#the reason he keeps getting into them is cuz of akechi tbh | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nitholites · 4 years ago

Text

(this is just me ranting about a lack of an au, ignore if ya wanna)

Where are the Miraculous Ladybug/ Persona 5 fics??

Do people just... Not find inspiration from this crossover? Think there's nothing to do? Have no thoughts on the possibilities?

I, generally, am a petty person. I like seeing karma take the reigns, and I like seeing horrible people get what they deserve (probably why I like persona 5 so much, tbh). And if I had half as much creative genius as the writers on this site, I'd do it myself.

But just imagine...

The Thieves reign for, like, two years

Bcause cops can't catch em, Shido ain't gonna get promoted for a while (or decides to lay low a bit for whatever reason), and Akechi hasn't made the connection yet.

Or, after their first 2 Paris Palaces, they go on like in Canon with Parisian teammates, and the Palace they do before Sae's is Hawkmoth, with Akechi joining them because "this can't take long- Hawkmoth needs to be brought down ASAP and we should be strong enough now"

Poor Akechi's like "????? THE PARIS TERRORIST???? HOW THE HELL-"

"Later, Akechi, but your Almighty attacks are gonna help a lot while we figure out the Shadow's weaknesses"

Then it's Sae's Palace and things go as in canon

Anyway, the Thieves meet The Class on the Hawaii trip

Sees how this sweet, kind, compassionate girl's treated by people around her

They're furious

It brings up horrible memories of their own pasts and beginnings

So they form/join the Mari Protection Squad (MPS for short)

And it's ridiculous how fast the group bonds, and how fast The Class realizes not to mess with Mari with the Thieves (and Shujin kids in general) around

The other high schoolers join cuz with the crap from Kamoshida, they've all grown a backbone

Plus the Thieves are on their side here (now all they gotta do is send a request on the Phan-site... Maybe the Thieves can do something about the Parisian)

(Tikki feels the Thieves' power- and is wary. She'd never felt something like this before- humans wielding the power of their other selves so efficiently)

And Lila, feeling the spotlight slip, makes one grave error...

Showing her true colors to the leader of the Phantom Thieves

But the Thieves know going international isn't something they wanna do- it'll cause a ton of trouble

But when Mari video calls one night and shows the Nav- they realize

Either they take action, or Mari's gonna be sucked into the Metaverse randomly (like Kasumi)

Better take her with them and explain in a controlled setting than get her killed in someone's heart

And, surprise surprise, Lila has a Palace

Like, the distortion is on par with Shido's (which the Thieves will encounter eventually)

Any place she'd been before was part of her cognitive empire

When'd she visit Japan???

And Futaba digs up some major dirt on Lila

Driving victims (who's situations eerily match Mari's) to suicide, forcing victims from the county on major charges, assault, thievery, arson- you name it she's either done it or made everyone believe her victim did

Why hadn't anyone pulled the truth from her yet? The short answer- Yaldaboath

The oversized cup finds her acts entertaining

So they gotta take her treasure now

And Mari, newly realizing she deserves better and beginning to increase her self-esteem, awakens to a Persona

(I dunno who, but having a character have Filibus as a Persona sounds kinda cool)

So she joins the Thieves in Mementos to train and get stronger

And once the Thieves take Rossi's heart, their popularity skyrockets, so they go deeper and deeper into Mementos

Because now, it's like, "Oh shite, these Japanese urban legends targeted a minor are they working with Hawkmoth??"

Cuz when Lila confesses, you bet your sweet bippy there's gonna be a Hero's Day pt 2

And the Thieves come with help from Kaalki because Chat hasn't been a partner in years and Ladybug alone with Kobra can't take them on

Morgana tails Catalyst (Akumatized Natalie) to the Agreste Manor and finds out Hawkmoth's identity

But Adrien catches him

So we get Spy!Morgana, stuck with the Agrestes until the change of heart at the latest

And Mona slips into Gabriel's Palace to scope it out and

Holy hecc, those are tough Shadows (think like in Maruki's Palace) and why is this woman everywhere???

It's a Roman temple, with statues of the same woman everywhere

Like why

And the puzzles are so confusing he can't explore the whole thing

And he eventually makes it back to the Thieves- specifically Mari who freaks when he randomly shows up

Cuz everyone's been looking high and low

And the news he brings isn't happy at all

So their next target can't be Hawkmoth, but they set it as their goal (their second-to-last heist)

In the meantime, Caline Bustier's Palace needs raiding

This woman Shouldn't Be In Charge™, Period.

Her Palace is at the school, and it looks like her definition of 'paradise'- a garden maze

Her childhood friends, co-workers, students- everyone's chilling and getting along

At least while her Shadow is watching

Wherever she isn't, the cognitive beings are at war

It's bright with rainbows and glitter, and it's nauseously obvious Bustier chooses to ignore the world around her to keep the illusion alive

The kicker is, when the Thieves first enter, they see a giant 'painting', constantly shifting and moving to match what happens in the Palace

It's sickening- her poor students

Her Shadow doesn't put up a fight, instead expressing how 'dissappointed' she is in them, how the Thieves need to 'set an example', how they're 'disrupting everyone with this silly rebellion'

They waste no time in taking her Treasure

Adrien's Palace is Agreste Manor as a prison decorated as a mansion

A maze where Shadow Adrien constantly attempts escape, so there's thousands of secret passegeways, rooms, and supplies

The windows, when looked through, show what he thinks the world is like- no war, starvation, illness, sadness.

But, when broken, they show the truth in a million fragments, only to be repaired the next time Adrien's Shadow passes by them

It's a good way to keep tabs on the Shadow

A black blur, who talks and interacts with the world at a minimum, joins the Thieves, explaining what some of the more hidden images mean

At this point, the Thieves know who Ladybug and Chat Noir are, and they're doing all they can to help

Then Okumera happens and Haru joins the group

It's bittersweet, but Haru's more than determined enough to continue being a Thief

Things go on in canon until the time the Thieves would have been in Sae's Palace

She's still a target, but they have a much more pressing deadline

Hawkmoth's been upping the stakes, the difficulty, and the number of Akuma. Paris is in real danger, and they need to stop him

Plus, it'd be hard to pin it all on him without a confession, because Gabriel is an international business

(possible Akechi redemption, as he changes sides after spending longer with the Thieves and seeing the good they can do first-hand)

Might make more later, depending on how this does

#marinette dupain cheng #persona 5 #akira kusuru #ryuji sakamoto #mlb

15 notes · View notes

akechicrimes · 5 years ago

Note

I'm a brand new goroboy and have questions if you don't mind answering any of them 1. Was everything that Akechi said about the PTs being unjust a part of his detective act or did he really believe that changing hearts was bad prior to the engine room? 2. When did he first suspect the PTs? Did he figure them out immediately at the TV station or did he just become interested in Joker cuz he's gay and figured it out afterwards lol. Basically who sussed who out first? (1/2)

hello welcome!!!!!! we are happy to have u!!!!!!!!

unfortunately we dont have concrete answers to a lot of these, but i will do my best!!!! these are some really excellent questions so i want to do them justice. and by do them justice, i mean theyre under a cut because it got really long lmfao.

thanks for the ask–this was really fun to write, instead of doing literally any of the work that i was supposed to.

1. Was everything that Akechi said about the PTs being unjust a part of his detective act or did he really believe that changing hearts was bad prior to the engine room?

SHORT ANSWER: we don’t know.

SLIGHTLY LONGER ANSWER: we can’t say for sure but there’s strong evidence that he was probably telling the truth, actually.

VERY LONG ANSWER: there’s strong evidence he both is and isn’t telling the truth in the TV studio scene, but with the qualifiers that (1) he never necessarily says theyre unjust, he says they’re dangerous. (2) he probably thinks the phantom thieves change hearts in the same way that he makes people go psychotic. (3) his sense of justice is basically entirely based on righting wrongs that have been committed against individuals, not what the law says. (also, when i say “individuals,” i mean himself.)

to the extent that he’s lying–he does say that they’re operating outside the law, and that they have unknown and apparently very effective power that cannot be stopped by traditional law enforcement. traditional justice says that if you operate outside the law, that makes you automatically bad. akechi is playing the part of someone who’s lawful good, so when he says, “they’re dangerous and operating outside the law,” he has to say, “that makes them unjust.”

to the extent that he’s telling the truth, that’s basically everything else he says. i do think those viewpoints are his own for a lot of reasons.

when he talks about the changes of heart, he makes it sound like it’s a thing that could just happen to anyone–even people who’ve done no wrong. when akira voices support for the PT, akechi argues back against akira to say “If [Ryuji’s] heart suddenly changed, wouldn’t you think it was the work of the Phantom Thieves?” like it could just happen to any random joe schmoe. he’s acting like someone could just one day change their entire attitude–possibly for the worse–resulting in terror amongst the population.

we have to keep in mind that at this point in time, akechi has no idea that you can steal treasure to change a person’s heart. he doesn’t even know treasure is a thing, let alone that you have to send a calling card to make it manifest. morgana is the person who knew all that stuff, and akechi definitely didnt have access to morgana when he started his hitman career.

so with the way that he’s talking about the changes of heart, i dont think he assumes that changes of heart always change the person for the better. he has no idea that it’s literally removing a person’s distorted desires. i’m like NINETY-FIVE PERCENT SURE that he thinks changes of heart operate in the same way that his psychotic abilities work: you cast a persona spell, and a person goes apeshit.

from his point of view, that’s kind of what’s happening. when akechi casts call of chaos, a person starts behaving in a way they never would under ordinary circumstances in the real world. the changes of heart really look exactly the same way to an outsider’s POV. and to akechi’s understanding, call of chaos can be cast on even good people. from the phantom thieves’ POV, only people who’re mega-dicks can have their hearts changed in the first place, because the requisite to have a palace is a certain level of distortion. (futaba, of course, proving that you don’t have to be a mega-dick to have a distortion, but the TV studio scene happens before futaba.)

akechi’s argument is that leaving that sort of power in just anyone’s hands is dangerous. because that’s a LOT of power for one person to have. akechi would know, considering that he’s in the same position. he’s wary of the fact that there’s no guarantee that that person will use it for good.

that, of course, brings us to the question of “well, what does akechi think ‘using power for good’ is in the first place?” does he think that the phantom thieves are using their powers for good? does he think he’s using his powers for good?

when asked why he seeks justice, akechi says: “Because of sickening human beings… Yes, my contempt for such people drives my sense of justice. It isn’t some grand reason like society’s sake or some lofty ideal. It’s simply an absurd grudge… and extremely personal.”

the traditional, lawful-good way of thinking about justice is that if you operate outside the law, you’re automatically bad. but akechi’s sense of justice seems to be driven primarily from the hurts he’s suffered, the grudges he still bears, and his conviction that wrongs personally done against individuals should be righted. it’s an end-goal oriented sense of justice.

if wrong-doers are punished and the grudges are appeased, then justice is delivered. how that happens does not necessarily constitute justice. my best guess at this time is that he’d qualify a lot as “the ends justify the means,” since his concept of justice is end-goal oriented.

of course, i think akechi definitely shows throughout the game that he knows that how you achieve those ends is… not irrelevant. i think his black mask outfit (and a bunch of other things he says) implies that he feels like he is a “villain” of sorts. he demonstrates feeling a type of way about killing okumura. he definitely knows that his actions are morally wrong under particular lenses. take a look at this section:

Akechi: Who cares? My targets were all doing the same damn thing in this eat or be eaten world. [referencing that all his victims were dicks who kind of deserved to get glocked]

Akechi: How is that any different from the Phantom Thieves?

Ann: We’re not murderers!

Akechi: (now looking kind of pissed) So what?! [launches into speil about how it’ll all be worth it when he exacts revenge on Shido]

obviously he knows that murder is morally indefensible. but i think he’s justified it to himself as either not so bad because he killed primarily corrupt people, and/or that it’d be worth it if he achieves revenge on shido. he’s doing some kind of weird karma cosmic-scale balancing of “how much can i get away with and still be able to call it justifiable and justice,” and it looks like his answer is “quite a fucking lot.”

ironically, this makes his views on justice fairly practical. rather than idealistically committed to some platonic edition of justice, he’s more of a “what do i need to do to get the goals i want achieved? what needs to happen to make sure that asshole abusers get what’s coming to them? what needs to happen to make sure that i get emotional closure?” the biggest issue with that is the danger of a Pyrrhic victory–the moment where the means so go far that the ends no longer justify them.

all of this is to say: when akechi is talking about the phantom thieves as potentially unjust, i dont think he has a problem with their methods. “methods” are like a knife–it’s about how you use it, and for what.

i think he knows that changing hearts, and turning people psychotic, is morally skeevy if your sense of justice is very puritanical, but his sense of justice isn’t puritanical. i think he’s wary of what they might be using their methods for. again: his big argument in the studio scene isnt necessarily that theyre unjust, only that they’re dangerous.

seriously, though–changing hearts is potentially a recipe for societal collapse if used the wrong way. imagine if the PT were more self-centered and they went the light yagami route with their new supernatural powers, maintaining peace and order through authoritarian fear. that is, actually, the entire premise of the P5 Vanilla Bad End, in which the PT enforce peace through relentlessly changing hearts and making people too terrified to keep committing crime.

since his views on justice seem to be defined by what the end goal is, he’d have to know what those goals are before understanding if they’re “just” or “unjust”–which is probably why he keeps hounding akira for akira’s viewpoints on justice, tbh. the phantom thieves are only unjust if their end goal is unjust, not necessarily because of their methods. (see answer to question 2 for related/continued discussion.)

2. When did he first suspect the PTs? Did he figure them out immediately at the TV station or did he just become interested in Joker cuz he’s gay and figured it out afterwards lol. Basically who sussed who out first?

SHORT ANSWER: i pretty sure atlus expects us to believe that he figured it from even before the TV showing–he figured it out when he overheard ryuji saying “It’s not easy being phantom thieves” when they were in the hallway. it’s the same time and place where akechi did his famous pancake fuck-up.

SLIGHTLY LONGER ANSWER: the idea that akechi was just super horny for the guy who gave him shit on live TV and then realized that akira was a phantom thief later as a neat bonus is fuckign SENDING me.

VERY LONG ANSWER: because of the scene with ryuji, i’m pretty sure he knew that akira was a phantom thief, and also i’m half-convinced that he somehow got the TV host to specifically choose akira during the “ask the audience” portion of the show. it’s really too much of a coincidence.

because of that, i think the other implication of the scene is that he wanted to see what akira was made of when he invited akira for a debate on live television, and was pleasantly surprised when akira had something very interesting to say on the topic of grey morality and achieving justice outside the law.

what’s interesting about that scene is that akechi becomes interested in akira regardless of what akira says about the phantom thieves. akira’s options are “They’re justice itself,” “They’re necessary,” and “They do more than the cops”–so it’s not like akira ever says that he dislikes the phantom thieves, but the level of support ranges and two of these imply a justification/reasoning for it. and then akechi fucking argues back on live television like this is some kind of debate, instead of a daytime talk show meant to distract bored housewives.

like. akechi gets INTO it. justice is his THING. and here’s akira, who seems to be not only a metaverse user operating outside the law like akechi himself, but also has some pretty grey morality thoughts on what justice is and could be, also like akechi himself.

taking it as a given that he knows for a fact that akira is a phantom thief from the get-go, from even before the TV scene ever even happened, then akechi probably keeps hounding him because akechi’s interested in hearing akira’s reasons. he’s not fishing for evidence, since he already knows. this is very speculative, now, but my best guess is that he keeps hounding akira ever after this scene because he wants to compare notes, one vigilante to another, to hear how akira rationalizes his vigilante work as a type of justice. very possibly, he’s seeking reassurance to himself that his own actions are justifiable. (he certainly seems that way in P5R, especially when he wonders about if a “justice nobody wants” is really a true justice at all, or just someone being self-centered.)

so re: “did akechi figure him out or was he just gay,” the answer is. yes. akechi did figure him out, and also akira made him so intellectually horny on live television that he hounded the man down in public for follow-up dates.

what a king.

3. Does Akechi have a Velvet Room? Does he experience rank ups with Joker and the game over stuff too?

SHORT ANSWER: we don’t know. no, seriously, we have no idea.

SLIGHTLY LONGER ANSWER: i’ve seen compelling takes on him having his own velvet room, and i think it’s thematically very fascinating if akechi is quite literally akira’s counterpart in terms of cosmic chess pieces, but i would be surprised if he did. but again, seriously, since there’s no confirmation on the matter, i say akechi’s potential velvet room is fair game.

VERY LONG ANSWER: lore-wise, i’m betting no. akechi was yaldabaoth’s piece, while akira was philemon’s (if i’m remembering my lore correctly). philemon provides the velvet room to aid the people he chooses–yaldabaoth has no such deal. the only reason why yaldo was in the velvet room in the first place was because he wanted to fuck over philemon’s chosen trickster.

it’s the same logic for why someone like adachi wouldn’t have a velvet room: while souji/yu, namatame, and adachi were all given the power to go into the tv world by izanami, only souji/yu was selected by philemon to save the world from ruin, and was accordingly given the resources and aid to do so.

secondary bonus: the psychotic ability/call of chaos just removes a person’s bonds in their heart, which makes them behave as if they were crazy. it’s the exact opposite of joker’s ability to create bonds. yaldabaoth’s one gift to his chosen chess piece was to essentially undo the very social links that make akira strong. so again, i’d be shocked if akechi experiences things like ranking up, or any sort of velvet room/persona fusing mechanic.

personally i think the loki/robin hood divide just happened because he awoke to a persona twice. awakening to your persona just happens at moments of rebellion and strong resolve, and canonically even other persona-users “awaken” (sorta) twice when you max their social link. i’m betting that he just had two moments of resolve: one in which he wanted to be a hero of justice, and one in which he decided he was going to tear shido to the ground no matter how far into villainy he had to go.

but as always, it’s not like there’s a hard consensus on the matter.

4. How did he kill the shadows of people who don’t have a palace? Does *everyone* have a shadow in mementos?

SHORT ANSWER: he probably kills them in mementos, and also i think we’re expected to believe that literally everyone has a shadow in mementos.

SLIGHTLY LONGER ANSWER: i’m almost certain that the mementos depths section of the game confirms that basically everyone’s shadows are in there somewhere, even if they’re just your average joe with no significant distortions. the palace ruler for that section is “the public,” and also we do see the shadows of palace rulers who’ve had their hearts changed in the mementos depths. so even if you’ve had your heart changed and are supposedly a perfectly good human being now, this evidently doesnt disqualify you for having a shadow in mementos.

VERY LONG ANSWER: morgana says that mementos is the collective distortion of everyone in the area, but not a lot more concretely than that. morgana also says that reality is fairly plastic and that reality is somewhat determined by how we perceive the world, so i think that we’re expected to believe that everyone has, to some degree, some level of distortion.

i could say that jungian theory, which is the theory that the persona series is based off of, says that everyone without exception has a shadow. but this seems a little bit of a doylist explanation. instead i’ll point to persona 3, in which people without shadows literally become comatose and apathetic husks of themselves. this is because having a shadow is actually a fairly important part of a person’s psyche, and not having one doesnt make you a good and perfect person, it makes you a nonfunctional vegetable incapable of cognitive thought.

so yeah, i’m pretty sure EVERYONE is in mementos. with the exception of the phantom thieves, because… i think we’re expected to believe that their personas are in some ways their shadows? but also their personas are like, real-life kinning mythological/fictional characters so hard that you bind them to your soul? frankly i’ve been confused about how shadows work ever since persona 5 had people’s eyes turn yellow when they go through their awakenings, since perosna 4 used to use that as a sign that the person was a shadow, so… maybe i have no idea what the fuck im talking about. LMFAO.

#mine #meta #Anonymous

92 notes · View notes