shuake is canon i was there

shuake? more like freak4freak

[akaspiriti]

hallo! i'm spiriti / spi (any prns) and this blog is dedicated to my p5 + shuake rambles.

🗝️ posts are dictated by when i can coherently word my very long list of thoughts but i'm always lurking.

🗝️ big accomplice au / palace au enjoyer, i like expanding on the pre canon and post canon of p5.

🗝️ being part of the societal norm is not my first language and i have no intention of learning it.

[akaspiriti]

‎i don't have a clip but when akechi is doing the interview where he's asked about how it felt to take down the phantom thieves, his breathing is very visible when talking about joker. i would say moreso than normal but i have no material as of now! either way, it just shows how joker is that little chink in his armour. how he subconsciously reacts to him even when not in his presence.

‎

[akaspiriti]

the idea that during the third semester, akechi's evenings are spent in darkness. that he's stuck in a mindless loop of questioning who he is and if his memories are really his. it's never enough to be alarming, just small details — dates, eye colours and the likes.

akechi's sleep schedule was never good to begin with, but his situation has exacerbated them completely. just when he thinks he's about to drift off, he's plagued with visions of scenes he'd rather forget. a dark room with a single light on, a familiar silhouette face down in his own blood. a gunshot echoes in his mind, and it's all he can do to repress a flinch. he doesn't flinch at gunshots.

the progressions in maruki's palace make him almost frenzied, much to everyone's concern. his pacing is inhumane, they need to finish this now. each time joker gets hit, akechi watches his face pale in an all too familiar manner. he doesn't realise that he himself is sporting an assortment of cuts and scrapes, and he can't bring himself to care when it's pointed out to him. they have to keep moving, he doesn't give anyone a chance to change their mind.

after all, he'll be gone tomorrow.

[akaspiriti]

in the manga, akechi says 'i say that shoes represent our "personality". please, look at my shoes. so shiny that you can see your face reflected on them, right?'

i interpret this as akechi's real world mask. he physically presents himself in such a way that exudes perfection. since he says shoes represent personality, we can infer that he wants to come across as perfect in every manner. it's his detective prince persona down to the last detail, and explains why he is first seen in game as 'pleasant boy'. he's effortlessly portraying himself as the shiny hero that robin hood backs him up as.

yet joker can see past that artificial shine. he is able to understand akechi's two distinct personalities before anyone else.

[akaspiriti]

has anyone ever spoken about playing darts with akechi?

he takes twice as long as any other confidant to get two ranks. as joker's rival, he expects him to be the best (which is why he chooses the 701 ruleset). akechi completes every round with 150 points — 3 bullseyes is a classic move for those who don't know darts, yet we know joker can score higher by scoring 180 via 3 triple 20s. akechi is enforcing their rival status, pushing joker to overcome him. because who else if not him?

[akaspiriti]

by now, we all know that joker's glasses are fake and that they act as a mask for him in the real world. have we ever considered the implications of who knows that fact?

in akechi's rank three, joker is comfortable enough to not only take off his glasses, but he actually gives them to akechi. he doesn't feel the need to hide his true nature from him.

in sumire's rank four, joker is comfortable enough to take his glasses off and try new ones on. he's willing to let his true self show while having a sort of playfulness while trying on different pairs.

yet maruki never learns that his glasses are fake and in his rank 10, they joke about their glasses steaming up. joker never fully trusted maruki, no matter what the dialogue options may have hinted at.

[akaspiriti]

can we talk about how lonely joker was throughout the game?

how after being accused of assault, his parents immediately believed the charges and kicked him out of his home. the figures who were meant to love him unconditionally and support him through whatever hardships he faced had cut ties with him at the first hurdle.

how he was sent to live in the attic of a man's cafe that he didn't know. sojiro immediately assumed that joker was a delinquent criminal with no moral conscience, believing the charges from the outset. his initial trust in joker was next to zero.

how the students at shujin immediately assign him the role of the problematic transfer student. that immediate label sent his nonexistent reputation plummeting, meaning he was in a disadvantageous position from the very start.

how when morgana runs away, everything in the leblanc attic reminds joker of him. one of his first friends left him, and he's back to square one — abandoned again. if you interact with some of the furniture in the attic, you'll get dialogue saying how different items remind him of morgana.

how during akechi's breakdown in shido's palace, joker has to be reminded by the other thieves that he's probably gone. another close friend of his, gone in an instant. the guilt he must've felt — was it his fault that he ended up like that?

how even maruki betrayed him. the man he was meant to confide in distorted his entire reality, undoing his progress with everyone and defaulting to the easy ending. maruki inadvertently showed him that everyone's true wishes — their source of happiness — can't be achieved through normal means.

it must have felt like the entire world was out to get him from the start.

[akaspiriti]

when you sign up to the dvd rental place in persona 5, you get a dialogue option from morgana saying that joker's hands were shaking when he wrote his name. morgana puts this down to nerves, but it's such obvious foreshadowing to the confession scene chronologically later in game.

at the start of the game, when you're picking joker's name, you sign it at the bottom of a confession which admits his guilt and involvement with the phantom thieves, among other things. so the fact that his hands were shaking this early in the game is such a brilliant yet subtle detail.

screenshot under the cut!

[akaspiriti]

akechi wasn't lying when he said throwing a glove at joker was a way of initiating their dual / rivalry.

it's called 'throwing down the gauntlet', and it alludes to the medieval practise of a knight throwing down his gauntlet (metal glove) as a challenge to combat. the phrase was figuratively used from the second half of the 1700s. when joker accepts akechi's challenge, he is 'taking up the gauntlet', which we can see when joker keeps his glove.

aren't words so fun?

[akaspiriti]

everyone likes to talk about akechi's rank 8 confidant, but can we please acknowledge his rank 3?

there's something so vulnerable in joker taking off what he uses as a mask in the real world, and putting it on akechi instead. even in these early stages of the confidant, there is such explicit trust from joker that never really deteriorates.

the fact that he had to be in akechi's personal space in order to do everything that happened in rank 3 is another homage to his trust. even once you've finished yusuke's confidant, joker has dialogue options which both state that he doesn't like how close yusuke is. yet he's fine with akechi being physically close as early as rank 3?

[akaspiriti]

thinking about how joker's wish in maruki's reality was to bring akechi back and live a normal life with him. he could've wished to go back to his parents, or to make it so the charges from shido never happened. he could've wished that students at shujin didn't treat him like a criminal.

but he chose akechi over everything.