#with the low low price of thinking abt crossover shenanigans. we can make tatsuya worse. we can make jun worse too!!

[mint-merriment]

persona 2 q (not to be confused with persona q2)

vampirebadger's "Last One Out, Close The Door Behind You" (amazing fic btw) was onto something when they put persona 2 characters in the pQs. however we can make it worse. i can make it worse.

i propose. early-game is cast (this means joker) IN THE SAME PQ as early-game ep cast, bringing us such shenanigans like:

two mayas!!!! two of them!! it'd be funny if they both went 'let's positive thinking!' at the same time

two tatsuyas!!! except one of them is Going Through It and everyone just kind of has to look over there and be like 'you good my guy' and he uses timestop to get away

everyone: there he goes again, teleporting away is!tatsuya, who experienced the time stop: did alternate universe me just stop time???????

katsuya's stress is through the roof bc there's TWO of his younger brother now and they are BOTH avoiding him!!! played for laughs, and then angst later. mayhaps the labyrinth has a kitchen with an oven?

lisa is enthused about double tatsuya for about 10 seconds before she realizes the other one is SO not doing okay. then she swaps over to chasing the other one down so they can, i dunno, talk it out? the plan is Not solid but she knows they need to get him sat down and discussing whats up because he is Clearly not okay :(

actually everyone just becomes extremely concerned about ep!tatsuya. like, what happened that caused this (unknowing)

ep!tatsuya being extremely overleveled compared to everyone else is really funny to me. everyone (except joker) got reset to like level 1 upon entering the dungeon but him? starting at a nice clean level 55 when he was lvl 60+ before.

joker gets reset to about level 38ish methinks. outlevels everyone else due to being a boss fight- but ep!tatsuya has him beat by like 20 levels and thus joker Has to play nice in order to not get murked. bc i imagine ep!tatsuya's first appearance is probably saving the party by nuking an f.o.e. with nova kaiser. and while joker Could leverage emotional distress, that first impression was very powerful, and joker was hiding from the party at the time- therefore, jun goes 'undercover' to begrudgingly mingle with the party and hopefully not get found out as joker, but only after doing a lot of spying while they level up enough for his own strength to not be too out of place.

(as a result of this tatsuya has a painful realization. he Has to stay with the party to keep jun in check- the jun he knows would never, but this jun is still being lied to. he can't take that chance- but he can't let them hurt jun either. he has to protect jun and the rest of the party from each other, WHILE ALSO protecting ep!maya from the is timeline's influence. in this way, p2q is simply an extension of p2, otherwise known as 'tatsuya suou suffering simulator')

fun fact: everyone kinda just thinks that this is simply a case of alternate universe once they hash out the differences between the worlds. ep!tatsuya must scream for he knows The Awful Truth and is Definitely Not Sharing

jun is very offended at the idea that the ep version of the 'joker game' is essentially calling a hit on someone. um, joker's plan is to make dreams come true??? and get revenge on his childhood friends, none of this contract killing stuff. that kind of thing only happens if there's anyone getting in the way of making people's dreams come true also his childhood friends, he's making an exception for them. and if they didnt have a dream then then they deserved to get drained of ideal energy etc etc.

everyone kind of looks at him funny after this statement. eikichi's kasugayama senpai/the other side's jun is a masked circle supporter?? weird but not the worst thing ever i guess???

other fun fact: jun gets a glimpse of exactly what he wants :) because that over there is a tatsuya drowning in guilt :0 not for the same reason but it weighs so heavy on him :D so why is it not making jun feel vindicated. why is it just making him feel... sad.

and also the two mayas which must be so disorienting for him. what do u do when u thought ur childhood friend killed ur other childhood friend, but you are suddenly confronted with Two Of Them alive and well... hang in there jun

baofu and the kidzTM lol. he's the oldest person here and kinda feeling his age. ah, youth (derogatory) (wistful) (he's only 32)

ulala goes 'gotta be a good role model for the kiddos!' and tries to be some sort of wine aunt-adjacent figure towards the is cast. with... some success. i think she'd get a bit weirded out with the advent of two mayas but embrace it quickly. (actually, she might be the person closest to putting together the pieces of ep!tatsuya's past due to her closeness with maya, knowing about her memory situation/strange bruise vs the other maya's total lack of both; and unlike her maya, isn't occupied with being team leader. did... someone hurt her best friend badly? so badly it caused tatsuya to somehow time travel? but from another timeline??? ...nah. too out there. better keep that theory to herself for now.)

and more!