Cognitive Wilds AU (spawned thanks to thinking too hard about this piece), Metaverse Hijinks Edition
All the AU thoughts beneath the cut:
One year and one month post-canon, Akira finds that big-eyed app back on his phone.
The Thieves find a 'roided-out Metaverse waiting for them. They also find Crow. Or, more accurately, Crow finds them. (Akira's very normal about this.)
He's been stuck here, in the Metaverse, since the engine room. (He's absolutely fine, shut up, Joker.)
The Cognitive Wilds, Crow calls it. The ever-evolving, unstable, erratic remains of Mementos/Palaces that feed off the corpse of the Holy Grail. Yaldabaoth's death was whalefall and is nourishing to the nth degree to the underbelly of the human unconscious.
Everything in the Wilds is strong as hell. Everything's at MAX level (including Crow). The Thieves have to play catch up at first. (This doesn't go well for them.)
Not only is everything at MAX level, but status ailments linger long after battle, and items/skills don't cure it completely. Depending on the ailment, it can completely debilitate one of them for a very long time on a run.
Exploring the Wilds operates like a rogue-like:
The map, encounters, buffs/artifacts, etc. change every single time they enter.
While there are safe floors, they don't retain progress and are never in the same spots each run.
They explore until they fail (running out of stamina, fleeing a battle, or failing 'puzzle floors' will boot them out.) When they enter again, progress resets.
They have to make it all the way in one go to reach, well, whatever it is that's at the end of all this, or bust.
There are gatekeepers/boss shadows to make things extra annoying for everybody.
Jose and the Reaper are present within the Wilds. Lavenza is around, too.
I'd really love to see more post-canon P5R content that acknowledges that Sumire's tendency to mimic the people she admires is still kind of a problem. She's realized that she needs to be her own person, but old habits die hard, and it's hard to find a solid identity after modelling yourself after someone else for so long. P5R never really calls out Sumire's obvious mimicking of Joker in the Metaverse either, so I think on some level, this is still something she still needs to work on.
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