its been forever since i posted about this au but ive decided to be my cringe self
listen i think akira can be a little cringe. we've all seen his cocky little smirks and how he thinks and describes things, that's a cringe teenager. i think he deserves to be a little bit of a loser as a treat.
ive also come across some pretty cool posts on twitter talking about P5X and spefifcally some akira things to come out of it:
this is probably a reach but i think a change i'll add to my au is that akira CHOSE to go to tokyo rather than deal with the shame he would've dealt with in inaba.
while (as far as the fic i've posted goes) akira and his parents have a really fraught relationship, there ARE important things that will come up that will change their dynamics.
genuinely its so evil i THOUGHT i was subscribed to a fanfic of yours only to discover that i WASNT!!!! truly devastating news, i have to catch up on the rewrite of it now
thats so sweet !! thank you for enjoying the fic so much
on an unrelated note, chapter 2 of my persona 4 and persona 5 crossover fic is out !! you can read it here (●ˇ∀ˇ●)
below the cut is some of my favorite bits. spoilers for the fic if you're any of my followers who are here for the beneath the mask au !!
He hums. His father continues on. "Your safety is more important than anything to your mother and I. We have a duty to protect you, son."
And something in him— "You called her a whore."
Akira's mortified the moment he says it. His father's face turns stormy, placing a hand on Akira's shoulder. It's too heavy and his grip is too tight to be comforting.
god, this scene was DEVASTATING to write. i'm not trying to write akira's parents as bad people, but a lot of their actions are coming from the point of view of akira. to defend his father here for a second, i think he's having an understandable reaction considering the time frame and exactly what happened.
i wouldn't be comfortable if my sister in law was a public figure who was surrounded by controversy, and i certainly wouldn't want any of that to be traced to my child who i leave at home alone.
is he a good father? god, no. but i understand where his anger is coming from.
His aunt laughs. "Oh, Akira, everything you do for yourself will hurt someone else. I was cruel. I was childish."
"I'll be alright, kid. Don't let your father catch you talking to me, okay? I love you."
this line was in my head from the beginning. i really wanted to give akira a reason to not want to kill the criminals like kamoshida or shido. i think by framing his aunt as one of the people the phantom theives would've DEFINITELY targeted is really interesting.
another interesting idea from this line is the selfishness. mayumi admits she was selfish and cruel. that doesn't mean she feels bad for it.
the idea of "every action you do for yourself will hurt someone else" WILL be following akira around btws.
Dojima hums. "I wouldn't mind that," she offers like a peace treaty, "because if he's mean to others but nice to me, then he can scare off any mean kids at school for me."
Before he can worry about Dojima being bullied, though, she changes the topic.
they only met a day ago and he's already worried about her LOL i love these two.
torn between trying to fullfill my word goal or letting this banger line stand on it's own o(≧口≦)o
it works so WELL as a chapter ending point but but but eueueueu
........ okay but im gonna do it anyways i don't gaf.
some things were edited even from the outline: for example, mayumi was supposed to give akira the pajama set later in the story, but it felt just like overbearing aunt to just give it to him immediately.
shu nakajima wasn't going to be in this story, but i realized his storyline is perfect for this story. he won't have a confidant rank, but i'm excited to explore their relationship.
originally, the chapter was supposed to continue up until the time before yukiko disappeared, but i was getting frustrated with how slow the plot was progressing (though it's for good reason).
reflecting on the older fic, i never explored the relationship between akira and mayumi enough to where you could properly understand why akira was greiving so heavily over an aunt he didn't even have much time with.
a main, huge theme is this fic is addressing how persona games in general handle gender roles, and especially the details of how women are treated in the media. to akira, this isn't just his dead aunt, this is his dead aunt that he can never mourn publicily because his relation to her is supposed to be a complete secret.
in a way, it's also him struggling with the relationship him and his parents have, especially when it comes to how they handle conflict. i wanted to explore why in persona 5 the protagonist's parents are so absent, yet he still returns to them when his time in tokyo is over. it makes sense considering he's still a minor, but considering the lack of contact, there's an implication that his parents always planned on akira returning home.
it's just really interesting to dynamic i wanted to explore in my fic.
