#p5 informant au

[cielomalaya]

Informant AU

based on @necroalx's fanart that you can find here!

Post-events of Persona 5 Royal & Strikers (no Sumi coz idk how to write her) like, set 5yrs later after the games

Ren is an informant for Makoto (and partner ehe (⁠◠⁠‿⁠・⁠)⁠—⁠☆ )

He occasionally uses 'Akira Kurusu' when undercover

He usually uses his glasses when he's not working (by work, i mean undercover) y'know... ala Clark Kent~

Learns about the art of disguise coz Yusuke dragged him into some makeup classes when he got interested in it (his reason being makeup is the painting  but the face is the canvas)

Ren is somewhat a master of disguise except he cant do much when it comes to voices (Futaba's foray into creating voice changers would eventually help with that)

Makoto kinda helped him learn how to fight (he kinda knows already coz of the PT stuff but not that well enough)

Makoto thinks that removing her braid headband is enough as a disguise and it works sometimes

Makoto also favors her knuckledusters

PT knows that they're doing this stuff but it's mostly Ren, Makoto, Futaba and Morgana

They still use their codenames when working

Ren favors knives and probably has at least ten of them hidden in his clothes... he somehow evades being detected by metal detector coz of Futaba's tech prowess/plot armor (yup. surely.)

Ren still has the third eye power from y'know, one of the last remnants of their lives as PT

Personas are not sentient but they make their presence known sometimes (im keeping tier 3 ones except for Ren coz Satanael is too cool)

Everyone who has a persona also gained some "enhancements" post-PT events like enhanced strength and agility as well as immunity to some stuff based on their main element in-game (ex. Ann is more fire-proof than the average person, Ryuji more electricity-proof etc.)

Futaba is a game dev and she's rich coz of it, one of Ren's assistants in his job and creates nifty gadgets (nothing too extra) for him

Ren now co-owns Leblanc with Sojiro and also serves as his cover (still lives in the attic but with a nicer bed this time lol)

Futaba got an alarm system for the café at night as well as the Sakura house and the Niijima apartment

Morgana is his partner, being not-a-cat helps him a lot when it comes to infiltration

Haru is one of his ears in the business world, Ann's in showbiz, Yusuke's in the artist scene, Ryuji... is sparring partner and occasionally shares rumors he hears from time-to-time coz Shujin's rumor mill is strong as ever, Futaba is more internet-based

Zenkichi helps him whenever he can, Sophia is still travelling with Ichinose but she helps Futaba sometimes and in constant contact with everyone

Akane's vibing and still fangirls abt PT stuff, will eventually know about it soon enough

Tora gives him intel when it comes to politics, he goes to Ohya for information, Takemi is a trusted doctor, etc.

Crossroads is kinda a safe spot for Ren & Makoto

The Sakura-Amamiya-Niijima(+Morgana) investigation trio is OP

Sae worries about the targets they paint on their backs coz of their occupation

Ren has a gun license and a private investigator's license (let's pretend that P5 Japan has that law lol)

Ren has a degree in law and culinary arts (how he managed to pull that off, that i dunno)

(i might do a mini-fanfic abt this but no promises coz i got thesis rn lol)

[kiaroscuro]

The rest of the human persona, feat my fave girl Pandora and grumpy man Valjean. In this house we stan every persona with their own distinct quirks and characteristics 🙏

As previously mentioned, the notes aren't necessarily relevant to the fic I'm currently writing

(and yes, Loki's outfit is inspired by Marvel!Loki bc I love that man to death and cannot wait for the second season of the show)

I just noticed that I misspelled cendrillons name, oops

[rensply]

My outlines tend to evolve into zero drafts which includes me mapping out/drafting scene dialogue and my Persona 5 fics (canonverse and the horror/paranormal AU) are the objects of my hyperfixation at the moment.

All that to say I have energy for the first time in months today so I felt the urge to share some quotes from the horror au specifically

Slight context for the last quote: in this AU, personas are reimagined as Conduits, Yokai that can help supernaturally sensitive people harness magic that would otherwise severely hurt/kill them. The Conduits all have the names of the Third Tier personas in Royal.

Raoul is a bat and has a bad habit of proofing into existence at the most inopportune times. This will be a running gag.

[nana-au]

𝐈 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐍'𝐓 𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐄...

 𝜗𝜚 Satoru Gojo Prince AU ♡ part four

 𝜗𝜚 Summary: satoru has an announcement to make to the royal court. you don't think you could've ever prepare yourself for what it could be. the two of you see each other after months of no contact and the result is bitter sweet. story summary based off of this drabble

𝜗𝜚 Warnings: forbidden love, unspoken feelings, heavy angst, intense emotions, suggestive flirting, heated make out, cussing, depression symptoms, misguided anger, jealousy.

 𝜗𝜚 wc: 4,323

𝜗𝜚 an: there is a surprise guest from the jjk cast being introduced.. heh. dw he is just for the story and holds no interest in reader.

┊p1┊p2┊p3┊p4┊𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠... p5┊

“How do you like kitchen duty, my dear?” the Queen asks, the royal blue wallpaper of her study behind her head seems to shift like the ocean waves; rising and falling - dancing in the reflection of your pupils as your tea is poured for you. With a wave of her hand the Queen’s servant is dismissed and it’s just the two of you alone. The silence is unsettling as much as it is intoxicating. The kitchen is noisy - pots and pans clanging together, the repeated motion of knife hitting cutting board, and the bubbling sounds of a roiling boil. But then there is your room at night; the bed you climb into is decently soft and the covers keep you warm enough but you’re missing the noise of Satoru’s words. Before everything changed you would lay awake and replay every conversation with the Prince; your heart would pound remembering every brush of his hand or intense gaze he didn’t bother to hide. Instead now even your own thoughts have quieted, leaving your night void of any stimulation. 

“It’s been pleasant,” you respond, blowing on the hot tea you’ve brought to your lips. You don’t try very hard to sound convincing but if the Queen notices she doesn’t comment on it. 

“I’ve heard you have been getting pretty close to one of the men in the kitchen,” she wiggles her eyebrows, like you’re her girl friend and she’s genuinely interested in your potential love life. You’re not entirely sure where she got such information from; but it’s been clear to you for a while now. She has eyes and ears everywhere. 

“Forgive me, I’m not quite sure who you are referring to,” the tea is hot as you sip it, burning the taste buds you’ve barely been using these days. 

“Well, Nanami, of course,” she takes a moment to sip her own tea. “He’s handsome… quite burly too for working in a kitchen,” she’s smirking describing the man like it's the most entertaining gossip in the whole world. You guess it's not the worst thing she could potentially hear about you. All though, the worst had already been said. 

“He’s knowledgeable,” you tell her, stoic and devoid of any real emotion, “I enjoy learning what I can from him,” it’s a boring answer but your life is boring now. She frowns, almost a little disappointed that you won’t bite and indulge in ‘boy talk’ with her, but she continues on anyway. 

“That’s how your parents met, you know,” another long sip of her tea, “your father used to volunteer in the kitchens just to see your mother,” she’s obnoxiously giddy again and you can’t fight the sour taste of disgust. It feels more like she’s describing a silly little romance novel and not real people’s lives. It’s almost amusing knowing that as soon as your ‘silly little romance’ got too close to her son it was no longer exciting to her. You kept silent - having nothing worth commenting aloud as you waited for her to get to her point. She didn’t invite you here to gossip, your life had hardly been entertaining since 3 months ago when you were banished from Satoru’s presence. Her lips purse for a moment before she talks, “Well that’s not why I invited you here anyways,”

No shit. 

“I wanted to say thank you. I’m sure you’ve heard of our upcoming event in which Satoru will announce who he is courting,” you could have choked on air if you were not incredibly aware of yourself around the Queen. Instead you sucked in a quick breath. You had obviously been preparing for the event seeing as it was tomorrow and everyone in the kitchens scrambled around to get everything set for it - but you missed the part where it involved Satoru and his new potential partner. “I was incredibly worried for the future of our kingdom, and I appreciate your diligent work in securing that,” her words danced around the true meaning - but you weren’t a dunce. She was thanking you for hurting Satoru - and yourself in the process. A truly noble sacrifice indeed. You had to fight the desire to strangle yourself in front of her.  

“Of course,” is all you muster, not bothering to put on a brave face. 

“Remember the blonde Princess I talked about all those years ago?” she says, observing her pristine nails, “I knew Satoru would warm up to her if he tried,” your tea was gone by the end of her sentence and you lacked the stimulation now required for this conversation; your uneasiness eating away at your insides. 

“I’ve heard she’s lovely,” your throat is dry despite downing an entire cup of tea. 

“Oh more than lovely, if you could even imagine. I’ve never seen Satoru more at peace than when he’s listening to her playing piano. She’s quite the pianist!” 

𝜗𝜚

Satoru did indeed enjoy the times she played for him. The melody left no room for chatter. It was the only moment the two of them were together that he could close his eyes and rest; shutting down after hours of struggling to be present. He didn’t need to pretend to listen to how her day went or care about her childhood. He didn’t need to make up details about his day or share stories of his own youth that he struggled to edit you out of. He could just be. And that’s how Satoru preferred it. 

You would never know about it because ‘how could you?’ - but Satoru was a new man. Gone were the days of acting out or scoffing at his lessons. Gone were the days he preferred fencing to etiquette lessons. He now spent his time indoors because that’s where his bed was closest. His new favorite activity was painting. It was quiet and kept his mind occupied. He enjoyed painting with the new Princess the most - she would play while he would paint and as her hands created beautiful melodies Satoru’s created melancholy works of art

She peers a glance at his canvas over the piano, eyebrows furrowing as she notices the brooding blues, “You do realize this song is meant to elicit joy?” she inquires playfully, and Satoru apologizes. 

“Forgive me, I don’t have much experience with music theory,” his brush dips into the blue oil paint before dabbing it onto the course fabric. 

“Blue seems to be your favorite color,” she comments, her hands walking over each other as the keys come alive from her touch. 

Satoru nods, “I do enjoy reds too. Deep reds,” he murmurs. 

The color of his bleeding heart. 

𝜗𝜚

When the King and Queen announce a new ball, Satoru already understands the reason without being told. He had to fix his blunder - the one where he abandoned his duties and prioritized the pleasure your presence gave him. He hadn’t seen you since that day - but he was sure your face would bring him anything but pleasure nowadays. He was agreeing to the expectations of this new event without listening. It didn’t matter to him anyways. His life wasn’t his - this was a fact he could no longer be gullible about. 

That’s why he stood there in the center of the ballroom, fingers interlaced with the Princess as he smiled down at her like she meant something to him. Because his life wasn’t his and there were worse women in the world to be arranged to. The Princess really wasn’t all that bad. She was intelligent, respectful, charitable and incredibly humble. She knew there was more to life than her appearance all while being a sight for sore eyes. Satoru couldn’t have expected anyone more perfect for the role of his wife. With his heart now out of the picture - there was no better option than her. He could see that clearly now.

She nuzzled her head against his shoulder, hiding her blush as Satoru talked about the first day they met to an inquiring older man and that is when you finally see the two of them together. Surprisingly, you’re allowed out of your metaphorical cage - the King and Queen now fully entrusting you in the same room as Satoru after you successfully stomped out his light. You’re with the kitchen boy, Nanami, who was the Queen’s new show pony she liked to trot around; insisting he was there to describe the new hors d'oeuvre he created himself. Neither of you were entirely convinced the Queen thought that highly of the dish - rather than the idea of having such an esteemed cook now residing in her royal kitchen. Your jaw drops seeing the two of them next to each other. You had only seen paintings of the Princess, and even those did not prepare you for the intensity of her eyes and the silkiness of her hair. You were right all those years ago; next to Satoru wearing his family’s signature blue - she fit perfectly. 

And Satoru. Your Satoru. He looked so sorrowfully beautiful. His jaw was sharper and his eyes were darker but he was still Satoru and that fact alone made it impossible to look away. You had no right - but your watery eyes threatened to spill over watching the Prince hold hands with the Princess. A pitiful feeling fell over you once you realized you couldn’t read his expression. There had never been a day that you couldn’t skim his face like the pages of a book and pinpoint exactly what he was thinking - but now being in the same room with him after so long - you realized you were no longer privy to his thoughts like you used to be. Perhaps that ability was now reserved for the woman who held his hand. If it wasn’t so devastating you might have considered thanking the Queen for what she made you do. You had to have looked so silly beside him seeing the Princess in front of you now - appearing to be a piece of the same puzzle by his side. 

“Are you doing okay?” a deep voice prods your ear and you turn to see Nanami, standing by your side with a look of worry. The Queen wasn’t entirely wrong when she spoke of rumors that the two of you were close - you were in a lot of ways. Just not in the way she found most interesting. Nanami taught you a lot of skills in the kitchen. He showed you the best ways to cut vegetables and the importance of never looking away from milk boiling on a stove top. He told you stories of his travels in search of the best ingredients and his experience being raised on the country-side of a faraway nation whose people were dying of hunger. How his life as a child shaped him into who he was to this day: a seasoned cook who the highest of society paid a pretty penny to grace their kitchens. For some time you spared him the details of your life and he took it well - waiting for the moment you decided he was someone you could trust - and once you did it seemed to flow out of you and never stop. He knew all about your childhood with Satoru and how things became the way they are now. He didn’t scoff at you for daring to imagine yourself next to a Prince or gawk at the audacity it must take to delude yourself into believing your life could possibly be different than those before you. He just listened while he prepared a snack for the two of you. It was cathartic being around someone who carried as much baggage as you. The two of you were stronger than ever by each other’s side, and that is why you stood with him while he talked to the snobs he couldn’t stand and he stood with you while you watched the Prince make his love interest known to everyone. “Go take a moment for yourself, I’ll cover for you,” he offered and you shook your head.

“I promised I wouldn’t leave you alone with these assholes,” you say, earning a chuckle from the blond man next to you. You look up at him and all though he’s laughing his eyes don’t contain humor - more concerned for you while witnessing the same display you had to. He knew it couldn’t be easy.

He leaned in once more, “Well if you change your mind, I won’t be mad,” you smile at him, grateful that you weren’t entirely alone in your new reality. 

𝜗𝜚

Just like the two of you could see the royal couple they could see you too - if they knew what to look for. You caught the Prince’s eye while he took a sip of his champagne, using it as a moment to take in the scene around him until he spotted you. He didn’t know what to expect when he first considered the possibility of running into you again; you two inhabited the same estate and though it was big you had your whole lives to bump into each other. Originally he thought his anger would get the better of him once he finally laid eyes on you. Or he considered that given enough time had passed, looking into your eyes wouldn’t elicit any kind of emotion in him - completely indifferent to your role in his life, like all other servants. What he didn’t expect was for his heart to fail him, the once slow pace now jump started with adrenaline. His heart rate was wild and his pupils dilated. The bubbly drink that usually burned on the way down had effortlessly passed his throat and entered his stomach that grew weak with just one look at you. If he wasn’t careful the Princess beside him would take note of how he completely removed himself from their conversation - but careful he could not be. He wanted to curse his cheeks for warming up at the mere thought of breathing the same air as you… how could he be present? Satoru wouldn’t have even noticed the man standing next to you if not for the way his tall form towered over you, blocking you from the Prince’s view. That’s when Satoru began to grow just a little more aware of his surroundings - or more so your surroundings. While he repeated the words you said to him that day like it was a prayer he couldn’t help but retell before bed - lest he forget - he still fought the logical side of him begging him to accept your words as fact. But he couldn’t because he couldn’t accept your own interpretation of your feelings while you shook and sniffled in the stables. He believed you wanted nothing more to do with him - but he thought the pressure of fighting for your rightful place in his life was one you could no longer stomach. That was what caused him the pain he felt each passing moment. That you lost your fight because Satoru wasn’t worth it. But how could he believe you lost your fight when you had no one in your life pressuring you to move on like he did - yet there you stood seemingly cozy next to the tall man beside you. Perhaps the thought of you giving up on Satoru hurt his heart less and that was why he settled on that thought, instead of the earth-shattering possibility that you could have actually wanted nothing to do with him.

So why would you have kissed him?

𝜗𝜚

It was a quiet afternoon when the two of you decided to stroll through the garden’s after Satoru’s tea break. You often found it beneficial to have Satoru spend time outside inbetween his lessons - he would have a new found focus when given the chance to allow his mind to wander in the cool air that the spring time offered. His fingers would busy themselves with the petals of a flower and you would walk in silence beside him, listening to him ramble or letting him bask in the tranquility nature offered. 

That day was one of those times Satoru pondered silently and you let him, enjoying the unique flowers the Gojo’s had planted from all across the globe while you walked by his side. His face was scrunched in thought and his hands were busy with the stem of a lily, using his thumbs to pry the plant open to feel around its sticky insides. You two were deep in your walk, the garden trail extending surprisingly far on the Gojo’s lawn. The estate was now hidden by the yards of thick bushes that separated the trail from other parts of their extensive property. Satoru let out a breath you didn’t realize he was holding, and you turned to look at him. 

He seemed anxious, the tips of his ears were deep red and his face was scrunched with worry. “Did you get a sunburn, Satoru?” you ask him, stopping him in his tracks to get a better look at his ears. They were hot to the touch as you inspected them but he was antsy rather than in pain from the grip you had on his cartilage.

“What do you think about kissing?” he asked, his cheeks turning as red as his ears. You giggle at him, not because it was random - no that was normal for Satoru - but the topic was a bit suspicious.

“Why do you ask?” you all but flirt - finding the confidence to since you had the upper hand.

“I don’t know… it just kept coming up in the book I’ve been reading,” he puts simply, trying to end the conversation he brought up. It was rare for Satoru to embarrass himself like such, and it was going to be hard for him to get you to ignore it. 

“You've been thinking a lot about kissing, haven't you?” you continue to tease, and he scratches the back of his neck. 

“No!” he scoffs, “Just.. nevermind,” the flower he was dissecting was discarded for a new one - his fingers plucking the petals before tearing into the ovule roughly. 

“I don’t know what I think about kissing, I’ve never kissed,” you answer his original question, engaging him back into the conversation. 

“Me neither,” he responded, defiling the poor flower a little less since you had his attention. ‘What do you think it’s like?” It’s your turn to blush and he definitely realizes his newfound control over the conversation - turning the tables on you as he begins to poke you about it. “It’s probably wet, right? Well if you used tongue,” you’re a blushing mess listening to your best friend describe something such as tongue-kissing and he’s smiling at you. His pearly white teeth sparkle under the sun while he continues his torture, “I’d imagine it’s warm too - and soft. Your lips look soft,” he comments and you could feel yourself struggling to hold back your bashful reaction. He knew how to work you up just like you knew how to work him up. Unfortunately he was a little bit better at it than you - or you were just more susceptible under his gaze. He comes in closer to you - you think just to tease you further and get your heart to racket against your chest and you’re not entirely wrong. It’s hard to focus when his broad shoulders contrast yours and when you feel the palm of his hand touch your sternum to feel the pounding of your heart - you can’t fathom how you’re still standing on your own. “Your heart rate is fast,” he comments, pretending he has no concept as to why that could be. 

“You flirt too much, Satoru,” you grumble at him, trying and failing to steady your heart beats with him so close. His breath smells sweet like the candies he eats and you can’t protect your nose from the pleasant musk that clings to his skin. 

“I’m not flirting. I’m just asking you a question,” he’s somehow closer and his hand won’t leave the spot between your breasts. 

“Yeah. Kissing is probably warm and wet and whatever else you said,” you mumble, desperate to crawl away from him while simultaneously scared of losing physical contact with him. 

“Maybe we should test our hypothesis,” he’s still smiling but his eyes don’t match; half lidded while he observes the twitch of your lips at his words. You gulp, unable to keep yourself from looking at his own pair of lips. You note that they look soft too, even when he bites at them upon noticing you’re doing the same as him. “It can just be a quick one,” he says, almost like he’s trying to convince you now like he’s already convinced himself years ago. Unbeknownst to him you needed very little convincing. 

“Just a quick one,” you all but breathe out, and the two of you are leaning in without realizing it until your lips meet. Your lips feel plump against his, soft like the pillow he lays his head on at night and he doesn’t want it to end. His hand meets your jaw, holding you still while his lips get used to the feeling of yours against them. Your hands come up to grip his shirt, bracing yourself while he slowly deepens it, testing the waters by slowly poking his tongue inside your mouth. You pull back, yelping at the unexpected intrusion. 

“Do you trust me?” he asks, voice sultry and deep and you nod at him, going back in for more. He starts slowly again, pecking your lips softly before working his way up to prodding his tongue cautiously against your sweet lips. You let him in and he all but groans, gripping your waist with his other hands so he can feel you pressed up against him. You both have no idea what you’re doing, teeth and tongues hesitantly clashing as you explore each other’s mouths. His pulse quickens when you let out a weak moan muffled by his mouth hot against yours. His hand on your jaw slowly works its way down your neck, across your collarbone, before hesitantly stopping at the start of your breast. You’re both clouded by the haze created between the two of you, unaware of your surroundings until you hear the scurry of an animal. You both pull away - scanning the area with no luck of finding the creature that caused it. You clear your throat and try your best to pull yourself together - but it’s hard when his eyes are so dark and his lips are so red and glossy from your spit.

“Let’s get back, Satoru. Your teacher will be expecting you soon,” and off you go, with Satoru trailing behind you.

𝜗𝜚

Satoru had never felt the foreign concept of competition in regards to you. It must be the reason he felt such vitriolic jealousy seeing you next to another man. He had no time to consider himself a fool. He wanted nothing more than to see his nose smashed in and your eyes on him again. 

But Satoru had to remind himself he was different. He was no longer the old Satoru whose emotions reigned over his logic. While the new Satoru was born through pain, it would do him good to act on the new things he learned; like patience. 

And patience he needed when later that night he found himself wandering into the kitchen for a glass of water - expecting the room to be empty and overcome with shock when he saw you there. You’re not alone either. The man from earlier guided your hand as you two fileted a fish. And what an odd sight it was - seeing your back pressed up another man’s chest as he carefully guided your knife against the belly of a salmon. Nanami notices the Prince first, respectfully removing his guiding hands and you look up, mouth agape at the sight of the unimpressed Prince in front of you. “Prince Gojo,” you both say, bowing respectfully at him. “How can we be of service?” Nanami asks, still stuck in his bow to Satoru. For the first time in your life you see Satoru ponder his next words and it is almost as shocking as being in the same room as him for the second time after going no-contact all those months ago. You aren’t used to him thinking so long about what to say; you’d always known him to speak his mind unfiltered. It made you incredibly uneasy.

“Are they aware you two occupy the kitchens after they’re meant to be closed,” he asks and you’re even more confused. Satoru? Becoming a stickler for rules? Your jaw hung open just for a moment when you remembered to pick it back up. 

“We’re very sorry, your royal highness. We will be sure to clean up and head off to bed,” Nanami is nothing short of respectful but Satoru still can’t hold back a scoff, turning his head to glance your way. His eyes miss their softness you’ve always been used to and you cower under his eyes, keeping your gaze on the ground until he finally turns around and leaves. 

𝜗𝜚

That night is the first night you let yourself think about Satoru again, now having many things to think about as you lay awake in your bed. 

He looked… almost disappointed in you? You try to fight the idea of him caring what you chose to do, chalking it up to your hopeless wanting that he was as stuck on you as you were stuck on him. But you saw him tonight with the Princess; getting close to her like he only ever did with you and you know you can’t let yourself get caught up in misguided optimism - Satoru had moved on and did exactly what you needed him to do… So why did that realization have to be so unbelievable to you?

┊p1┊p2┊p3┊p4┊𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠... p5┊

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(ty for all the support! comment to be added/removed)

[crystallinekai]

ShuAke Childhood Friends(?) to Rival Lovers AU

(I'm posting this headcanon here so I can reblog onto my P5 roleplay blog~ 💃🏽 Also, I have not written anything headcanon related in ages so please bear with me.)

Goro and Akira met at a Japanese equivalent of a daycare at the age of 5 years old while Akira was 3 years old. Akira was already there, playing with some blocks, when he saw a shy Goro enter while clinging to his mother. Goro's mother was explaining her situation, a lot of words that Akira couldn't understand. Something about money and how she needed Goro to stay here during the daytime while she's at work. The employee quickly assured the woman, making her relax before she signed some registration papers.

Akira had no idea what was going on as he couldnt take his eyes off of Goro. The other boy piqued Akira's interest even before he glanced his way. It was more of a glare he received while he clung to his mother tighter. It seemed like the woman noticed and she saw Akira looking in their direction. She smiled at him, finished signing the forms and placing a payment. She walked over to Akira while Goro trailed closely behind her, still glaring at the boy. The lovely woman introduced her son to Akira and hoped they will be good friends to which Akira cheerfully promised, "We will!"

And while Goro and Akira had became friends, there was a tiny bit of a rivalry going on. Akira thought it was a game, but Goro was serious. Their competition would stem from who can put the toys up faster or who can count the highest. That one was a little unfair for Akira who was three. One of their odd competitions led to Akira crying and it made Goro feel bad. So he promised to bring some candy tomorrow as a way to call a truce and make it up to Akira. It was silly, but they ended up bonding more after that particular incident. They spent a lot of time together before one of them had to go home each day. Their friendship was pure happiness for over a year.

Until one day, Goro hadn't come back to daycare one day. And one day turned to two. Then three. Before Akira was even aware, a week went by with no sign of Goro. He was sad. And then, it was Akira's turn to move away. He was due to start primary school soon and with his parent's line of work, they had to move to a different city.

He hadn't seen Goro Akechi again since. Akira was heartbroken and he didn't understand why.

About 13 years went by and a series of events happened then turned his life upside down. Getting arrested and slapped with a false assault charge landed him in a different prefecture and school.

Imagine Akira's surprise when he met Akechi on a social studies trip with his school. He felt a sense of familiarity from Akechi which made him feel a bit nostalgic and also like something that was previously missing had fell into place. He had met his old friend again, but unfortunately, they were on opposite sides. Akechi was a famous ace detective while Akira was a Phantom Thief. Akira knew needed to be careful around him yet, he was eager to spend time with Akechi and make up for lost time. Akira found himself wanting to talk to Akechi once they exchanged contact information often and they did. Then they hung out in a few spots including frequenting Cafe Leblanc, the bathhouse in Yongen-Jaya and spending time at the Cafe or Club in Kichijoji. They gravitated to each other when their schedules happened to line up, talking about their past and sometimes exchanging opinions on the Phantom Thieves. Akira found himself looking forward to every hangout between them and deepening their bond. And he fell hard for Akechi.

Which was why the betrayal from Akechi had been expected, it still hurt his heart. He thought of their talks while he was in hiding for the next month, still yearning to hear Akechi's voice on the other line if he called or see his name come up in his messages. All was quiet until the moment they had crossed paths again in Shido's palace. Akechi revealed to Akira he hated him ever since they were kids, mostly out of anger and frustration about him being surrounded by everyone while Akechi had been alone and cast aside. The words were said, but that wasn't how Akechi had felt. Akechi actually loved Akira too. Even Akira's friends could see that. They fought each other and brought Akechi to his knees. Akira offered for Akechi to join yhem again to take down Shido together when the Cognitive Goro Akechi appeared, gun in hand and pointed it at the real Akechi. Akechi gave Akira one last look and said, "If only we had met sooner..." Which Akira was about to reply before the steel gate separated them and a single gunshot was heard. His heart shattered when Akira heard Futaba confirm she couldn't see Akechi's signal anymore.

The fight with Shido was difficult and he avenged the boy he loved while making Shido atone for everything. The change of heart was a success. Akira lamented to Morgana on how he was unable to save Goro. He was mourning the loss of someone dear to him and had been dear to him since they had first met.

Eventually, Akira had to turn himself in as he had promised to Sae Niijima. His initial charges from Shido had been cleared. He served his time in juvenile detention because no one can overlook the fact he is the leader of the Phantom Thieves. Akira accepted that easily than when he had to accept that Goro wasn't alive. He still had the glove Akechi gave to him. Thankfully, that hadn't been confiscated when he was first arrested.

Akira returned to his life outside of juvenile detention after his time served. His friends rejoiced in having him back. He was glad to be with them. However, Akira knew one more person should be here. He still waited for his phone call or even a text.

It was when Akira was watching the shop shortly after White Day was when he heard the door open. Akira greeted the customer as normal before getting a good look at him and froze. Those familiar brown eyes with a unique reddish hue to them, the chestnut brown hair and his beautiful face. He was here. Goro was here, alive in Leblanc. The one word, a name was all Akira managed to say when he locked eyes with the other man:

"Akechi."

end

[myrachondria]

♡ My Bookcase ♡

☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

(feel free to go through my books, please just return them when you're done ♡)

One Shots:

Ominis

It Will Always Be You

(Ominis confesses drunkenly to Sebastian about a girl he fell in love with the summer before his 5th year.)

What's Your Favourite Scary Movie? (WIP) - Sneak Peak

(Modern!AU, Ghostface!AU Ominis has taken on a new persona to get some unfinished business out of the way. It looks like the new mask and outfit comes with an unexpected perk.

Sebastian

In the Depths of His Obsession (WIP) - Sneak Peak, Part 1

(Dark!Sebastian gets released from Azkaban after 5 years, and he only has one goal in mind - to win back MC using any means necessary)

A Gift with Dark Intentions

(Dark!Sebastian comes home with an interesting handmade gift for MC)

Series:

The Durmstrang Champion (WIP) - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

(It's their final year, and the Triwizard Tournament is announced. As the visiting schools arrive, one particular Durmstrang student catches the attention of our silver trio. Something doesn't seem quite right about her.)

Layla and Majnun (WIP)

(Layla is the MC of HL in this story. Tons of angst and smut. Retelling of the famous Layla and Majnun story with Layla and Ominis where they face unimaginable hard times. Nothing can separate them... right?)

Into The Darkness (WIP)

(Due to the events of what happened in their fifth year Sebastian, Ominis, and MC are no longer friends. Sebastian is quickly becoming a renound auror when he gets a new case in which some aspects feel all too familiar.)

Headcannons:

Dom Sebastian vs Dom Ominis vs Dom MC

Ominis Gaunt NSFW Headcanon - Snakey Boi

Sebastian + MC in a Relationship

Marvolo Apologizing

HL Cast - Inaccurate Quotes

HL Cast - Inaccurate Quotes P2

HL Cast - Inaccurate Quotes P3

HL Cast - Inaccurate Quotes P4

HL Cast - Inaccurate Quotes P5

HL Case - Inaccurate Quotes P6

Informational Sheets

◇Layla's Character Sheet◇

◇Durmstrang Institute◇

AI Art

biker!Ominis Gaunt

Ominis Gaunt

Ominis Gaunt

Ominis Gaunt + Sebastian Sallow

Soft Bois (Sebastian, Ominis, and Garreth)

[lowkeyclueless5137]

And ANOTHER P5 x Twst au :3

Oh god this is gonna be a trainwreck :v

But what else is new in here? :'3

Anyhow, I got like... Months ago an ask about another possible p5 x twst au and, of course, this derailed into shaping a whole thing.

Yet it wasn't enough for moi. It had a lot of holes in the plot and if you know me, you know that I gotta fill those up until I'm satisfied. :3c

So here we are✨

We are gonna reflect the whole time-line: top to bottom, explain every lore bit to the best of my pea brain's capacity and see what crawls out :v

How are we gonna do it? Well it's gonna be simple: we will go plot time-line wise and when things that do need explanation will pop out, they will be explained underneath the paragraph in smol text. If the marked section consists of a spoiler, it will be marked AND colored, which means it will be explained later, in a smol text, post the spoiler paragraphs.

Explanations will consist of:

plot irelevant information

games cannon points

the ooc lore that ties in the 2 games

time-line clearance :'3

I'm also gonna refer to the P5 protag as Ren Amamya, so yep. -3-

Fair warning: there will be spoilers for the whole P5 vanilla version along with Twst's latest story chapter. Since we are going cannon time-line wise, you can either go and read it until you don't want to be spoiled or you can simply read it after you saw your spoilers in the cannon games. :3

Now onto the fuckery! :D

We start off with how it all began :v

Ren's school had a letter exchange program, as a way to teach English to kids in a much more engaging and fun way. And what is a more fun way to learn a language than kids making a pen pal? He was in middle school at that time, pretty excited for this thing. They were given a few options as well.

Except that poor lil Ren didn't know how to write a school address from the options given. Instead, because of his excitement, he only wrote 'pen pal :3' in the bracket meant to have the address to send it to.

What Ren was unaware, was that, despite giving it in person to the mailman, the letter got lost among the hundreds of other letters meant to be sorted and sent.

It does get sent anyway.

And the answer is quite over everyone's heads.

You see, a few days later, Riddle was asked to pick up the mail by his mother. He would usually read the address, not expecting for anything to be addressed to anyone but his mother.

Watch his utter surprise when he sees a letter intended for 'pen pal :3'. Riddle was shook, but knowing that all the letters for his mom have her name on it and a fancy adress, the kid's brain makes the connection that HE is the one whom the letter was meant for.

So he hides it and keeps it to himself, until late at night. He uses a small light spell as he excitedly opens the letter. His mother always banned him from seeing her letters, so he believes this is also a very private moment.

And the contents were as follows:

'Hello! My name is Ren. I'm 7 years old. I live in Japan. I lika red and cads! What is your feivoriite color? Do u like cads? I'm exxcitd to be friends! -Ren'

Yes, it was short and yes, the errors were there amongst the sloppy writing, but it was authentic. The doodles did help Riddle understand that Ren liked cats actually. He even drew himself too! Even if it was a stick man with a lot of black for hair. And he even said he wanted to be friends! His very first friend!

Of course, being the very first friend, Riddle was over the moon. He didn't know how to even redact his letter. His mama always wrote hers, again, alone, without Riddle being allowed to see, thus the redhead believes that, again, it's a very personal activity.

And he got a letter. It would be rude to not respond to it!

So next morning, at individual study session, when Riddle is left alone, he pulls out Ren's letter. And uses it as an example. He puts Ren's address at the 'from' as he puts his full adress too, thus completing the destinations rubric completely. He quietly puts it in the mail needed to be picked up by the mailman and then off he was to continue his studies.

A few days later, Ren receives a letter with very nice writing. His parents think for a hot minute that their kid got a letter from a fancy school or smth. But no, it was from Ren's new pen-pal. The boy was so excited that he ran off the stairs and almost smushed on the ground. He left any breakfast he had on the table and almost spilled over a glass of water in his excitement.

Riddle's letter was far more difficult in terms of quality and English, yet Ren did make a big Boi effort to understand it. For the sake of pen-palling!

'Hello, Ren! I am Riddle Rosehearts. I am, as well, 7 years old (my birthday is in August) and I live in the Queendom of Roses. I am very happy that we will be pen-pals from now on! My favourite color is also red. And I do like cats, although I am not very sure what my favourite animal could be. I do want to ask: how is it in Japan? I never heard of such place. Is it nice? I would love to hear more from you and I'm very excited to be friends through the mail. -Riddle'

It took a lot to deschipher the letter itself, which only added more to the time for making another response.

Meanwhile, poor Riddle thought he made a bad impression for not adding doodles. He didn't really have time for such things. Yet, after a week, he gets a letter for him, from Ren and he's absolutely happy when he sees the response. Ren even made an effort to say that his pen-pal has very pretty hand-writing. As such, Riddle gets an idea of how Japan might look like, or at least Ren's little hometown. The redhead tried to research about Japan, but found nothing, thus assuming it was a local name for some country close to the land of the dragon. Meanwhile, Ren said promptly that his pen-pal is from the Queendom of roses, but everyone assumed he was referring to UK. No one questioned it, assuming that it was a thing in between the 2.

-they also believed such thing because in cannon of twst, time is reffered as our normal time

-in here, the time is the same for both worlds. Japan time is sage island time, so there's a small decalation of hour.

This letter routine continued. Ren was a fast learner, thus he had a quick evolution in his English, which gained praise at school. Meanwhile, Riddle was finding a warm and fuzzy spot whenever a new letter would come for him. Both found to grow very close to each other, like a brother you would tell all your Woes to. The letters came from simple things, to much longer ones, about one's week, personal problems or even funny side-stories.

Since Riddle was helping Ren with his studies, the latter found it fit to teach his pen-pal Japanese. This also shifted the contents of the letters, containing small notes in Japanese. Just how Ren's English looked sloppy at first, Riddle's Japanese was the same.

The letters also came more thick at one point. Ren would send small things, trinkets and candy, while Riddle sent in trinkets and pressed flowers. When the small objects were exchanged, Riddle unfortunately already was busted long ago for sneaking out to play with Trey and Che'nya. So imagine that Ren sending him such small trinkets, there was bound to be some sort of reassurance.

And while strawberry tarts were great, Riddle found Mochi to be his comfort food. It was small and was eaten easily. In his mind it was similar to a tart: comes in a big variety and it was given to him by someone he holds dear in his heart. Along with the fact that his first ever taste of one was always the strawberry flavour.

-he told Ren in a letter that he liked strawberries, so the latter made an effort to choose strawberry sweets.

Meanwhile, Ren was very happy with his own lil trinkets and things. He made a small glossary of all the pressed flowers as well, although at first he thought the 'sweet rose' was candy and ate it. Imagine his surprise when he discovered in the next letter that it wasn't supposed to be eaten. But it still tasted nice. :'3

-Riddle sent another 'sweet rose' for Ren's glossary after that, as to have the entire collection

This becomes a routine, that is followed all the way to high-school. Ren started first high-school and had to explain to Riddle how the Japanese sistem worked. Nonetheless, Riddle was expected to start his first year while Ren was around the middle-end of his. So there was that.

-Twst follows the European/American school model, thus it has some decalation with the Japanese school model.

Riddle also expressed his considering of taking on for the dormleader position once he got his acceptance letter. Ren, tho, said that it wouldn't be good to paint a target on his back so early. That maybe, first, he should gain a good reputation and trust of the others so he could be recommended rather than simply taking it by force. It would look far better in this case scenario, which would be easier to gain respect out of others once he does get the position. He makes some good points, which gives Riddle a much rounded idea of how he could raise as a much more respected Dormhead.

Trey inevitably thinks that maybe he managed to talk sum sense into the redhead, whom initially was dead set on taking that position. So for now, he got a bit of credit for this. :'3

Although, for Ren's end of the year, things get a bit messy. Like in the cannon of P5, he gets charged with assault for pushing off the man that tried to force himself on a woman. In his urgent letter, he stated that the man's name, which Riddle takes a note of for future reference.

Still, the redhead was worried sick for his friend. He did change his letters accordingly, in April this whole Tokyo probation would start, so Riddle still didn't finish his first year by then. Ren told him that for the time of the formalities of moving and getting enrolled into the new school, he won't be able to write, so Riddle could let off a worry if he didn't receive the usual letter.

-Ren had to pack things and move to Tokyo, thus, still waiting for the new address, he couldn't have Riddle write accidentally the same address and send the letter to the wrong place.

The night before Ren's first day of school, Riddle wakes up in a theater room. He was chained with ribbons by all limbs and a guy that was painfully similar to Jade, introduced himself as his brand new attendant. This Jade was strikingly different from the real one, mainly by the white hair in an undercut and the more punk appearance, which wasn't fit st all with the theatre's elegant presentation. Unfortunately, the master of this room was not availabile now, as he is tending to the other wildcard.

Despite that, Riddle feels like someone else is watching him. Like there are 3 persons in this theatre and one of them was the redhead himself.

Still... It was wierd af :'3

Imagine being in Ren's shoes. You have your brand new school day after a freaky prison dream. You are in your uniform, meet a kinda nice guy and together you head to the school, only to be found in front of a castle.

To add salt to the wound, they hear a scream from inside and rush in to see 2 guards dragging out a small, struggling guy. Ren recognised him as Riddle and the latter tried to free himself when the guards stopped to 'interrogate' Ryuji and Ren.

-the 2 exchanged photos with themselves at one point, after all they've been mailing to each other since 7.

Guess it's now getting Dormeo-ed and waking up in a dungeon cell. Riddle was freaking out since he was just heading out to PE, while Ryuji and Ren were just getting to school when they found themselves in this freaky place.

The redhead mentions how his magic didn't work out in here, to which the other to swipe it under the rug, in favor of finding a way out and trying to survive this crazy shit. :'3

Cue Kamoshida coming. Riddle is absolutely baffled that this is a PE teach. Like sure, Vargas had an obsession with muscles, but the man had sum decency, ya know?

The situation was overkill for Ren tho. Like this is the first time he meets his pen-pal, his brother in arms if you will, and he is now gonna get killed by his new PE teach who is in just a speedo with a wierd cape.

The first one on the line of execution was supposed to be Ryuji, but Riddle charged in and pushed a guard aside, which got him to be deemed as the first one on the chopping board.

Cue Ren's very epic awakening. Everyone is simply losing their shit atm. :3c

But that, clearly that had to be magic. Using that as a distraction, when the guards turned into your run-of-the-mill Jack-o-lanterns, Riddle spared 0 time in grabbing a sword and cutting one of those lil shits's heads. Ryuji stole the keys and together they closed off Kamoshida in the cell, trying to run away.

Cue realising that they are lost. :'3

So, instead of jumping on the other side of the river, they decided to look some more in here, try to find a sturdier bridge, because it was unclear if their adrenaline was yet to wear off.

They, unfortunately, stumble across a few cells with students that Ryuji recognises. The blonde explains to the 2 that these people are actual students at their school and he wanted to free them. Unfortunately, the keys didn't work and so they had to ditch them. Ren is very collected about this shit, preffering to not act rash in a situation where their very lives are on the line.

Riddle tho? Riddle sees it as unfair. And he's absolutely enraged. He insists to bargain with Kamoshida for the captive students, but, upon returning to the cell, they find no Kamoshida and that the whole door was blown away by smth. And not just anything, but something very powerful, as it left quite horrifying trails and marks. This gets Ryuji on board to finally ditch everyone else for now and try to get out before they get killed.

But, they have a run-in with a red-armoured guard, tasked with taking care of this 'intruders'. By how everything was shaped around, Ren looked drained from his transformation and Ryuji had a small halebard found on the ground to fend himself with. Everything was absolutely wrong and someone had to fix it before their heads get rolling. And Riddle deemed himself as more than fit for the job. He was well versed in the art of magic and his senses simply told him to protect his friends, to protect the people he holds so dear.

Cue epic af awakening.

With this new power, the redhead demands for Ryuji and Ren to run away while he deals with the guard. Because it didn't turn in any shadow, Riddle used that to knock off the guy from the horse and take the animal to ride and catch up with Ren and Ryuji.

Cue meeting Morgana, just as the 2 freed the cat-thing. Morgana introduces himself as a very skilled Phanthom-thief and as such, he sees some potential in the now 2 masked guys. So now they took it by steps towards the exit.

-the horse was also a shadow, so it had to dissappear, plus Morgana insisted to be discret.

Ryuji is lowkey all like: what's with the people burning alive and getting sick outfits????

The cat gives us drugs! (yes, I love that joke for sum reason) :D

Morgana also shows a demonstration of how personas work. Arsene was mainly using curse attacks and physical ones, while Judgement queen was had mainly fire and a tiny bit of bless, thus keeping the distance.

While escaping, the 3 return to Tokyo, which is bad, since Riddle was supposed to be at NRC. Everyone was, rightfully, freaking out about it. Thankfully the new badass outfits didn't come over as well. :'3

Riddle does look around and uses magic to change his uniform into something akin to a more normal school uniform. Cue Ren and Ryuji freaking out since that was actual magic and Riddle was not making shit up in his letters. Ryuji brings up that this is how the redhead dyed his hair so vibrant, to which Riddle replies that no, his hair is natural.

-In P5(not royal) universe, there are no wild hair colors. The dark blue is meant to represent a colder black. By Japan's standards, some would believe that a bright red hair could be either a delinquent or a J-pop idol. :'3

So Riddle does use magic again, to make his hair black, although still it retained a tint of red to it. It was absolutely sick for Ren and Ryuji, while Riddle was more concerned with getting himself back to NRC.

They re-meet Kamoshida and Ryuji with Riddle are immediately ready to square tf up. By sum miracle, the redhead understood perfectly Japanese, as if he was an avid speaker, which wasn't the case at all. No one brings it up, Ren and Ryuji assuming it was sum fancy magic shit.

-Cannon P5 has the group understand Morgana as a cat, so it can be expected that a more human language could be altered to be universally understood.

Riddle has to wait outside, which means the latter gets to explore around a bit. They exchanged phone numbers already and Ren with Ryuji asked the redhead to get them smth to eat post classes. Already they were through more than half of the school period, so it didn't take too long. Along with this, the 2 didn't want to catch the empty school shop, so Riddle was their errand boy for the day. :'3

On the way around, Riddle meets a nice tall guy who tells him where a cheap store is. That was a blessing for his already almost broke buget. :'D

The tall guy goes with Riddle to the store and with the extra given coins, Riddle decided to give them to the guy as a sort of thank-you, so he could complete his price for his food take.

Riddle has made a new friend: Yusuke! :D

Unfortunately both of them forgot to exchange phone numbers and only realised this when they parted ways already.

Ren and Ryuji are very happy with the food and together, the 3 discuss about what are they supposed to do. Ren offers for Riddle to sleep with him, but Sojiro might not allow it and Ryuji didn't have any space in his small place. They decide to sneak the redhead in when the latter shows them an invisibility spell he knows.

For the night, Ren and Riddle discuss a bit. The redhead admits that he was a few seconds, at best a minute or 2 before Ren and Ryuji came. Riddle also mentions about his freaky dream with the blue room, to which Ren is all like 'damn, me too'.

The 2 draw a few lines:

both are wildcards, whatever the hell is that

Igor is the master of both rooms

the theatre is not like the prison :'D

Ren got the short stick with the attendants/wardens

So they go to sleep.

And surprise, surprise, Ren is back in the Velvet room. With this opportunity, he asks Igor what is up with his friend and why is he also deemed as a wild-card. Igor says that he was chosen for another motive, but it has nothing to do with Ren's rehabilitation.

On the reverse side, Riddle asks about Ren's velvet room. Again, Igor wasn't here, but Jade says to not question his master's wishes, for they all have a purpose in 'delivering the perfect story' along with shaping Riddle in the 'worthy protagonist' he has to be.

When waking up and everything, Ren makes sure to spare half of his curry for his buddy, while Sojiro wasn't looking. As such, re-meeting with Ryuji, the 3 re-trace their steps post classes. Riddle was again sent through the city for things, meeting again with Yusuke and the 2 hanging out for a bit. This time they did exchange numbers. Yay! :D

They discover the metanav, the freaky app on all 3's phones. Riddle theories that since he came first, he has to also leave first, as to separate the 2 and thus return to their respective worlds.

-it was realised that since magic was common in Riddle's place, the latter was from a different dimension altogether.

This time, they re-meet Morgana, get more things explained and Ryuji promptly has an awakening post facing Kamoshida yet again. Really Riddle was getting impatient and wanted to behead for real the guy. Unfortunately Morgana said that if you kill Kamoshida in here, he has a mental shudown irl and actually dies.

This time, when they return to the real world, Riddle is back in twisted wonderland, while Ren and Ryuji are back in Tokyo. Their phones could still message/call one another, which only was used for them to confirm that indeed, they have to leave separately in order for everyone to go to their respective worlds.

Riddle had to call in sick for yesterday and today, which was plausible. He had a single room due to the Heartslabyul first years not being unable to divide evenly by 4. Trey was the first one to tell Riddle that he was really worried for him, while Cater managed to get him the lost lesson notes, from Jade.

-in cannon twst, the Heartslabyul dorm rooms for the 1st years are split 4 by 4. Riddle is still in his first year as of now.

Now, the redhead stood amongst first years at the one with an absolute perfect score at everything, including attendance, so it was pretty understandable that I'd he was sick he wouldn't come, as such no one really bothered to bring it up.

Still, despite all that, Riddle couldn't help but feel that someone was watching him. He tried to swat it off as being just over dramatic, but the feeling did not dissappear, whatever Riddle would try to force himself to believe.

Meanwhile, Ren makes a Gc, which is titled 'The Bois'. In here, Ryuji makes a list of people he saw in the palace and whom they should interrogate for future reference. They know that Kamoshida is abusing the students, as such they should be careful at how they could address the situation.

Riddle still was doing his best to help Ren and Ryuji with their investigations, via suggesting approach ideas or reminding them of rules and regulations that could be used as a shield for their actions.

Now there is a new routine, which also means that Ren, Ryuji and Riddle sync together when entering into the palace for investigations. Morgana came up with the code-name idea, so everyone was based off a motif from their own costumes, except Joker and Mona. So you have Skull and Rose, with their nice visual themes and then there's Joker and Mona. :'D

It's also time they discover what a wildcard could actually do. Both Riddle and Ren were spooked when their own negociations went a wierd way and gained new personas. Even weirder was the following velvet room trip, where the concept of persona fusions was presented. Ren told his buddy that he had to witness the gulittone execution, while the redhead said that he saw nothing, but heard a chainsaw for some goddamn reason.

Even so, you have Ann joining the group and expulsion hanging over Ren and Ryuji's necks. Now they did have a deadline and it was something that gained the loudest 'what' possible from Riddle.

The redhead tells the 2 that maybe they could avoid expulsion. They had to plead their case, because it wasn't legal to simply expel a kid with no backing motive and a proper investigation. And if there's a proper investigation, then Kamoshida could be shown as the absolute disgusting being that he is.

As such, their dead-line is given a bit more of a stretch, so that everyone could breath a bit in relief. Clearly they were forcing Kamoshida's hand and no doubt that he could find more 'plausible' accusations to give them. But that takes time. And they need that time for sure.

Cue these lil shits making a heist. :v

Ren was deemed as the main leader, while Riddle had to take over in certain situations. It was basically these 2 switching around. Riddle was a no-mercy fighting guy, while Ren was thinking more and stacking power.

Ann also had the brilliant shock of red to black that is Riddle's concealing charm. She brought up that, nonetheless, the guy was adorable and she definitely wanted to take him through the mall sometimes because there were so many pretty outfits he could rock. Riddle did not share the same excitement unfortunately. :'3

Ren and Ryuji realise that their buddy here has that cute charm that makes girls actually approach him.

Back in twst, not a lot of people noticed Riddle's absences. He wasn't that present post classes anyway, even so Cater did bring up that the redhead is pretty absent from the dorm post classes and/or clubs. The dormleader doesn't give it much thought, saying that perhaps he made a buddy and is hanging around. Trey seems to be pretty happy with this more outgoing change after all.

Meanwhile, our lil buddy here is getting traumatized by the horny castle. :'D

Kamoshida is horrible and Panther was more than happy to beat the shit out of him. Mona tried to be reasonable, but Ren said that if they leave the guy alive, then they could still beat him up to a pulp. >:3

Post that and the successful change of heart, the group wanted to celebrate. Ann made the great suggestion to go to this fancy buffet with the pawned money and treat themselves to their heart's content.

Riddle really didn't know how to prepare for such buffet. So he dressed up in smth nice and called it a day. Everyone had the same idea it seems, except Morgana, who is a cat.

Ann had a sweet tooth. And unfortunately she noticed that Riddle also had a sweet tooth, so the 2 indulged in the cakes and sweets, while Ren, Ryuji and Morgana went ham on the meat and other savory foods.

Then it came time to name their group. Upon a vote, it was decided to be named simple: 'The Phanthom Thieves of hearts'. Riddle brings up that it maybe they should lay down low for now, since clearly police would look into it. And Ren was on probation, so any bad light can be a fatal move.

Later on, Riddle hears from Yusuke, who tells him of this art exposition. And him having extra tickets, he was thinking of bringing his friend to see the art of his master, Madarame. The latter couldn't possibly decline the offer, so he gracefully accepted to come by in the weekend.

But before that, Morgana said 'let's go into the mementos' and we get introduced to the Monabus. :'D

The freaky part is when they encounter a stalker, whom, after defeat, accuses Madarame of exploiting them. It brings out a very wierd situation. Riddle offered to properly face the man in an interrogation, for he cannot actually be identified in this place, while the others listen in.

Indeed, the guy accuses again Madarame, saying how he wishes for nothing that he put effort in to be taken from him. Unfortunately, that got out of hand when his ex decided to break-up, thus the stalking. But now, seeing actual reason and realising how horrible his behaviour was, the guy begs of our groups to try and use their miraculous ways to save the children under Madarame's 'care', so they couldn't be exploited anymore.

Post that, Riddle mentions how he has a ticket to the art exposition, courtesy of Yusuke, his friend. There is also this wierd alcoholic reporter, who tries to get a scoop on Madarame, having all kinds of rumors on him. Coincidentally, Yusuke saw Ann and deemed her as the perfect model for his next art piece.

So there are 2 different plans of action:

The exposition one, where Riddle is gathering info about the paintings displayed, along with how Madarame himself acts around. Frankly, the old man was quite humble and kind, addressing to Riddle as Yusuke's friend and being happy about more youth attending a traditional art exposition.

Meanwhile, Ann is refusing far and beyond to pose nude for Yusuke, once the true intention of the painting is. In between us, Ren was pretty down to be a nude model. :'D

Still, our group finds the Madarame palace and BOI is that thing FANCY. All gold, abstract building and whoever decided to put pots on the roof. :'3

-In the P5 game, you can steal art pieces on the roof, who coincidentally look like pots

Riddle had a very familiar, yet foul feeling about this place, but he mostly kept it to himself, in favor of how to deal with this place. The pupil paintings were almost the last straw, but still, Yusuke was loyal to hell and back to Madarame. Simply telling him that this guy is bad won't do anything but to sour their already complicated relationship with the guy.

Still, they couldn't proceed further because of the peacock feather doors. So Ann FINALLY accepts the modeling gig, but with a catch: she took all the closet on her. :'3

Meanwhile, Riddle and Mona were meant to sneak in and open the door itself. Using an invisibility charm, the 2 had to both open the door and have Madarame see it open as well. Morgana wanted to lock pick it, but Riddle said 'nah' and straight up opened it with magic.

Unfortunately, neither was fast enough to catch that hefty thing and so it slammed on the shabby floor, which was heard through all the house. So the 2 knew that now either Madarame reaches them first or Yusuke and Ann.

-Yusuke assumed something bad happened or something got broken and thus wanted to assure for the well-being of his master

In a panic, Riddle and Morgana go and hide in the dark room itself, leaving wide open the door. Yusuke and Ann come first and out of instinct, Ann switches on the light.

Poor Yusuke is in an absolute shock. Hearing the footsteps of someone also coming, Riddle uses his magic to turn off the light along with turning Ann and Yusuke invisible. Yusuke wanted to yell, say smth, but Ann shushed him, just as Madarame entered the room. Yusuke saw first hand how the man actually acted around, quite arrogant, yet panicky that maybe someone actually stole a copy of the Sayuri.

Now that he was invisible, Yusuke also saw Riddle and Morgana, which was far more confusing since, for him, it was wierd that Madarame didn't even notice their presence altogether. Fleeing the place, the group came with the metaverse escape, once Morgana accidentally knocked off a painting and Madarame was convinced someone was truly there.

Cue Yusuke freaking out. He was in this metaverse place. In here, all the charms Riddle initially made were lifted, so cue the briliant shock of red hair again. :'D

Rose decided to got directly to the point: this is how Madarame views this whole art business and himself. As a museum of himself, where his vanity knows no limit.

The 2 had to re-meet with Joker and Skull. Yusuke has just a bad time overall and Riddle could only offer to step back and protect Yusuke, while the others fight shadows upfront.

Yet Yusuke also awakens to a persona! Yay! Now we can kick that grandpa's ass! :D

After the whole escape, Yusuke is very down. Ren tried to comfort him, but ultimately Riddle got to send the message across: just because someone raised you, doesn't necessarily mean that you are allowed to excuse every mistake of theirs. You can admit that the person in question is bad, even if they had you since you were a baby.

-Since Ren talked sense in Riddle prior, the redhead is aware already of his own mother's wrongs and thus, is the best to talk with Yusuke about this

Yusuke is now determined to change Madarame's heart and have him answer for his deeds against all those innocent pupils he exploited.

But, Madarame's wary af and thus asked police to make an investigation of the place. The investigation proves to be futile, as no one could find any evidence, besides the lock being thrown on the floor. Still, they were drawing a few suspects, one of which is Yusuke. This puts on fire the group since if Yusuke is accused of breaking in, it's over.

Yet, Riddle gets his summer holiday now. He had to make sure his mother was out in town while he 'studied' in order to sneak out via metaverse. Even so, it hardly changed the routine, since Yusuke also had very lil time to slip up.

By the middle of June they manage to find the treasure, send in the calling card and have the heist. Yusuke gets even more traumatised by Madarame's greed and the group find out about a black mask roaming around.

The confession, of course, is followed by a lot of uproar from the public. Yusuke now was living the ✨broke✨ life and Ren, Ryuji and Riddle are roped in with Mishima onto investigating the maid service, discovering that Kawakami works it as a side-job.

We also see the fireworks! :D

But, later, Riddle notices smth wierd. They were followed, quite indiscretly, by a girl. Ren explained that she was the student council president and it could only mean bad things for them.

Riddle, being done and over with that feeling of being followed, confronts Makoto upfront about stalking them. Like damn, can't a guy have sum privacy and hang around in peace?!

Makoto confronts them back with them being THE Phanthom thieves. Of course, this puts the group in a tight situation as Makoto wants them to prove their ways by changing the heart of a mafioso boss. They need a name tho, so using the journalist Ren meet previously, they deduce the name of Junya Kaneshiro. Their problem was the need to see Kaneshiro in person and deduce the nature of the palace in question.

Riddle tho, stopped her, saying that he is the guy on the terrain and that Makoto shouldn't get involved with those guys directly. Makoto tho, dismisses him, which almost gets them caught off in trouble with Kaneshiro, but thankfully magic is a godbless in here and Riddle doesn't hesitate to use it in order to confuse the people around and thus avoided an insanely close bullet.

Still, in order to fully escape, they used the metaverse escape, getting yeeted in the fricking bank. Since Kaneshiro knows them now, they gained access oh so much before the 'bank owner' demands cash for their damage done in the club. And a quite exaggerated sum, which could put poor Makoto in a life long debt.

Cue awakening! Heck yeah! We have a motorcycle now! :D

Makoto has many shocks today. Magic, metaverse, personas, the very close escape from ruining situation... Really a lot. Even so, Ren reasons that there is a possibility that the cameras could've caught their faces. It would take a bit more to get the footage and identify them, but when that happens, no doubt that Kaneshiro would want a hefty payment to keep shut.

Still, with sum effort and a very nicely set calling card, the group pull it off. Kaneshiro drops for them sum info about the black mask, but it's not really helping them in this situation.

Cue summer holiday like pros and Riddle starting his 2nd year at NRC. This was marked as special, since last year he was named Dormhead, by the previous one, whom now is in his 4th year. Ren quietly congratulated his buddy, who insisted to be kept on the low.

Still, what Riddle didn't expect was the mountain of tasks that would get dropped on his shoulders. He had to oversee a bunch of things and along that, by sum unspoken rule, he was put in charge of confirming that every Dormhead would come to the entrance ceremony. So he wrote nicely a few notes for the Dormheads, handing them personally to themselves, vices or students who can safely take it to them.

All, well except Idia. Riddle brought this problem to Ren. Like how he could even get that guy out to attend the ceremony. It's not something hard. He could still bring his tablet and speak through it. He wasn't unreasonable. But attendance will be mandatory and to top it off, Ortho, the deemed younger brother of Idia, really wished for him to attend the ceremony. It's not like he was sick or anything. Ortho confirmed that his brother can attend the ceremony with no problems. So it's more of a 'get yo ass out and stay in a corner for 30 minutes' kind of thing.

The rest of the group suggest their own things, but it all boils down to 1 idea: go in person and confront the guy.

Despite Riddle expecting to have a shy guy that maybe needs a bit of a nice word of encouragement to get the things going, Idia was snarky. This guy wanted nothing to do with the 'Resident rule perfectionist' as he put it into words. And that, in turn, railed up Riddle too, which turned into a back and forth with only the closed door preventing Idia from getting his ass whooped into attending.

-being so absent during April and the end of the year, people didn't get to see Riddle as more than just a guy that follows rules to a T

So Riddle, upon Ren's guidance, guilttrips Idia into confirming his attendance for the sake of his brother, who was really looking forward to it. It was a success! :D

Except it wasn't, because Idia didn't show up, despite Ortho saying that he saw his brother in the ceremonial robes, leaving before him even, just how the dormleaders were required to. Add salt on the wound, this wierd magicless peep stumbles in, a cat-raccoon puts on fire the whole goddamn room.

And Azul is his partner in catching that cat. This night couldn't possibly get worse, could it? At least, being used to thief shenanigans, it is far easier to outpace Grim and catch the lil monster, not before collaring him first. It would've been easier if Azul didn't almost blast him off with a missed spell. :'3

Post all this, luckily Ren and him meet up to hang out. In the metaverse to blow off some steam, ofc. Riddle does mention about Yuu, but when Ren suggests to take Yuu himself over to this world, where they belong, Riddle responds that there is a chance that this stranger was brought by the dark mirror. Something was up with this Yuu and he isn't going to risk it until he has evidence that they could be truly sent back safely without them being brought back by accident again.

-Yuu mentioned their home when the mirror asked for them to be sent back, as such it was clear it was a place from Ren's world.

This gets reinforced when Riddle wakes up in the velvet room. He was never summoned there for anything than at first 2 times. He had to ask for different procedures that Ren discovered when he was summoned. So there's that.

But the velvet room this time was more eerie. Far darker around and the bindings were tighter, even hurting when the redhead tried to move. He called for Jade, but he didn't respond, nor was to be seen.

All Riddle knew was that someone had their hands on his seat back, tilting a bit as a way to gain his attention. The person in question spoke very quiet and softly about how this game is rigged and that Riddle should, under no circumstances, mingle in with the magicless human. The redhead is allowed to ask 1 question before their time runs out. And Riddle, naturally, asks who the hell is this person behind him.

The response is: Someone he should've meet much earlier.

Of course, the redhead shared this encounter with Ren. Something definitely was up. He wanted to bring it up with Igor, but Riddle insisted that this stays in between them. Who knows what velvet room shenanigans are truly going on?

First proper day of NRC school and Ren just calls in to check on his buddy, only to be hit with the 'these dumbasses charred a statue, broke an insanely expensive chandelier and almost avoided explosion by trespassing in an abandoned and, possibly, Hazzardous mine'. When Ace allegedly stole a tart, it was the last straw and Riddle collared him. He didn't explicitly kick him out, but the guy left the dorm puffing and huffing so he didn't stop him.

-the way Riddle phrased his nagging made Ace believe that he was kicked out

Ren just suggests that tomorrow he should talk with Ace and Deuce. And just make it clear that he expects the 2 learned their lesson and won't do that absolutely dangerous shit again.

It goes actually well! :D

Ren is also invited to the tea party. The others were a bit busy, hence Ren finally got to visit Riddle's world. There was fun and nice food, so he wasn't complaining. U-Ub

Ren also gets to see firsthand how it truly is in a place where everyone uses magic. The roses were turned red by a flick of a wrist, the dishes were flying off their table on their own, even Trey's Unique magic was amazing for Ren.

Ren also meets Yuu, the magicless hooman in question, along with Grim. Since Morgana also was there, Ren jokingly said that they are kinda the same. Yuu notes how, from Trey's Intel, they didn't expect Riddle to actually have other friends, outside the school. Well Che'nya was an exception, but still! It turns out Yuu was also from Japan, them casually mentioning how in their world, at least, there were those wierd mental shutdowns and sum rumors about Phanthom Thieves. It was very freaky and Yuu was actually glad they weren't there atm.

-Ren lied and said he was a magicless student studying around, coming from the Queendom of Roses as well.

Post that, Ren was pretty glad that Riddle called off the idea of bringing Yuu back home via the metaverse. So far, their idea of the thieves wasn't all pink and sugary, so there was a fair chance they would rat them out.

Post the party, Riddle and Ren talk as the redhead is 'getting back to school' the latter. Riddle does mention about the other Dormheads and how they kinda are in terms of personality. Not the most happy bunch, but NRC was notorious for stuck-up brats after all.

Discussing those matters, Leona's name gets dropped. And what you'd guess, the metanav picks it up. It halts the 2's convo as they realise that 'oh shit, the metaverse is not Tokyo exclusive'.

So until they reach the mirror chamber, they try different things. It does pick up 'coliseum', 'envy' and 'sloth', getting the 2 to come face to face with a more antique place, where gladiator fights were the main attraction. Still, they didn't venture too much. They had to talk with the rest of PTs about this palace.

It comes to a comune accord that this palace was something that needs to be dealt with. At least before inter-dorm magishift season starts. Azul was in charge of organisation so they had to take a leap of faith and get somehow a clue about what Leona might pose a threat to. His palace was cold and straightforward. Shockingly very easy to go through.

Their problem tho, comes with Medjed, back in Tokyo, taking upon a 'duel' with the PTs. For that, Alibaba, a misterious hacker, requested to have a heart change. So Leona's palace had to wait a bit more.

Everyone honestly was thinking that the desert tomb was mocking them with the endless heat, only to have back irl the autumn coldness. Still, they manage to change Futaba's heart, or more like she helps in changing her own heart. This does cause a collapse episode in the real world, something which Riddle can freely use some simple healing magic spells. Still, Sojiro, unaware, called in Takemi to check.

With Medjed dealt with, Riddle is informed of the string of accidents on the school grounds. Yuu, Grim and Adeuce were looking into it, so the redhead assigned Cater to also look a bit in this mess. Clearly, he knew Leona had something to do with this. His palace was straight out outing this thing, but Riddle had to play it right and not raise suspicions.

So he devises a plan to stop the sabotaging, all the while the rest of the thieves group go and steal the treasure. Riddle promised that he will confront Leona face to face, as such they won't need a calling card and make their presence also known in here.

-since Yuu knew about the Phanthom thieves in their world, a calling card would immediately raise suspicions.

Cue busting Leona at the magishift grounds, just as, in the metaverse, Ren was leading the heist.

Except that what wasn't taken in account, was Leona overblotting. This shook up the whole plan and not only did Riddle have to deal with an overBlot, the rest of the thieves got out with the treasure, only for the thing to crumble apart right in their hands.

Instantly, the metanav confirmed that the palace still was standing, so it was clear that now everyone meet in front of it, seeing the now abandoned ruins of the once prestigious looking coliseum. No more shadow readings, treasures or anything that would do with distorted desires. It was like a shell of it's former corrupted glory.

Riddle says that in the real world, Lilia came in between him and Leona and berated him so bad he actually overBlotted. Something like this was absolutely unexpected. And so far Leona was still preparing to play in the exhibition match. He had to return and arrange the Heartslabyul team, so the others decided to come too and keep an eye on the matches.

Magishift was, clearly, something that hyped up the whole group. It was also Futaba's first time outside, at a grand event such as this.

Still, Leona was acting like normal. He was sent to the infirmary to rest after this thing, while Yuu was sent there post getting bonked with the Disk.

For a few days, Riddle kept a close eye on Leona. The palace was in a state of decaying and the guy himself looked like nothing changed. No change of heart was made, but some sort of inner change was done by Leona himself. Something that compromised the whole palace.

After that, there is the Halloween event, where Riddle invited his Tokyo buddies at the open gates event. Magicam monsters like magicam monsters. Still getting a kick outta them. :v

The actual noteworthy thing is post that, when the endless Halloween night starts. In the land of the afterlife, Riddle could feel his personas brimming inside. It felt awfully like some sort of metaverse, but it wasn't his metaverse, more like some sort of extension.

And since WHEN did Lilia need glasses?! They were that hot pink, bedazzled with prints on their rims along with a colorful chain full of beads. Really standing out against his Halloween attire. Still, he said that it was his idea, as to cheer up Malleus for the inevitable end of this big school party. Pepaw, dunno if u have health insurance, but I'm sure af that Riddle doesn't give a damn about it. :'3

Following that, in Tokyo, people didn't really believe that much in the power of heart change. The thieves needed some big target to hit, but that could also be compromising. It does get into a heated argument, with Morgana ditching the group in a rage fit. Everyone is just all over the place. They decide to target Okumura and run into a spaceship palace! :D

Meanwhile, Ren and Riddle decide to solo investigate the mementos of twisted wonderland. They didn't really have a clue how to get to rotten souls, but Riddle suggested to try out students names. This mementos was an extension of the usual mementos, accessed through a cracked mirror and resembling an upside-down tower.

The 2 stumble upon the shadow of none other than Azul. It was surprising, since Riddle knew how greedy and perfectionist this guy was. He expected a more grandiose thing out of him, not a simple shadow.

Still, using the fact that they could easily change his heart and that also there was no trigger for overBlot rn, they do defeat the shadow. It was more as an experiment, to see if a change of heart actually works in twst or it is something else.

Azul had absolutely 0 change in his behaviour. Still he's scheemy and still he has that honey-sweet Demandour, appearing to be friendly and rope u in a deal.

In fact, a lot more people got roped in a deal. Ren wanted to say that they did worse, but Riddle reassured that this was absolutely no surprise: exams were coming up. With Azul as a dormleader now, along with his 'reliability' in the previous year, it was no surprise that the clients would come in more numbers.

So while the whole Octavinelle plot is going on, the PTs are managing the Okumura palace. They have Mona back, along with a new addition: Noir, or by her real name: Haru.

There are 2 things that result in this whole Aftermath: Azul Overblots and Mr Okumura dies live on press. This is pivotal, as the Tokyo public believes that the Phanthom thieves are criminals, while on the twst plan, Azul still is hunting for contracts, although he seemed to lower the actual conditions, to the point is outright too generous. It was a sign of desperation.

Haru needs sum time off to think. With the sudden public death, the voting was postponed at a later date, to firstly let this scandal die down and re-make the whole voting options. It proved as a good time for other prime-minister candidates to make PR moves and capitalise on the death of Okumura for the sympathy of the masses. The ballouts would be hosted in March now, Japan waltzing in the new year with a lack of a prime-minister.

So Haru spends the small winter vacation with Riddle, at NRC. It was away from all this Tokyo Chaos. The others still checked up on her, to make sure she was, at least, able to cope well with the situation. There was a nice atmosphere in the Heartslabyul gardens, nice tea and along those, Haru seemed to enjoy the company of the local small critters and flamingoes.

Of course, due to this, it was no surprise that a certain Floyd Leech would bust the calm, mostly since 'Goldfishie stood over!' and he wants to play with someone else. Esp since Azul and Jade always were with him during the winter break so it was boring. Last year's break was enough for Floyd apparently. :'3

Although Haru found it entertaining the said chase and the chaos Floyd brought, what she didn't quite appreciate was when Yuu and Grim crashed into Octavinelle in the middle of the night and Haru joined, not expecting to be put through a training camp. Still, there was nice food and Kalim seemed very kind at first glance.

Then evening rolled up and Kalim wasn't so nice anymore. Just how Yuu and Grim said, this guy had worse moodswings than Floyd himself. So they split up to investigate: Haru and Jade separate Kalim from the others, while the rest keep Jamil occupied.

On the Kalim side, things were going smoothly once Jade used his unique magic on the latter, now the whole thing boiling down to asking the right questions. Haru was perplexed that Kalim's willpower to keep his promise was so strong, but this is also what outed the whole thing as well if you count in Kalim's connections. It was ironic, really.

Meanwhile, Jamil takes note that Riddle is very precise in the board game, which made him quite the fearsome competition. The redhead doesn't ignore the given compliment, saying that is very simple to advance if you know the rules and don't loiter around thinking of the points, rather consider the penalties. Yuu also notes that the redhead had quite the longer hair, this time being braided around pretty nicely. Riddle says that he didn't really take in account his hair situation at all.

-Haru braided it for him as a sort of relaxing activity for both.

Regrouping back in the guest room, a plan is devised and put in action the very next day. Jamil is exposed and this guy has a breakdown and overblots.

Cue getting yeeted across Scarabia. It came as an absolute surprise, which, to Riddle and Haru's further horror, they discovered that, indeed, Jamil had a palace all along. Who would've suspected such humble guy to turn out like this?!

Haru has now rights to commit extreme violence in the real world. Haru is very happy. :3

Poor lil Kalim... He's devastated, but nothing much could be done about it. Haru has her lil pep-talk with him, which turns out on a nice note, with Kalim declaring that he will do his very best to improve, for the sake of Jamil and everyone else.

Jamil also got a pep-talk, but no one really has an idea if something stuck with the guy or if he's just playing along for the sake of getting out of it faster.

Following that and an oasis hangout, Haru decides that she should come back. She stood for 4, maximum 5 days and deemed that all of this small adventure helped her rewind a bit and clear out her head.

Post her leave, Riddle still had the rest of the holiday to spend with the freshly returned Adeuce. Still, Floyd didn't leave him alone at all. He did inquire to know if he didn't get bored of him post the Scarabia incident. They were put to hang out for days together, so how come Floyd didn't get bored?

-in cannon twst, Yuu called Adeuce before breaking out with the carpet, as such the 2 rushed in here as fast as they could.

The latter responds that he knows Riddle's getting more risks taken and that the redhead is mingling with forces he should fear. It wasn't a nagging, because for the end, Floyd says that he's curious of what would come out of all this and expects Riddle to continue this type of shenanigans.

Riddle wanted to ask what in the world is the latter on, but decided to leave it at that and mind his own business. He went to the velvet room, where the other Jade was patiently waiting for him and any questions he may have. The latter has only 1 question: does this Jade have a twin? The attendant hesitates before giving no response, Riddle taking it as a confirmation.

It verified Riddle's theory that this Jade has a connection with the actual Leech twin in real life.

Despite everything, Jade says that, unfortunately, he cannot disclose information regarding the other attendants or about his own position, which further vexes Riddle. Clearly he knew of the twin wardens from Ren's velvet room. And Riddle now knew that in this theatre are supposed to be another pair of twins. But it was only 1. This had to be some sort of parallel. Things so far seemed way too separated, yet they had to be connected. Riddle has never seen Igor, while Ren always was welcomed by the said misterious man. Riddle had 1 attendant, posing as the one and only, while Ren had 2, split into an equal duty.

With those aside... It takes a bit of time, before our group is blackmailed by Aketchi into clearing Sae's palace. It put this whole thing on fire for everyone. And if for Riddle it wasn't enough, for him, this year, Crowley gave him the duty of overseeing the organisation for the culture festival. Mountains of papers and a lot of places, with little time to even rewind for himself a bit.

Aketchi gets also aquitanted with Riddle, being quite taken aback by the fact that 2 wildcards are in the group. Sure, fancy pants... Sure... -3-

But, with all of those Woes and troubles, Ren suggests that the group should also take a break, in the form of the culture festival. An open gates event where they could take 1 break, preferably to clear their heads before the big heist day and to enjoy themselves. Riddle actually looked very forward to it. He liked when his Tokyo friends would visit him. So he marked down the date and he did everything in his power to clear it. Making sure everything was to a T, so that no unexpected worries appear on the last second.

It adds far more on his plate than Riddle would like to admit. But he had to push it through. He had to make sure everything went swimmingly. It all depended on him, the 3rd party that wouldn't be affected by Sae's change of heart. The palace was investigated in record time and add to it that Ren even offered to help the redhead with sum paperwork, so he could speed up the whole process.

What was a thing Riddle overlooked, was literally the other Heartslabyul students. He overlooked that some might mess up something. And when they did, it resulted in a quick lashing out, a collar taken down seconds after realisation settled in and a profund apology for the scare. Those signs also showed in the palace. The reason they advanced so quick was because Riddle adapted an approach of 'wanna negotiate or taste my gun'.

This problem was brought forth with Trey. Him being the vice, the others decided that he is the best person to snap Riddle out of it. Cater even offered to take some of Trey's duties off his shoulders so he could take some of Riddle's in turn and at least clear up some time. Adeuce were gone, an unbirthday party was planned literally 2 days before the VDC. Time was on fast forward and it seemed Riddle had a hard time keeping in the pace.

-Ace and Deuce were at the VDC camp.

Trey tho, swats off the others, saying that it's simply just a more hectic period. A lot of things need to have Riddle's presence or signature, so it's not far fetched to say that even if they wanted to help, there's very little they could do. Cater tho, insists that even that little help they could offer is better than no help, but Trey shuts down the idea, saying that he'll take care of it, the same way he did on Riddle's first year: have a talk with him.

And that goes as well as one would expect: down in the goddamn gutter.

To start off, Trey postponed the deemed talk, until before the unbirthday party. At This point Riddle was piling even more stress, after a morning call where his mother finally got to nag him about staying at school for the winter and also forgetting to give her the weekly report yesterday. It already put on the down mood for the day and that only added up when his dorm students reported that apparently one of the flamingoes escaped, a hedgehog had a bellyache and the roses will take a few extra hours to be re-painted because some first years accidentally turned them green and got lost in between the leaves.

Add to that the poor sleep schedule and the overall tiredness. He intended at first to stay in the lounge and finish some urgent papers he'll have to send over to the light music club, regarding their performance duration, when he fell asleep.

Trey woke him up a few hours later and told him about his slip, which made Riddle to spiral in a panic, asking why in the fresh hell didn't he wake him up earlier?! He had to send those papers today, because those are meant to confirm the presence of certain club performances and allow for the schedule of the festival to be posted. Those were PIVOTAL for the organisation. And he slept on them! Now he couldn't attend the unbirthday party, so he'll just postpone it post VDC.

Cue Trey telling him that already everything was set and they couldn't possibly postpone it, when only the redhead was missing from there. He tries to tell the latter that he should take a break, but Riddle panics, saying that he took a break just now and he destroyed all of his plans. He won't have enough time, he'll have to work even on the VDC day, thus he couldn't take his friends out through the festival. It was all a mess. His only free day was forfeit because he fell asleep. Everything just came in, crashing and burning.

Cue a breakdown and an overBlot. Surprisingly, a quite weak one, since already Riddle was still tired and it was easier to knock him out.

So while the redhead actually does sleep in the real life, Riddle wakes up in the velvet room, again being dark and eerie. This time tho, the bindings were a bit more loose and his hands were smudged with ink. He knew that behind him was, again, that misterious someone. Fortunately, Riddle had a theory and a name for the one behind him.

So he calls out for Floyd to come forth. The latter does listen and presents himself as Jade's twin and Riddle's initial attendant. He was quite different, with longer hair and an attire fit for an actor on stage more than anything. Floyd explains that he waited for this moment. For things to crumble down and allow him a moment longer in here. Jade was very limited in this situation and he adds that Azul's initial plan of sneaking in was busted by that pesky shrimp.

Riddle doesn't really understand what's truly going on, but draws one conclusion: the velvet room twins and the irl Leech twins are one and the same. And Floyd here says that he's supposed to be Riddle's true attendant. Then what's Jade's role? And what does Azul have to do with this whole ordeal?!

Floyd doesn't explain, saying that time ran out and that someone is waking up Riddle in the reality, thus their time is cut short. Nonetheless, if he has any questions or truly wants to see what was truly hidden from him, then he reccomends Riddle would seek him out in any world he deems fit.

When the redhead really wakes up, Trey was holding him, while Cater and Che'nya were also in sight, both ferreting around like headless chickens. Riddle asks what happened, to which he's told that he overBlotted. Now he's lost even more time with his 'temper tantrum' and the inevitable knockout session he had. It immediately ends with Riddle crying, saying that he cannot handle it anymore, that he wants to simply stop time to do everything.

Trey doesn't know what to say, but he tells the redhead that he needs to take a break and recover, weather he wants or not. It doesn't reassure at all the redhead, so Cater steps in, saying that he will talk with the club representatives that have performances planned and have them come here and pick up the papers, as to cut some shortcuts at least.

This reassures a bit Riddle and he only demands now for a bit of privacy.

And he uses that privacy to go to Ren. Now, the latter was a bit taken aback by the sudden visit, but indulges in and welcomes the latter with an awkward hug. He doesn't ask what happened, he just waits for the latter to explain. Riddle does tell in between sobs what happened. Due to stress and using so much magic to patch up for his shortcomings, he overBlotted. He really just wanted a nice lil hangout day before they pull the big heist, but everything was compromised.

Ren, as a gud friend, does 2 things: 1. Comfort his buddy and offer to come with him and help him out. 2. Plan Crow man's funeral in advance and prepare a bat for Clover.

-Ren is aware Trey is a vice and therefore could've taken some of the duties and papers with no problem from Riddle's intel.

Riddle feels like he's asking too much from the latter, but Ren admits that the redhead did so much for him and the rest of the Phanthom thieves, by covering their traces, prolonging their deadlines and helping out with anything possible. He feels it's only fair that he will be here, with a hug and a helping hand when in need.

What Riddle does add is that something is wrong with the velvet room. At least his velvet room, for apparently he has a wrong attendant and both he and the actual attendant are real life people. There's also a 3rd person roped in this and it's none other than Azul, whom at first Ren and Riddle had under a close eye due to odd behavior.

Ren admits that it's wierd, but for now, he says that it would be better to take a deep breath and focus on the now. Not on the what they should do next. So he calls in the rest of the group, filling them up ONLY about the overBlot news. Clearly Aketchi had to catch up with the whole magic shit, but Riddle made it clear that overBlot is an external factor and cannot mean that a person necessarily has a palace.

Aketchi suggests that they still have a week or so until their deemed heist day. They said a week, because Sae is out of town, as of now, and on the first day she returns to Tokyo, she'll get the calling card. So, from his perspective, all the previous overBlot cases share a similarity: they were triggered by something. So he asks for Riddle to re-trace his steps of the day, because something doesn't add up.

So the redhead does that. He starts with the usual, but reaches the end, adding that it was just like any other day lately, until he snapped. Ann does ask if by chance he got upset over something, maybe a discussion, a mistake, something that would usually be brushed off easily. Riddle admits that he didn't think much about it, but now that he recalls, he had in the morning a call with his mother, which did make him upset for the rest of the day. It totally flew by him since just so many upsetting things happened lately that he didn't even realise that the call was actually the one who started the string.

Now Ren knows that his buddy's home situation is rather a delicate problem, so when Aketchi proposes to feed Mrs Rosehearts's name to the metanav, Ren intervenes and tells that they will all take action if Riddle deems it fit. This is something very personal and as such, the latter gets to call the shots.

Riddle decides that he has to finally address the flags he kept ignoring. He knew from a long time that something was wrong with his mother. Ren did help him see that. So he hopes to clear everything up one way or another. And if this is the fastest option, so be it.

Still, it came as a heavy hit for Riddle when the metanav confirmed that, indeed, Mrs Rosehearts had a palace. Unfortunately, his hunch was right and Riddle didn't miss a beat on the other words needed for the navigation process.

The group is meet with porcelain towers, over which are engraved different words/scripts, flailing with their colorful velvety flags. They seemed to represent things like 'honesty', 'loyalty', 'kindness', 'wisdom' and the middle one, the tallest, being 'obedience'. The treasure itself was visible from afar, sitting in the place of the top flag of the obedience tower. The towers were way too apart to grapple hook from one another and neither did they have walk-ways or anything interconnecting them at first glance, protected by gigantic spiky walls. Still, they didn't stay much and returned immediately back.

Ren asks again what shall be the call. Riddle stays a bit to think about it, before he demands that the rest of the team take no action regarding this one. Their most pressing issue is the casino heist right now. So everyone leaves it on a heavy note.

Ren tho, wants to have a heart-to-heart with the redhead, asking on why he doesn't want to change his mother's heart. Riddle explains that his mother is a well-respected doctor. It's clear that if her heart gets changed, not only his own living conditions will be revealed to the world, but no doubt suspicious medical records or less than innocent acts could also come to light. He says he fears for the consequences.

Ren tho, begs to different and says that maybe Riddle isn't afraid of the consequences of his mother, rather he fears what he'll discover inside. He offers to assist Riddle in exploring the place itself, promising that they will not change the woman's heart at all.

Riddle tho, admits that if they are going to do this mission together, he wants someone else to tag along too.

As such, one could see the next day the redhead going to Octavinelle. It was a surprise to see him asking for Floyd's presence, not that the latter wouldn't give it in a heartbeat. Floyd was very eager to find out what does goldfishie need so bad out of him. Riddle himself brings up that he wants Floyd to live up to his attendant duty and assist him in a palace.

And while the latter firstly brings up how Jade or Azul would've said a flat no, he wasn't them. And he was still absolved of his position until further action is taken. Clearly he points out what Riddle would even benefit from his presence in there. The redhead does admit that he has little to benefit, but he doesn't doubt that, as an attendant, Floyd would bring on the table something no other persona user could.

Floyd's response still stays yes, although he almost hesitated when he heard a big condition was to not tell anyone about it. Nor Azul or Jade. Still, the answer was yes and that's what truly mattered for Riddle.

Watch Ren's surprise to finally meeting another attendant that wasn't a smol child set on beating him up. We'll... Scrap that, Floyd was tall af compared to the twin wardens. So in his mind, he concluded that if u are tall, you get a shortie attendant, but if u are short, you get a tall attendant. Ah yes... The math is mathing.

Still, Floyd was the same old loose cannon. He had a glossary of personas, able to summon only the ones that Riddle discovered up until now. You could say he was a pelicular flavour of wild card.

Still, first 2 times it was more of sneaking around, seeing the place itself. It was disturbing at best how much everything was in order, nothing amiss, not even a beat or step of a shadow.

A noticeable thing was that Ren also had to drag off the twin wardens to see places they demand to see. So Riddle found it fit to tag along with Floyd as to entertain the guy for a bit and give Riddle peace with the whole 'goldfishie' teasing. One pelicular thing was that Floyd didn't recognise Justine and Caroline, but the 2 knew Floyd as 'Tragedy' and were aware that Floyd had a twin.

Then, you have VDC day. The day that, despite Riddle's initial pesimism, it went well at first. Only some early morning work before the meeting hour. The rest of PTs arrived at the established hour, and St first it was sunshine and rainbows. Going around stalls, talking with each other and having a great time together.

Although, Riddle did passively mention that NRC's VDC representatives are led by Vil Schonenheit, a famous actor and model. The name rings a bell for Makoto, who remembers that while they went in mementos without Joker or Rose, they encountered a shadow of someone named Vil Schonenheit.

-Joker and Rose were investigating the Mrs Rosehearts palace at that time, so the others were allowed to venture through the weaker levels of mementos.

This puts a question mark for Riddle, since Vil didn't overBlot, nor anyone said that he had any change in behaviour. Even the VDC started like normally. Thankfully Riddle managed to smuggle in the rest of the group in order for them to see the performances. Ofc, a vote went to NRC.

Yet RSA still won. Goddamnit Rook. :'3

Everything seemed way too fine. Still they had time until Sae turns back, so the rest of the day was spent goofing around a bit.

At night tho, the 2 wildcards and the attendant are wrapping up their exploration progress. The palace was so in order that it was shockingly easy to reach the treasure, while still seeing every nook and cranny of it. Indeed, as Riddle predicted, faulty medical records, decease notes, organs files, important documents and other medical illegalities were represented towards the bottoms of the towers, where one would find the underground tunnels meant to connect the towers one by one.

Except that in the obedience tower it was someone meant to be kept there: Mrs Rosehearts's cognitive Riddle. A puppet made out of porcelain, just like the towers, representing that just like this palace, Riddle was a product of work in his mother's eyes. The only things truly noticeable were the cracks through which roses would grow out and the strings that were attached to the ceiling, moving via a complicated mechanism over how it was dictated. Some were broken and thus the puppet was left discarded, in a corner of the room, hoped to never be noticed again.

Riddle knew well enough that Crowley had to inform his mother about the overBlot. Clearly she didn't outright tell him, but in her mind, already the redhead was a failure, a defective puppet. The puppet himself seemed to perk at the newcomers and as such he wanted to challenge them, for they aren't allowed to go further.

Rose demanded that this will be a battle in between him and... Well... Himself. So Joker and Floyd will stay on the sidelines as the 2 engaged in battle. Despite the puppet's best efforts, Rose still won and held the cognitive Riddle at rapier's point. He hesitated, which made the puppet mad and demand on why is he spared, why is Rose so weak that he cannot finish a given job.

Rose responds that, fortunately, he learned his wrongs and whatever his mother sees in him as 'obedient' and 'loyal', was truly something that died long ago. Because of this, now the cognitive Riddle is discarded and not wanted anymore. Because he disobeyed. And now is not worth to try and fix anything. The damage already was done and for once, it was a necessary evil.

So he cuts the puppet's head off, making it to shatter in a pile of shards and wilted flowers, who disappeared slowly. Joker does ask if they should go forward, but Riddle says that it's enough. That they won't return here at all. He got what he wanted and there's no more reason to go forward.

Floyd does ask why he is so prompt on not changing his mother's heart. The reply is simple: despite everything, Riddle still loves his mother. And if he makes the change of heart, he'll basically condamn her to jail, to a humiliating punishment. And he he only wants her to at least live in peace. It is no doubt that her actions will catch up with her at one point, but Riddle would rather first cut all the necessary strings in the real life before the punishment will befall her.

And even if he loves her, this was truly a more cruel punishment than simply changing her heart.

So this palace is left alone, to exist on its own and wait until it will destroy itself.

Except that shit cannot be easy at all, because the very next day, Riddle had a club meeting when they get busted by Charons. Despite putting his best fight with magic, the redhead is put down anyway, not after scorching a good chunk of the sports field. :'3

Oh, the other overBlot victims are here, which for some reason has Vil. Riddle asks what happened with Vil, to which the latter responds that he overBlotted, as a consequence of his actions. Not much detail it is given, nor Riddle pushes for more.

-At the end of chapter 5, everyone agreed to keep the overBlot a secret, as Malleus fixed the stage as well.

We are seeing Idia again! Not really the best place to meet your high-school aquitance, but anyway. :'D

Ortho was very happy for the fact that the others are here and they can play video-games together and hang out. Idia explains that they are here only for a few tests, so it won't take long until they'll be back to NRC like nothing happened.

Despite expectations, Idia allows for the others to have their phones, but they didn't have any signal, nor Internet access. Any photo/recording attempt was shut down immediately, rendering these things as absolutely useless.

What was not useless tho, was the metanav. Riddle discovered that since the thing worked with no problem. Neither his messages with the PTs were affected. He could still send them like normal. So it was no surprise that the others were shook at the news that their 2nd wildcard was in the magic FBI rn. :'D

Still, Riddle managed to look over the palaces history. Leona and Jamil still holded their decaying palaces, while Azul and Vil had no more mementos locations, nor a palace.

So with a wild thought, Riddle puts in Idia's name. The guy was pretty apathetic and despite his shy Demandour, he was snarky and mean when provoked. Add to that his high position in STIX.

It's not a hit.

So Riddle puts instead Ortho's name, not expecting much from a robot.

It's a fucking hit. And not just any simple one, but am entire palace.

Of course, Riddle has a hard time guessing what Ortho's distortions would really be. He guessed right that the latter has the entire world as part of his cognition. But what was surprising was that it was distorted as a torture room. He never expected for the kind robot boy who is so happy and cheerful every day to see the world as a horrible place meant for suffering.

Of course, Riddle had a few hours to himself as the results are rounding up post the VR tests. Those were literally the only tests done. As such, Riddle took the liberty to wonder through that palace.

He finds the ruins. A former shell of what it was supposed to be, depicted as a grueling place, where many lost their lives and lie there as decaying corpses. There wasn't any putrid smell, rather it was smelling like Sea-breeze.

This was a sign of overBlot, but something didn't add up at all.

Cue going back to the real world, just as alarms were blaring. This put Riddle on the spot as he firstly found the emergency door and opened it via magic. He did summon his magic pen insanely easy, so changing in his dorm uniform, Riddle got out on the main hall.

Which had him immediately bump into Idia. And not just any bump, the 2 barreled into each other. Of course, Riddle was ready to pin the latter to the ground and almost stab his staff into him, but then he noticed that Idia didn't wear his STIX attire, rather something more similar to his usual school uniform, with a few differences: the hoodie was fully opened and on the left leg it was a holster for a silver revolver. Idia also noticed the redhead holding his phone with the metanav still opened.

Pretty much is that spiderman pointing meme.

Idia insists that he has no time to waste, but Riddle says that he needs to come with him and find the others. Something is going on in the tartarus and currently, the 2 had vastly different priorities.

But, those get put aside when hacked Charons find them and are ready to blast these 2 off. Riddle wanted to use magic, but Idia is more faster in pulling out the gun itself. The redhead expected for Idia to shoot in the Charons, which wasn't that much of a smart move.

Watch his utter horror when Idia puts the said gun to his own temple and shoots with 0 hesitation. Instead of blood, it is heard a glass shattering sound as there is a boom of light and blue flames, before Riddle could clearly see a persona, in real life, which Idia used to put the Charons in their place.

It goes more like:

Idia: look... I know it's wierd, but you'll 100% forget it, so just roll with it for no- Riddle: YOU HAVE A PERSONA?! Idia: Yeah yeah... Detai-... wait... HOW TF DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PERSONAS?!

Screaming 101 with these 2 doofuses. :'3

Still, Riddle insists that they have to find the others, but Idia refutals that it's no doubt futile. Still, while they argue, the others find them, including the group led by the French he-man. Yay! Everyone's in here! :'3

So they bust in the main command room, dragging Idia by the scruff to also follow. Naturally, the whole situation is presented and so everyone has to split up. Idia additionally went with Azul and Riddle.

Upon entering the Tartarus, Riddle immediately was turned into his thief attire, sign that he stepped into a cognitive world. He's so fricking confused and Idia is also losing his shit about it.

Azul's all like: you 2 are done screaming or I'm gonna miss my appointment at 17 too?

The latter clears it up for the 2: they are both wildcards, but they hail from different sources of will. Riddle's persona was manifested because of his rebellion spirit awakened, while Idia hailed from the lineage of death itself, his will manifested as the embrace of inevitable end. As for Azul himself, he's simply an attendant of a 3rd wildcard.

Clearly, Idia and Riddle lose their shit at this new information, but Azul says that mayhaps they should mind their current business, prevent the gate of the underworld from being yanked open and allowing Ortho to crawl out. Riddle, naturally, is very confused, to which Idia explains that the Shroud's curse is a sign of godhood. Except that this godhood is limited by the mortality itself and the sacred duty of guarding the underworld. Ortho was lost long ago to the tartarus, thus his godhood coming in full swing and hence by the real Ortho breaking out without anymore mortality chaining him down, it brings out only calamity. As such, Idia had no other choice but to accept his status as a wildcard and give his own godhood in order to seal his younger brother away. This was the backstory behind Idia building Robo-Ortho, as a way to cope with everything.

Azul, unlike Floyd, doesn't summon any persona, nor shows how his attendant self looks like. He keeps it 'humble' and insists to not give it too much thought about it.

Cue going down and finally facing the true Ortho. The other 2 teams already did do their damage, so it was time for the last 3. Idia had to summon his best persona he had: Hades, which paired with the thunder spear, was enough to knock off Ortho back into the underworld.

Except that he also dragged the robot body and Grim down, which Idia couldn't allow. So you guessed it, the leap of faith. :3

Vil saves them tho. Idia managed to grab Grim, initially saying that he confused him for Ortho. The reason he did that was because grim coughed out Ortho's memory card, which is what Idia felt as his brother.

But old man Vil! Old man Vil! :D

Returning back to NRC, Malleus does one thing right and returns Vil's youth. Lilia was also there, mostly to supervise Malleus, yet he still gave a greeting to Azul, who responded as well before he was bodyslammed by the twins.

For Riddle tho, in a few days, he had to help with the casino heist. Immediately that one goes in the gutter as they are forced to split up and Joker is caught by the police.

But despite that, Riddle still made a slip for 2 days, staying overnight and helping Sojiro with the cafe, while he and Sae got back Ren, via a switcheroo. Get bamboozled, Aketchi. :3

-Post Futaba's palace, Sojiro was made aware of the phanthom thief business along with Riddle's presence and the magic :'3

So the group's new target? Shido! Riddle recognises the name as the name of the man Ren said he got him on probation in the first place, so clearly this makes things personal now.

Usually, the leadership decisions were taken in between Riddle and Ren, but since now it was personal, Ren had full leadership role now.

So they don't waste time. March was just around the corner and so they didn't have much time until the ballout counts will commence. So there was little one could do in this situation. They had a tight deadline and they had to cater to it.

Despite initial expectations, Idia returns after a week, with the brand new Ortho. It seems like, finally, Idia chained Ortho's godhood and real self in the robot body, thus returning his 'mortality' and allowing him to roam the world freely. With that, Idia also offered to repay Riddle for his immense help. And as a fellow wildcard, Idia accepted to join in the Shido operation.

Everyone else in the PTs are losing their shit when they see just how Idia summons his personas. No badass outfit and straight up giving people heart attacks. :'D

Idia and Futaba are now friends tho. :D

Despite expectations, when hanging out in Tokyo, Idia was pretty used to Japanese culture and used a charm to hide his flaming hair and blue lips. When asked about it, Idia admits that it's not his first time in Japan. Although he initially was on Tatsumi Port Island when he was around 8 to 9. That was the time when he sealed originally his brother. And forfeit his godhood for the greater good.

He explains that gods are chained down by the mortality or the cognitive nihilism as a way to prevent them from bringing calamity. The real world would crumble apart along the cognitive world if a god were to fully roam around the normal people, for it couldn't stand an imense power without reprecausions.

Still, the Shido palace has us facing Aketchi again and finally seeing his true look and his real persona: Loki. There's little to do against the cannon so I guess we say bye-bye to the sketchy detective. :v

For the calling card, Idia aided Futaba in hacking on with the video and everything. He wasn't a tech genius for nothing, so finally meeting his match in programming is smth that gets both Idia and Futaba really fired up. Plus they both like animes and can bond over the burden of social anxiety.

So the day of the big heist comes. Shadow Shido is not smth to play around with and everyone realises it when the shadow sees Joker as the deemed leader, so he separates him from the others and takes him on a 1 vs 1.

Joker ofc wins and they have to make a run for it. They think Skull bit the dust, but nah, he's alive! So all is well. :D

Except that once Shido does confess, nothing really changed in the public's opinion. They still wanted Shido to be prime-minister, but with the guy dipping out, clearly it was chaos in the political world.

Meanwhile, back in NRC, Lilia announces his sudden retirement. With things getting so messy back in Tokyo, Riddle didn't pay so much mind to it. Idia did do his part and filled him up on the necessary points, including the bigass farewell party.

So that's going to gutter when Malleus goes delulu and overblots, trapping everyone in their dream worlds. Unfortunately, for Riddle, he finds himself in the Velvet room. Except that Jade wasn't here, but Floyd. The latter admits that he summoned Riddle here as to avoid him falling victim to Malleus's unique magic and get wrapped in a fantasy.

Riddle does ask what is he supposed to do now. He needs to reach Ren somehow, he needs to fight the overBlot and get it over with, but he's bound to this damn chair and Floyd cannot do anything about it.

The latter admits to it, but also adds that these bindings were set for him by a fake god, who wanted ultimate control. And it all dials back to the first wildcard who defied fate: Idia.

Idia's attendant is Jade, the supposed macabre Comedy that Idia has to deal with. With Ortho falling into tartarus and thus being freed from his mortality, Idia had to forfeit his godhood. But that wasn't the entire story. Idia worked with Igor, the master of the velvet room. An entity that lives in between dream and reality. It was a loophole where gods could retreat and live peacefully, yet in solitude. Clearly, not a lot of deities liked the idea, so they either confined themselves by mortality, roaming among normal people or went into the cognitive world, seeking to have their control in there.

One such instance was a rogue entity that created the TV world. Azul was the interlude in between comedy and tragedy, as such he was the deemed attendant for that wild card: Lilia. Being such an old wildcard, Azul had time to shine as an attendant, as such, Igor deemed him to take over the twisted wonderland's velvet room. As powerful as Igor was, he knew that when it came Floyd's turn, there was going to be a tragedy. And it truly did when the fake God of control proposed a game, locking away Igor and denying Azul's soul from entering the velvet room. Jade was forcefully put to be an attendant, as such Floyd had access inside only when Riddle would start to crack from his expected evolution. As such, when tragedy truly struck Riddle, Floyd was able to freely go in and out of the velvet room, releasing his twin from his forced place as an attendant.

-Azul used the contracts to cover his soul with multiple ones as to try and by-pass the said ban condition

The magicless world was meant to have same fates as twisted wonderland. It was a reflection of fates and circumstances that was broken with Idia, maintained by Lilia and now it was Riddle's turn to either maintain the streak or do something else. And Floyd advises that he wants to see what Riddle truly thinks of this binds for now.

And Riddle, trying to break out of his seat, he manages to rip off the ribbons. They still left some nasty marks, but Riddle was free and he felt liberated. Still, he has to warn Ren about it, so he demands for Floyd to lead him up to Ren's velvet room.

The latter says that he currently cannot do this. Something is blocking him. The best he could do is reunite with his twin and Azul and get free from Malleus's dream spell before doing something more rash.

Meanwhile, with Idia and Ortho managing to find Silver and Co after promptly getting trauma dump by the war, Azul also manges to find the group, snapping Lilia out of it (via roundhouse slapping the Mcshit out of him).

-the dream version of Lilia was the general Lilia, henceforth he had to be shook awake from this.

We also finally see Azul's attendant look for the first time. He was more or so resembling some pirate mixed with mafia aesthetics if one wants to pinpoint. But maybe it's because of the frilly blouse. Unlike the twins's hetercromia, which allowed for 1 gold eye, he kept his blue eyes, them changing to gold whenever he summoned a persona or got extremely mad.

So we get to fight Malleus via different dream planes thanks to Silver's Unique magic! :D

Still, once Malleus was snapped out of it, there was one problem: back in the real world, Riddle still was in his thief attire, sign that something was wrong. Lilia admits that he never saw such thing, but Idia says it's akin to the dark hour, which wasn't supposed to happen. The dark hour was abolished, thus separating the cognitive and real planes for good.

Riddle concludes that he needs to go to Tokyo ASAP. But Grim ate Malleus's blot stone and went ravenous, into a gigantic beast.

So Idia and Lilia reassure that they could handle this. Riddle should go and hunt down that pesky god of control that made this mess of their worlds. And for their sake, to beat it up extra hard. >:3

Azul is the one that opens the velvet room prison door, telling Floyd to go as well and tell Igor that he did everything in his power to stop this. The latter doesn't want to go, but Jade and Azul insist that Floyd pulls to the end with his job as an attendant. This is what all of their siblings want.

Idia be all like 'wait you 3 are ACTUAL SIBLINGS?!' Sure... That's what's bothering u rn?

Nonetheless, thankfully Riddle comes into the prison at the time the fake Igor already left and Ren fused the twins into Lavenza. Now that's someone that Floyd recognised as 'his youngest sister'. Lavenza was also happy to be back, yet the threat of the false god hung over everyone's necks right now. Now free in Ren's world, it made the metaverse and the real world to crash into one another. Riddle confirms it by saying that in his world, already this is happening as well. Idia and Lilia are taking care of the overBlot Grim that is causing havoc.

So with finding all of PTs and roaming the new reality/palace of masses, we get to fight the false God.

Now, for the grand finale, imagine a double awakening. Both Arsene and judgement queen evolve into Satanel and Chernaborg respectively, ending with 2 bullets shot. One is through the false God's head, while the other goes through the chest, both killing it and making it to desintegrate as everything crumbles back to normal.

The Aftermath consists of Yuu coming back to their world as the false god originated from twisted wonderland thus by swapping places with Yuu, it allowed for them to defy fate and tip it in their favor of starting that ruin chain. Grim was merely created as a product of that magic exchanged as Idia explained later.

Speaking of Idia, he doesn't have many plans for his 4th year, but he said that Ortho kept insisting to visit around, so he guesses he'll comply to the wish and maybe travel in between his internship and work.

Lilia is still retiring, although he said he'll just go to his favorite town, Inaba, and live in there quietly. He promises he'll visit the Briar Valley from time to time tho. At least Malleus, Sebek and Silver get reassured that in the end it will be alright.

For our Octa trio, the 3 still have to finish their given lives in here before they will fully go back to the velvet room. Doesn't mean they won't stay over at their other siblings more often than not.

As for Riddle and Ren? Well, Ren was bailed out of juvi and will go back to his hometown. And Riddle is settling himself to move out on his own and simply cut ties with his mother for good. Now the 2 do visit each other, via the shells of the palaces that had their rulers ob irl. Those are pieces of metaverse that cannot dissappear and thus are their gateway in between the 2 worlds. Still sometimes the 2 also plan to visit Tokyo and see their friends too.

In the end, everyone was free!

And that's it! :D

It was fun to make a plot line where you don't only include a different take on the usual elements you keep using, but also add sprinkles of lore that tie in much more stories and hint at the other persona games.

Other than that, I'm pretty proud of how everything flowed out.

And a smol tag of @grandstrangerwhispers ! Thanks for permission to use your ask idea for this! Hope you enjoyed this extremely long trainwreck. :'3

Welp! Until next time! Buh bye!

[beezonia]

also my brain has been thinking of the fairy tail au as well so take a little bit more information on the p4 cast specifically

it’s wordy, be warned!

——

Yu and the rest of the team are like mid/late twenties (P5 gang are early twenties P3 are early/mid thirties)

Most of them share small houses together because it makes rent slightly easier (Yukiko has the inn)

Yosuke and Yu are rooming together

Kanji and Naoto share

Rise and Chie are together

Teddie lives in a small cottage near the guild

——

Magic! (I’ve already explained Yu’s check the fairy tail au tag if you want more on that!)

Yosuke - Healing Wind - can summon winds which both heal those who get swept up in them or can damage them if they get harsh enough to toss people in the air

Chie - Devil Kick - Her kicks are extremely powerful (her muscles tend to harden when she uses her magic so the enemies get like 10x damage because of how strong she is usually and then adding that on with it)

Yukiko - Blossom Boom - Her magic allows her to create small or large bloom type bombs that will burst into flames after hitting the ground (like a five second chance to get away before they explode and sometimes the loose petals will set on fire)

Kanji - Poison Finger - yeah his fingers can let out a small or large amount of poison depending on his energy levels. (High energy means your more likely to be okay, low energy means you’re probably going to die)

Naoto - Revealed - Naoto’s magic allows him to see through magic disguises or just any disguise and force the magic user to come to light (also his magic just gives him a keen eye)

Rise - Siren’s Guide - Rise’s voice can guide those she doesn’t want to hurt to safety and those she must hurt into a tiring trap!

Teddie - Dress up - the opposite of Naoto’s teddie’s magic allows them to cast disguises and change someone’s feature depending on a situation (nonbinary teddie anyone?!)

———

So they end up being one of the main teams from the guild to investigate the murder alongside Ryotaro

Some have their suspicions it’s the newest mage of the guild Adachi

Tohru’s magic is called - Jester - Allows him to create copies of himself and use them to distract others with all sorts of tricks (harmful tricks)

and so they start to follow after him and his history and it all sort of comes to that

——

Yu, Yosuke, Chie and Yukiko have known each other a lot longer in this, since Yu traveled to Iniari quite frequently to visit his uncle

So they’re like a group of their own until the investigation team gets formed

Rise and Naoto are good friends already since they know each other from magnolia (rise technically was part of the blue pegasus guild before)

Kanji managed to get out of a dark guild before it was to late thanks to Ryotaro and he’s been with the silver screen guild ever since

——-

Yu and his aunt Chisato have a very strong bond and it’s filled with bad jokes and stoicism (same for yu and ryotaro) she also teaches him how to play the flute, Nanako is learning how to play piano like her mum

————

Nanako doesn’t have her magic yet, but it’s more likely to come in a moment of extreme panic or stress for her (like how it did for her parents)

She’s good friends with the phantom warrior’s guild Akane!

——

(this kinda counts as actual headcannons for p4 but it’s still valid in the au!)

Ryotaro and Chisato actually had trouble conceiving Nanako (they were about to give up on having a child all together)

Ryotaro’s sister, Yu’s mother , Himiko was actually going to try persuade them to try once more (she saw how sad they were) until she found out about Nanako

So yeah Nanako was sort of a miracle baby!

——-

that’s it for now!

[chronicparagon]

Quiet Rebel: Persona 5 AU

Disclaimer: This AU includes an earlier point of Harmony’s life where she is under 18 years of age. Because of this, this period will not involve sexual content and interactions. Although this verse mentions certain kinds of abuse from canon events in P5, they will not be discussed in detail and Harmony will never be subjected to it.

As stated in my guidelines, muses and muns must be over 18 years old for intimacy. There are absolutely no exemptions to this.

 An additional tag “teen!Harmony” will be added to this and other verses to indicate she is under 18 and must not be involved in any sexual content.

There will be triggers tagged for your safety. There are mentions of different forms of abuse and racism. I do not condone any of the triggers mentioned.

Information of this verse is based on some interactions with P5 muses and can be subject to change or develop AUs within this one, which can differ.

---

An exhausted groan escapes from Harmony who tosses and turns in her bed. She’s tired, oh so tired, but she can’t sleep. The girl huffs before slipping out of her bed. The city lights peer from her window, serving as the light on this dark night. A brief glimpse at her phone on the nightstand and she finds the time.

“Three in the morning…I have some time before I have to get ready for school.” Her voice is just above a whisper, and she sets the charging phone back on her nightstand. Bare feet cross the hardwood floor to the vanity with its mirror concealed by a throw blanket adorned with red flowers and skulls on a black background.

She pulls the blanket away before settling on the bench before the vanity. Silver eyes look back at her while she silently surveys her image.

Harmony Halcyon, a girl who came from the United States. Her father served the Air Force until his service was up just a few years ago. He took a job in security after that since he and his wife came to like Japan. Harmony found joys in the country for its history and beauty. However, she was never popular, that’s for sure.

Her gaze lowers to her right shoulder in the mirror. Sure enough, the terrible burns are still there. Uneven patches of scarred tissue cover part of her back and down her right arm. Even now, Harmony remembers the dreadful day when she was a child caught up in a wildfire.

Eyes shut tight and she shakes her head with a low snarl. She can’t dwell on those memories. What good would it do? There is already so much to worry about than these old burns.

There is so much to worry about.

Her ability to adjust in a new country at an early age was not ideal, to say the least.

Books on learning the Japanese language and how to understand their writing systems remain on top of her dresser nearby. These are among the many resources Harmony has during her time when she couldn’t understand. She came to Japan struggling to read kanji, write it and other systems, and had trouble speaking.

Children were not so kind back then. She remembers the jeers over her scars, how different she looked, and her frustration over not adjusting to the culture shock so quickly.

Many years and fights later, Harmony and her parents had no choice but to consider Shujin Academy. No other high school would take her in.

It sucked, really.  Harmony leans forward and rests her elbows on the vanity’s surface. Chin rests on open hands while looking into the reflection, taking in every detail of her room that she would other wise ignore.

The books, the clothing hanging inside the closet that’s ajar, and the stuffed animals lined up on shelves near her bed.

Harmony was lucky. Kamoshida had no desire for her and always looked at her with disgust. A girl who is also from the west, but her skin and hair are dark, and her skin carries a reminder of a grisly past. She never liked the coach and his supposed “jokes” in asking where her tipi is, if she was a princess. If only she could punch his teeth out for that. Those hurtful words always made her lash out. She would scream, curse, and lunge at him.

Black nailed fingers curl into her palms and lips curl over her teeth from those memories.

If only I could punch him in the face! His face always looked so punchable.

She hated Kamoshida for how he treated the others. He does so much worse to them. Still, his attitude toward her never helped her self-esteem.

Harmony shakes her head while reaching for the hairbrush resting on the dresser near the mirror. Bristles stroke the long, dark locks that reached to her hips. They shine red in the pale light as she continues to brush her hair, watching her reflection as her mind drifts back to her worries.

She recalls the treatment worsening when she rejected the offer to join the volleyball team. Her rejection started much of his abuse.

She can’t forget the fury on the older man’s face as she walked away. She had to do it. He’s creepy, acted like he was the god of the school, and banned competitive swimming. It was the one sport she enjoyed. Perhaps she would never become an all-star athlete, but it was a positive outlet. That one bit of light snuffed out by a twisted man’s ego.

It makes her sick! The other students who became his targets don’t deserve the abuse! Her parents had not once questioned Harmony when she told them what was happening. Their actions were quick as soon as they heard of the abuse. However, the Halcyon family learned the terrible truth.

Mama and Dad shouldn’t struggle either! But…Who else could I tell, Harmony thought, remembering the events that followed. Her mother reached out to other parents for more evidence. Her father confronted Kamoshida. The family did not know that the coach’s reputation was greater than justice.

Other parents retaliated against the Halcyons, forcing them into silence. Not even the police would pay mind to Harmony and her parents’ demands for justice. His fame in sports was more important to Shujin Academy and many families than the students’ safety. 

A soft sigh leaves her as her eyes lower from her reflection. Her family was not accepted into the community already, but their actions made them black sheep.  Rumors spread about the family and how they couldn’t be trusted. That included not trusting Harmony herself, an attention-seeker who cried wolf one too many times.

Now, the world seems lonelier than before.

Harmony did what she could to stay out of trouble, yet she couldn’t do that all the time.

Her eyes remained on the girls, and on the lookout for Kamoshida who comes for them. There were times when he glared at her when she pretended to be his target’s friend who needed them urgently. It is a classic ruse to defuse dangerous situations and take the girls and other victims to safety. The aftermath of the students brushing her off for these attempts always crushed Harmony. They never listened to her quiet warnings, nor followed these strategies.

She was quick to find out these came from rumors about her.

She sinks into her seat as she remembers what she overheard.

“Hey, that’s her, right?”

“Oh, yeah! That’s the girl Kamoshida complains about.”

“Poor guy…He always says she harasses him nonstop. I guess she's jealous of the other girls getting any attention.”

“Ugh! Talk about desperate.”

“Right? He has no time for her! I also heard that her body is disgusting, too. Skin all wrinkly with missing pieces and everything!”

There were other mutterings she caught in the hallways from time to time.

“Look out! It’s that Harmony girl!”

   “I heard Indians like her are violent.”

“Yeah, heard they drink a lot too.”

“You think she does too?”

Now, those rumors triggered a…less polite response. The results were the same: Students scrambling away from her when she confronted them. It’s awful, really.

 None of the accusations are true! How? How could everyone fall for that?

Her stomach churns and she sets her brush down. The girl leans in and her hands grip the sides of her head. Eyes shut tight and lips curl back, revealing gritted teeth.

Those always get to me. It’s not right! Who can fall for those lies?!

Fury flares within Harmony, but she draws in a deep breath.

“Easy…Easy…” Being angry now will do no good. She needs to remember that.

In and out, Harmony….In and out…

Deep breaths fill the room and slowly, very slowly, but surely, she relaxes. Tired eyes return to her reflection. She sits in silence for a moment.

What is she to do at this point?

That sad excuse of a coach can’t be allowed to dictate the lives of her peers. Just accepting the insults and abuse was never going to be an option. What’s worse is the innocent students falling victim to Kamoshida’s tyranny.  Her parents tried to intervene, but it seems the school staff and even other parents were reluctant to do anything about this. Perhaps she needs to be slyer in her attempts to disrupt his predation.

Yes…It may be best to work in the shadows. That way, he will never be able to lay his filthy hands on any girl or throw fists at anyone else.

The brush returns to its place on the dresser and Harmony nods her head to her reflection as she makes up her mind.

That settles it! She’s going to be less obvious in her efforts. There must be a way to protect the others. Maybe they will never accept her, but Harmony knows that no one, absolutely no one, deserves to suffer.

The girl takes the blanket and drapes it over the mirror before returning to her bed. However, Harmony has no plans to sleep tonight. She has a few hours to plan her next steps. She needs to try harder in making Shujin Academy safer, and not get caught while doing so.

[quilna]

Currently obsessing over the persona series you know how it is and i was thinking up on my persona au for tgs and brainstorming some ideas while listening to music you also know how it is but then i remembered! Theres also ANOTHER person who is equally as insane as i when it comes to the persona games and also has their own persona au for tgs! Hello! I wish to hear your random headcanons and facts and just random bits and bobs on your au. Even stuff that is probably considered barely important or noticeable. Give me it all! Feed me knowledge to satisfy my brain! (Please)

Persona aus are just so fitting for jekyll and hyde! I'm honestly extremely surprised that theres not really any persona aus out there considering how well the series fits with the whole... well everything of the main themes of jekyll and hyde! Hiding parts of yourself and having them take personification and be uncovered whether you want to or not is mostly the two main themes of both persona and jekyll and hyde so why not mix them together?

Hello fellow Persona enjoyer!

First of all, YEAH! Persona aus go with Jekyll and Hyde just incredibly well for two completely different medias. Physical incarnations of all the inner feelings that you repress and don't admit to anyone, not even yourself? Having to face them and maybe even fight with them? They just work very well.

I've already said most of my ideas for the persona au and, unfortunately, I haven't come up with anything majorly new since then but I can think about smaller headcanons and stuff that I haven't considered before

Here's the past information I've given in case you haven't read any of it before:

And with that, onto headcanons

Major Plot Headcanons

Comic Occurances

The Persona au does follow a lot of the comic. Aside from Jekyll's experiment to split the human psyche having a different result, they're still dealing with mad science and society at large hating them, Moreau still comes chasing Frankenstein (But the situation ends without a fire because there's no Hyde around), and Jekyll still gets very stressed over the exhibition. But great news! Jekyll's mental state is now connected to a whole separate world so a poor mental state for Jekyll means a horrific and dangerous imbalance between worlds that could destroy both worlds as we know it rather than just an imbalance between his two forms!

Whoopsy. Let's hope he doesn't get back together with Lanyon, letting him become happy and creating the final crack in his mental state that could cause the end times themselves.

...Whoopsy

Hyde's Powers

As I've mentioned before, Hyde is a shapeshifter - his form as 'Hyde' isn't his original form but one he made up because he wanted to separate himself away from his identity as Jekyll as much as possible. Perhaps even from seeing Eli in the other world once and copying his appearance, not knowing what that form would come to mean to Rachel.

Hyde can shapeshift into any person, whether made-up or real. His clothes remain the same when he changes and his eyes are always yellow so he tragically can't mess around with Lanyon and the gang too much with his powers. However, he does use his powers to relentlessly mock people, turning into them and doing impressions. It can also be used in palaces - other shadows don't tend to be bright enough to be suspicious about the changed clothes so he can change into other cognitions to sneak into places.

He can't change into anything non-human - However, if the shadow ruling a palace views people in some different way (For example Rachel's palace cognitions tend to be a lot of cute, little, helpless, and very fragile animals), Hyde can turn into that form solely in the palace due to the owner's cognition of humans.

Lanyon and the Wild Card

Lanyon meanwhile is the least willing Wild Card in existence and probably the worst you can be at it.

He gets freaked out at the Velvet room and Igor and probably does his best to avoid needing to go there. He also probably sucks at talking to shadows to convince them to join his party. Overall, it takes a long time before he picks up more than one or two persona at once out of his sheer reluctance. If he wasn't forced into the other world every night, he probably wouldn't go at all.

Bonus points if I include the headcanon where people's personas can talk to them constantly because Lanyon would just be having the worst time in that case.

Rachel: I think it's very nice that we have our Personas to talk to, it's like we're never alone!

Lanyon, listening to about 10 voices bickering in his mind over whether or not to tell Jekyll his feelings: .............Yeah, sure thing Rachel.

Jekyll, with only one persona but that persona is Hyde: ................

Hyde in Jekyll's body

When Hyde ends up in Jekyll's body by accident, it goes about the same as the comic right now with Hyde causing mayhem. Jekyll is also in there for the ride and, while he's not having the best time, he also gets to be incredibly confused on top of this.

For fun, since the connection between the two of them is already very messed up by Jekyll's experiments, Hyde can possibly continue taking control of Jekyll's body when he pleases even after he's become a proper Persona and everyone who knows about it has to constantly try to stop him doing anything weird. After all they're still dealing with the comic-typical mad science hatred from society and, if anyone catches on to the other world (and especially how dangerous it is) or Hyde, they'll all be in a lot of trouble.

The moment Jekyll's eyes go yellow, about 10 people tackle him at once.

Navigators

Hyde gets to be the navigator first because he doesn't have a persona to fight with like everyone else - he's basically the Teddy of the group - but that will eventually get replaced with someone with a proper persona for it. I'm not sure who the navigator will be yet but perhaps Ito? Or maybe Jasper since he's very good at reading people and all? Unclear.

Minor Headcanons

Rachel has absolutely brought her sewing supplies to the other world to attempt to dress Hyde. If there wasn't such a time constraint to their visits, she would have succeeded.

Hyde's favourite place to visit is a palace in the other world that takes the form of a bar which can give you any drinks you could possibly dream of. He's been kicked out numerous times but keeps shapeshifting into new forms to get back in

Frankenstein is definitely bitter that Lanyon gets the super cool powers and not her. She probably got even more ticked off to find he actively avoids using them as much as possible. (Worst of all is when she finds out that he does his utmost best to avoid using any persona with the same arcana as her. That probably leads to an outright fight)

Most of the lodgers inventions probably work in the other world whether they work in the real world or not due to the cognitive nature of it. As long as the frightened society believes they would work, they do. Unfortunately, this usually means they're more on the dangerous, weaponry side than anything useful because that's how society sees them but, hey, at least the lodgers can have whatever cool weapons they want.

Speaking of the lodgers, they would absolutely swarm on the cognitive world to check out what it can and can't do, hauling inventions over to find out what they do in the space of another world. The main gang have to keep the other world a secret just to stop someone running off and getting themselves killed in the name of discovery

Rachel's cooking and baking definitely has a healing effect in the other world. If it wasn't for Jasper, the lodgers would be curious over why she can be seen hefting around tables-worth of pastries, cookies, and chicken legs around at near-midnight. (Lanyon, tragically, doesn't get such an excuse as he buys bulkloads of weapons and armour off lodgers in exchange for the weirdest things that he just seems to keep obtaining like multiple busts of Frankenstein (?) or piles and piles of birdcages (???) or plants literally nobody on earth has ever seen before (?!?!?!) The gossip mill is certainly churning.)

Arcanas

Arcanas aren't something I've considered in the past because I wasn't sure what determined each arcana for each person but they are a major part of Persona and, therefore, a fun thing to fill in for the au. Possibly less interesting from the perspective of someone reading this, hence why I've left it to the end but you did say you wanted all the little bits and bobs so...

Fool - Lanyon

Obviously, as the wildcard, Lanyon gets the Fool arcana. Looking into it some more on the Fandom wiki, "The Fool is often called a fool because of his lack of understanding of the world, yet that is also his greatest strength, as his actions are so radically different from others that it impacts the world in ways no one would imagine." I never thought about it before but it does fit Lanyon in other ways too as the character in TGS who is less involved in the mad science side of things. He's more of an outsider to the world that he is currently in and holds less understanding of it than the other lodgers but it also makes him more open to making different decisions.

Yes, this role could fit Jasper much better but I like Lanyon a lot and, therefore, I am gifting him Protagonist privileges and that means the Wild Card. Favouritism.

Magician - Hyde

Next arcana needs to be the Magician since they are generally the right hand man to the Fool. "Characters of the Magician Arcana are normally bright and ambitious yet arrogant. They lack purpose or a dream, which they normally find through the help of their friendship of the respective protagonist." in the Megami Tensei wiki which would probably fit Hyde. He's arrogant, ambitious but lacking purpose besides running around having fun.

Moreover, Magicians are "strong in magic and illusion." which is fitting for how I've made Hyde a shapeshifter. Given that he's Jekyll's shadow and Jekyll himself tends to hide himself and project whatever version of himself he thinks people want to see, an illusionist seems fitting indeed. (Also, Magicians apparently get an innate boost to fire magic and, uh *cough* Hyde's arson *cough*)

Lovers - Rachel

Next is Rachel who I think would fit the Lovers arcana? Though it might be more of a stretch. "The theme of the Lovers Arcana revolves around choice, but the concept normally leaves them in what is secretly a dilemma with no right choice. With the help of the protagonists, the characters take a step back and find a balance between both options, or outright change their perspective on the choices they need to make, reconsidering what truly needs to be sacrificed." Which I think would fit Rachel's dilemma with her brother Eli - needing to find a balance between smothering the people around her and dealing with the pain of her loss? She does, after all, voice in the comic that she always seems to end up going too far and driving people away, wanting to stop but being unable to because then she has to face "the hole" where Eli used to be again. A perspective that is outright changed in the comic by finding Ito, someone who genuinely wants to be fussed over.

Moreover "A commonality among individuals of the Lovers Arcana is their popularity, cheerfulness, and their emphasis on social interaction. Lovers characters are almost always the "popular" ones, if not, then they are the "spirited" ones." which seems to fit Rachel? She's certainly spirited.

Death - Frankenstein

Then, of course, Frankenstein is the Death arcana, no question. She's associated with death because of her experiments and all and Death arcanas' "lives have a strong focus on someone that they care for dearly, but are separated from due to some form of tragedy. They carry great guilt inside for this tragedy, despite carrying little to no responsibility for causing it. It's through the bond with the protagonist that they're able to forgive themselves and look to the future with hope." Which, yeah, Frankenstein and Elizabeth. Admittedly, Frankenstein is very much involved in causing Elizabeth's death but I feel like I need to make some stretches here. She has the guilt, she has the tragedy, and she has the death.

Hermit - Jasper

Jasper I think should be the Hermit arcana? "Hermit Arcana characters share the commonality of placing themselves in situations that hide them from the public eye. Hermit individuals hide away from others or act in more supportive roles rather than putting themselves in the spotlight." Jasper supports Jekyll in many ways but dislikes putting himself in the spotlight. Admittedly, I think Frankenstein's Creature could also be this arcana but I also don't think they would get involved at all in anything going on.

Empress - Ito

Ito I think would be the Empress arcana? "They are often stoic, but still present a high degree of care and concern towards others, and like queens, they are mature, elegant, often wealthy, and dangerous when challenged." Ito is stern but still caring towards others and I can imagine her being dangerous when she wants to be but I'll admit that I'm less sure on this one if anyone else has a more fitting suggestion.

"The Empress Arcana often find ways to break out of their strict authority by opening up to their personal, normal and emotional selves; organic traits that do not conform to their responsibilities, expectations and image." Which I could relate to her opening up to Rachel and wanting to do girly things with her?

Lucy could also fit the Empress arcana, being wealthy, mature, and dangerous. Heck, she's even called Queen Lucy. However, she doesn't seem to have any journey she needs to take about opening up to herself - she seems pretty comfortable as the person she is and she seems pretty able to open up without help.

Temperance - Jekyll

Then, of course, Jekyll. I'm going with Temperance for him but I'm sure there are other fitting arcanas. "Characters of the Temperance Arcana are often struggling to find a balance in their lives and in their hobbies, dealing with severe stress but putting great effort into hiding it. This imbalance and stress come from the absence of someone that they greatly cared for, usually through death." Hiding severe stress and balance, huh? The absence of someone they cared for which I'm arguing could be Lanyon and their relationship.

Sure, nobody died but it's an arcana about balancing one's life, it fits very well with Jekyll.

Social links

From there, arcana gets a bit more difficult because we have a lot of lodgers and I don't know who would and wouldn't be involved yet. Neither do we know a lot about them so there would need to be a few headcanons involved.

However, the tarots come from social links, from whoever has a bond with the Wild Card, that being Lanyon, so I suppose throughout the au, Lanyon would need to slowly befriend a bunch of people. Which would be interesting because I don't think Lanyon would want to befriend them. Another way that he is very reluctant to be a Wild Card.

I think with the whole mystery going on with the other world and such, Lanyon would be reluctantly forced to ask around in the society to try to figure out what is going on, accidentally forcing him to befriend people along the way and learn more about them and whoops, you're friends now.

Further than that?

There's a lot of gaps because my focus lies mostly on Lanyon, Hyde, and Rachel and I'm willing to hear other people's ideas if anyone has any! Palaces, party members, headcanons, personas, arcana, just anything anyone has ideas on. Persona has a lot of ideas that one needs to fill to the point where I'm learning that making an au for it is so expansive that it feels like a multiple person job.

Moreover, if you ever want to talk about your own persona au, anon, I would be very excited to hear it too!!! I would love to hear what other ideas people can come up with because there's a lot of room in a persona au for ideas! Just the question of who takes the role of the Wild Card opens up a ton of possibilities, not to mention which Persona games you want to take the most inspiration from!

Anyway, thank you for the chance to ramble, anon, this was fun! There's probably even more I could think of if left for a few days to stew but I don't want to leave this response too late

[verxsyon]

happy halloween! have y’all seen scara’s drip? D A M N. it’s kinda scary how it’s also the anniversary of bohemian rhapsody as well as when the 1.1 trailer came out, when we first met him. interesting...

enough of that, how have y’all been? so persona 5 royal was released on the 21st and i’ve been playing it ever since. as someone who majored in psych as an undergrad and studying counseling psych for grad school, the information about personas and shadows are accurate and literally, i’ve haven’t been this happy. also, the storyline and the characters are AMAZING (i'm in my akechi kisser era lol love that pancake loser to death and i’m an ann kinnie love her). i’m looking forward to play strikers afterwards and both p3 and p4 when they get released 1/19/23.

some of the genshin impact vas are in that game -- ann’s, ryuji’s, and mishima’s specifically -- and that gave me an idea of a persona au. each nation released so far will get their own hcs!

persona has a feature called social links where you hang out with characters you’ve met throughout the game and they’ll give power-ups for your journey. i’ll be assigning a character to a role in the team for each nation, what persona they would have based on constellations, and what arcana they would have for their social links with the reader based on their personalities and ideals. i hope that makes sense?

teams:

mondstadt - amber, kaeya, jean, lisa, diluc, venti, mona, albedo, eula

liyue - ningguang, keqing, tartaglia (childe), zhongli, ganyu, xiao, hu tao, yanfei, shenhe, yelan 

inazuma - kazuha, ayaka, yoimiya, ei, yae, sara, kokomi, thoma, gorou

sumeru - tighnari, collei, cyno, candace, nilou, nahida, al-haitham, kaveh, dehya, scaramouche (wanderer)

notes:

each team has 9-10 members each. p3 to p5 the range was 8-10.

team composition was based on the characters who participated in the main storyline and/or were considered important during the interludes. in some cases, some were important to the event storyline (e.g., mona and albedo) and some were just thrown in there (e.g., hu tao and kaveh).

childe is in the liyue team as he was released during that chapter i.

scaramouche is in the sumeru team instead of inazuma as he was released during chapter iii and received his vision in the nation (check drip marketing).

it felt like a crime not including itto into the inazuma team because his eng va max mittelman voiced ryuji so i was thinking of including social links with npcs (as in playable characters of genshin who aren’t in the team but can benefit from forming relationships with you) as well.

[vashtijoy]

Hello! I've been slowly going through your P5 Akechi analyses, and they've been a very fun read. I love seeing the glimpse of a spreadsheet in one of your latest posts and was wondering if you have more spreadsheet information you've gathered related to the game?

My partner and I entered full force Akechi/P5 brainrot relatively recently and our go-to is to make google docs and timelines especially when we fall down the rabbit-hole of making AUs, and I think it's very funny. So I just love seeing a spreadsheet version of that, and would love to see more if there happens to be more that you're up for sharing.

Hey! Thanks for your kind words and thanks for asking.

The spreadsheet is very much a work in progress, I'm afraid, and may well never be in a state for public release. I do recommend making them, though, just to keep track of what's going on, and clusters of events etc.

[blackdevilwhitedemon]

P5 x HS AU no one asked for

I posted this as a first ch and never wrote anymore so I thought I should dump it here instead of just straight up deleting it.

It would've be fun to write one-shots for this AU, but I need to get my shit together and only have a few stories to work on bc I never write much or finish things. There goes all the work I put in using the Homestuck skin on AO3 for this,,,

Link to part 2.

The title was The Color of Jazz

Summary:

Your name is AKEERA KURUSU and you are a SEADWELLER. Your BLOOD color is FUCHSIA, making you a MUTANT seeing that you are male, not female. You like meowbeasts and your friends. FLARP isn’t really your thing, and you are quite the quiet fellow. By the way, your glasses are totally fake.

AKA the Persona 5 x Homestuck crossover nobody asked for. AKA the Person 5 cast, but as Homestuck trolls.

Chapter 1: Information

Here's the crossover no one asked for and nobody wanted but me and like, 2 people.

This is an informal chapter about the AU.

I'll be honest, I only made this because I'm obsessed with Persona 5 at the moment and I think I like the concept of trolls being an alien species more than Homestuck itself.

So yeah there's no cohesive plot to this, it's just going to be a series of One-Shots. Whatever shenanigans I imagine them getting up to. Perhaps there might be a small little subplot that spans a few chapters, but just know I came into this not planning anything. Besides making character choices.

Alright, first let's get into blood colors, then to the relationship chart.

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Characters with canonical birthdays and therefore signs:

Kasumi - Aries = Rust

Makoto - Taurus = Mud

Goro - Gemini = Yellow

Ryuji - Cancer = Lime

Ann - Scorpio = Cerulean

Haru - Sagitarius = Indigo

Yusuke - Aquarius = Violet

Futaba - Aquarius = Violet

I know I could have just made them the blood color that fit their personality the best or their color scheme, but nah. I like just by going off by their signs. Yeah it's lazy, but it's also like throwing darts at a blackboard. You just have a pre-made thing, and you just have to run with it.

Also I have put less brain power in it so…

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Characters with no canonical birthday so I assigned them a blood color:

Morgana = Olive

(He's a meowbeast Ryuji found as a kitten, and gave to his moirail Akira bc he knows how much he loves those things; since it's canon that some lusii can talk normally, he can too)

Hifumi = Jade

(That just fits her personality. Look at her! She's a jade blood. She looks like one. She got that air.)

Yuuki = Teal

(Since he has that power struggle thing going on with him, and because he's been beaten down by others with his tail between his legs, I just thought this fits. Technically considered a highblood and therefore granted those types of privileges, but lacks nobility and can be looked/beaten down by higherbloods because of that.)

Shiho = Purple

(Legit just cuz nobody else was purple. I also thought it would be funny. And writing a very nice, polite, well put together, purple blood would be interesting!)

Akira = Fuchsia

(Mutant Fuchsia. Like, he’s a fuchsia blood, but is male, so he shouldn't exist. Therefore he is a mutant. Pretends to be a violet blood tho. It would be kind of hard for others to tell what blood color he is if he gets flustered or whatever. And it would be unreasonable for lowerbloods to question him, but he probably schools himself anyway because he doesn't want other sea dwellers to know. Since they might be able to tell the difference between a fuchsia flush and violet flush. Originally indecisive between making him a Mutant Fuchsia or a Jade. Since if he was a Jade he would still be unique and also that would explain how he's so good with getting along with everyone. But then I thought, if he's a Pisces, he's compatible with a Gemini.)

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Shiping Chart:

Kasumi --<3--> Akira

Goro <--<3<3<--> Akira

Ryuji<--<>--> Akira

Ann <--<>-->Shiho

Haru --<3--> Akira

Yusuke --<3--> Akira

Yusuke <--<>--> Futaba

Okay, so if you can't understand that, here's the written version of it—

Kasumi had a flush crush on Akira, but after seeing this whole thing between him and Goro, she backed off. Sometimes she acts as their auspistice, but usually they don't need her.

Goro and Akira have this redrom—blackrom thing going on. It is this fluctuating thing, I think Karkat called it vaselining? Akira leans more towards red, while Goro leans more towards black, but they still have the other color feelings for each other. I just thought with the rivalry and soft spot for each other (especially after all that stuff in Royal) this is a fitting translation into Troll romance for them.

Ryuji and Akira are best bros, so they are moirails in this. You can pry this fact from my cold dead hands. You know Akira gave Ryuji something violet to wear so people know not to mess with him unless they want an angry seadellwer on their ass.

Ann and Shiho are moirails too! I don't even need to explain this one. Ann says Shiho is her only friend and the only thing good at the damn school. I,,, mustn't need to say more on that. Now, Ann doesn't need to wear anything purple as she has a comfy spot as a cerulean blood, but that hoodie she wears is totally purple just because she wants to wear it. She just wants to brag that her wonderful lovely moirail is a purple blood.

Haru having a crush on the Akira is canonical, right? Like it's kind of implied that she grows one on you in the beginning. Anyway, thought I would translate that here. She also loses her flush crush on Akira once she realizes how involved he is with Goro.

Yusuke has a flush crush on Akira and everyone knows it, but no one does a thing bc they all know he won't act on it. So it's just there. I decided to do that because, fam, listen to the dialogue he has about Akira in game,,,like wow. He really admires him, perhaps a little too much. He has such a blind faith and admiration for Akira. I couldn't not put that in here.

Yusuke and Futaba are moirails! Come on, look at their little silly friendship in game. You can't tell me that wouldn't translate to moirallegiance in troll romance.

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How the names are going to be changed:

Akira ---> Akeera

Goro ---> Gourou

These two names were remade by Meruz on Tumblr. Being one of the few people to do a Homestuck/Persona 5 crossover where the P5 cast are trolls.

Ann ---> Annnoo

The o's are silent.

Haru ---> Harruu

Ryuji ---> Ryujgi

Yuuki ---> Yuukie

Shiho ---> Sheeho

As you can tell, these last ones are not creative or well done. That's how you know I came up with them!

Everyone else's names follow the troll naming rules so I don't have to change them.

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Chumhandles:

Kasumi - icyGymnast [IG]

Makoto - muddyEmpress [ME]

Goro - pancakeDetective [PD]

Ryuji - nomoRules [NR]

Hifumi - shogiQueen [SQ]

Yuuki - chariotHelper [CH]

Ann - rottingSweets [RS]

Haru - noirExecutioner [NE]

Shiho - sunnyDisposition [SD]

Yusuke - oceanicPainter [OP]

Futaba - techgodFortuneteller [TF]

Akira - fishyGodslayer [FG]

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Typing Quirks:

I ain't making up 12 new one, so I'm using some canonical ones.

Kasumi - € for C and ends lines with --€

Makoto - Aradia

Goro - Kanaya

Ryuji - Karkat

Hifumi - uses / instead of L and \ for i

Yuuki - Tavros

Ann - every O is put as ooo also no punctuation

Haru - starts and ends lines with --(- uses ¶ instead of i

Shiho - Gamzee but no swearing

Yusuke - lower case with no punctuation

Futaba - Vriska

Akira - Eridan but no vv

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Signs:

I just did random signs, not gonna lie.

Everything I pulled out of my ass except for Kasumi’s, Yuuki’s, Haru’s, and Akira’s. They’re symbols from the Extended Zodiac.

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Things to note:

-Sumire is going by Kasumi because the others don't know that she's pretending to be her dead moirail. Basically Kasumi was Sumire's neighbor and was also a rust blood. They had very similar horns but completely different symbols. They got along extremely well and were very close moirails. After Kasumi is culled protecting Sumire from a higherblood, she pretends to be her and wears Kasumi's symbol to cope. (And using her typing quirk as well.)

-Akira is pretending to be a violet blood to avoid being culled for being a mutant. It's not necessarily illegal to be mutant blood, but other trolls will consider that's sacrilege to the hemospectrum. So they won't hesitate to cull him. It's easy for him to pretend since he's still a seadweller, and rarely gets challenged or questioned. Other seadwellers tend to mind their own business.

-This AU is going to take place on Alternia, but is this weird mix between what canonically it's like on Alternia and Beforus. Think about it like this, Feferi is empress and has been for quite a few years. And she's changing everything and reforming it to how she wants it to be, but obviously not everything has conformed completely. A lot of old stigma and old rules/traditions still hold its roots deep within the planet and its people. So it's still a very dangerous place even though it technically doesn't endorse "thoughtless slaughter"/"being more aggressive/dominant is the only way to go" mindset. She can't control everything, especially since Gl'bgolyb is dead or doesn’t exist in this one. Does that make sense? I hope it does.

-Akira survived by having some random Violet blood lusus decide to take him in and take care of him. Everything was all fine and snazzy until recently-ish when his blood color was discovered by some Seadellwers. His luse fights them off and culls like, one or maybe two in the process but ultimately dies. Akira, in a fit of rage and self preservation, culls the rest of them so it can't get out that he's mutant and flees the area. Later is found by Sojiro (who is not a troll but a lusus) when he's looking out for some food for Futaba. He takes pity on him and brings him in. Since Futaba originally had a different lusus who died, and he took her in, so this isn't his first rodeo. Akira and Futaba quickly bond and Sojiro loves his dumb fishy kids.

-Sojiro and Futaba's hive is this big spiraly place that is partially underwater and partially above it. The above area acts like a cafe where's Seadellwers can enter by swimming over to it and land dwellers can enter by boating to it.

-Akira lives at the top area more after he gets Mona from Ryuji, but still chills out in the underwater portion.

-Yusuke lives on the beach. He's rich and all, he just forgets to take care of himself since he gets so absorbed in things. Good thing he has his moirail and friends around.

-Lime bloods have since been reintroduced into the gene pool by the empress. But since she hasn't been ruling for awfully long, there's not that many of them. Making them rarer than jades but, not as rare as fuchsias. For this reason it's basically criminal to cull them, as there is so little of them. So Ryuji has gotten out of some debacles alive simply because the other troll realizes he's not an olive, but a lime. After becoming moirails with Akira (and finally swallowing his pride to wear his friend's color) that definitely helped deter trolls further. Even if Ryuji does get a little irritating and doesn't know when to shut his mouth. They just gotta look down and remember that he's filling some seadweller's quadrant and they don't want to deal with that repercussion.

-Akira is actually not that threatening, but he's fully aware of his position and takes full advantage of it.

-Goro of course is a celebrity lowblood. Making a name for himself and blah blah blah. His lusus left him for dead when he was pretty young, and actually was raised by another troll. But she ends up…she's the equivalent to his mom, so you know. He elevated himself to the status so he could up his chances of survival and to advocate for lowbloods.

-Haru lusus is very fierce and kinda owned this large section of property, but recently he has been defeated/culled and now her property is kind of been split. She's struggling to maintain her hold on it.

-Makoto gets taken in by a lusus that already has a troll under his care. But after a couple of sweeps he gets eaten, leaving the other troll take care of her. Obviously I'm referring to Sae. (I'll remake her name when I get to the bridge.) Sayyye maybe?

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Oh my God, you read all of that. Thank you so much! I feel like most people won't even read this and be really confused once I start making chapters.

For all your efforts I'm going to say something that you probably haven't heard since early 2013. Cuz I sure know I haven't.

Here's a digital cookie for all your troubles! (::)

[chibitantei]

I need to write a post comparing P5 AU Naoto and her canon counterpart, but I don’t really think there’s much of a difference between how P5 AU Naoto reacts with the PT (if she’s friends with them) and canon Naoto with the IT.

In a group, she’s quiet, usually only speaks to share important information, and maybe makes a remark or two before going silent again. I don’t really imagine her having any beef with the PT members, besides possible things that arise from her working with the Tokyo PD.

Their collective stupidity and general teenager-isms can annoy her because you know, she’s Naoto, but she definitely wouldn’t single out, say Ryuji, and call him a dumbass constantly over any poorly said things or mistakes on his part.

okay this was a nothingburger ‘headcanon’ but in my defense, it’s like lowkey set up for that comparison post. Coming sometime eventually.

[aidendh]

P5/IRL! Eclipse AU

(Finally have Gachas with my new hair)

Persona Eclipse/Self-insert AU, bc of the P5X mechanics

Clawian can open up portals in mementos or location keyword places to access Palaces for my OCs/AUs

Also I like the idea that instead of game over when Eclipse falls in battle, they just escape and regroup, and you loose the rest of the day(s) to rest

(Bosses could cause multiple days)

The OC/AU palaces are story ways to unlock 'characters' for my wildcard, or even persona's for Abel

Other than Clawien's Gacha mimic

-:Metaverse Information:-

Code Name: Eclipse

Theme: Vigilante

Mask: Blindfold

Weapon: Double-sided Spears / Grenades

Persona: Clawian (Moon)

[DPS/Stats/Evasion]

Element - Wind / Phys

Null - Psy

Weakness - Ice, Forget

Exclusive Skill: Gacha* The Wild Card power in a gacha style

Portal Magic* Allows fast travel from anywhere, can only go to places you've been or can see

Also has defense Wall skills and Sukukaja

Book: #Clawian Wolf (AidenDH Tumblr)

--

Aiden D. Harris (Summer/Winter/Indoor/PJs)

-

-

-

-

--

An Adult with Social Anxiety who thrives off of their OCs

Ability: Lost Souls* Shapeshift, Body Hijack

Confidant: Moon

--

Eclipse (20)

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--

A Persona-User finally letting themself loose

Persona: Clawian (Moon)

E: Wind, Phys /N: Psy /W: Ice

Weapons: Spear / Grenades

--

[thedetectiveofinaba]

P5 & P5 AU Headcanons: Naoto’s Personas during P5 and the weapon choice

Persona information

Evolved/Ultimate Persona: Yamato-Takeru

Block: Light, Dark

Resist: Fire

Skill moveset:

Blight (heavy Slash damage, single target. 60 % chance for poisoning)

Megidolaon (severe Almighty damage, multi-target)

Hamaon (light Light damage, single target)

Mudoon (light Dark damage, single target)

Tetrakarn (a barrier that reflects physical damage, single ally)

Vorpal Blade (heavy physical damage, multi-target)

Passives:

Mudo Boost (Dark-based attacks are 1.5x effective)

Hama Boost (Light-based attacks are 1.5x effective)

Invigorate 3 (Recovers 7 SP each turn in battle)

Angelic Grace (Doubles evasion rate against all attacks except Light, Darkness and Almighty)

Extra combat information

Weapons: Algernon and Chrome Heart w/ Stun Bullets for Algernon and Chrome Heart, model shotgun "Fireworks" and a metallic suitcase. She has two possible combinations: two handguns with normal bullets and Stun Bullets, and a shotgun combined with Chrome Heart.

The g u n attack depends on her using her shotgun or revolver: revolver is light damage w/ high accuracy and shotgun high damage w/ less accuracy (buckshots be like that)

1-2 consumables: Megido Gem/Mabufu Gem and Vanish Ball

Accessory: Tweaked Bronze Watch, which has the effect of Shadow Sensor and Sigma Drive. (increases Alertness, aka lowers enemy’s rate of surprise attack & lowers chances of being critically hit)

Naoto carries the consumables on her hidden jacket pocket and uses them as a last resort/close call method.

If possible, Naoto prefers not to summon her Persona if possible to save energy. She always uses her guns over Persona. She only uses her handguns if she thinks they’re efficient enough.

Naoto avoids demon negotiations due to the risk they possess. She'd rather sharpshoot them to avoid being seen.