for the miscellaneous and uncategorized, from the brain of yours truly.
sundry
the actual worst thing about royal
i'll never forgive the fact that akechi chooses to fight for the true reality for the sake of his autonomy and dignity and then the last we see of him is as the undignified butt of a joke at the bottom of the monacopter. like i'm not asking for a teary momentous goodbye where he fades to dust or something— i think NOT getting a goodbye, him just disappearing offscreen, is appropriate and characteristic of him. but don't let our last memory be fuckign That. i think something cooler and more respectful is if, shortly before joker goes in for that final shot on adam kadmon, crow and joker share a little nod or something.... akechi can appear after that during the downfall (NOT AS A JOKE!!!), i just want something closer to the end than 2/2 for amaren and akechi to acknowledge each other. actually a nod is asking for too much. it'd be sufficient to me if joker just made eye contact with the group as a whole and then the fujos can overanalyze the pixels with their shuake lens. i just need SOMETHINGGGG
2025-03-22
velvet blue
one of my pet topics is how amaren chooses blue things. a list of all the ones off the top of my head:
- ✭ his eraser (this is what made me notice in the first place— most of the thieves have pen cases and erasers that help characterize them and their personal styles. amaren's pen case is black, and the little cover on his white eraser is blue)
- ✭ his umbrella
- ✭ his shoulder bag on moving day (he uses this bag ONLY on the day he arrives at leblanc. interestingly, he uses his brown leather one in the flashback of his hometown)
- ✭ his swim trunks (this is the only thing he wears outside of the metaverse and his uniform that has red on it, though it's just accents)
- ✭ that one sofa in kichijoji that he wants so bad
- ✭ his scarf in 3rd semester
given that 1. these are all in the real world and 2. nearly all are that particular shade of blue used in the velvet room (and additionally that the kichijoji sofa has a chain-like pattern on it), i feel like the design choice to have the only non-black/white or leather brown color he wears be this blue is meant to echo the "prison" state of his mind. being in the metaverse, being joker, being red— is being free. that's just one idea though, and certainly the fact that the flames of personas are blue kinda muddles the theme; p5 is my only persona game, so i might be missing something more that could be said on this.
i also like to think that, outside any thematic intentions, amaren just likes blue. even though red is the color of his Rebellious Spirit ™, he did in fact choose blue over any other color six entire times, including that garish scarf over his red-accented uniform. for someone who's usually so effortlessly stylish, he's gotta really like this blue to make That choice.
an additional take on the association between akira & blue that prompted me to share mine: tweets by nep
2025-02-24
visions sent to me by atlus #3
i dreamt of hugging goro again. a really good hug— reciprocated this time, very warm, i could feel the shape of his frame.... though unlike the previous dream where i'd hugged him, he was closer to his canon height, though he still felt too thin and it made me worry for him. we stayed like that for a good minute and i knew i had to get as much as i could. and then he pulled a gun on me.
i managed to wrestle it from him (or rather, he let me, because he didn't seem to want to do it in the first place....) and then he pulled away while avoiding my eyes and fled. i screamed after him, "akechi! i'll always forgive you, akechi!" i was desperate for him to understand that, knowing i wouldn't be able to reach him after this. i could tell he heard me, but he vanished without looking back....
2025-02-10
no moe allowed
i understand the appeal in an akechi who still likes and is even a little obsessed with tokusatsu. However. i feel like i have not seen anyone exploring the appeal in an akechi who liked it as a child and then decided he shouldn't anymore. he's grown now, he's got more important things to worry about, and aren't those morals just naive? something like that. akechi is someone who is really good at denying himself things. i think it'd be a nice complication to have something he used to like (and possibly be very important/inspirational/foundational/etc to him) be one of those things. i myself have a number of old interests that i look back on with a vague bittersweet feeling....
i just like the thought of akechi, during one of his visits to leblanc, encountering a piece of featherman paraphernalia (courtesy of futaba) and amaren prompts akechi to offer his opinion of such things, as akechi is wont to do on any topic, but on this topic akechi offers only a brief and somewhat dismissive comment that has amaren tilting his head a little but guessing that maybe akechi is just not feeling as chatty today. goro himself regards the item with a wariness, like if he gets too close or thinks too hard about it, something bad will happen (probably he fears ruminating on what it used to mean to him and comparing it to how he's gone so rotten, comparing it to what he does now— both to his act and to his real actions). so he cannot let things lull into the silence and his thoughts, but be careful, akechi; if you try to pivot the topic, amaren will definitely pick up on what caused it. you've got to try making amaren talk to make it out like you want to listen today, but how does one listen to a listener? at the very least, akechi can distract himself with this newfound challenge. ask about where the item came from— prove you're not afraid of it, give yourself a thread by which to get the topic elsewhere. it's a gift for sakura futaba, is it? an easy an out as any; he can feign disinterest in her hyperfixation and use it as a launching point to talk about her instead any time. he can probe in the other direction too— amaren is quite the gift-giver, even without a celebratory or holiday occasion. how has amamiya-kun perfected this practice? ah, a question like that won't work— he'll just give one of his mysterious little smiles and say something annoying like "i have my secrets". not as many as you think, akechi would not say. and twenty minutes later akechi will have forgotten about the featherman garbage and go away feeling like he's won something. the ability to let go. (reality: the ability to keep the cork screwed on.)
2024-12-30
shuake musings #3
i enjoy stupid in-love amaren as much as the next guy (it's my pfp on twt and bsky, after all) but i also really like when he looks a little colder or even slightly uncomfortable towards akechi.
though i recognize that these example pics that originally struck my interest on this topic are set pre-betrayal, meaning amaren's expressions here are moreso based on his feelings of suspicion/anticipation of the coming betrayal. even so! amaren still has opportunities to act distrustful or unfriendly towards akechi in 3rd sem, despite akechi's mere presence being the result of amaren's strong desire to have him in his life again, and despite akechi more or less having "paid his debts" by turning himself in to the police in amaren's place.
not sure how to express my point.... it's a bit hard to discuss when the circumstances of their relationship changes so much over time. but essentially i don't think akechi's animosity is a one-way street, and i'd like to see more of an amaren whose feelings of friction are less on behalf of his friends/akechi's victims, and more about his own personal conflict with akechi.
their clash of ideals persist beyond akechi's facade, and it's hard to deny that akechi is a difficult person to be around regardless of what face he wears. and this is where we say "and yet amaren likes him all the same", and yes! but i don't want to forget the "despite" of it. it's easy to forget when you look at all the truths in amaren's actions, but i just don't want to lose sight of what spawned those expressions in the images above.... though i might ultimately just be stuck in my preference for pre-betrayal shuake lol
2024-12-28
merch musings
i had expected to go crazy and start obtaining a good amount of p5 merch the moment my spoiler lockdown ended and my income opened up, but i've browsed surugaya so many times and come away uninspired.... it's a gaping difference to my previous fandom, for which i still presently collect and give serious consideration to goods of characters that aren't even in my top5.
i think this is in large part due to the nature of each property— p5 is, at its heart, a game, and the merch is a secondary element to its presence. the one i collect for (sorry, it will continue to go unnamed) is one of those multimedia franchises for which the merch amounts to new "content" of the characters, and for which obtaining merch is a common and expected component of one's enjoyment. the merch is Part of it, rather than in addition to it.
there's also the fact that i've been following the other thing for 4 devoted years (nearly since its start) and i only just rolled up to p5 8 years late. show me any piece of merch from otherthing and i'll tell you where it comes from, how rare it is, and a ballpark of what it goes for on the secondhand market. i am currently sorely tempted by an INCREDIBLY rare old postcard that usually goes for >80usd regardless of character that is, right now, in a bundle (a bundle!!) on mercari for like 14 bucks. not even my fave guy but i could have a super rare item for so little. and it's that knowledge and experience that makes me covetous in ways i'm not for p5— i simply wasn't there. sure, i know gorb commands high prices, but i haven't been hunting him for months or years, wasn't there to watch that situation unfold.
so somehow i've ended up with my only tangible p5 merch interest being in irresistably nice figures, which is just great for my wallet. i now own joker figma (part 3 finale post coming eventually), i'm in the waiting room for pop up parade arsene, i've preordered that other poseable joker figure, and i'm really looking very hard at pop up parade ann. respectfully of course. and i'll probably end up with more figmas (amaren, akechi, crow, maybe even panther too)..... but i feel this is somehow better than coughing up >30usd for overseas shipping every month that i find a piece of fancy paper with an anime boy on it i like.
i must also add that i've been eyeing morgana nui dozens of times, as i think he may be the cutest of the morgana plush options to me, but i've seen various photos of actual specimens and it feels like it varies too much for me to be sure about it. some just don't come out right; reason why 90% of my pokemon plush were shopped for in person where i could select the best-looking individual of the bunch. i feel like i can't take my chances with something extra-arduous to obtain and impossible to justify going through the effort of returning for less-than-stellar appearance. i'll probably cave eventually once i find one that looks good enough.... he's just so cute....
2024-12-23
on maruki bad ending
last night i checked out the missed deadline ending for maruki's palace. i'd unfortunately seen spoilery descriptions of this ending prior to playing it, so the events didn't surprise me, but now the impact of it is settling in.
that maruki would see amaren be unable to come to a decision— whether to accept or reject the new reality— and decide the solution would be to remove the choice entirely by removing amaren's ability to make choices at all... the false reality is also seen as a removal of will, but at least it's a reality amaren could have chosen, and a happy one at that. maruki did not give amaren the choice of becoming comatose and completely disabled any possibility of a happy life. it's worse than death and it's worse than what akechi feared. what the fuck maruki.
what's really getting me, though, is that it's only amaren. maruki did this solely to amaren because amaren was ultimately the only one who could stop him. maruki would pursue his ideal reality for everyone else, and that means no one's ideal reality includes amaren. ow. ouch. fuck. that amaren was so important yet not singularly important enough to so many of the people he knew to be kept in the picture. he was exactly what his friends needed, but if his friends are happy, they don't need him. fuck... one can imagine the thieves feeling an occasional absence but not being able to remember who is meant to be there.
this even implies that akechi is not around (either dead or in prison), as it was only for amaren's sake that akechi was potentially revived and then released from the custody akechi turned himself in to. i'm starting to understand more why akechi was so opposed to the false reality... he'd never want his existence to be dependant on someone else, let alone to the one person he'd never want to lose to. with amaren gone, at least akechi is free...
2024-11-26
it would've been easier if he'd died more explicitly
i've seen many discussions over whether it's more meaningful for akechi to have died or not in the engine room, and i do believe it is the most poignant if he does, as that's what the narrative was set up to do there. akechi is a tragic character; he is meant to end in tragedy. none of the circumstances or rules of the setting point to his survival.
but i think a lot about the dev answer (regarding his appearance at the train station) where they essentially said that akechi's canonical survival is whatever you wish it to be. this, in combination with the in-game reflection of this statement being that you must meet sufficient conditions to see akechi at the train station, feels like it's meant to go hand-in-hand with how amaren's wish to see akechi again resulted in his presence in maruki's reality. which is to say that through amaren, our desire and choices as player canonically changes the outcome after returning to the true reality. (watsonianly, we would say this is also amaren's wish, and that he has exceptional influence over the metaverse and reality because of his specialboy disease, and thus he is able to actualize this one aspect of maruki's reality.)
so my personal take is this: akechi died in the engine room. amaren's wish brought him back in maruki's reality. the player's wish defies akechi's original fate, and he now lives in the true reality. this reconciles all the circumstances to me: i have never been able to reason how he would have survived the engine room confrontation within the rules of the metaverse we know, it's more narratively satisfying if he experiences the fatal outcome he earned, and he's given a fate-defying chance to live again because he managed to be truly wanted by one person. and i need my post-canon yaoi.
2024-11-21
raise your hand if you also want joker to die
i dont think i've seen this phenomenon in p5 or any video game before or since— but i thought it was really funny when, close to the calling card deadline, kamoshida will say something hostile to amaren if you merely enter his line of sight where he stands at school. no button press required. frankly, i can relate: often an image of amaren will set off a tripwire in my head that makes my hands wish they had a stress ball to attempt to destroy instead of my screen where that guy lives. it's amazing that atlus made a character that triggers such a unique emotion that lies somewhere between cute aggression and the unnameable conglomeration of akechi's feelings towards his future assassination target.
2024-11-16
misc
everywhere else:
- ☕: amamiya ren, kurusu akira, joker, pego, akiren
- 🥞: akechi goro
in dicho and i's chats:
- ☕: amaren
- 🥞: gorito, akepi, gorocchi, goripo, lord bitch, akechi motherfucking goro, my boyfriend who hates me and wants me to die
2024-11-16
the white (black?) whale (cat?) part 2
as promised, i have checked my joker figma bookmark incessantly for a good deal. things were dire for a while; most didn't have the preorder bonus part, and some were in poor condition. there's one that's been dropping by a couple hundred yen each day to keep itself on top, but it remains at a price too high for anyone to bite.
suddenly there was an explosion of new listings— unopened!— at good prices. i noticed many looked different from what i had been seeing; the preorder bonus part came in a white bag instead of a black one, and the box had a smaller cutout, instead showing an attractive graphic of joker over the portion it now covers. these, i assume, are from the most recent reissue that i barely missed. it's weird to imagine a bunch of people receiving their preorder and deciding they don't want it after all.
i gnawed on my fingers for a couple days debating on whether i cared about this minor difference in packaging and imaginary concerns over whether the quality of the figure and its parts might be better or worse in this wave. it was especially difficult to judge since most of these listings are unopened, some even still in the tissue paper, so the best look i can get is through layers of plastic. that high-priced one from an earlier wave has close-up photos of morgana, revealing the painting quality to be not-so-perfect, so it is a real concern... but i don't know if my standard is fair for this tier of figure.
ultimately i felt like i would watch these listings get snapped up and feel like i should've gone for it, so i picked one of a great price (~75 usd, about as good as it gets for unopened with the preorder bonus part) and submitted the order. sellers will often list whether their home has any smokers or pets for the picky people who would be concerned about that kind of thing (not me, in this case), and this seller mentioned they have one cat. for joker and morgana, this felt like a blessing more than anything else.
i've only ever done mercari orders through the buyee integration, but this listing was connected to the u.s. mercari thing that i've never used before. i'm a little suspicious just because i'm new to it... but i appreciated that the order was done immediately thanks to the direct integration, versus buyee which requires an agent to wake up and make the purchase for you manually. it's also nice that the shipping cost was listed upfront, though that may have pros and cons compared to buyee, which can consolidate different orders and offer many choices for the shipping service. we'll see how it goes.
it's liberating to see the "sold" marker on a listing and know that it's mine. i'll have my boys in my hands soon enough... i'm excited to try recreating scenes (like this... so cool...!!) and take joker on a play date with my brother's violet figma.
2024-11-11
shuake musings #2
thinking about the name formality situation between them... akechi switches from "amamiya-kun" to "ren" the first time akechi sees him after the phone call where the plan to kill amaren is decided. it's exceptional for akechi; from what i remember, he uses surname-kun for the boys in the thieves, surname-san for the girls, and then sae-san and shido-san for the two adults in his life. amaren is the only person he ever refers to with given name AND without honorific.
what's really interesting to me is that amaren doesn't reciprocate this. no matter what transpires, even the addition of third semester, amaren never graduates to "goro". it's like looking at an open wound, seeing that surname on the party list among all the given names.
i'd need to replay the game to answer this definitively, but from what i can recall, amaren will use a person's surname without honorific until explicitly asked to use their given name (or in the event that he is only provided a given name, then he uses just that). i think this even goes for upperclassmen (no senpai) and teachers (no sensei).
so it seems like the only thing stopping him is that akechi hasn't asked amaren to use his given name. him using "ren" was not taken as implicit permission. for as cool and punkish as amaren can seem with his initial terms of address, the fact that he always waits for the request belies his consideration.
but with the contrast of akechi's "ren", it's painful. akechi took that step because he knew there would be an end to their time together; he'd reached his perceived limit of understanding between himself and amaren and honored it by using a closer form of address. amaren, meanwhile, never reaches "goro", because akechi refuses to give it to him. this is the pinnacle of akechi keeping amaren at arm's length, keeping those walls up, and further, representative of how he isolates himself beyond help.
akechi started using "ren" without permission, but there was definitely something in the air that i think both of them knew the other was feeling that made akechi certain it would be acceptable. and even if it wasn't, it strikes me as something akechi would find amusing or satisfying to do. amaren didn't give "ren" to akechi, akechi took it.
meanwhile, amaren will never take "goro". he must be given it. i don't know that it would happen within even 5 years of post-canon. if akechi ever lets down that wall, i feel amaren would treat it with a unique sanctity: using it rarely, if ever, in favor of a second person pronoun, and never among company amaren knows. futaba's bugs included.
2024-11-02
shuake musings #1
there's a lot to read into the main event of akechi's rank 3, and currently i'm thinking about this angle: akechi had aspired to be wanted through the use of false appearances, and amaren explicitly gave akechi a false appearance in order to be able to spend more time with him. it feels kinda like amaren demonstrated "acceptance" of this part of akechi, as much as akechi has accepted that part of himself (signified by robin hood). i feel that amaren's approach to akechi's facade— not quite seeing what's behind it, but knowing there's something back there, and behaving accordingly— is something that akechi appreciated, and part of what drew his interest.
2024-10-12
visions sent to me by atlus #2
this time i dreamt that there was a second, scuffed, debug-esque confidant menu where one could view the number of points you've accumulated for each character. i was viewing my brother's data and admonishing him for only having around 800,000 points for akechi, while an early game character he didn't care much for managed to have 3.4 million. all of the confidants were max rank, so the points over that cap didn't matter; i was just being a mobage tierer about it. no lack of reward would stop me from ensuring my goro has the highest points of all of amaren's confidants. (see: all the evening confidants i neglected in 3rd semester in favor of taking akechi to jazz jin long past the point he'd run out of dialogue.)
2024-10-10
visions sent to me by atlus #1
i had a dream that amaren and morgana (in human form) were playing tag around a house, chasing each other in and out of the back door. it was really cute and sibling-like.
it got me thinking that reverse tag in a safe-ish area of the metaverse might make for a good phantom thief training exercise, moreso than the "well we sure are getting really good at high-fives" ostensible team-building of darts. imagine the thieves having to work together to catch a designated escapee, and then in turn trying to escape everyone else.
some teammates might be better at pursuing and worse at being pursued and vice versa, with nuance therein... e.g. ryuji of course would have phenomenal speed, but he might not make the best decisions about the direction by which he would entrap or flee the opponents. everyone would hate when mona is the escapee— definitely the most slippery of the bunch. i can imagine the royal trio each pulling off some annoying ploys or getaways too, especially with sumi's acrobatics.
if p5's dungeon crawling was any more about platforming, i could see this being a fun minigame. though the idea is giving me some unpleasant flashbacks from my youth of the sculptor's muse capture mission in jak and daxter...
2024-09-26
the white (black?) whale (cat?) part 1
i am a modest collector of merchandise, and i make some effort to be selective in what i covet to save money, acquisition labor, and shelf space. that said, the item i have decided to fix my sights on to indulge my love of p5 is decidedly on the higher end of all three categories.
the ONE thing i would like to own more than anything else is the joker figma. he's handsome, poseable, and comes with a free morgana. and by the time i looked into purchasing him, i had missed the preorder window of his first reissue in 5 years by two weeks.
luckily i have an amount of experience purchasing secondhand goods from japan and wouldn't mind getting a used one off mercari or similar. after investigating, it seems i wouldn't have much issue grabbing even an unopened one at a reasonable price.
the trouble is that i care about morgana and i think the official preorder bonus piece, an alternate expression for him, is very cute and necessary for my satisfaction. i will need to either wait for a miracle listing of a joker figma with the bonus piece included and hope it's not almost four times the retail price, or settle with a standard box and hunt for the bonus piece separately (a gamble).
having recently beaten p5r at the time of writing, i am now capable of searching freely and will be commencing my hunt for this thing. a new bookmark to check twice daily...
2024-09-25