the TV world that’s big enough to be usable. When Teddie comes to the human world, it’s Yosuke who gives him a place to stay. He’s a Badger secondary, and again, this makes perfect sense. The Lover sorting. No wonder so much of the fandom ships him with the MC.

Chie Satonaka is LOUD and BRASH and if you are a jerk she will KICK YOU IN THE FACE. She is so goddamn Lion Secondary, and utterly unapologetic about it.

Her primary, I think, is Lion again. The reason she has gotten possessive of Yukiko (as her Shadow calls her out on) isn’t that she wants Yukiko to be just hers-it’s that she wants to be Yukiko’s knight. Saving the princess is actually a textbook Lion cause. It lets her feel heroic and brave.

But that’s not good for either of them. Damsel in distress is a shitty role, one that doesn’t allow Yukiko to be strong and capable herself, and Chie pushing Yukiko into that role is really straining their relationship. It’s also something that Chie herself knows is wrong-that’s why her Shadow accuses her of it. (“I am a Shadow, the true self...”)

So instead Chie changes gears, because oh look a new Cause just popped up! Find the killer and bring them to justice! And on top of that, there’s always sexist prats to kick.

Yukiko Amagi models Badger Primary, because it’s expected of her. Running an inn is a really Badger kind of job. She also models Badger Secondary, for the same reasons. She feels this is who she’s meant to be; sweet, gentle, socially adept, community-focused and hard-working. The traditional Japanese ideal of womanhood.

But it chafes. The weight of societal expectations feels crushing. She doesn’t want to do stuff just because she’s meant to, because people think she should. She’s an Internal Primary, and needs to follow the voice of her own heart.

And where that heart leads her...is back to the Amagi Inn, except now she’s decided that she’s doing this for herself. She needed to feel that she could actually choose to not inherit the inn, before she could realise that she wanted to run it. She’s a Snake Primary, and the inn is important to her because it’s hers.

Her secondary...actually I get the feeling she’s like Toph Beifong of Avatar, a Snake who likes to spend most of her time in neutral. She is delightfully quirky and weird, and owns that, but she doesn’t charge like a Lion and she’s comfy with wearing masks when the situation calls for it.

Kanji Tatsumi panics at the idea that he might be gay, and caretakes like a boss, and that might look at first sight like a Double Badger who’s scared that he might be one of the people he’s used to dehumanising. His Shadow screams that it wants to be accepted...but what calms it is when Kanji himself accepts it, and says that this resolution is about being true to himself. Kanji’s a Double Lion who burnt his primary because being given shit for the feminine, queer-coded parts of himself made him lose faith in his internal compass, worrying that it was leading him somewhere that he viewed as bad. Internalised homophobia’s a bitch of a thing.

Accepting his Shadow is the start of Kanji healing his primary-letting go of shame for being an oddball and telling the world to go fuck itself if it thinks it can make him conform. He does model Badger Secondary-as I said, he caretakes like a boss-but that’s more a thing he does as a gift to others. When it comes to solving problems, he charges in swinging, ready to beat up anyone from biker gangs to otherworldly monsters.

Rise Kujikawa is a cheerful, shameless Snake Primary, loving and ambitious. She became an idol to make friends, and enjoys the fame it gets her. And when she needs to take a break for the sake of her mental health, she has no compunctions about doing so.

But she needed that break because the idol life was stressing her out-unsurprisingly, it’s a really intense life. And the particular problem she had was to do with the conflicting expectations the public has of celebrities. Perfection is demanded...but so is authenticity.

Rise realised that she was face-shifting as an integral part of her career, and this knowledge sent her into a tailspin. The fans don’t like the real Rise Kujikawa-they like Risette. But who is the real Rise Kujikawa? She doesn’t know! It’s frightening! What if she’s just made of smoke and mirrors? How does she find out what’s underneath?

And the answer she comes to is that there is no real Rise Kujikawa...which is the same as saying that there is no false one. Rise is Risette is Rise, it’s all just her, adapting to the context as she needs to. She’s a Badger Secondary, and the act of performance is the true self.

And for her, that’s a good answer-it brings her peace. But now we need to talk about Teddie.

Because just hearing Rise say ‘there’s no real me’ sends Teddie into a Shadow crisis right there.

He completely fucking loses it. He’s a denizen of the TV world-he’s been immune to it all this time, never manifesting a Shadow, but this is what breaks him. And that just screams Bird Lion. It’s his Buzz Lightyear moment-or rather his first Buzz Lightyear moment, because there are two. This is the first, and he survives it by retreating into his Secondary. It allows him to bring Shadow Teddie under control...but this isn’t sustainable. He’s realised something terrible and can’t avoid that knowledge indefinitely.

And soon enough he admits it to himself (and to the MC). He is a Shadow, that somehow became self-aware. His Truth was never true. He can’t handle it, he has no idea how to even exist, and he outright tells the MC that he intends to commit suicide.

He recovers, though-and he does so because the MC tells him Nanako survived. That’s the first thing that gives him a glimmer of hope, because his Truth already had some Snakey elements in there about chosen people and ambitions. He comes back from the brink, reshapes his system to centre those Snake principles, and returns to the side of his friends.

Lastly, Naoto Shirogane, our other queer-coded character. (I’m using she pronouns for the sake of canon here-but I’m a firm believer in nonbinary Naoto, for the record.) I think she’s a Bird secondary-the only one of those here, jeez. She’s just so analytical. She’s a rapid-fire Bird too, Detective Prince working on a case, squarely in the middle of her comfort zone. But push her out of it-into a normal teenager social situation, say-and watch her squirm!

She has a Bird Primary performance, too. But performance is the operative word here. She’s trying to look adult and smart and collected, in order to be taken seriously by the police officers she works with. And she is smart, mind you, but that’s not the why of her though it is the how. It’s not Naoto who goes ‘wait, let’s think about this, we need more information’ at the crucial point, but the MC, who really is a Bird Primary. Naoto was the one to suggest doing a little vigilante justice vis-a-vis murdering Namatame.

Her real Primary is Lion. Being a detective is a Cause for her, not a Truth, and she is blazingly certain of her own sense of what’s right-so much so that she doesn’t stop and check it against other people’s. And she inspires people! She doesn’t even mean to, and certainly doesn’t know why, but she is just so cool that people flock to her and admire her. ‘The Detective Prince’ is, when you think about it, a really Lion Bird kind of title!

Her Shadow has two issues with her. First, it harps on the gender angle. Hey, self, there’s that thing about your identity that you’ve been refusing to think about! You need to go poke at it! And then it breaks down into a scared child. Self, your performance is eating you alive. You need to do it, yes, the Cause demands it, but you also need to be able to stop sometimes and let yourself have emotions!

In short:

MC/Souji/Yu: Bird primary, Badger secondary

Yosuke: Snake primary, Badger secondary, models Lion primary

Chie: Lion primary, Lion secondary

Yukiko: Snake primary, Snake secondary, with Badger primary and secondary models that start out pretty unhealthy for her.

Kanji: Lion primary that starts out burnt and begins to unburn after his Shadow fight, Lion secondary. Models Badger secondary.

Rise: Snake primary, Badger secondary

Teddie: Bird primary, Lion secondary. Falls dramatically and recovers by shaping his system to be more Snakelike.

Naoto: Lion primary, Bird secondary, performs Bird primary

#persona 4 #sorting hat chats #harry potter

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forkanna · 4 years ago

Link

[AO3] [WATTPAD]

NOTE: Here we go. Little bit of a shift in this chapter... you'll see. Thanks for keeping up with this fic and all your comments!

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

Everything was rather quiet for a couple of days. Rise threw herself into practicing her vocals with every spare moment, meeting with her manager and conferencing with her record label over the phone. She needed the distraction. Without any clear course of action with Ai, she had decided to let that matter fade into the background. Maybe something would come to her eventually.

On Sunday, she and the gang decided to go fishing, since that was one of Narukami's favourite activities and they were all missing him lately. For most of them, it simply meant getting to wave around poles and wade into the water, splashing each other. Kanji and Naoto resented this because they were much more serious about the matter, but the others didn't pay them too much mind.

"Hey, why didn't you invite Ai?" Chie suddenly asked as they re-baited their hooks. "She too snobby to get down here in the river with us?"

Rise laughed. "You're kidding, right?"

"Yeah," she responded, giggling right along. "No way would she be caught dead touching a fish that's not cooked."

"No… I meant that she wouldn't want to hang out with me anymore."

"Why not?" Yukiko asked. "I thought you were becoming sort of close with her."

Wow, how oblivious could they be? "Not anymore."

Once she had explained properly, which took the better part of half an hour, most of the joy had been sucked out of their springtime activity. Rise did feel a little bad about that, but it was as much their fault as hers, so she didn't spend too much mental energy on sympathy for her friends.

"Gosh, that is so sad," Teddie said with a pronounced pout. He really did seem genuinely disappointed not to have another friend. "I know you guys didn't really mean to hurt her feelings."

"Guess I thought he'd be over that by now," Chie confessed quietly.

"Yeah," Yosuke added. "Like, as long as he stays away from my butt, I don't really care what he does with his time. And man, he looks way better in drag than even Teddie did, so…"

While Teddie was harrumphing as if genuinely offended, Kanji chuckled harshly as he twitched his line in the water the tiniest bit. "What is it with you and that gay panic, bro? I'm surprised your Shadow didn't look more like mine."

"H-hey, I'm just a healthy, red-blooded Japanese male! I like girls who are actually girls! Is that a crime?"

"I'll buy you a butt-protector to keep all the dicks out," Chie cackled bemusedly. Yosuke just grimaced.

"I'm… starting to get why she didn't want this getting out," Rise sighed.

"Hm?" Yukiko said as she turned back in her direction. "What is it?"

"Nothing."

"No, that sounded important. I wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings…"

Which she appreciated. Even if the others were a little oblivious sometimes, Yukiko genuinely meant well all the time. Every minute of every day. "It's just… I'm no big expert on this subject, but you guys can see how much work she put into being taken seriously as a woman. Because she looks like one! Nobody could tell! And I think I haven't paid much attention to how hard that must have been for her… I'm… wow. And I really did almost ruin her life."

Not that she had been unaware of that before. She thought she understood, and she did — better than her friends did, for sure. But listening to them casually treat her like a drag act, a joke, a source of anxiety for Yosuke's extra-fragile masculinity, peeled back just enough of the curtain. Now she knew that she really didn't know anything at all.

"Don't be so dramatic," Chie sighed. "Like you said, he was able to play it off, and he's giving you a lot more shit now than is necessary compared to what you did on accident. Like, scales balanced. If he wants to keep being a dick then that's on him."

Rise shrugged helplessly as she tossed her fishing pole back onto the shore. "You're not wrong about that part. I'm not saying her trying to get revenge on me is right. I'm just saying I understand why she feels so betrayed. Didn't really get it before, but…"

"I still don't get it now," Yosuke grunted. "The whole thing makes me super uncomfortable. But it sounds like he already had the surgery, so… doesn't that mean he's a girl anyway?"

"What? No, it's… nevermind that part." She had been about to insist that Ai did not have "The Surgery" yet, even though she had probably undergone several other minor procedures. But that was the kind of detail that would get her even deeper in trouble than she already was, so she cut herself off.

"Well, I'm with Chie," Yukiko said cautiously. "You have apologized for hurting her, you didn't intend to in the first place. If she were a true friend, she would accept your apology."

"I'm not sure it's that simple."

They all turned to look at Naoto, not having expected her to speak. The girl was wearing a very thoughtful expression underneath her newsboy-casquette cap. "What isn't?" Teddie finally prompted when everybody had been quiet for a little too long.

"This situation with Ebihara-san. She's living her life as transgender, and you have jeopardized that life. Even if on accident, I can see how she would interpret that as an attack."

"Come on," Chie sighed. "Any idiot knows the difference between on accident and on purpose."

"Not necessarily. In law, there is such a thing as 'gross criminal negligence'. This means that even if it's an accident, even if you did nothing with the premeditated intent to do harm, you can still cause harm and be held accountable for it. At least, partially."

"So you're saying it's okay that this asshole is trying to frame our friend for cheating?!" Yosuke burst out.

"Hm? Oh, no, not at all," Naoto insisted, a slight crease in her brow. "But this is a matter of criminal pathology. Even if Ebihara-san is not a criminal, she is perpetrating criminal acts; understanding them requires the same skill set. Motive. Means. Opportunity. We already know the last two, more or less; security isn't especially tight at Yasogami High. I'm sure it was a simple matter for her to sneak into the classroom and pilfer the answer key, then sneak it into Rise's bag when no one was looking. So all that's left is… why?"

"Because he's a petty jerk," Chie provided immediately.

"It's not that simple."

"No, it really is. Maybe you guys get something about how serious us gossiping about him was that I don't, but I don't care. You don't treat a friend like that. Period! Even if he's really pissed at Rise, she did apologize, she's trying to make it right. He's not acting like a friend at all. So I say, screw him! Just let him self-destruct and be alone. And if he won't stop being a jerk to you, we will be jerks right back. I'm not going to sit around while he drags you down for something you didn't even do on purpose."

Rise felt a rush of affection toward Chie Satonaka. Even if she couldn't completely agree with everything she was saying, it was nice to know her friends had her back — that these were true blue friendships that had lasted beyond being part of the same Investigation Team. The passion with which she spoke, and the anger she clearly felt toward Ebihara because she was attacking her friend, made the existence of those bonds unmistakable.

However… she also couldn't ignore the way Naoto's brow furrowed further. Kanji also rested a hand on her shoulder. Was she simply upset about losing an argument, or was there more to that?

"I can't disagree with what you say. I was merely trying to point out that in Ebihara-san's estimation, Rise may deserve vengeance more than she does in any of our estimation. She is viewing the situation differently than we are."

"Well his 'estimation' sucks," Chie grumbled.

"Maybe," Rise finally cut in with a discomfited sigh. "But can you guys… can you promise me you won't do anything mean to her without asking me? At least that? I know she's being a jerk, but it's because I messed up. Huge. So this has to be between her and me."

None of them looked too thrilled with that. Yukiko nodded immediately, seemingly satisfied right away that she was doing what was asked of her by her friend. The others were a little slower to agree but they still all did at some point or another, dissatisfied as they were.

"Thanks. And I'm so happy you have my back, I can't express that enough. But I have to figure this out on my own."

"You got it," Kanji grunted as he started reeling in a fish. "Shit… it's a big one… but I'm not gonna forget how you looked when that old bag accused you of cheating. That ain't right. Ebihara better make it right eventually, or his ass is grass."

What an ominous threat. Well-meaning, but ominous. Rise knew she would have to sort this matter out post haste — before she had to find out just how far her friends were willing to go to come to her aid.

~ o ~

All of this gave birth to a very determined Rise Kujikawa, and this was the one who walked into school on a foggy Monday morning. Ai had done enough damage; she had to forge ahead as if everything was fine. Her new tactic had to be not to let the bullying get to her, because she better understood it was just her friend being hurt by her own actions. And if she wouldn't accept her apology… there was nothing more she could do.

But she didn't have it in her to give up. That option was stricken off the list. Rise was no quitter.

Everything was fine until her second-to-last class of the day. Rise had mostly focused on schoolwork and chatting with her other friends, taking her mind off more depressing matters. Gearing up for a promotional video she was supposed to shoot soon; that would be a first step toward reestablishing herself as an artist, even if she still didn't intend to go back to singing full-time until she graduated. And the class with Ms. Sofue was fine in and of itself… for the first ten minutes or so.

That was when she noticed the smell. At first, she was looking around the room to try and figure out who had lost control of their bowels in such close proximity to other students. Maybe it was something they had for lunch?

A brief investigation ten minutes later revealed the true culprit, once everyone was looking at her like she was being most unladylike. Deep in the recesses of her desk, which she never used to keep anything since she would just have to move it again after class, someone had stuffed an old sandwich. Unless she missed her guess, there was natto and egg on it, among other things. But there was too much mold growing inside the sandwich bag for her to be certain.

"Oh GOOD GOD!" cried one of the boys nearby, covering his face with his arm. "What's in that thing?!"

Waving at the air with her crooked heka, the teacher coughed and demanded, "Please dispose of your lunch in a proper manner from now on, Miss Kujikawa! Make no mistake, even I have no interest in mummified food!"

A few of them were able to wrap it in some paper and drag it to the trash can, amid Rise's protests that she had never seen it before. Nobody believed her, because the natto tended to make it seem obvious that it had come from Marukyu — even though their speciality was tofu, not other soybean offerings. A lot of bickering back and forth broke out until the teacher banged her cane on her desk.

"Enough! Miss Kujikawa has technically broken no rule, even if it was her sandwich. So we'll say no more about it. Please, open your books again and turn to page…"

But the entire class period, Rise couldn't stop thinking about the sandwich. She already knew who it was; only one person at that school was stupid enough to actively mess with a famous pop idol. The instant the bell rang, she pelted out of class so fast that quite a few students gasped. By now, she knew what class Ai was supposed to be in around this time… and where she could find her.

~ o ~

"Oh!" gasped one of the girls in the locker room when Rise barged past her. "Do you even have this class? What are you doing in the-"

"Ebihara?" she asked. Some girl with a towel wrapped around her hair pointed further into the room. Rise stormed over there to find a towel-clad Ai preening at the mirror hanging on the inside of her locker, running the brush through her hair over and over. "Thanks for your present."

Smirking a little, the girl didn't even glance over. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Yeah? You don't recognise it?"

Everyone gasped when she threw it onto the bench nearest Ebihara. That was nothing compared to the chorus of disgusted noises that followed once its foul stench began to pervade the air within the steamy room. Even still wrapped in the plastic bag, it was horrendous.

"Oh, GOD," Ai joined in, though she was chuckling just a little. "Why would you be carrying that thing around? Just to throw at me like that?"

"Why?" she demanded. "This has crossed the line from mean to just… weird! What's the point of stinking up the classroom?"

Full of false innocence, she pressed a hand to her chest as she said, "Why, I don't know. Sounds to me like someone just forgot to throw away her lunch. Maybe you should be a little less wasteful. Then again, as rich and famous as you are, I bet you don't care at all."

A ripple of murmurs spread throughout the room. Rise knew that they didn't really care about the sandwich, or about wastefulness, but they were highly concerned with this argument between two students playing out right in front of them. Gossip fodder. So she decided not to give them any more ammunition.

"Okay. We'll just throw it away." She snatched it off the bench and flashed Ai a poisonous smile. "Have a lovely day, Ebi-chan."

"Don't you mean Ebi-kun?"

Rise stopped dead in her tracks. She actually looked around for what assholes had said it, determined to give them a dressing down. Even if they were fighting, nobody got to talk about her friend like that. But she realized it had come from Ai herself. "What?"

"You were one of the people that started the rumour, right?" She looked so haughty, arms folded over her chest and hip cocked to one side. "So I'm surprised you let it go that easy."

Deciding to play along, she smirked and shot back, "I heard you showed off the goods to some other girls and it proved it was false."

"Yeah. But since when do people like you care about facts? You would much rather be right than the truth prevail."

"People like- okay. Whatever this is, whatever you want from me, I'm done with it. I thought we could try to be adults and move on, but all you want to do is start a war — one I'm not interested in fighting. Just leave me alone if you really can't stand me this bad, okay?"

Ai laughed and took a step forward. "Rise-Risette, the gossip-monger. And now, the cheater! What terrible thing are you going to do next?"

"I didn't do anything in the first place!"

"You know you did." The smile disappeared for a second, leaving her friend's features full of cold fury. But it was so brief that most of the other girls probably wouldn't have noticed; then she was smiling like rainbows were shooting out of her ass again. "And hey, if you want to try to blame me for all of it, go ahead. You might as well."

"No, that's not necessary. Maybe it's just a series of tragic coincidences."

"Uh huh. Or maybe you're just a self-destructive pop idol, a little brat who couldn't hack it in the entertainment industry, and now that you're stuck in boring old Inaba, you want attention again. Don't you see you're going about it all the wrong ways?"

So that was her game. Now Rise could see this for what it was: it wasn't just any one incident meant to slander her and give her a bad name. All of them together were supposed to paint a picture of a celebrity spiraling out of control. Rise was going to turn into the Japanese Britney Spears if Ai Ebihara had anything to do with it.

"You really want to destroy me that badly?" she hissed now that they were so close their noses were almost touching. All the girls around them were whispering and chattering, watching the drama intently. The rub was, they were gossiping so much about what they were saying that they couldn't even actually hear what they were saying.

"You can bet on it. I told you I was going to, unless you destroy me first. And I think you will. I think you are exactly the kind of person who will shoot in self-defense."

"That isn't me," she breathed, glancing down at Ai's body. It was so close to her own… she couldn't help looking, couldn't help feeling flustered even though they were fighting right now. "We both know that. You're just mad I messed up, and you won't let me apologize, and you won't leave it alone. There's nothing else I can do."

"Yes there is." Then she hiked an eyebrow slightly, lowering her voice to barely a whisper. "What? What are you looking at?"

"Nothing. Just… trying to figure out what to-"

"You were trying to figure out if you could see my dick. Weren't you?" As Rise felt her brow furrow, Ai chuckled and pressed on, "Do it. Go looking."

She could feel her temper flaring hotter. It was getting hard to control. "Stop being so gross. I wouldn't do that, I haven't done that, and I'm not going to do that."

"Why not? Come on… all you have to do is rip this towel off me. Show the world. Maybe I'm tucking again, maybe I'm not. But wouldn't that be great if you exposed a scandal in the women's locker room? Risette the Hero, saving all these poor girls from the freak."

"You know — you know I have never once in my life called you a freak, why do you want me to hurt you so badly? What do you get out of it? Are you some kind of psycho masochist?!"

"Sure! Go with that. Even more reason to save everyone. Do it." No movement. "Clock's ticking. The longer you wait, the weirder it's going to be that we're standing here whispering to each other."

But Rise's mind was racing. She still had no idea really why she was pushing so hard for her to attack, to be so vicious. She thought back to the revelation she had when walking home — about Ai, about what these attacks meant for their relationship. And when she thought of it that way…

Everything came together. Of course, nothing was for certain until she heard it straight from the horse's mouth, but now Rise thought she understood the reason her former friend was trying so hard to get her to treat her like vermin.

"No," she whispered with a small smile.

"No? Aww, I guess the games continue then," Ai said with a fake, exaggerated pout. "You're going to have to be a lot tougher than that to make it as a star."

"Actually… let's play a new game. Unless you want to give up now?" Her pleading face returned. "Please, please just stop. I'll leave you alone if that's what you want, or we can go back to being friends and… try to put this behind us. But I'm not giving up, not going away. So…? Maybe?"

Ai shook her head. "This isn't your game, you don't get to change the rules, princess. So nice try."

"Fine," she sighed… before sliding her arms tightly around Ai.

"H-hey!" she burst out. Then a little louder, "Oh my GOD, now Risette is trying to molest me!"

Before the gasps really had a chance to deepen, Rise sobbed, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you, I just… I just love you so much Ai, a-and when you… when you pulled away, I didn't know what to do! Can't you forgive me?"

Even the girls who weren't watching before were glued to this scene now. And even though she could tell Ai didn't like losing control of the situation — hated might have been more apropos — she still drew back to gape at her.

"What… did you just say?"

"I asked you to forgive-"

"Cut the bullSHIT!" she snapped loudly enough that one smaller girl yelped and fell back on her ass, scrabbling for the nearest bench. "You can't mean that. Not in front of all these people, you… they'll know you're- if you say how you feel, that's…"

"I don't care about them! I love you, Ai, I… I didn't mean for us to end up this way!" Her bottom lip wobbled hard as she took a shaky breath. "But if you really can't forgive me, I'll understand! I just… I can't go on with us hurting each other like this!"

"Oh, this is so not going to work," she scoffed… until she saw a few of the girls putting their hands on Rise's shoulders, comforting her as the big fat tears rolled down her cheeks. Offering tissues, petting her hair. "Are you- wow, you guys can't be buying this! It's an act!"

"Hey, don't be so mean!" said some girl with bobbed hair; Rise thought her name was Matsunaga, but she couldn't remember at the moment. The moment Ai's gaze was on her, she said much more quietly, "S-sorry."

"Oh my GOD. Fine. Whatever, I'm out of here."

But a wall of girls blocked her way. They were all glowering at her now, looking ready to throw down; they would never have challenged alone but there was safety in numbers. Ai's eyebrows shot up, unimpressed… but the more she looked at all of them, the more anxious she appeared. Not frightened, just uneasy from the attention. The constant attention, while wearing a towel… prospect of a fight… she backed into a corner and they started to advance on her. This would get seriously out of hand if someone didn't step in.

Someone stepped in.

"Please, just give me another chance," Rise provided smoothly as she slid forward through the throng of girls, taking up Ai's hand — which was immediately yanked out of reach. Her voice was taut with emotion as she pleaded, "That's all! I'll show you I can be a better friend, a-and those pranks? Forgotten! And I won't ever tell another lie about you again, I promise!"

Ai took another good look around at the student body standing in opposition against her. The wheels were turning behind her eyes. Then she glared down at Rise with a shake of her head. "You… conniving… snake," she muttered.

Some of the girls heard it, and looked more scandalised. And because now everyone else was behind her… Rise felt comfortable allowing a smug, triumphant smirk to take over her features. Just for an instant. She even mouthed a few choice words:

"You only have one way out."

Oh, she had never seen Ai look that angry before. This wasn't just annoyance or rage. She looked murderous. But it only lasted a second before she sighed, shut her eyes, took a breath.

"Rise… fine. I know… I went too far. Can you forgive me?"

"Wow, really sounds authentic," one of the others closest to the lockers scoffed.

"No, really." When Ai opened her eyes again, she was smiling weakly. "I have missed you. I just didn't know… I was so angry when you started that nasty rumour."

"I know. It was a stupid mistake! And I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, if you just… take me back! That's all you have to do." She took both of her hands, ignoring the way nails were digging into her own. Petty little revenges were par for the course now. "Just be with me."

One could hear a pin drop in that locker room. Ai pulled her close and whispered softly, "You want to play this game? We're playing it on a national level."

"Bring it on," she replied in kind, smirking again — even while her heart pounded in her throat from the closeness. "But c'mon, I beat you this round."

"Shut up."

Such a chorus of "WHOOOOO" went up when they kissed that it felt like they were shaking the foundation of Yasogami High. Probably because, metaphorically as well as literally, they were. Game-changer indeed.

To Be Continued…

#We'll Face Ourselves #saphir de lune #persona 4 fanfiction #forkanna writes #rise x ai #p4 fanfic #jess the writer

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blackhakumen · 4 years ago

Text

Mini Fanfic #477: Hot Springs Stories (Persona 4 Arena)

8:15 p.m. at an All You Can Eat Restaurant.......

Labrys: Damn.....That all really happened to you guys?

Kanji: ('Sigh') Yeah.......We kept getting pelted by towel baskets twice. Neither of which was any of our faults.

Teddie: ('Sigh Sadly') We tried so hard to tell them it was all a misunderstanding, but alas, they never believed us.....They even called us perverts and everything.

Labrys: That's crazy talk, 'hon. I don't think you and Kanji-Kun are perverts at all.

Ken: Yeah.....That was pretty rude of the girls to do that to you guys over a misunderstanding.... (Takes a Sip of his Drink)

Kanji: Tell me about it. The worst part of it all is that not a single one of them apologise about it the next day and onward except for Narukami's Little Cousin, Nanako. The others on the other hand, act like they forget about the whole thing and left us remembering everything.

Teddie: Hot Springs are a blessing and a curse in disguise.....

Labrys: Yeesh.....That was cold. Even for them.

Kanji: It was. (Shrugged) But it is what it is. (Chuckles Lightly) I remember being so pissed off at all of them that I actually gave the girls the silent treatment for almost an entire day.

Labrys: (Snickering) Oh shit. Seriously?

Teddie: (Giggles Softly) You guys should've seen him during the time. He was so determined about it and everything.

Kanji: Yeah I was.....'Till Rise had to go in and give that Sad Puppy Dog look on me to speak to them again.

Labrys: (Smirks Playfully) I could definitely see Rise-Chan doing somethin' like that.

Ken: You know......your Hot Spring story kinda of reminds me of the one Junpei told me a while back.

Kanji: For real?

Ken: Yeah. It all took place a few years ago where everyone in the dorm, except for me and Koromaru, went on a field trip with their classmates to the Resort Suite. I don't really know much about the entire details of what went down, but from what I heard, Mitsuru-Senpai literally froze Junpei and others frozen solid once they were spotted by her and the rest of the girls.

Kanji: SERIOUSLY?!!

Teddie: (Eyes Widened in Fear and Shock) Oh my!!!

Labrys: (Eyes Widened in Completely Shock) NO WAY!!!! Our Mitsuru-Senpai did all of that?!!!

Ken: That's what Junpei told me. He said was their punishment....Or to mom's case, it was their "Execution".

Teddie/Kanji: EXECUTION?!!!!!!!!

Labrys: Wait a minute. I-Isn't her whole "Execution" shtick suppose to be used during fights or taking out shadows?

Ken: (Nodded) Yeah. But it's also used whenever someone or something provokes her. (Shudders at the Time He Saw Mitsuru was Angry) It can be pretty terrifying if you ask me.....

Kanji: No shit......I mean, I know that lady's tough and everything, but I had no idea she would take this whole "Execution" thing to a whole new level! And also, who was this "mom" person, you mentioned a second ago?

Ken: I was......(Starts Blushing a Little) Referring to Mitsuru-Senpai......

Labrys: (Whispers into Teddie's Ear While Giggling) The kiddo think of senpai as his actual mom. It's pretty cute~

Teddie: Awwwwwwww!!~

Ken: (Blushes in Embarrassment) ANYWHO! As I was saying, this is one of the big reasons why mom-I mean...Mitsuru-Senpai is the last person anyone would want to upset. She can be pretty scary when she wants to be.....

Kanji: Well......Guess I know who not piss off in the future.....

Teddie: ('Gulp') Yeah.....Me too....

Labrys: You know....All these Hot Springs related stories got me thinking....

Ken: About what, Labrys?

Labrys: About how there's no way I'd be crazy enough to attack people in the springs just cause of misunderstanding.

Kanji: Seriously?

Labrys: Yeah. I mean....If I were ever in a situation where some guy accidentally walk in on butt naked, I would at least give him a chance to explain himself before I start doing some crazy stuff like.... Throwing some random baskets or executing them with ice powers or whatever.

Teddie: (Smiles Brightly Towards His Girlfriend) You're too kind, Labby-Chan~

Labrys: (Chuckles Lightly While She Bops On the Top of Teddie's Nose) And you're too cute for ya own good, 'hon~

Teddie: (Giggles Softly While Blushing) Did I forget to mention how beautiful you really are to me?~ Because that's what I think you are everyday~ (Gives Labrys a Wink)

Labrys: That's it. C'mere, you!~ (Pulls Teddie Into a Loving Hug While Kissing All Over His Cheeks) Momma's ('Mwah') Gonna ('Mwah') Show you ('Mwah') Some loving tonight!~ ('Mwaaah')

Teddie: (Giggles Ticklishly by each of Labrys' Kisses) Labby-Channn!~ C'mon! That tickles!~

Kanji: (Watches The Couple From his Side of their Seat) Look at them....('Sigh') It hasn't even been desert time yet and those two are already starting to act all cutesy to each other.

Ken: (Chuckles Lightly) True. But you do gotta admit. They are pretty cute together as a couple.

Kanji: Yeah..... There's no argument in that.......(Turns to Ken) So....... Is Kirijo-Senpai actually your mom or......

Ken: Not exactly. She and others did technically raised me when I was younger. It honestly took me until recently to realize that they're like family.

Kanji: (Smiles a Little) Nice. I'm kinda happy for ya, kiddo.

Ken: (Smiles Softly) Thanks, Kanji-san. By the way, if you don't mind me asking, how's Naoto-san been doing as of late.

Kanji: Pretty good. (Starts Rubbing the Back of his Head Back and Forth While Blushing a Little) To tell you truth, we uhhh.....started dating for a while now.....

Ken: (Eyes Widened in Surprise) Seriously? That's great! Congratulations!

Kanji: Thanks. (Frowns a Little) Though, the only down side to this is that our relationship is long distance, since she started her detective career not too long ago.

Ken: Oh. I'm.....guessing that's means you're starting to miss her, huh?

Kanji: Like crazy.....I know I should be happy for her following her own dreams and all, hell, I supported her all the way, I guess I couldn't help but to miss her sometimes, ya know?

Ken: (Gives Kanji a Reassuring Smile) Hey. I know it's hard to miss someone who's close to you, from a long distance. But I'm sure you two will see each other again sometime. You just have to be a little more patient.

Kanji: (Sighs While Smiling Again) Yeah..... It's a long ass road, but.....I guess it wouldn't hurt to wait a little while longer.

@princeoflions123

@keyenuta

@26shann

@albion-93

@ma-lemons

@miki-13

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kingjinxii · 5 years ago

Text

Trans Persona HCs I have

Completely self indulgent and projecting

Also with my bizarre rarepairs

Persona 3

Minato Arisato - Gay Trans Boy (Dating Akihiko)

- Low doses T for a couple years until he's comfortable

- No surgery

- Wants kids someday

- Big femboy

- Tiny but absolutely will kick your ass

- Binds in public but doesn't at home

- Likes crop tops, short shorts, and thigh highs but doesn't wear them often

- Will punch you if you call him a girl, no matter what he's wearing

Fuuka Yamagishi - Asexual Trans Girl (Dating Kanji)

- Started taking E early but boymoded for a year

- Worried about being a stereotype

- Cuts her own hair and buys her own clothes from thrift stores

- Loves romance books and movies but worries she won't find anyone

- Big Mom Energy when she gets more comfortable with herself

Ken Amada - Bisexual Trans Man (Dating Yusuke)

- Came out very young

- "[Deadname] why do you want the boys uniform you're a girl" "NEWSFLASH ASSHOLE IVE BEEN A BOY THE ENTIRE GODDAMN TIME"

- Puberty blockers and early T helped him a lot

- Still ended up needing top surgery

- Goes stealth really easily

- Changed his name and gender marker as soon as he could

- Kinda absorbed himself in toxic masculinity but he shook himself out of it

Persona 4

Yu Narukami - Pansexual Trans Man (Dating Yosuke)

- Parents disapproved so he didn't start transitioning until he moved to Inaba

- Extremely dysphoric about his appearance but he ended up being able to pass quickly

- Didn't let anyone take pictures of him until he passed

- Got top surgery and then refused to put on a shirt for weeks if he didn't need one

- Exclusively tops in bed

- Dresses kinda like a dad

Naoto Shirogane - Gray-Ace Pansexual Genderfluid (AFAB) (Dating Yosuke and Rise)

- Big "Am I a boy? Am I a girl? No one can tell but everyone thinks I'm hot and that makes everyone gay" energy but it's completely unintentional

- Debates top for years and ends up getting it

- Low doses T briefly

- Technically a switch but only bottoms for people they trust completely

Persona 5

Akira Kurusu - Pansexual Genderfluid (AMAB) (Dating Goro)

- Cat energy

- Just a really pretty boy

- Mostly presents male but goes out in fem mode sometimes too

Yusuke Kitagawa - Gay Trans Man (Dating Ken)

- Used to have really long hair but just cut it off one day

- Tries to find beauty in himself even when he's dysphoric

- Ends up painting a lot of GNC people

Futaba Sakura - Pansexual Enby (AFAB) (Dating Ryuji)

- "What gender are you" "fuck dude idk I just live here"

- Uses any pronouns

- Doesn't try to pass as anything just wears what she wants

- Dyes hair constantly

Haru Okumura - Pansexual Trans Girl (Dating Makoto)

- Ultra fem because she fucking can

- Stealths mostly but with gladly say if you ask

- Pride flags everywhere

- Def wants a family someday

Goro Akechi - Bisexual Genderfluid (AFAB) (Dating Akira)

- the same "am I a boy? am I a girl?" joke as naoto but now it's completely intentional

- Fucking shapeshifter

- Master of camp

- Master of selfies

- But also master of low key sweatshirt and jeans gremlin "I hate effort" looks

- Announces his top surgery in the group chat by screaming "IM CHOPPING MY FUCKING TITS OFF"

#persona #goro akechi #naoto shirogane #akira kurusu #ren amamiya #yu narukami #minato arisato #makoto yuuki #haru okumura #yusuke kitagawa #futaba sakura #fuuka yamagishi #ken amada #persona 5 #persona 4 #persona 3 #trans hc #luxren.mp3

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the-prince-and-the-thief · 5 years ago

Note

🔥 for the hot take you mentioned

//Were my takes not fiery enough for you? Because I do have more.

Unless you meant about Akechi. Because uh... yeah. I can talk about that ALL DAY. But I don’t wanna torture you people.

I guess my angriest hot take is this: “Naoto is trans” and “Kanji is gay” are shallow interpretations of what actually happens in the games.

I’ll concede Naoto definitely is not gender-conforming entirely, and I’m pretty sure Kanji is bisexual.

However the actual POINT of these shadows is I thinks something that got lost in translation. Rise gets it the worst but people don’t really try and give hot takes on Rise thankfully.

Naoto- In Japan, there are “male” professions. There is still a lot of sexism in the workforce. It’s improving, but women have trouble getting into careers either because it’s a boys club or because they’re expected to get married and have children, thus must be housewives by default. I’m very pleased to say that this is changing a lot even now-- my host mother was working part-time while raising two kids, while her husband worked full time running a store. They’re both allowed to have careers, though obviously she’s taking charge with the kids. It’s becoming less of the norm. That’s not the case with detectives though. Naoto basically grew up being told that her interests were too masculine, that she was too young and female to be anything in the field she was passionate about, and that essentially, she couldn’t be a girl if she wanted to be successful. She wanted to be a boy because she wanted to be accepted for who she was. Which leads to Kanji!

Kanji- The reason he’s a walking gay stereotype (aside from rule of funny I mean) is mostly that that’s what he fears others see him as. He’s overcompensating on his masculinity because he was interested in girly things growing up and was basically told “you’re a freak, are you gay??? you’re gay right??? because you like girl things??? go away gay boy”. Boys thought he was weird and girls thought he was weird. They ignored him. He felt like nobody would accept him for just... liking fabric. It’s a crazy thing by western standards, but Japan isn’t exactly known for Johnny Versace, now are they? Japan has higher gender expectations than the west and he felt constrained by them. Also, he was having a gay panic, because he met a hot detective prince and didn’t know they were a girl. (Hence why I concede Kanji is bisexual, totally-- he liked Naoto regardless of what gender they appeared to be.)

The point of their character arcs was “Gender conformity destroys people and makes them repress who they really are”

not

“LOOK GUYS WE HAVE A GAY GUY AND A TRANS GIRL WE SO PROGRESSIVE”

I get how from a western lens it looks like these things??? and I don’t have a problem with people writing gay kanji or trans naoto! I like both of these things! I’m just tired of people taking a 5 second look at the shadows and going “yes, this is their entire issue. Let’s just ignore all the subtext and cultural critique and reduce them to look it’s a gay, be happy, there is a gay.” I want people to push for real representation in Atlus works. They’ve done it in the past. Jun Kashihara is a thing. WE HAD A PROTAGONIST THAT WAS A LOSER BISEXUAL BIKER. But people are looking for representation where it isn’t, and then other people who don’t know better are making these out to be bad representations of the LGBT community when that wasn’t the point these characters were made to express.

(Also, do y’all REALLY want the gay bathhouse dungeon as a symbol of LGBT in video games???? I’d much rather have Yosuke coming to terms with his complicated sexuality and feelings towards Yuu Narukami any day.)

I’m probably gonna sound like an asshole saying all this but I just wanna clarify?

I’m not saying you can’t think Naoto is trans. I’m not saying you can’t think Kanji is gay. I’m just saying there’s more to them than that, and I wish people would actually try to learn about the culture that creates these games and ideas so they could really understand the depth that’s in these games. I see a lot of people judging art entirely on how THEY view it rather than understanding the author’s intentions, the message presented, and then adding their interpretation onto that.

Media analysis is something that I’m super passionate about. I’ve been that way since I grew up being told that my hobbies would make me a killer. (Decades later I’m still a pacifist, Fox News. Just saying.) So it’s... frustrating to me. I wish more people were taught to be media literate. There’s so much value in the persona series, in art, in learning about other cultures, and in trying to understand a culture through their media. I wish more people could get that out of the media they watch.

I’m gonna stop bitching now lol.

#ooc #god i'm such a whiner #don't ask me about media theory unless you want to see pure rage #I majored in media....#Masked Shadow

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chroniccombustion · 6 years ago

Text

Ipomoea Alba pt. 1

From “Seven Days to Eternity“, part of @souyoweek2019

Genre: Hanahaki Disease, angst w/happy end, romance, M/M Rated: T Characters: Souji Seta (Yu Narukami), mentions of the Investigation Team, mentions of Nanako Dojima Warnings: minor descriptions of blood and vomiting Status: oneshot collection, incomplete

<- previous chapter | next chapter ->

"Ipomoea alba, sometimes called moonflower or moon vine, is a species of night-blooming morning glory... It symbolizes dreaming of love, or a love in vain..."

Day 3: Illness/Injury or Holding Hands

There is a tickle in Souji’s throat all through November. It burns when he swallows wrong, causes him to cough once or twice out of nowhere every so often. Nothing major; just a tickle. If, sometimes, he tastes just the barest hint of blood in the back of his mouth after a particularly deep cough, well, he is fighting shadow monsters in a world shrouded in supernatural fog.

He has other things to worry about, though. Like finishing the Heaven dungeon as fast as he can. Like keeping his team and himself alive long enough to reach the top and catch Namatame.

Like rescuing Nanako

He can’t stop just because he’s getting sick, because of a little tickle in his throat that sometimes refuses to go away for hours at a time. He’s survived worse; he can still fight Shadows with a minor cough.

It doesn’t go away after November is over. It’s there throughout December, too, more insistent, deeper-rooted. It spreads from his throat to his chest and goes from being just an occasional tickle to a kind of pressure behind his sternum. It’s like he’s got some kind of drainage happening, like he’s got fluid somewhere down in his lungs; a stuffy sort of feeling that rattles a little on the harder coughs – still only a couple at a time – and makes him wonder if he’s grown an allergy to the fog. He wouldn’t be surprised, honestly. After all, the glasses only keep their eyes from being obscured by the ever-present mist; they don’t do anything to keep the team from breathing it in. (And fog is water, so it would make sense for him to have something sitting in his lungs if he’s been breathing tiny droplets of monster-vapor.)

But, again, he has other things to worry about. Nanako and Dojima are still in the hospital and Adachi is on the loose; they can’t stop now, not when they’re all so close to bringing the real killer to justice, not when Souji has a murderer to catch and an empty home waiting for him when he’s too exhausted to keep fighting for the day.

If he was being honest with himself, that was probably the worst part of it all. Adachi having literally killed people notwithstanding, every time they left Magatsu Inaba without having reached the end, every day that Adachi still remained at large and Souji went home to that house of deathly silence, it was just another reminder of his failings. He hadn’t been able to protect Nanako, he hadn’t been able to stop Adachi from escaping into the TV; the quiet and the dark and the stillness that greeted him every time he crossed the threshold felt like mockery.

You weren’t fast enough, smart enough, strong enough.

Just another reason to finish their pursuit as quickly as they can.

For two entire months the empty house is like a weight on Souji’s shoulders, slowly crushing him to death. He doesn’t sleep much – too many dreams of disaster – nor does he really remember to eat. He cooks still, out of habit and the desire for even a semblance of normalcy, but more often than not he just packs it away in a bento for the next day. Not that he really eats that, either; instead, he invites people to spend lunch break with him at school and lets them tackle most of what’s in the container. It keeps it from going to waste and helps Souji to keep up appearances. Because he’s the leader, that’s what he has to do.

He knows that the other members of the team can see him fading at the edges; none of them are dumb or blind. He’s seen the worried glances that Chie and Yukiko send his way when they think he can’t see them during class. He can tell by the slight downward curve of Rise’s lips, Kanji’s furrowed brows, Naoto’s intense, assessing stares. They know he’s not completely alright but there’s nothing they can do to change it. He appreciates what they can do, obviously – when they come to check on him or invite him to hang out on a rest day. Or, more notably, their determination in battle, their fierce resolve, the way they throw themselves into bringing the case to an end with just as much fervor as he does. He sees it all and he is so, so grateful for them. He could never ask for a better team.

But they have responsibilities, too. In between their hunt for Adachi, his friends all have work, school, families that need them to come home, so no matter how much he might want to, Souji can’t monopolize all their time – it just wouldn’t be right. And it’s not like they can spend every waking moment in the television either, because magic or not, they’re all human and humans wear down. Souji had pushed his team nearly to the breaking point when Nanako was still missing; this situation might not be the same but he still isn’t about to do that again.

He visits Nanako and his uncle when he can, especially on the days when none of his friends can hang out, so he does get to see them. It’s not the same as having them home, though, and that’s the major issue. Given the chance, Souji would camp out in one of the lobby chairs if they’d let him, but visiting hours only go so late into the evening before the hospital staff kicks him out with a “come back tomorrow”.

So Souji spends a lot of the later hours of the day alone.

The only reprieve from the constant feeling of inevitable, punishing solitude that he seems to get is around his closest friend. Yosuke, almost eerily attuned to Souji’s moods as he is, has taken to dropping in after his shifts, even when he’s clearly exhausted. He sometimes makes the excuse that he hasn’t had any time to study and could Souji help him with his homework, please? They usually don’t get much of anything done; most of the time Souji has already long-since finished several days worth of homework just for something to occupy his mind. (There are also rare nights where there is no homework due the next day, so that particular excuse falls a bit flat.) Other times, Yosuke will grab food from Junes before heading out and simply come over with a set of store-bought bentos and a movie he’d stuffed into his bag before school. It’s on those nights that Souji actually does eat.

Yosuke sits and talks with him after school until he has to leave for work, Yosuke sends him texts whenever he can while on shift, Yosuke calls him when on break if he knows that Souji is alone, and then again after work on the days he absolutely can’t come over. He waits for Souji in the mornings so that they can walk to school together, invites him to spend the weekend together if Souji has no other plans, goes with him to visit Nanako and brings her snacks or little trinkets from Junes. Yosuke is a godsend.

Souji finds he can let his mask slip, just a little, around him, too. He knows that Yosuke already knows the cracks are there, just like the others do, but Souji is more comfortable acknowledging them himself when it’s Yosuke that’s looking. Souji is the leader, the commander, the pillar of strength with a hundred different Personae in his head; he still has a mission to complete and a team to lead and he can’t falter, he can’t crack, because if he does then he risks everything. He has to keep up moral, has to be unflinching in battle so the others have someone to look to, so that nothing (else) falls apart. So even while his friends share those worried glances and those furrowed brows, Souji keeps pretending that he’s got everything under control. He powers through the burnout that has settled in, sunk its claws into his shoulders, filled him with empty exhaustion, and all the while he keeps his outward facade carefully in check. He can buckle later, once everything is finished.

But around Yosuke it’s different. Yosuke is his equal, his partner, second-in-command of the Investigation Team; he’s also familiar with the feeling of loss and of loneliness. He never judges Souji when it’s clear he hasn’t been taking care of himself, nor does he let Souji lie to him and say that no, it’s alright, you should go home after work and sleep, you need to rest. Maybe it’s because he’s been with Souji from the beginning, knows more about him than anybody else in the world. Maybe it’s because he’s the only one of the team to have seen Souji cry, on that awful November evening when Nanako had called him “oniichan” for what he thought would be the last time.

Souji barely remembers anything past breaking down that night. He knows that Yosuke had somehow managed to get him home and convinced him to wash off the sweat of battle, because he has a very vague, fuzzy memory of sitting on his futon and shivering, hair still damp, with Yosuke’s headphones lying on the work table and the sound of the shower running in the distance.

He can’t be sure, because his mind had been too quiet and too noisy all at once to tell what was real and what was a dream, but Souji thinks there may a have been a moment, somewhere in the darkest hours of the morning, where he’d felt the sensation of long fingers carding tenderly through his hair.

But that was November, and Souji hasn’t had a chance to think about anything besides their mission for very long, let alone something that might not even have been real to begin with. He has to make it through December now, has to stop Adachi, has to keep himself sane in the hours that he’s forced to be alone, and even then he tries to block out all idle thought lest it turn and twist and drag him under without warning.

So really. With two solid months of stress and grief and very few chances to breathe, it’s no wonder that he’s having difficultly doing so. It’s no wonder, what with the no sleep and the barely eating and the house with no heat and the damp winter air outside, that there’s a tickle in his throat or traces of toxic fog still sitting in his lungs.

Souji continues to ignore his increasing symptoms, even as they start to get nearly obstructive. He hides them from his friends, from Nanako and Dojima, and even from Yosuke. He especially hides them from Yosuke; his partner has already worried far, far more than he needs to over Souji’s health and if by some cruel twist of fate Souji gets too sick to fight on anymore, the team is going to need Yosuke to lead them. Souji doesn’t need Yosuke burning himself out, too.

Which is why, when Adachi has finally been captured and Ameno-Sagiri lies rusting in the ruins of Magatsu Inaba, Souji continues to keep the burning, choking feeling when he breathes a secret. He knows that Yosuke will be upset with him, will blame himself if he finds out that Souji’s been hiding his illness to make sure Yosuke didn’t wind up sick as well.

Besides, their victory is a cause for celebration, and his friends have all worked so hard and been through so much. Souji can’t take that moment of victory away from them by bringing down the mood with his shitty health.

So Souji endures it. He forces back the sudden, minor shortness of breath that seems to be happening more and more frequently. It’s to be expected; he’s just come off of two months of unending stress, of fighting in wet, awful conditions and then returning to a cold house without even a working kotatsu, all while staving off the most persistent bug he can ever remember having. He does, however, begin making an effort to take a little better care of himself, because while he appreciates everything Yosuke has done, it isn’t his partner’s job to do so – especially not now that the stress has lifted somewhat.

Souji makes sure he takes warm showers and then dries off thoroughly afterwards so he isn’t going to bed with wet hair. He buys cold medicine, and tea that’s supposed to help boost his immune system and clear out his chest. They seem to help; the steam and the warmth of the showers eases the tension he feels while inhaling and the tea makes it easier for him to sleep. The cough wants to linger? That’s alright. Souji isn’t sick enough to warrant any worry just yet, and it doesn’t impact him to where he can’t go to school or to work or be sociable. He takes it easy over winter break, anyway, and wears a facemask to the hospital when he visits his family. He doesn’t want to risk breathing anything onto Nanako while she’s still weak.

By the end of December the cough has gotten a little deeper, a little wetter. It’s less frequent when it happens, though, so Souji takes it as a decent sign that he’s slowly knocking whatever this is out of his system. He figures it must just be the gunk in his lungs working its way out – which is only further justified when he feels something shifting during his rare bouts of coughing. He’d briefly wondered if maybe he wasn’t coming down with pneumonia, but he only has the slight cough and the scratchy throat, so a quick search at the library and online makes him think, “probably not.” Just to be sure, though, he tells himself that if he isn’t completely well by January then he’ll go to the doctor. But, since it feels like something is trying to come loose in a productive way, he also decides to wait until he sees real issues functioning before letting it bother him too badly.

He’s holding out pretty well by the time New Year’s comes around.

The group makes plans to go out together to celebrate, to visit the shrine, to just be normal kids for once. It’s the perfect way to put the whole mess of a year behind them, and Souji finds he’s actually a little excited for it. His mood and mental state are improving steadily now that things aren’t so consistently terrible, and he’s feeling well enough physically that he doesn’t think his cold will be a problem. As long as he remembers to take some medicine beforehand and not push himself too hard, he should be fine. He is a little sad that Nanako won’t be able to join them, (she’d been pretty disappointed herself when she found out the hospital wouldn’t let her leave for the night) but he promises to take her to visit the shrine once she’s all better and makes a mental note to buy her some sweets to compensate.

They all decide to meet up separately at the shrine so that no one is left waiting on anyone else to get ready. Rise in particular seems to get a kick out of this, because in the days leading up everything she keeps trying to rope Chie and Yukiko into shopping for new outfits with her. She gets a strange, sparkly, conspiratorial look in her eye whenever she manages to catch Souji’s gaze while the subject is being discussed, so he gets the impression that Rise is hoping to use the opportunity to try and get their resident “useless lesbians” together at last. He chuckles and silently wishes her luck.

The idea of dressing up for New Year’s doesn’t seem too bad, though, so when the day arrives he bundles up as best he can without it being obtrusive and slips into his own charcoal grey kimono, just for fun. It might not be strictly advisable, but he’s at least made sure he’ll be warm enough not to freeze. He takes a dose of medicine about half an hour before he sets out, and drinks two cups of tea just to be absolutely sure.

He meets up with Naoto and Kanji first, since the both of them are just wearing casual clothing and likely took the least amount of time. Rise finds them next, and as she approaches them her face is contorted into the slyest, most self-satisfied smirk that Souji thinks he’s ever seen. He sees why a few minutes later, as Yukiko and Chie come wandering into view, both in kimono and both walking very slowly as they keep sneaking glances over at one another and blushing furiously. Souji holds his hand out low behind his back, palm up, and feels a giggling Rise slap him five where the other girls can’t see. (Not that they have eyes for anyone but each other, anyway.)

Surprisingly, Yosuke and Teddie are the last to arrive. Souji hears Teddie shouting exuberantly before he sees them, so he has absolutely no warning whatsoever when he turns around to greet the last two members of the IT and nearly chokes on the spot.

Under his open jacket, Yosuke wears a deep, cinnamon-colored sweater that Souji has never seen him wear before. It’s fitted, hugging his chest and the curve of his waist in a way that is wholly unfair. The neckline dips into a low v-neck, showing off the dusty, muted rose of the shirt underneath – which still doesn’t quite go high enough to hide Yosuke’s collarbones. The worst (or best) part of his outfit, though, are the tight, tight black skinny jeans that cover the lower half of his body. There is a soft flush to his cheeks and the tips of his ears and when Yosuke spots Souji in the crowd he smiles and suddenly Souji finds he’s having trouble breathing properly.

(Whether it’s from his newly racing heartbeat or just the cold medicine beginning to wear off, he couldn’t say.)

The group huddles together to wait out the time until the count down, and somehow, naturally, he and Yosuke wind up standing next to each other, so close that Yosuke’s arm brushes against his own whenever the brunette moves in a certain way. Souji doesn’t know if he’s supposed to feel this warm; he can feel it in his face, his neck, in the pit of his stomach, and it comes with slightly shaking hands. He hopes he hasn’t suddenly developed a fever on top of everything else.

But he came here to have fun with his friends and to ring in the new year with hope for an end to the chaos of the previous one, and he’s not about to leave before midnight hits. He does his best to ignore the way his cheeks flush when Yosuke bumps into him again, focusing on the happy faces of his teammates and the excited chatter all around him instead. He has to focus harder, after a while, to try and also ignore the way his chest is slowly beginning to constrict the longer he stands there.

It starts off as nothing but an irritation; it’s nothing more severe than he’s been dealing with for two months already. As time goes on, though, it gets more and more uncomfortable, until it actively feels like there’s something obstructing the base of his throat as he tries to inhale. He has trouble getting the air back out of his lungs, too, having to push a little harder than his body would do normally to get his chest to empty so he can suck in another breath.

At some point, just before the clock strikes twelve and the old year dies to birth the new, Yosuke throws an arm around Souji’s shoulders and whispers, “Happy New Year, Partner” against the shell of his ear.

For a single, terrifying moment, something inside Souji’s body twists. It sends a jolt of pain through him, like he’d swallowed something without chewing properly and had it lodge deep in his esophagus to choke and stretch and tear at him on its way down. Except it isn’t gradually going away. He goes to take a breath in shock, his body trying instinctively to help move the impeding object back down through muscle contraction, but nothing. Happens.

He tries again and still his lungs don’t fill.

He brings a hand up to his clavicle in fear, just as the countdown reaches zero and midnight officially hits. His friends whoop and cheer around him, and Souji is jostled to the side as Yosuke, arm still over Souji’s shoulders, joins in the merrymaking and knocks into him. A moment later, Teddie tackles them both from behind and the movement slams Souji forward, forcing him to take a stumbling a step or two away in order to maintain his balance. It distracts him from Yosuke’s arm, from the mounting terror of not being able to breathe, and as he lurches he feels whatever it is in his chest shift just enough that his next inhale goes through.

He takes several deep, gulping breaths, and smiles weakly when Yosuke looks at him with wide, worried eyes.

Yosuke asks him what’s wrong but Souji just waves his concerns away with a quiet, “it’s nothing.” He says nothing more as Yosuke turns to scold Teddie for nearly bowling them both over, clearly thinking that to be the cause of Souji’s distress. Souji silently apologizes to their odd little bear friend for the undue tongue lashing, and adds “sweets for Teddie” to his mental list underneath “sweets for Nanako.” It’s cowardly, but Souji is still trembling from nearly choking to death on nothing, so the energy and ability to properly explain what really just happened is well out of his reach for the time being.

As Yosuke and Teddie bicker, Souji uses the distraction as a cover to slip away for a moment and try to get his bearings. He pressed the heel of his hand hard against his sternum, rubbing in small circles as if that will help him dislodge whatever it was that had almost caused him to pass out. His throat tingles as if he’s sucked water down the wrong pipe and he coughs once, twice, three times, doubling over for a second as the force of it bends him at the waist. He takes a rattling breath in, feels it catch on something wet, coughs again to bring it up. He spits, and his tongue tastes like copper.

He says his goodbyes and heads for home as soon as they all finish up at the shrine.

Souji wakes early the next morning with an unnamable feeling of deep-seated dread. He rolls out of his futon and spends several minutes on the floor trying to stop the strange wave of lightheadedness that comes with the movement. When at last he can sit back onto his calves and try to get up properly, he nearly crashes back down before he can get to his feet. Something isn’t right. It takes him far longer than it should to figure out what.

Souji can’t breathe. In his sleepy, half-suffocated stupor he hadn’t immediately noticed the way his lungs had to work to force him to exhale, nor the way spots danced in the edges of his vision with each painful, wheezing inhale. He feels sick – his head aches like it’s being squeezed, pounding in time to the throbbing, stabbing, writhing feeling deep inside his chest. It’s like his heart is being compressed, fluttering frantically at the lack of oxygen like a hummingbird in a cage. He sucks in a long, horrible, rasping breath, feeling it bubble, thick and sticky, as it hits the back of his throat. It stings; rubbing alcohol on an open, bleeding wound.

Panicked, Souji manages to stagger his way out of the bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom as something like bile begins to rise in his gut. The bubbling intensifies, clotting and tar-like just beyond the back of his tongue and he feels the choking, jerking, telltale signs of an oncoming coughing fit. He flops his shoulder into the bathroom door and leans against it, letting his weight help him swing it open; he barely is able to reach for the light switch before the coughing wracks his body.

Souji gags and something comes up the back of his throat as he coughs, deep and hacking, feeling it all the way down to his weakening knees. It tastes like metal, like red-hot iron searing along his windpipe as he wretches and gasps over and over again, until he can feel a blob of wet, limp something sliding across his tongue and out onto the floor. Blindly he stumbles over to the counter and props himself up with violently shaking hands. Tears cloud his eyes as he bends low over the sink and coughs and coughs and coughs until his strength is gone and his throat, his chest, his body is positively wrecked.

Everything tastes like blood, more and more of it dripping from between his teeth with each sobbing exhale. With every bone-shaking hack, Souji vomits up another clot of that same, bitter something, leaving him only a split second in between to suck in another ragged breath before his chest heaves and he’s back to spitting up another slimy clump of whatever has taken root inside him. It’s minutes before the torture ebbs; minutes longer before it comes to a stop. By the time the coughing has subsided, Souji is left a shivering, half-conscious mess against the biting edge of the counter. He pulls in a breath and finds it easier. He pulls in another and feels the tightness in his chest ease just a little. One more, and slowly, utterly exhausted, he pushes himself up until he’s able to stand.

He blinks away the saltwater obscuring his vision and very nearly screams at what he sees.

There is blood everywhere. The white of the sink is awash with it, the counter, the mirror, the floor, the wall; all of them are splattered with thick patches of dark, dripping red. But there is worse to see.

Floating in the blood in matted, soggy clumps—

are flowers.

They’re all around him – pooling in the sink, plastered to his hands, trailing from the doorway where he’d been a moment too late on his way in. They aren’t just pieces, either, just stems and leaves, but fully formed with white, star-shaped petals and pale yellow centers all stained crimson as they lie limp and drowned upon the floor.

Souji stares in unadulterated horror.

He thought he’d just been getting sick.

His mind shuts down as he makes his way out of the bathroom, leaning against the walls for support and taking one painstaking step after another down the hallway. Somehow he manages to make it down the stairs, to gather up the cleaning supplies from the downstairs closet. He drags himself back to the second floor and leans against the opposite wall from before, taking care not to step in the bloody footprints he’d left in his wake.

He doesn’t remember cleaning up the bathroom, scooping up the scarlet-soaked blossoms and tossing them into the toilet, flushing them out of sight. He doesn’t remember numbly wiping the blood from the wall, the mirror, the sink, doesn’t remember slipping and sliding on the wet tile beneath his feet, doesn’t remember scrubbing at the red before it can stain and continuing to wipe every surface he can reach long after the initial color is gone.

When he’s finished in the bathroom he starts back out into the hall. Back and forth across the floor he goes, all the way to the stairs and back again, wiping at the footprints until none remain. He moves to the stairs next, then the places in the kitchen and the downstairs hall where the last of the bloody tracks lie. He tucks away the cleaning supplies when he’s done.

Souji comes back into himself hours and hours later, after the sun has long-since set, and vaguely notices that his sleep clothes are replaced with a different, fresher pair. His skin feels frozen in the heatless winter air that permeates the house, his hair wet against his pillow. He doesn’t remember stripping off his clothes to dump into the washing machine, has no memory of sitting in the shower until the water ran from pink to clear, then from clear to bitter cold. He lies there and doesn’t remember climbing back into his futon after sitting freezing under the icy spray for more than an hour.

Instead, he remembers the flowers. He remembers the feeling of pain and sickness as they traveled up his windpipe and out of his mouth. He remembers the taste of the blood, the bitterness of the petals; he remembers the way his chest had squeezed and his lungs had filled not with air but with moon-colored blooms.

He whimpers softly, and the sound is swallowed by the empty, lonely dark.

From somewhere over to the side there comes a faint buzzing. It pulses like a heartbeat, accompanied by a harsh white glow. Souji shifts until he can look over at the noise, reaching one shaking, clumsy hand out from beneath his comforter to try and grasp at the square of light. His fumbling fingers brush against his phone just as it stops ringing.

He pulls it back toward him with all the strength he has left and digs his thumb between where the two halves fold together. It takes him several tries to push the halves apart and flip the phone open; when he does finally succeed, the light from the screen makes him scrunch his eyes shut in pain. He’s still blinking away the blindness when the phone starts buzzing again.

Souji’s hands are already trembling – weak and uncoordinated from the blood loss, the lack of food, the sickness – so the moment the phone begins to vibrate he loses his tentative grip. Down it drops into the folds of his comforter. He grabs for it, claws at the fabric with fingers that feel boneless, tries to heft himself up onto an elbow but cannot get his arm to support his weight. He manages to bring his hand down on top of the phone and mash his knuckle into the “accept” button right as the phone goes silent once more.

‘4 missed calls from Aibo.’

His heart makes a little flutter of happiness at the sight of it.

And then immediately constricts.

Souji cries out wordlessly as he feels his body convulse. The tightness in his chest comes creeping back in, twisting over his heart and driving the air from his already battered lungs, turning his scream of pain into nothing more than a feeble, aborted croak. Fear burns hot and thick behind his eyes, blurs his sight, trickles down his face in the form of tears. He coughs as the flowers in his ribs dig their roots in deeper, and tastes blood on the back of his tongue.

“Yosuke,” he rasps, and the tiny, thin threads of voice left to him scratch at his throat on their way out. There is no one around to hear.

“Yosuke, help…”

#fanfic #fanfiction #persona 4 #p4 #souyoweek2019 #souyo #hanahaki disease #souji seta #yosuke hanamura #yu narukami #tw blood #tw vomiting

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