Author's commentary for the first two chapters of my "Yosuke is sentient inside the game and Yu is being controlled by a streamer" AU fic because I have so many thoughts on this AU want to put them somewhere. Read this fic if you like the idea of a fic being About Souyo and Yosuke's feelings there without having Souyo as endgame, Yosuke losing his mind, Rise (later) being thrown into the mix at the worst time possible, and then eventually a generally good ending for Yosuke and Rise (that's honestly more queerplatonic feeling than I first intended LMAO).
Called Plato's Cave because the plot of the fic is just Yosuke reenacting the allegory of the cave and also because it shortens to PC. Because he's inside a PC. Get it.
The first portion of the fic was the hardest thing to write because wrangling canonical Persona 4 dialogue into actual fiction prose is a nightmare. Especially when trying to integrate the cut romantic dialogue in a way that's suitable to the rest of Rank 10. It being abrupt and there being an awkward shift back into normal dialogue is kind of the point though. Did not make it easier to write prose around it.
Writing descriptions when I am trying very hard to limit actions to already existing animations is very hard. Slight spoilers, but most of the descriptions end up being things that Yosuke "knows" or believes he is experiencing based on context clues but are not really happening. It says his heat is beating because that's what he thinks would be happening in that scene based on his emotions but it's not Literally beating because he has no heart.
His relationship with Yu's expressions is very similar, where he's able to read a lot into Yu's looks that maybe isn't actually there because that is a PS2 model. Yu also notably does not have a sprite to help for any context clues on his emotional state.
I'm trying to maintain ambiguity as to how much of "Yu" is there. When Yosuke talks to Yu he can get new dialogue options out of him at least! But they're all very in line with the game AKA maybe not the best for a normal conversation.
I love having Yu's player just ignore Yosuke after Rank 10 and agreeing to date because that's just what you do in Persona games! But it would also be so awkward for any character being romances. Doubly so for Yosuke, who is insecure already but doubly insecure about this gay dating thing.
Yosuke's feelings are complicated by a million things it's so good. Some of those things might even be his just video game character impulse to like the protag, which he'll have time to unpack later.
He also notably has less time to process his feelings. He's not fully aware of this yet, but his sense of time is fucked and he's not actually experiencing "off-screen" time to work over things. What happens when Yosuke is off screen? Will be explored more in the future but basically nothing. Might as well not exist.
The "fog" of the game just being his normal existence makes it really hard for him to pick out what's wrong. The phone call scenes are fun for this reason because technically, he doesn't have a body in them. He's literally just a voice in the phone but that knowledge has never actually been examined by him so he doesn't notice how fucked it is yet.
This entire fic also has an exact timeline that corresponds to actual P4G days.
Writing Yosuke-typical canon homophobia and misogyny is so fun especially as he's increasingly aware he's being hypocritical about it but still in deep denial. I know a lot of fics make him more instantly apologetic to Kanji but I think for a character like Yosuke it makes more sense for him to still be an ass for a bit.
Yosuke is probably only vaguely aware of bisexuality so he's got a lot of "one or the other" thoughts. His attraction to women is interesting because it's like, obviously sexual attraction. While his attraction to Yu leans more romantic. Not that he's not romantically attracted to women, or sexually attracted to Yu but he doesn't focus on the former and pushes down the latter.
The way he experiences sexual attraction is also easier to ignore because as a video game model he doesn't have the biochemical makeup to like, IDK, fully embody his feelings? So they're easier to ignore when they're towards Yu (unexpected) and easy to play into when they're towards women (expected).
I love recontextualizing all of the Halloween scene to fit with his memory issues LMAO. He's still in this weird fugue where he's unable to fully see what's wrong and what's happening but he's starting to slowly unpeel from the game.
When Yu/The Player starts consistently hanging out with Yosuke it's sooo funny. Wanting to know more about this video game character so you accidentally start hardcore catfishing him and gaslighting him into a relationship.
The Yu breakdown and love confession scenes are so awful. Yosuke's gonna have a lot of thoughts on it and on Yu's personhood later. I went through a lot of drafts for the love confession scene but I think this one works best.
Chapter 2 was weird as fuckkkk to write. I don't want to go scene by scene with Namatame's death and I also don't want to linger too long on Yosuke's "guys talk to me!" freakout.
His conversation with Angel (the player) is also sooo hard because for Angel he's talking to chat the entire time rewriting and revising what he's saying. But for Yosuke it's all real time. Weird vibes that make Angel come off as very manipulative.
Angel is named that because it's a common name and is funny.
I'm trying my hardest to let Angel stay mysterious and stuff especially in regards to his motives. But also. I do have logic behind his actions and decisions and stuff. He is a character!
So much is being infodumped on Yosuke in chapter 2, but that's the point! He'll unpack it more later but RN is just emergency mode.
Room scene was necessary to both give Yosuke a breather and also to show that the game is like, IDK, bending to him to a certain extent. Went back and forth on if the TV should work but ultimately decided it's more interesting if it doesn't.
Yosuke is so fun as a character for me because he just loves to bounce back from things and put on a happy face. Here, especially when he has a purpose, he's pretty good at collecting himself for a bit. We'll see how long that lasts.
This fic will probably have like 8ish chapters but depends on how much I write. Like I said, it's all plotted out.
