Honestly, yeah. What is the player by this point in time, if not a huge dumbass?
Adachi's letter only continues if you've gotten him to rank 9 by this point. This involves getting him to rank 6 by his hard cut off date and then going to see him alone on December 7th and seeing his arcana transform.
Earlier in his Social Link, Adachi talks about his school life. As he says, you can only get back what you put in - if you put in effort to studying, then you get grades. And in his experience, this is exactly what he did. But as he remarks, this only worked at school and it doesn't translate to the real world.
In the 3rd Persona 4 audio drama cd, which was released before Golden even!, Adachi's dialogue talks about effort. His commentary is, more or less, that things are not worth it unless there's some kind of reward: He mocks the protagonist for running at full speed during the relay that has no reward, but thinks it's okay for Dojima and Nanako to try and win the 3-legged-race because they can win a free night at the Amagi's.
In some ways, I think you can relate this to the Social Link system as a whole: We tell our Social Links things they like to hear during mostly one sided conversations where they talk, we occasionally respond, and we get rank ups for our troubles. But obviously, this only works in the game. (Tbh tho, in real life, you can leave people on read for 5 years before resuming their Social Links.) Things require more effort - caring, giving a shit, more than a one sided conversation.
Adachi's Social Link starts off the same - we invite him over for dinner, we tell him responses he likes to hear, and we get rank ups as our rewards. On rank 7 and 8, there are no points to be earned. We simply assume that, based on Adachi's dialogue, he must give a shit about us, and his Social Link advances on its own.
When his Social Link transforms, he asks us what the hell kind of brain damage we have to assume our bond with him was really that tight. "You get back what you put in" - we put the time to go see him here, against our friends' wishes even, and we don't get a rank up here. But the nature of our relationship changes with him and his arcana changes into Lust or Hunger.
By the end of the game, when Adachi calls us a dumbass, it's cause we honestly are 100% a bunch of dumbasses. In order to get this guy to talk to us in any way whatsoever, we have to go through his stupid Social Link requirements where he has limited availability and it swaps between day / night, where you sometimes don't even know what to do because Atlus was too fucking stupid to program in a tell to go do his hangout during the night (or maybe that was intentional idk), and also do this all by a certain deadline while juggling all of the other bullshit going on in the game and the scheduling. And on top of it all, you are then given the option to go against your friends wishes and continue reaching out to him even after finding out he kicked off all of the events of the game that nearly got Nanako killed and endangered the rest of your party members, plus he tried to bait you into killing Namatame.
It goes without saying that the effort that you have put into this relationship is significantly higher than whatever Adachi has put in. And as he says himself, you get back what you put in. Despite what the player has put in, we've gotten a lot of nothing back. He, uh, came over and bummed free dinners and tried to get Nanako in on his low effort game by telling her to cheat on a book report. That's like, gotta be a negative gain lmao.
To have gone out of your way to try and get this guy's Social Link rank ups and talk to him even after the reveal and after you've already gotten so little out of this... Yeah okay honestly what are we if not a bunch of dumbasses by this point. Like I'm 352 posts into this blog and Adachi isn't even going to throw me into a TV god what's the point even.
But at the same time, Adachi appreciates how big of a dumbass we are when it comes to him. He doesn't call us a dumbass because he hates us, he calls us a dumbass because of how much effort we've put into this relationship. A level of effort that he himself scoffed at, but now causes him to reflect back on the time he spent with us and sees it more fondly. He couldn't see what he had until he didn't have it anymore.
Adachi will send you the letter urging you to reach out the truth and finish the case so long as you're doing the true ending. It's a scene from the PS2 game and it doesn't matter if you've done his Social Link or not. In Persona Club P4, Atlus remarks on how the caution tape in his dungeon hints that deep down inside, he *is* still a detective. Him sending the letter is proof of that - he wants you to solve the mystery. But if you complete his Social Link, the letter continues with this new segment, and I think this changes the nature of his letter: Having put the effort in to him with not much to show for it, we, at long last, get something from him.
And of course, as P4AU implies, he has become something of a "dumbass" himself in regards to expending unnecessary effort on things no one asks you to do.
Btw, the way Madono calls you an idiot in the Japanese audio is pretty great. The way he draws out vowels as Adachi in general I think really helps sell the playfulness.
Atlus, please tell me the lore behind Adachi's mp3 player
Even just looking at Adachi, he doesn't exactly have the image of someone who gives a shit lol.
And this is intentional. Soejima talks about this aspect of Adachi's design in the P4 Design Works. Adachi is said to be an elite officer, one of the best of the best, and Soejima thought an elite might be smart, but lacking in other areas. For this reason, Soejima designed him with that crooked tie and messy bedhead.
That's certainly a common thing in fiction - someone who's good at one thing, but a complete space case in something unrelated. Though he comes off as incompetent in-game, to the extent that him showing competency in December surprises Dojima lol. And even when you get into the real dumb plot stuff that I write 10k words about, it took him like 4 months to figure out that "people can come out of the TV". Ma-Maybe his record was better at his old station.
Even in what Atlus has mentioned about the setting for P4 that doesn't get discussed in-game, Adachi's red tie is something Dojima gave him, and only because Dojima got tired of seeing him wear the old shabby tie he wore before and gave him one of his spare neckties.
If Dojima had never just given him a different tie to wear, I imagine Adachi would still be wearing his old shitty tie until it completely fell apart... Is Adachi pathetic enough to try and like... tape a tie together? Probably.
Him not caring too much about appearance and being a messy guy seems to extend to other aspects of his life. Even in his character profiles for P4 and P4AU, both say he's terrible at cleaning his room and the P4 one also says he sucks at filing paperwork lol.
This continues in his P4AU narration. The investigating detective pulls out 3 pieces of "evidence": A TV which ends up being used to get Adachi into the plot, a model gun which fits with his hobby being doing gun maintenance at home, and some kind of random off brand iPod-esque thing.
The actual music player itself is unimportant. Instead, it's used for a little characterization moment where Adachi confirms that it is indeed something that's his (he even remembers how he got it!), but he didn't particularly care about it and just left it wherever.
All things considered, I get the mental image of Adachi being the kind of guy who uses that meme 13-in-1 ~for men~ product, and his room is just a mountain of cup noodles and piles of random bullshit. Maybe there are more iPods and model guns to be unearthed from underneath his other stuff.
All of this is only talking about the more physical and material aspects of him, but I think you can extend this to who he is as a person and his mentality as well. Granted, some guys in real life end up being useless slobs as adults because they're used to their mom/sister/family/etc babying them, but uhhhhhhh from what Adachi says about his past, we can instantly rule that out with him.
(Edit: As a comment pointed out, upon re-reading this this does sound weird. When I wrote this, I was thinking more about doormat pushover moms. I don't see Adachi's mom doing domestic stuff as her babying him as a child because it strikes me as the Default Gender Role thing where the dad makes the money but the mom takes care of the household. And from how Adachi talks about it, you get the impression she wasn't hyper attentive towards him, as if she did like the bare minimum lol. Adachi's attitude towards the whole thing also strikes me as different than the dudes who grow up as spoiled little kings in their households.)
It seems pretty sensible to correlate his physical state and the way he uses it to express a lack of care for himself to something going on in his brain. Adult burnout, depression, lack of self-esteem & self-worth, all of the above.
I like the random anecdote about the music player, especially since it's him. A bingo game at a New Year's party............... A bingo game at a New Year's party???????????? Adachi, you went to a New Year's party? Hoooly shit dude I don't even do that.
Since he was in jail during New Years 2012 and only arrived in Inaba during spring 2011, for him to have won it during New Year's implies this is from before the events of Persona 4. E.g. it's not something Dojima dragged him to. I assume it was some work-related New Year's party when he was still stationed in Iwatodai. Keeping up appearances for the higher-ups? Did he just want free food? A bit lonely and wanted company and absolutely not gonna say that outloud? (All of the above?)
In both his P4 dialogue and his P4AU inner thoughts, he tends to look down on others. He's annoyed by the old woman at Junes (...though his voiced line on rank 6 expresses he liked her doting on him), he calls the protagonist a dumbass (...but only after admitting he misses him, Dojima, and Nanako), he doesn't think he'll ever get married (even tho I'm available).
And yet, as little blurbs like this go to show, we know he still participates. ♪(´▽｀)
Did he even use the iPod thing before chucking it? What did he put on it? Idols or something? Answer me, Atlus.
A long and meandering post about Adachi and the Investigation Team
I have no idea what to title or describe this as. This is a long ass rambling 2.5k+ word post that consists of like 5 drafts I had sitting around that all felt somewhat related. It starts with the part where the Investigation Team tells Adachi to get over himself, then devolves into talking about Adachi punching himself in the face repeatedly (metaphorically), before ending by exploring the idea of Adachi as the Investigation Team's collective Shadow. it rly is tl;dr.
Adachi will remember that
At one point in Magatsu Inaba, the Investigation Team takes turns responding to Adachi in verbal turn-based combat. They all have varying responses and levels of understanding of him.
Chie doesn't understand why Adachi even became a cop, Rise thinks he's full of shit, Kanji tells him a 2008 version of "go kys" (tbf, he's never been eloquent with words), Yukiko tells Adachi that he sounds like a kid, Naoto calls him out for finding life annoying while being a damn annoyance, and Yosuke tells him he's just a criminal.
What Yukiko says to him in particular appears to sting Adachi, evident by how he "!" emotes in reaction to her. Or idk maybe he's secretly into getting bullied by women. I think Yukiko has Adachi's number here, and he knows that. After all, part of his schtick is that, "Oh, you stupid fuckin' kids, you don't know what I've been through or how I feel! Get off my dungeon lawn!!!" And yet, one of those stupid kids is able to tl;dr his life, and even says, "no u -- you're the stupid kid" back at him. He later even repeats what she said back at Sho during Ultimax.
What Yukiko says here, I think, stands out in particular not just because of Adachi's reaction but also because it resembles a sentiment found in other media: The contradiction of being alive while not "truly" being alive. This often goes like so: A character can be alive in that they are most certainly physically living and breathing, but they are largely closed off from the rest of the world and going through the motions. Thus they are said to not truly "be alive".
In the context of Persona 4, I believe Adachi fits in with this trope. As Yukiko has assessed, life sucks, but it's not like he's in any hurry to die. From what we see of Adachi in the plot, he's going through the motions. He wakes up, goes to his job, goes to Junes to bum free air conditioning, and sometimes gets dragged over to Dojima's house.
I don't think it's bad that people fall into these routines by default. Some find them comforting, some appreciate the simplicity, and some make up for the monotony of adult life with the more fascinating things they do outside of work.
But this doesn't feel like it applies to Adachi because he openly groans about his life and job. He seems to want to live and fit in with society, but he wants to do so with more than what he has right now, yet he also seems unwilling or unable to get what he wants. He also seems unwilling to put in the effort - he tells us he's lonely and wants a girlfriend, but when the old woman from his Social Link tries to hook him up with a girl, he finds it all annoying. He thinks of himself as an elite detective who is above Inaba, but he is regularly made out to be incompetent, sloppy, and careless.
It's like he's stuck but not doing anything to become unstuck. Following the tropes, Adachi would move from being a character who is "alive without really being alive" to "Truly Living" once he figures out how to get himself un-stuck. If he truly wants to be a hotshot detective in the big city with a smokin' hot wife, then something needs to change because he won't get those things as he is now.
But how does Adachi approach the subject of "change"? (Spoiler: Not well.)
Maybe the world really is just a shitshow?
Adachi being exposed as the murderer is a major turning point for the murder investigation. And after the Investigation Team chases him into the TV, one of the many things he talks about is "change", or rather a lack of change.
As far as Adachi is concerned, the world can't / won't / doesn't change. He criticizes the world and its inability to change, how society works, and how people will latch to whatever you tell them as the truth.
Some things he says might resonate with us, especially nowadays with the spread of social media and misinformation. However, despite these criticisms, it sounds like he still desires to be part of society. (Yes, I know, this sounds like that one "We should improve society somewhat" comic, but Adachi did not want to "improve society" lbr LOL.) He has been trying to blend in as a normal guy since April despite being a murderer. I think it's worth reiterating that his complaints about his life weren't anarchist but more like, "I don't have a cute girlfriend who cooks for me." Furthermore, he was trying to take advantage of misinformation to get away with murder by pinning it on Namatame.
Adachi doesn't like the current world and doesn't think it will change. Thus, he is forcing it to change in a completely catastrophic way. He really is throwing a tantrum: Like, what, you can't get away with murder? All right, throw the whole world away. With this approach, it is not Adachi who must change to fit in with the world, but rather the world that must change to fit Adachi.
Change isn't a good subject with him, which, honestly, is relatable. Change is easier said than done. Even within Persona 4 itself, after getting Magical TV Powers, an event that feasibly might add spice to one's life!!, the same old routine still runs Adachi's life. What has changed is that he's now waiting for Namatame to kill someone. Showing up looking for a dead body in the shopping district is simply a new part of his routine.
This topic of Adachi and change gets wrapped up after the fight against Amenosagiri. Adachi challenges the Investigation Team: >>>If<<< they think they have the power to change the future, then do it.
After entering the TV World, Amenosagiri responds to Adachi's wish and makes his wish come true as the dungeon deadline bad ending shows. That was Adachi's own so-called power to change the future. So what is the Investigation Team's?
Yosuke then replies that everyone has the power to change their future. As in, you don't need special powers from a gigantic disco eyeball inside of a TV to do that. In context, Yosuke is telling Adachi, "This is a 'you' problem," or "Skill issue." And tbh, I think Yosuke is more or less correct here.
In which we revisit the topic of "dumbass" and effort
In some ways, this topic might seem odd to approach. Everyone on the Investigation Team - besides Chie - seems to have a better life situation than Adachi had when he was their age. Are they punching down? Perhaps it feels like a hollow reflection of the collectivist culture that the solution to these antagonists who go "BUT SOCIETY IS WHAT IS WRONG" is always to beat them up and force them to conform--
…..but hold on. That line of thought would be giving in to what Adachi says before his boss battle. And, based on how he quits talking about how "waaah society is unfair" afterward, I find it difficult to think that is what he genuinely believes about his situation.
When I suggest that Yosuke is correct, I don't mean this in a "You aren't special, Adachi, everyone else's life sucks too, just deal with it" kind of way. What I have in mind is how the game seems to support that this is an Adachi problem, not an everyone else problem. Throughout Adachi's Social Link, his other interactions, and what Atlus has said as meta / Word of God answers, you get the idea that people were trying with Adachi, but he wasn't meeting them halfway.
For example:
This entire post is about the effort the MC puts in just to get called a dumbass (though I'd bet that the protag considers Adachi calling him a dumbass to be like a Badge of Honor). Even their gay ass Fever Time in P4D tells the story of Yu trying to reach out and Adachi going, "No!!!"
The old woman in his Social Link is trying to wingwoman for him and hook him up with women in Inaba, but Adachi seems unwilling. Instead, he tells Nanako and the protagonist that he's never getting married. Despite his loneliness, he justifies himself by saying, "Marriage is the graveyard of a man's life."
The Dojima family and Adachi interact briefly throughout the game, both in the story scenes and in his Social Link. As his letter at the end of the game shows, Adachi felt lukewarm about their interactions because he wasn't quite aware of what he had with them until he no longer has their company.
The way I see it, when Adachi rants about the world not changing, he is not actually bitching about the world. Rather, this feels more like a form of projection. He says the world doesn't change, but perhaps he is talking about himself and his own inability to change. Which would reframe it as more like… He knows he's the issue that holds himself back - his own worst enemy, perhaps - but he says the world is wrong to justify himself.
You learn a bit about Adachi through his Social Link. During rank 6, in dialogue that can tragically be missed, Adachi will admit that he is lonely, but he also thinks it's easier that way. And really, easier is just another way of saying "less effort".
On one hand, this might show Adachi's annoyance with other people. But at the same time, for him to call the protagonist a dumbass for investing so much in him and their relationship, for him to pass up the matchmaking from the older woman at Junes while complaining about being single....... I think the unspoken bit here is that Adachi does not think he is worth the time or effort to begin with. His lack of effort isn't just him being annoyed with people or not giving a shit about things, it's a lack of effort into himself. I'm no expert, but I think the majority of us would wager that this is depression.
As the game's timeline unfolds, we really only know Adachi as the pathetic, silly murder guy. Did he start distancing himself from people and quit caring about the effort he puts into himself because of the "oops, I murdered someone" part? Or was he like this even before then?
When he talks more about his past, he doesn't go into a great amount of detail. But, going with my gut here, I get the feeling that Adachi's obsession with Mayumi - something from before he became a murderer - suggests his distance from people is not a new thing for him.
Consider: Meeting people? Forming relationships? Possibly getting rejected? Having to make someone else happy? Wh-What if he has to ch-change something about himself? Like, even before we talk about romance, how the hell do you even make friends as an adult? (The answer is BL btw. Go find some girlies who ship the same pairing.) I think Adachi said fuck it to all that bullshit. It'd be easier - less effort - for him to just be alone and not have to change anything about himself.
But… What if the magical TV just tells you exactly who your soulmate is? Well, shit, that's easy. For the lonely guy who just got transferred to Inaba and generally keeps his distance from people, I imagine it would be quite convenient to just be told, "This is who your soulmate is; the person you're meant to be with".
And that wouldn't be the last time Adachi gets a freebie from the TV. It happens again in December, as Adachi finds an again "easy" solution that does not involve changing himself or doing something annoying that requires effort from him. Having been enabled by the magical TV, Adachi is something of a static character.
Adachi is the Investigation Team's Shadow
In the P4G Premium Fan/Fun/Fsomething book, Atlus defines the Shadow by the Jungian definition, then talks about how the Shadows in-game represent "alternate possibilities" for the characters. The specific example it gives is how Chie's Shadow holds a great deal of animosity towards Yukiko. The real Chie doesn't feel this way towards Yukiko; in fact, she treasures her. Thus, Chie's Shadow is an alternate possibility.
When you look at Chie and what she says about accepting her Shadow, her Shadow seems to be born from a real insecurity (her jealousy of Yukiko) and part of it really does resemble Chie. But part of her Shadow is also this… caricature-esque thing. Hence why Atlus calls it the "alternate possibility". In turn, Chie accepts that she is jealous of Yukiko, but she does not accept the Banana Hat Dominatrix trying to exert control over Yukiko. She even realizes that rather than Yukiko needing her, it was actually her who needed Yukiko.
(I refuse to carry on with this train of thought further than talking about Atlus's own example with Chie because it would inevitably mean having to talk about how Atlus sees Kanji and Naoto's issues/Shadows/dungeons, and I'd need like bottles of wine to get in the mood to even type a paragraph of that.)
During her P4G winter Social Link scene, where her Persona evolves, Chie brings up Adachi and how she could have become him. She continues that anyone could have turned out like him.
Indeed, Adachi very much feels like a, "this could happen to anyone" character. He is an everyday normal guy who accidentally gets involved in something beyond him: a Like a Dragon side story NPC stuck in a game about high schoolers and friendship. Based on how you see these characters, you can correlate many of their issues to Adachi's own issues.
Really, in some ways, he feels like he was written to be the sum of the Investigation Team's insecurities, all bundled into one guy. In the case of Chie in particular, just as she was jealous of Yukiko and other girls, Adachi is jealous of what others have (especially Namatame, it seems), and he reflects that aspect of Chie.
As Chie's Shadow twisted her jealousy of Yukiko into a desire to control Yukiko and showed an alternate possibility for who Chie could have become if she had let jealousy consume her, perhaps Adachi shows an alternate possibility for who all of them could become.
As Amenosagiri later reveals, the truth torments the Shadows. Your party identifies that is what causes the Shadows to attack people.
When we consider how the game has gone until now, then those moments where the Investigation Team told their Shadows, "You're not me!" must be the moment that Amenosagiri was describing. The members of the Investigation Team come face to face with a being who claims to be them and seems aware of the same issues that gnaw at them. But these beings pervert their issues issues in a direction that doesn't reflect who the Investigation Team really are. And so they challenge that this being is truly them. They, sigh, "reach out to the truth", and it causes their Shadows to go nutso and attack.
And, of course, these repeated scenes where they tell their Shadows all lead up to the last time we see this kind of sequence...
Just as the Investigation Team had to face themselves and pick apart the truths from the caricature, they, too, come to face Adachi and cut through the bullshit, deny his attempts to justify why it's okay for him to merge the TV World into reality and screw everyone over, and reject him just as they did their Shadows.
That said, though, if we are to compare him to their Shadows, then we must acknowledge that, much like how the Investigation Team's Shadows come from their own real insecurities, Adachi's frustrations with the Investigation Team and with the world at large must also come from something real.
On this screenshotted line in particular, he even uses the more masculine "ore" as his pronoun in Japanese. He usually uses the more boyish "boku", but he seems to swap to "ore" to indicate that he is speaking quite genuinely--or perhaps speaking from the heart.
While he is a whiny murderer throwing an apocalyptic tantrum, I'm sure there are circumstances that made him the person that he is as an adult. Tbh, I've already made a lot of posts talking about the factors that might have contributed to *why* he feels like this, so I won't drag this out further.
By Arena Ultimax, Adachi has come to accept the murder case as the inciting incident that causes him to change as he finds himself finally owning up to his actions from the previous year. He's no role model lol, but life now has more meaning to him than just something you go through every day. Perhaps it's at this moment that he can be said to have gone from merely being alive to living.
(Let's be real tho, jail gives you 3 non-cup noodle meals per day? Damn. It's like he's living his best life. Speaking of which, food feels like such a fitting metaphor for his emotional nourishment.)
In the aftermath of the dungeon and the almost-end-of-the-world, Adachi agreed to start playing by the rules, and became more of a dynamic character. At the beginning of Ultimax, Adachi's commitment to this gets questioned as Yu, Yosuke, and Chie find him allied with Sho (like 5 cutscenes after Yu is so confidant he's behaving himself too, tsk tsk). But Yu reaches the roof, hears Adachi's cringe ass dialogue (I'm pretty sure that Adachi would not have said half that shit if he had known Yu was standing around the corner), and reaffirms his belief that Adachi was genuine about his promise to play by the rules.
The Investigation Team are not on the best of terms with Adachi. Regardless, they went into his dungeon, called him out on his bullshit that had been mixed in with his own real shortcomings and insecurities, punched him, and as we can tell by Ultimax, came to accept him in their own ways as they did their individual Shadows. As Yu says, perhaps they have strangely enough decided to trust in Adachi.
Was being a police officer even Adachi's first choice?
Something I am curious about due to what Adachi says about school and whatnot in his Social Link is if "be a police officer" was even his first choice? We can assume he went to college because he specificed he went to a high school that prepares you for college lol.
During college, many students find jobs before graduating by going to the recruitment drives hosted by major Japanese businesses that hire fresh graduates en masse and set them up with jobs for life. This practice is somewhat outdated nowadays (the rules forcing these major businesses to do this were changed a few years ago) and it is known to be a huge pain point for students, but during Adachi's school years, it would have still been common.
People who don't get recruited might find part-time work, or even repeat a year of college to try again next year (there's a stigma against people who have already graduated under this system).
But the prefectural police force is outside of this hiring system employed by the major businesses. You can come in with only high school education, or you can come in after college, you just have to be under a certain age (I wanna say 30 and under, but this is from memory) and take the police qualification exam thing.
Idk, I'm spitballing, and I'm not super knowledgeable about police recruitment, but I wonder if Adachi might have failed to secure a job offer from a prestigious hire-for-life company, so he applied to the police force instead? 🤔 Fail to get job security from a business, but civil servant is also security.
Edit: To my amusement, there is a whole ass English Wikipedia article about the graduate hiring thing lol.
Last time I posted Persona Club profiles, I mentioned the profiles were all in different handwriting fonts. Here is what appears to be... Adachi-esque dogshit handwriting font...?
This book is from 2009 but his profile looks more or less the same as the P4U2 one just with some stuff arranged differently:
Sex/Gender: M
Birthday: February 1st, 1984 (Aquarius)
Age: 27 (28)
Height: 176cm (5'9")
Weight: 63kg (139lb)
Blood type: A
Likes Favorite Food: Sushi (especially uni), beef, dishes with cabbage
Dislikes: Filing paperwork, he's bad at tidying up his room
Good at / Specialty: Revolver maintenance
Unfortunately he doesn't have the whole high school profile that the party members do. (ノへ￣、) Let the 27 year old go to high school.
Here's the whole 2 page spread with my crappy ass camera phone:
The fanart is all art that was submitted to Atlus back in the day (2008-ish).
The artist's comment on the 2nd from the top right is, "Perhaps the man who made people fall into TVs is a victim who fell through the cracks of society?" Highlights how different other fans approached Adachi, versus how he was seen by English speakers as the Bitches and Whores Guy in 2009.
In a previous post, I talked about how the game is vague about why Adachi is at the Amagi ryokan, and how I believe it's implying he was stalking Mayumi, and that he hadn't actually been assigned to guard her. I still believe that, but, what exactly about her was Adachi so fixated on that he felt compelled to do this in the first place?
Normally, one would probably just go, "Adachi is an incel" and that's supposed to serve as an explanation for both why he liked her and why he killed her. But painting over everything about him as "Adachi is an incel" feels really reductionist.
When Adachi calls out to Mayumi at the ryokan, he asks her to come to the lobby and begins by asking her about the affair. This scene actually has some significance in how Katsura Hashino re-interpreted the mythology of Izanagi and Izanami for Persona 4: In his mind, Izanagi going to Yomi to verify if Izanami was dead or not represented a desire to seek out the truth; death is when you "quit thinking". Adachi mirrors this, going to the Amagi's (his Yomi), and verifying information about Mayumi (his Izanami).
And when Adachi asks her, he presents it in a way that says, he is on her side. His phrasing here is notable: The affair - it's not true, right? And it shows what he wants to believe too, because he doesn't want to believe that she was in an affair with a married man.
After all, he probably saw her on the Midnight Channel before and has it in his brain that she's his "soulmate". Heck, even when you find him in the TV World, he's ranting about her not being single:
It's parasocial and it's creepy. God I wish he'd talk about me that way.
But, I think it's in how he presented himself as "taking her side" that we can figure out why he was so fixated on her. If Adachi comes in assuming that Mayumi was not really having an affair with Namatame, then that means that her losing her job at the station, her being forced to hole herself up in the ryokan, the media circus surrounding her, etc... Then that would make her a victim in all of this: Someone who has been thrown under the bus and is being treated unfairly. And by her former media contemporaries, nonetheless.
Funny enough, as it would happen, there is a character in the story who feels they are a victim who has been treated unfairly and fell from grace at their workplace, and sees their current situation as punishment from their coworkers...
...aaand it's Adachi.
It feels quite probable to me that part of why Adachi fixated so hard on Mayumi is because he basically looked at her situation and thought, "Oh, she's just like me, frfr". Dude really headcanoned that her affair wasn't even real.
We aren't really shown what happens with Adachi and the Midnight Channel after he comes into town. We know that he had seen it before he talked to Mayumi, as he was aware he could touch the TV, just unaware that a whole body could go in. And with Mayumi's scandal being in the news and media, and her being on people's minds, we know she appeared on it during Namatame's flashbacks.
I think Adachi got it in his mind that even though she was this otherwise out of of reach person for him, being a celebrity and all, she too was a victim of sorts, and what he saw as a common point between them (we don't actually know why he got transferred lol) could have led to a blossoming relationship. Like they were meant to be together, as he probably saw her as his soulmate on the Midnight Channel. Oh, what a coincidence for her to go through this big media scandal when around the same time that he transfers into Inaba. Clearly it was fate.
Really, he's fucking delusional. It's great.
Although, I do wonder if this also says something about him. While he talks big in his Golden Social Link about only going after insanely beautiful women, he isn't actually portrayed in the narrative as trying to hit on women or ask them out regularly. While he has his preferences, perhaps he only tries to seriously pursue women who are broken or downtrodden in someway--like it's less chance of getting rejected.
Adachi's imaginary dick waving contest with Namatame
This is a revised version of a post I wrote very during the infancy of this blog. It is being split into smaller posts.
...I didn't intend to leave the name "Adachi's imaginary dick waving contest" but it was my one sentence draft and it stuck.
On a previous post, I talked about Adachi being the figure who shows up in the fog in the Central Shopping District on the dungeon deadlines, and how the dates he appears compared to when the first threatening letter shows up at the Dojima house would indicate that his claim about "watching an epic game of cat and mouse between the Investigation Team and Namatame" was bullshit. Chronologically impossible bullshit.
I propose that, instead of this, he was actually trying to screw over Namatame and ruin that dude's life.
Adachi's behaviors before the reveal
Aside from how Adachi is presented as not being wholly truthful during the December 7th dialogue, I think it's also worth pointing out that something doesn't add up about his "cat and mouse" claim when you look at his other behaviors.
After Mitsuo is rescued and brought into police custody, Adachi will appear at the Dojima house and bring up the possibility that the killer is still out there. He even does this again when Naoto turns up.
If you know he's the actual culprit, this might make it seem like he's taunting the player. I have also read an interpretation that he says these things because he wants to be caught, which from my understanding is based on the psychology of real world serial killers.
But while people bring these lines up, they fail to notice how after Namatame comes into the picture, Naoto finds Namatame's journal, reads out that Mayumi and Saki's addresses are in Namatame's journal, and then Adachi says, "that settles it".
If Adachi wants to be caught, why is he saying, "That settles it" in response to his murder victims addresses being in Namatame's journal?
He's even shown taking Namatame's case so seriously that Dojima thinks it's out of character for him as Adachi has been consistently characterized as a slacker up until now:
Furthermore, Namatame's transfer was foreshadowed. And if you follow the scenes, he was transferred because of the IT. In fact, the IT even knew about the transfer, they just didn't realize it.
On December 3rd, after the IT become the Seekers of Truth, they go outside Namatame's hospital room and talk about everything he just said. The IT are starting to believe that Namatame didn't do it, and Adachi overhears their entire conversation.
The IT returns on December 4th to question Namatame, and on their way out, an officer reveals that they are preparing to transfer Namatame. We know from December 5th that it's Adachi who orders the transfer, and it comes up on December 4th, the day after Adachi overhears the IT talking about Namatame not actually being the murderer. Hmm. What a coincidence.
I don't think anything with how Adachi approaches Namatame's hospital stay suggests "Adachi was trying to get caught" or "Adachi was trying to facilitate a game of cat and mouse" or even that "Adachi was bored and doing a little silly". The "game" of cat and mouse would be over at this point -- even if Namatame gets freed, why the hell would he go back to abducting people into TVs? Especially now that other people are aware of his actions?
Asking the "why"
At this point, I think it's worthwhile to start ask a bunch of obnoxious questions.
We know that Adachi is the real murderer, we know he nudged Namatame to go kidnap people under the guise of "saving" them, we know he put Kubo into the TV himself, and we know he sent the threatening letters. But for what reason?
If he's merely trying to get away with murder, why would Adachi throw Mitsuo into a TV to begin with instead of just letting him take the fall? Why, in the scenes discussed in the last part, is he openly talking about it being someone other than Mitsuo? Again, we can infer from his response to Namatame's journal that he is not trying to get himself caught.
We know he claims that he's watching a game between Namatame and the Investigation Team to alleviate his boredom. But if that's so, then why does he send the threatening letters to the Dojima house at all? People in the fandom explain this as him trying to rile up the Investigation Team. If he's understood what's been going on since the start and he was merely trying to rile them up, why does he wait to do so until after Naoto's dungeon? Wouldn't the time to rile them up be after they bring in Kubo, when they think they've won and think the case is over...?
I have also seen people explain this as, "Adachi just wanted to see more dead bodies". If Adachi wanted to see a dead body so badly, why not go chuck someone else into a TV himself? The only person he was willing to do this to, beyond his first two murders, was Mitsuo. And only after Mitsuo turned himself in, claiming to be the murderer. Not even in the bad endings where the calendar skips to March 20th does Adachi throw another body into the TV.
Furthermore, why does Adachi only shut up about a "real murderer" being out there after Namatame is captured, and rush to get Namatame relocated after people start asking him questions and figuring out he might not actually be the murderer?
Adachi claims to be bored, did it cause he could, watching a game unfold between Namatame and the IT. But doesn't Adachi's amusement go away if Namatame is jailed or dies and quits "saving" people?
Adachi's timeline leading up to December 5th, and how "Fuck Namatame" explains a lot of his actions
I think assuming that Adachi is being driven by a Namatame Hate Boner of sorts fills in a lot of the gaps and why he does and says certain things.
At the start, it's the part that's straightforward: Adachi kills Mayumi and Saki, takes Namatame's phone call, and recommends he "save" people.
Adachi says on April 17th that he knows people show up on fog nights. He then shows up on the April dungeon deadline expecting a body because he had told Namatame to go put a person in a TV. There is no body, and he goes "..." in the fog. Maybe Namatame got cold feet? Repeat for Kanji. There's no dead body. In the fog, Adachi asks, "Again?"
The police find Morooka's body. After two fog nights where no body appeared, Adachi thinks Namatame has finally killed someone. But Kubo turns himself in. This is not who Adachi wants to get arrested for the murders, so he gets rid of Kubo by throwing him into a TV.
The Investigation Team rescue Kubo and show Adachi that someone can be rescued from the TV. Chie makes a point of saying Adachi was there when they handed over Kubo, so Adachi both knows that Kubo is out of the TV, and that the IT might be related.
After Kubo is rescued, the police are going through with the investigation, but Adachi says, "Gee it sure would suck IF THE REAL KILLER WAS STILL OUT THERE..." because the guy he wants to get arrested, didn't get arrested.
Then Naoto goes missing. When Naoto returns, Adachi once more brings up the "real murderer" thing again when he's at the Dojima house. As Kubo's investigation carries on, it starts becoming obvious to the police that Kubo only killed Morooka, which Adachi also brings up during this convo.
On Naoto's deadline, Adachi appears in the shopping district at night. This time he says, "Dammit. Again?!" Last time, the IT showed him that a person *can* come out of the TV. Hmm... Kubo came out of the TV, and there's no body again this time... Is it possible that... Bodies have been going in... But coming out... This whole time...? :mind_blown_emoji:
The next fog night is coming up on November 20th. Adachi wants Namatame to produce a body, and he has guessed the IT are why he has failed to produce one yet. Adachi sends the threatening letters to the protagonist on October 20th and November 5th, hoping it will make you back off so Namatame can finally kill someone.
I imagine his game plan from April to November was to somehow get Namatame to kill someone, then get him arrested from this; perhaps a situation he thought he'd be able to manipulate on the police side if he knew who did it.
Later on November 5th, the Investigation Team all gather in the interrogation room and, in front of Adachi, explain that Namatame must have been abducting all of them with his delivery truck.
Naoto reads Namatame's diary which fortunately had both Mayumi and Saki's addresses in it. At this point, Adachi must think he's in the clear, and he goes, "That settles it". Everyone thinks Namatame did it and it's looking like he'll take the fall for Adachi's murders because of the addresses in the notebook.
At this point, I think Adachi began trying to get Namatame convicted for the murders of Mayumi and Saki. The notebook was a huge boon.
On November 21st, Adachi tells the IT that they can visit Nanako at the hospital. But before he leaves, he also tells them that they've been looking into Namatame, and he says, hey guess what? Namatame had been hitting on Saki. We know later that Namatame didn't actually do that, but Adachi is trying to keep up the narrative about Namatame.
On December 3rd, Adachi tells the IT he isn't sure if the charges against Namatame will stick, once again trying to keep up the narrative. When you think about it, even if Namatame were to die that night, it'd be assumed that he is the Inaba Serial Killer, and the truth about Adachi would never come to light. It almost works, even, but the protagonist gets everyone to calm down. Later on December 3rd, Adachi overhears the IT outside of Namatame's room and realizes they're starting to figure it out.
On December 4th, after the IT finish talking to Namatame, a uniformed police officer enters the room, tells them to get out, and says that Namatame is being prepared for transport. Meaning after realizing that the IT are still investigating after overhearing them on the 3rd, Adachi quickly organized Namatame's transfer before they can ask him more questions and figure something out.
And lastly, in the bad endings, where time skips from December to March, no more bodies have appeared because either Namatame is dead or on trial with people assuming he murdered Mayumi and Saki. If another dead body shows up, then it will call into question if Namatame is really the murderer.
But why Namatame?
Tbqh I think he was just jealous of Namatame's rizz.
Mayumi's death is portrayed as an accident. Adachi knew he could touch a TV, but he had no idea a whole body could go in, and threw up when he saw her corpse. Saki's death was 100% him being a power tripping asshole, having learned what happens with Mayumi. And both of these women, his victims, had someone in common: Namatame.
While this is not shown directly in the game, we can infer from context that Adachi saw Mayumi on the Midnight Channel at some point. And we know from Namatame's flashback that Mayumi did appear on there. What's more is that the rumor about the Midnight Channel was that you see your soulmate.
It seems likely that Adachi, new to Inaba and depressed / lonely / sad boi mode after being transferred, heard about the Midnight Channel (probably from Izanami), watched it, and saw Mayumi. What he didn't know was that everyone saw Mayumi - she was on people's minds because of her scandal. But he got something of a teenage girl hyperfixation on this real woman, thinking it was meant to be. And when he gets a chance to meet her, he does not react well to her and Namatame actually being an item.
Then, he goes after Saki, but he only targets her because of Namatame. He's shown in a flashback trying to force himself on her while mentioning that he saw her this afternoon with Namatame. She stands her ground and slaps him away, and he makes a face while saying that being with him is no-good but being Namatame is fine, huh?
Finally, Namatame himself calls the police and says he saw Mayumi and Saki on the Midnight Channel, they both turned up dead, and now he sees another girl.
I think Adachi's real game began here with this phone call. He's the real killer and he knows that people in the TV die and turn up on foggy nights. By telling Namatame to put them "somewhere safe", he is trying to get Namatame to accidentally kill someone.
And it's not just the Mayumi and Saki stuff. I think there are a couple other reasons why Adachi might be bitter about Namatame...
First, magic powers. What's unclear about the phone call scene is if Namatame told Adachi about Magic TV Powers. Namatame knew he could touch the TV because he did it when he saw Mayumi on the Midnight Channel. The game seems to have left this intentionally vague since the phone call only begins after Namatame has already explained everything to Adachi, but I think Namatame did say something about it. Adachi knew at the time that a whole body could go inside, and something about what Namatame said might have prompted Adachi to suggest Namatame put people where no one can find them.
Why does this matter? Well, Adachi seems to like his Special Power. How do you think he felt when he found out that he isn't very special, and that it sounds like Namatame can do the same thing?
The next one is related to something I wrote the other day about how Adachi's views towards having a government job might a product of the economic clusterfuck of 1990s Japan. Further down in the post, I went into each of the Investigation Team members, and how Chie is probably the only person who would be able to relate to Adachi in any form. Everyone else is either already famous, or, if their careers fail, they have their families to back them up.
But this doesn't just apply to the Investigation Team. Namatame is a government employee who loses his job due to the scandal... And yet he's still chuggin' along. He moves back home, and he gets a job working under his parents as a delivery driver. Adachi, to our knowledge, doesn't have something to fall back on or inherit from his parents if he loses this job. (I think this is implied by how his parents hounded him to study and sent him to college prep.) Not only did Namatame take his soulmate, but this fucker wasn't even completely ruined.
You can see his actions as like... He's trying to get Namatame to kill someone, he's trying to get Namatame framed for his own murders, he's trying to get the Investigation Team to kill Namatame. Adachi doesn't talk about Namatame much, honestly, but wowie I get the feeling that he really fucking hates this guy. Adachi is just so, so hilariously pathetic here. Like he thinks Namatame cucked him, so he's simultaneously comparing himself with Namatame and trying to ruin his life. Jesus dude.
tl;dr
I think Adachi has a raging hate boner for Namatame, spawning from him being Mayumi's boyfriend and his assumption that Saki was with Namatame
Namatame also having TV powers and Namatame being able to fall back on his parents probably added to the fuel
A lot of Adachi's actions seem to form a coherent timeline if you assume he was trying to get Namatame to kill someone at first, then later tries to get Namatame convicted for his own crimes after the diary is found
How the bad endings teach us something about Adachi
I'm gonna preface this by saying that there is a "no-fun allowed" answer from Atlus. But I think you can come to this conclusion even without their no-fun allowed, developer corner, Word of God statement from the Premium Fan Book. I will do my best to hopefully express this before just posting the no-fun allowed comment at the end.
In my opinion, this is the absolute character defining line for Adachi:
At this point in time, you've identified Adachi as the culprit, chased him into the TV, heard his insane rant on December 7th, then went back to kick his ass, and beat him in his boss fight.
Before Amenosagiri hijacks him, he has some words about his situation. Despite his ramblings about haves vs have nots and about the whole "ooh look at you you have FRIENDS and PEOPLE and BONDS", he doesn't express any of that after his boss battle. There's no, "See, the world is unfair, you guys ganged up on me 7 vs 1!!" or any kind of delulu bullshit. He just says that the world is fucked and he didn't have anywhere to go back to.
When you think about the game until now, Adachi was trying to fit in to society as a normal person. Despite what he felt about women, it's not as though he walked around town in broad daylight using Tiger Drop on random schoolgirls. He didn't murder 2 ppl then also become a cop who was like, trying to use his powers to moonlight as a Magical Assassin or something. He didn't even, gasp, suggest that you teenagers try a little underage drinking.
When Adachi says, "I didn't have anywhere to go back to", it's because by exposing him as the murderer, he thinks you've taken away his ability to fit into society. Despite his ranting, for him to admit that he has nowhere left to back to, means that he knows that he's what's "wrong" and he's what doesn't "fit"; "rapey murderer" is not acceptable in reality.
What's more is that, after Amenosagiri's boss battle, when Adachi realizes that is super duper extremely over, he says he thinks you came to kill him. And -- despite being a murderer himself -- he indirectly advises you not to take the same path as him by telling you to just leave him there.
Because, again, he knows he's the part that's wrong. He doesn't belong in society anymore, but that doesn't mean all 8 of you (ain't counting Teddie, he doesn't have human rights) have to be on the outside of society and have murder in common.
At which point, Yosuke (and Kanji) point out that he *does* still belong to society, just in a jail cell:
That is how it works in the "real world", the world Adachi ran away from. Can't even call it a metaphor or subtle or something; the dude physically ran away from your party and jumped into a TV to retreat into the magic TV world.
Finally, after actually coming out of the TV, he learns that not even Dojima had discarded him:
Despite Adachi's perception that he doesn't belong anywhere, he learns that he does still belong. Not in the way he would like to belong, of course, but if he is a law abiding citizen, then there is a place for him.
Then December 23rd and New Years rolls around, and the world is fine.
And now, the bad endings
There are multiple bad endings in the game. First off, if you kill Namatame or can't convince the team to keep reaching out to the truth, then time fastforwards to March 20th and the protagonist leaves Inaba without solving the case. The city is fine, Shadows aren't running around, but the fog is still around. While the fog seems bad, it also doesn't seem *as* bad as it is in the dungeon failure ending.
If you refuse to handover Adachi's name and instead protect him, then time fastforwards to March 20th, Adachi gives you his phone number, tells you he'll keep in touch. Again: The city is fine, but the fog is still around.
On the other hand, when you do corner Adachi and are on the path for the good ending, then on December 7th, he tells you that the world will end by the end of the year, and this is why you must clear his dungeon.
But if you fail to clear Magatsu Inaba by the deadline of December 23rd, then the fog will be quite thick, even in your bedroom. Naoto will call you as she's attacked by what I am assuming is townspeople who have turned into Shadows.
Basically, it seems that one thing Adachi was not lying about on December 7th was what's going to happen by the end of the year.
The difference
So we have the usual bad ending and the Adachi ending where it's March 20th and even though there's fog, the world didn't end and people aren't running around as Shadows.
And then we have the dungeon failure game over where Adachi's threat about the world ending by the end of the year has come true and Naoto gets attacked.
From talking about this game with people on the internet for the past 1.5 years, I have learned that people consider this to be a plot hole or inconsistency, and is part of why "Persona 4's plot is bad and doesn't make sense".
The attempts I have seen to explain it are people who parrot Hiding in Private's video where he suggests that in the Adachi Ending, since you willingly helped cover for the murders, Izanami allows you to spend your remaining time in Inaba in peace. But this explanation makes no sense for the killed Namatame or didn't pursue the truth endings, where you fastforward to March 20th and everything is fine it's just foggy. You didn't willingly help cover for the murders there, you just gave up.
But both of these - Hiding's explanation and calling it a "plot hole because Persona 4 Plot Bad" - are both glossing over what I think is a pretty huge, key detail: In the endings where time skips to March and Inaba is fine, Adachi did not go into the TV, whereas in the ending where the world actually gets screwed, you cornered Adachi and he went inside the TV.
Which in turn reveals what is going on and why Adachi's line after his boss battle is so important: Even though Amenosagiri is the source of the power to screw over the world through the fog, the world is ending because Adachi wants it to. You revealed that he's a murderer and he doesn't belong anywhere anymore, so screw the world! It sucks now! Get rid of it!
It's selfish and it's childish, but we are talking about Adachi.
And now, a detour about Amenosagiri
I think it is a reoccurring thing in media that, even though there is some "interference" from these beings of higher power (e.g. Izanami giving people powers, and her picking a guy who represented "emptiness" and a guy who represented "despair" lol), it is ultimately humans that cause everything to go to shit, and the heroes -- who believe life is worth living even tho some humans do suck -- must fix it.
Adachi's desire to just end it all after the truth comes to light that he's the murderer fits in with this trope. Yes, he had a magic power that he normally wouldn't have and he got a bit silly, but it was ultimately him being weird about a woman who didn't know he even existed that spiraled into this chain of events that ended up with him being exposed and the world almost ending.
I have read interpretations that, since Golden also included the line about Izanami putting Amenosagiri in Adachi (it didn't exist in the PS2 version), that means that Adachi was just following a script and Amenosagiri made him kill people and end the world and all that. I'm not really a fan of this. "Adachi did it because demonic eyeball possession" feels like a huge cop out, as it would also shift blame away from him for murdering people and just generally being a shitty human being. It also raises questions like, "If Amenosagiri made Adachi evil, why did he throw up when he saw Mayumi's corpse / why did he only kill 2 people / why did he even say the line about not belonging in the world", amongst many other questions.
If Amenosagiri is so linked to Adachi as this suggests, why does Adachi even appear in foggy shopping district on dungeon deadlines to check for dead bodies??? Like, if he's linked to the observer from the TV world who has been watching the Investigation Team, and this observer has been controlling him, then why does he not already know the victim was rescued? I think the point of the line added into Golden (I don't think you even see it unless you do Marie's SLink?) seems to be "trying to explain for the player why Namatame and Adachi turn into the Sagiri dudes", cause that shit just kinda came out of nowhere in the PS2 game.
Notably, the game tries to address the "Ame controlling Adachi" thing right after Ame's boss fight, as if the writer read the player's mind, and thought you might be wondering about the same thing:
Chie, I believe she asks this because she is trying to understand what is going on with Adachi. If you can blame it on, "He did it because he had a demon eyeball photo lens inside of him telling him what to do", then you don't have to think about this any further, do you? Case closed. Naoto does not fully dismiss this idea, but voices her opinion that Adachi must have been down to end the world too. Which then goes back to Adachi saying he has nowhere left to go; I think Naoto is on the right track here.
But why is there fog
I think what trips people up during the "skip to March 20th" bad endings is the presence of the fog - does that not mean the world is still fucked, even tho Adachi didn't enter the TV?
The game itself uses the fog as a metaphor for lies and misconceptions and assuming that humans don't really want the truth. Like, after you solve the murder case, Amenosagiri does you a solid and instantly clears the fog from the real world. In the ending where you kill Namatame, the truth of the murder did not come to light. In the ending where you didn't kill Namatame but gave up on the truth, the truth again did not come to light. In the Adachi ending, you willingly buried the truth of the murders, and the truth stayed buried there as well.
I don't think the fog is present to communicate "The world is fucked", I think it's just saying that the case is unsolved. After all, the people still believe Namatame did it and in 2 of those endings he is going on trial as the protagonist leaves town, meaning people are still under the impression he's the murderer.
Curiously, on December 16th, Kondo brings up how Inaba gets covered in fog every 50 years. The validity of this, though, is left a mystery because he then says he heard it about on TV, which we know from the game isn't exactly the most reliable source of info lol. (I vaguely recall a different NPC, an older guy, talking about this too, but I can't quite remember which one it is. Maybe it was Daidara?)
On the other hand, despite "people being tricked by the media" being like a theme in the game, none of the other NPCs seem to have heard this TV special or news or whatever that Kondo heard because the majority of the other NPCs are freaking out and buying gas masks, assuming the fog is actually poison. One of them even believes that it's some conspiracy theory caused by Junes. Kondo suggesting that whatever he heard on TV is correct seems level headed compared to the poison gas conspiracy theories that the rest of the town is buying into.
But when you learn that Izanami is behind everything, I feel like that sequence of events gives some validity to what Kondo heard.
It makes it seem more like, every 50 years, Izanami gets a little silly, gives people powers, and then watches what unfolds. Thus, when you stop Izanami in the true ending, you are also stopping the cycle, which the protagonist recognizes.
Lastly, the no-fun allowed answer
From the Premium lore/setting book:
Discovering the truth, the self-proclaimed special investigation team have cornered Adachi, who enters the TV and wants the world to end with reality being swallowed by the Midnight Channel. If Marie is the one who listens to human wishes, then Adachi is the one who wished for his own very self-centered wish to become reality.
I believe the purpose of Naoto and Chie's dialogue was to suggest what the meta explanation was ("I think he wanted to end the world too") while still keeping it in-universe and in-character.
