#it's only tangential but it's related and i do want it there

[letsplayballet]

making this its own post bc a) i've done the next scene finally, and b) maybe if it gets notes this time i'll be able to convince myself to write more of this thing that's been living in my head for 5 years now

anyway. persona 5 tv studio/justice rank 1 be upon ye.

~*~

The instant Akechi enters the studio, the unsettled feeling Akira had had in the hallway the day before returns full force.

“Ain’t that the guy from yesterday?” Ryuji mutters- for once quiet enough to not garner attention, though that could easily be because everyone around them is too busy cheering. Akira gives a shallow nod. He’s not even sure if Ryuji notices, or if he was actually asking him in the first place, but he can’t take his eyes off of Akechi for long enough to check. There’s something in the back of his mind screaming danger!, like they’re in a palace and the teen smiling pleasantly on stage is a shadow, about to round a corner and sound the alarm on them.

It doesn’t make sense, he can’t help but think as the show goes live. He doesn’t know Akechi, had only heard his name a few times in passing before yesterday, and nothing Akira has heard or seen has given him any reason to be this suspicious of him. For all that he works with the police, he seems nice enough, if a little awkward; kind of in a similar way to Yusuke, actually, with those weird comments on pancakes in their last conversation-

(that uncomfortable tension rises, sharpens, why does it feel like he’s missing something)

-but on the whole he seems… genuine. Startlingly so, actually. Akira has lived and breathed masks for a while now: he’s had several of them himself, and has learned how to recognize them in others, a talent which has only gotten stronger since this whole business with personas and the metaverse. He can nearly see the seams on the hosts as they chat with Akechi, the bubbly entertainer personalities of their jobs overlaying who they actually are, and they’re professionals. Their livelihoods depend on these masks, on their ability to make them seem genuine, and they’re good enough that Akira is sure that, even if other people know the masks are there, no one else can see them the way he can.

Akechi says something, giving a wry little grin, that sets the audience laughing, and Akira can’t see any hint of a mask.

It’s possible he doesn’t have one, of course. But- he’s a celebrity, and in high school, and people in either of those situations don’t tend to last long without some sort of protection between them and the outside world, at least not with decent mental health, and Akira can’t see his mask-

“However, if these Phantom Thieves are real, I believe they should be tried in a court of law.”

Akira’s circling thoughts come screeching to a halt. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Ryuji and Ann both tense.

“That’s quite the statement,” the male host says seriously, his raised eyebrows the only sign of his surprise. “Are they committing crimes? Some people even say that the Thieves are actually helping their victims abandon their evil ways.”

Akira feels Ryuji bristle at Madarame and Kamoshida being called victims, and he presses his own knee against his friend’s thigh. I know, he tries to tell him with the contact, but now’s not the time. Some of it must come through, because Ryuji huffs out a breath and sits back in his chair, tense and glaring but less ready to jump into a fight.

On stage, Akechi frowns. “What the artist Madarame did was truly an unforgivable crime,” he says, just the barest hint of something severe in his voice. “However, the Phantom Thieves are taking the law into their own hands by judging him. It is far from justice.”

There’s a murmur through the crowd, and Akira looks over to find Ann already looking back at him, seeming as conflicted as he feels. It’s one thing to talk these sorts of concerns over with your teammates; to hear them repeated in this sort of a setting…

“More importantly,” Akechi continues, drawing the team’s attention back to him, “we have no idea how they are causing these supposed ‘changes of heart’, but I would highly doubt it’s the result of a friendly conversation. Blackmail would be the least concerning option, and that is a crime, regardless of intention.”

“You have a point,” the male host says. “These people are calling themselves the Phantom Thieves, after all.”

Which isn’t really wrong either, especially for people who can’t conceive of the metaverse. There probably isn’t an explanation even close to the truth that they could give that would be believed, much less not construed as some sort of crime.

“Now then,” the female host says brightly, “lets try asking some students the same age as Akechi-kun about the Phantom Thieves! First, please press your buttons now if you believe the Phantom Thieves exist!”

Ryuji presses his button immediately, and with quite a bit more force than necessary. Akira hesitates, but also presses his own button. A few seconds pass, and the flashing numbers reveal that about a third of the audience has also pressed their buttons, which is a much higher percentage than Mishima’s site shows.

(Akira can’t help but wonder if it’s just the age range of the audience, or the fact that many of the students here have now witnessed two of these incidents, where the rest of the world has really only seen the one.)

“That’s a bit higher than I was expecting,” Akechi says, unknowingly mimicking Akira’s own thoughts. “I’d love to hear some more detailed opinions on the Phantom Thieves’ actions.”

The female host stands, scanning the audience as she walks towards them- and then comes to a stop in front of Akira.

Ryuji, who hasn’t relaxed since the start of the interview, somehow manages to tense even further. Ann takes in a quick, startled breath through her nose. Akira can feel everyone’s eyes on him through his panic, and he tries to school his face into pleased excitement, like being on TV was the best he could have hoped for today and he’s just trying to make the most of his spotlight.

“Why don’t we ask this student here?” the host asks, cheerful. She’s just a little too loud this close to him, and he hopes that his discomfort isn’t as obvious as it feels. “Hypothetically speaking, what are your thoughts on these Phantom Thieves, if they are real?”

There’s an anticipatory note to the silence now, and Akira is reminded again of the feeling of infiltrating a palace, though this time he can’t tell where the danger lurks. He clears his throat.

“If they are real, I think what they’ve done is quite noble.”

“Oh really?” Akechi says, cutting off the host before she can even begin to reply. The attention on him feels like a physical weight now. “How so?”

Akira shrugs, trying to seem unaffected. “Well, you said yourself that what Madarame did was unforgivable. It seems as though he hurt a great many people, but no one has been able to come forward until he confessed to his crimes himself. His reputation protected him for a long time, but he can’t hurt anyone else anymore. I can’t see how that’s anything other than a good thing.”

He’s being reckless, he knows, even without Morgana’s claws digging into his ankle through his bag. But between Akechi’s unsettling demeanor he still can’t figure out, the tension he can feel thrumming through his friends, the considering murmurs he can hear in the crowd, and his own persona in the back of his mind, he can’t quite convince himself that it’s a bad decision. Even if it puts undue attention on him, if he can redirect the focus onto the good the Phantom Thieves have done, maybe this show won’t be the utter disaster it’s starting to feel like.

“I must say I agree with you in that much,” Akechi says, sounding faintly surprised- though whether it’s at Akira’s words or his own agreement with them, it’s hard to tell. “But what of their methods? Do they not concern you?”

“What methods?” Akira challenges. “For all we know, these ‘Thieves’ are nothing more than fictional boogeymen, created to try to scare a terrible man. Can you say with certainty that Madarame hasn’t carried a guilty conscience all these years, and this is just what pushed him over the edge?”

Akechi leans forward, elbow on his knees, and the look he’s leveling at Akira is both considering and… something else. Excited, maybe?

“Not with complete certainty, no,” Akechi allows. “But it seems highly irrational that one would commit crimes of such magnitude for such an extended length of time if one carried any guilt over the matter.”

“I would argue that it seems highly irrational to commit such crimes in the first place, regardless of the perpetrators personal feelings.”

“I suppose it depends on your working definition of ‘rational’, but that could be a whole other argument, and I believe we’ve gotten far enough off topic. I’ll ask again, more clearly: if we are supposing the Phantom Thieves are real, that there is a person or group of people who have somehow convinced a previously unrepentant criminal to willingly turn himself in, does the method of this convincing not worry you at all? During the whole of his interrogation, Madarame has claimed no knowledge of or interaction with these Thieves outside of the calling card posted at his exhibit. If someone close to you- for example, your friend next to you- suddenly had a complete change in personality, what would you think? How much could the Phantom Thieves change him, without anyone knowing for sure how or why?”

Akira pauses for a moment, mind racing, not at all liking where this questioning is going. He tilts his head at Ryuji, considering, until-

He blinks at Akechi up on the stage, twists his face into a confused frown, and (promising he’ll apologize to Ryuji as soon as he gets the chance) asks, “Would the Phantom Thieves make him study for his exams?”

“Dude!” Ryuji says, loud and betrayed. Ann bursts into giggles. The laughter spreads through the audience, and Akira is painfully grateful that no one else seems to notice Ryuji’s white-knuckled grip on his chair, or how incredibly forced and fake Ann’s laughter is.

Akechi, after a second, also starts to laugh. “Alright, maybe that was a bad example,” he says, and he has the same even and easy-going tone he’s had the whole show, but for a split second Akira sees- something. A crack, just the barest hint of something other than a calm and collected teen detective.

Interesting.

“My point, however, remains,” Akechi continues as the host returns to the stage, slip already smoothed over. “Whether the Thieves’ actions are good or not, the fact that they could hold this much sway over a formerly unrepentant criminal could have alarming implications, even if we trust them to only be pursuing people like Madarame. Should they decide this isn’t enough… the existence of the Phantom Thieves would be nothing but a threat to our everyday lives.”

~*~

Ryuji, thankfully, accepts his apology with an easy grin and a “Pay for the ramen next time and we’ll call it even.” They spend the rest of the recording a bit more relaxed, bickering quietly during breaks about what sorts of food qualify as “sorry for throwing you under the bus” material. (Ann argues that ramen is insufficient, but eventually concedes to Akira’s point that it kind of depends on the bus.)

After another hour or so, they’re free to go. Ann rushes out pretty quick, having a shoot on the other side of the city she doesn’t want to be late for, and Ryuji has to run to the batroom, so Akira has tucked himself into a corner to wait and is checking his phone when he hears, “Oh! There you are!”

Akechi approaches him confidently, seeming not to notice the stares and whispers that follow him all the way to Akira’s corner. Or, no; he seems very aware of them, but not like he especially cares, in a casual sort of way that does nothing to ease the alarm going down Akira’s spine.

“Detective,” Akira greets. There’s a bit of a tease in his tone, too familiar for someone he’s spoken to twice, but Akechi barely reacts.

“Oh, please, Akechi is perfectly sufficient. Anyway, I’m glad I caught you; I wanted to thank you in person.”

Akira can feel his eyebrows rise, and this time the confusion isn’t affected at all. “Thank me?”

(He wishes he had the comforting weight of his dagger in his hand. He wonders when that weight became comforting, as opposed to strange and vaguely alarming.)

Akechi smiles, distant and professional. “To paraphrase Hegel, advancement cannot occur without both thesis and antithesis.”

One of Akira’s eyebrows drops. The other remains arched slightly above the rim of his glasses, unimpressed. Akechi’s vague smile shifts into a more rueful grin.

“Sorry. What I mean is that our discussion today was quite meaningful. Few people around me are so willing to speak their minds as freely as you did earlier. It frequently makes for dull conversation; it’s been some time since I felt as though I had to work to keep up with someone, especially in the context of a debate.”

“I appreciate the compliment, though I’m not sure it’s entirely deserved,” Akira says slowly. “I’m glad you got something out of it though, and not just the station.”

“Nervous about your television debut?”

“Weren’t you?”

“Not quite,” Akechi says with a laugh. “It’s hard to be nervous about reporters and entertainers when you’ve had to interrogate violent criminals. Regardless, you have nothing to worry about. You handled both yourself and the conversation quite well. If you hadn’t confirmed it just now, I wouldn’t have suspected this was new territory for you. You must be quite a fan of these Phantom Thieves, to defend them so eloquently.”

Morgana shifts suddenly in Akira’s bag, a warning he doesn’t really need. Akechi’s expression remains open and vaguely pleasant, giving no sign that he especially cares about what Akira has to say, but there’s a tension that wasn’t there before, that makes it clear that one wrong step will send him plummeting.

Well. Akechi did say he likes a challenge.

It just so happens, Akira is discovering, that he’s not the only one.

(He’s so gonna get an earful from Morgana for this.)

Akira gives a bit of a grimace. “I don’t know that I’d say ‘fan’, necessarily.”

There’s a beat of silence, and while Akechi’s expression changes very little, there’s definitely a note of surprise. “Oh really? What would you say then?”

“You have a point,” Akira begins slowly, “worrying about their methods. Assuming they’re real, it’s clear whatever they’re doing is effective. Having that much potential power, but no oversight into what they’re doing… well, it’s the same reason a lot of people don’t trust politicians, or police. I imagine the only reason the Phantom Thieves are being viewed positively by anyone is because of the results they’re achieving.”

“In contrast to politicians and police,” Akechi says dryly, with a bitter note that Akira wasn’t expecting. “So you think the ends justify the means?”

“Not at all,” Akira shoots back. “But aren’t these ends worth pursuing? Madarame’s arrest has improved so many lives, and from what I’ve seen online has encouraged people in similar situations to stand up for themselves, no Thieves required. Isn’t exposing injustices worthwhile, Detective?”

Akechi’s face grows serious at the slight. “No one should be above the law, regardless of results.”

“No one should be. But plenty of people already are, aren’t they? Madarame clearly was, until the law couldn’t look the other way anymore.”

“… You’re right,” Akechi says, stony expression softening. “Apologies, for losing my temper a bit there. This is just… something I have very strong feelings about.”

“No worries,” Akira says. “I did needle you. My point is, as glad I am for what these Phantom Thieves may have done, I don’t think we know enough about them to call myself a fan.”

Akechi gives a huff of a laugh. “We do have a bit of a habit of getting off topic, don’t we? Not that I’m complaining; it’s remarkably good stimulation. In fact… would you be willing to exchange contact information? You’ve been such a wonderful debate partner, I think it would do us both good to continue having these sorts of discussions.”

Claws dig into Akira’s back through his bag. And really, Morgana is right. Akira definitely should not give his information to the guy who’s trying to catch him and his friends.

“Absolutely,” Akira says with a grin.

As they exchange numbers and Akira feels the certainty of a confidante click into place within him, he can’t even regret it.

He walks away when Akechi does, though, moving just outside of the studio in the hopes of getting a little privacy so that Morgana can start chewing him out now instead of trying to do it on the train. He finds an empty spot in the hallway where Ryuji (hopefully) won’t miss him, then slides his bag under his arm and opens it.

“Listen,” he starts, “I know it’s risky to get too close to someone like him, but I really think we can-”

“Akira!”

He stops, shocked. Morgana, for all that he likes to hear his own voice, rarely interrupts. Looking down properly at him, Akira realizes that Morgana doesn’t look mad like he’d expected. Instead, he looks… scared.

“What? What’s wrong?”

He can hear Morgana’s tail lashing inside his bag. “I, I know we talked last night about how something seemed off, and I realized, while you were talking to him… I’m the only one of us that said the word ‘pancakes’ yesterday.”

Akira stares blankly at him for a few seconds, before the realization of what, exactly, that implies hits him like a well placed zionga.

“… Fuck.”

[aroaceleovaldez]

yknow everybody argues about how to pronounce "Percabeth" with a soft C or hard C but i think the REAL one we should be debating is "Percalypso."

cause, i mean. "Percy" has a soft C but "Calypso" has a hard C. So using either makes sense, but you do have to decide which name gets to keep the C pronunciation in the combined version.

[lazycranberrydoodles]

kinktober day 7: swapping clothes

yippee yay xie lian in red! follow 4 more hua cheng bait 🚩

[bisupergirl]

i miss kara...................

[fromtheseventhhell]

I've noticed that Stansas take criticisms towards themselves as "hate" towards Sansa, they're really never beating the self-insert allegations 😭

[essektheylyss]

Since I have finally defeated the horrors*, I'm starting to catch up on World Beyond Numbers after having fallen behind when school started after arc 1, and I did in fact have to pause to take a walk to get some baklava before getting too far into the Citadel food crawl because it is late afternoon and I was not gonna make it.

[bethanyactually]

if you are a person who rambles in the tags of posts you reblog

Thank you very much *・ﾟ✧

[textsfromthetva]

“Hey, me and my platonic life partner saw you from across the bar, and we really dig your vibe. Can we buy you a drink?”

[sysig]

Double feature (Patreon)

[lord-squiggletits]

Something else that makes me sympathetic to Pharma's situation is like. Idk if there's an actual term for this or if someone smarter and more academic wrote it about some real life context that actually matters.

But, so we've already established among Pharma stans that the circumstances at Delphi were blackmail/torture with no real way out that wouldn't involve Pharma being responsible for people getting killed (either killing patients for the deal or having everyone die bc he failed his end of the deal).

And I feel like while "he's still in the wrong because he killed people" is part of it, another sort of implicit part is the idea that Pharma should've been willing to take more personal risk, maybe even risk dying? I mean, Ratchet does ask "why didn't you just detonate it near the DJD" (to which Pharma responds that he did try to get Sonic and Boom to do it, but they refused) so like

Idk I feel like we do have this social notion of martyrs as a very romantic ideal, people you can praise for being so brave and strong and righteous that they ended their own lives for their cause, while you can also coo about how sad and tragic it is that dying is what it took for them to do the right thing. But at the same time I feel like in reality, having an expectation that people become martyrs is kind of a toxic social norm bc like. It's very easy to demand that others sacrifice their lives for some Ultimate Moral Good when you yourself aren't experiencing the same hardships as they are. And ultimately it is kind of fucked up to tell someone "the moral thing you should've done was risk your life/kill yourself" because asking someone to pay their life to do the right thing is no small request. And sure, the typical response would be to call them a "coward" for caring more about saving their own skin instead of doing the right thing... but again, death is a really scary thing and self-preservation is a really strong instinct, so it kind of feels like having this binary view of "you're either a Brave Hero who sacrifices your life for everyone else or a Dirty Coward who's too scared of dying to do what's right" is kind of fucked up?

I guess the best way to describe it is that if someone willingly gives up their life as a sacrifice to others, it can be a noble thing because it's a choice they made willingly, but if it becomes a Moral Standard that in order to be a Good Person you have to be unafraid of throwing your life away and if you aren't willing to die you're a Cowardly Bad Person, that's when it becomes toxic.

Idk, I guess how this ties back to Pharma is that he was never in a position where he expected to make these kinds of moral decisions/ultimatums. He's a doctor who doesn't even get into combat, his job is to heal and not to kill, he's behind the front lines in a hospital that's supposed to be a safe, neutral place for him to heal people. So in the face of suddenly having a "murder people on behalf of me, or I murder everyone you swore to protect" ultimatum thrust upon him, I understand why Pharma wasn't """"""""""brave enough"""""""""" to "do the right thing" (whatever that would've been in the case of Delphi). You could argue that maybe a frontliner soldier accepted the burden of possibly dying for their cause and they've become used to it as someone who lives that reality every single day, but I feel like for Pharma, who's a doctor and a protected non-combatant (from what we can tell), that sort of risking of his life/living with the fact his life could be snuffed out any day isn't something he would've been prepared for at all.

And for me personally, from an outsider's perspective, it strikes me as kind of unethical to go "oh well he should've just detonated the bomb himself even if it killed him" bc again, there's a difference between witnessing a moral conundrum as a bystander versus being the person living with it and being under time pressure where it's do-or-die. Just as part of my personal standards, I feel like death is such a huge consequence/burden of someone's actions (literally you are no longer alive, any potential you had left is cut short, you cease to exist on this plane) that it feels rather callous to go "Well you should've just been willing to die for your beliefs if you really cared that much!!!"

[sergeantsporks]

I need to make. A playlist for witch switch.

[faggling]

I love taking care of people omggg 😍😍😍

[misterbaritone]

My favorite trope in Christmas related media is Santa proving he’s real by telling someone, be they child or adult, about some hyper specific thing they wanted when they were a kid

[queenburd]

My good sir, you’re starting to act like Stanley when it comes to your sense of self preservation.

I’m not going anywhere with this idea but if it was an au of this fic idea it would be called Outer Science.

[camelpimp]

Sometimes when I see fire emblem fans talk about the stories of these games I just think "have you played Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics? I think those games would actually give you what you want."

[eisthenameofme]

embracing the vampire autism i have going on apparently means combing through 500 vtm books and making notes on the lore and contradictions in the lore and potential implications and what was intended to be taken from some things vs things that actually make sense in context/with better research and sorting through what was included for mechanical gameplay vs worldbuilding reasons and combining all of this + the information intentionally left vague so i can form my own ideas into an amalgam of schrodingers canon with which to try to figure out what i personally tend to view as canon in-universe and then still figuring out how to insert the contradictory information/alternate interpretations in as like. character opinion/intentional misinformation/etc.