#kidd speaking

[thieves-in-the-palace]

seeing you revive (ha) is so fun we literally are all back in the building again huh.

everyone clocking back in at the Persona factory bc Atlus hasn't managed to get rid of us yet, have a good shift out there coworker B)

[thieves-in-the-palace]

thank u to the amazing and very cool @skully-bones for understanding my vision sjgfhgfj, and congrats again to Ryuji for winning the dating poll (op @serizawasweep)!!

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They're really pulling some niche figures for these new Personas, huh?

Prosymna is one of three naiad daughters of the Greek river god Asterion. Along with her sisters (Acraea and Euboea), she served as a wet-nurse for Hera. The name Prosymna means "celebrate in song," which explains her harp-like design.

(Prosymna is also a genus of snake!)

Erytheia is one of the three (or four, or seven) Hesperides, nymphs who presided over evening and sunsets. The name Erytheia means "the red one." There doesn't seem to be much mythos surrounding Erytheia specifically, but her name was assigned to a small island northwest of Gilbraltar. (Nowadays it's part of Spain! The city of Cadíz can be found there.)

Preceded by Leucothea, Erytheia is one of the two (possibly 3?) P5X Persona to be rendered as a masculine entity despite being based off a distinctly feminine mythological figure. Not sure why they're doing that, but hey, the designs are great!

Syke is a bit of an oddball. While it would be easy to presume it's meant to represent Psyche, the Greek goddess of the soul…Psyche has already appeared as Metis' Persona back in P3 FES, so it's possible this one is a different entity. However, something worth noting: like the other Greek myth Persona in this post, Psyche came in a set of three, having been the youngest of three sisters.

Of what I've been able to dig up, Syke (or Syca) was also the name of a town in ancient Cilicia, a region in southern Anatolia. Another name for Syke was Setos, possibly based off the primordial sea goddess Ceto. Ceto is considered one of the oldest-known deities in Greek myth, and was mother to a myriad of monsters, such as the Graiae and Gorgon sisters.

Meng Po is the Chinese goddess of forgetfulness, tasked with ensuring that souls headed for reincarnation are reborn with no memories. To accomplish this, she serves a memory-wiping soup to souls crossing the Naihe Bridge out of Diyu, a subterranean maze that serves as an equivalent to hell in Chinese mythology.

This lore explains both the bowl and lantern in this Persona's design. The bowl represents the soup, obviously enough, while the lantern can be interpreted as symbolic of "guiding the dead."

Cleodora was one of the three Thriae, prophetic nymphs who lived in the Corycian Cave of Mt. Parnassus. Though the Thriae are often considered to be the "bee-maidens" (women bearing human heads/torsos and bee wings/lower bodies) described in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, it's possible they're different trios; the Thriae predicted the future through throwing stones (pessomancy/mantic pebbles), while the bee-maidens predicted the future through casting lots (cleromancy).

The only info I can find on Cleodora as separate from the Thriae states that she was the mother of Parnassos, who invented a way to predict the future based on birds (ornithomancy).

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okay so apparently the shiny new thing is much shinier and newer than I thought, here’s a rundown of what info I can find

The protagonist has no official name yet, as is typical. He’ll probably get an unofficial and official one later, much like Akira/Ren and the previous protagonists. His codename is Wonder.

His Persona is Janosik, presumably based off the Slovak highwayman Juraj Jánošík. Though the real Jánošík was understandably Just Some Guy (of the robber variety), his name has been attached to the concept of a folk hero comparable to Robin Hood – someone who steals from the rich and gives to the poor.

His design seems to be directly based off of Joker’s, to the point I’d wager that they probably share (or at least have extremely similar) model rigs. He wields a knife.

☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★

Our little animal dude this time around appears to be an owl named Lufiel / Luffy. His codename is Cattle for some reason??

His Persona is Rob Roy, who takes on a distinctly mecha appearance for being based off a Scottish outlaw. Rob Roy, real name Robert MacGregor, became a folk hero within his own lifetime after a dramatized account of his life (The Highland Rogue) was published in 1723; MacGregor was 52 years old at the time.

Like Morgana, Lufiel’s appearance switches between “fairly normal animal” and “just a little guy” depending on which world he’s in. Also like Morgana, he can transform into a vehicle and transport the other main characters. He appears to wield tonfa.

☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★

The third and final identified member of the main cast at the moment is Motoha Arai, codename Closer.

Her Persona appears to be Arveda, though don’t take that spelling to heart. Given the nautical-themed appearance, I THINK it’s based off Alfhild, Viking pirate and daughter of Geatish king Siward. When her father arranged for her to marry Prince Alf of Denmark, Alfhild ran and became a pirate instead, captaining crews of other female pirates and raiding along the Baltic coasts.

Ngl I’m pretty sure she’s the final form of that one untextured model found in P5′s data. God help me but I don’t know what to call her weapon, it’s a chain with a weight on the end?

☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★

Other stuff of note:

A female student at Kiba Kokatsu Academy, which is the featured high school this time around. It’s unclear if this character will join the main team.

The design of a strange new app which, like the MetaNav, appears abruptly on phones, can’t be deleted, and allows access to a separate world.

New Velvet Room attendant! Her name appears to be Merope, breaking from the Frankenstein character naming convention the other Velvet Room attendants have followed.

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so apparently the hot new thing is [checks notes] Mole Interest?

[thieves-in-the-palace]

jumps into ur ask box hello. hi. what are ur ng+ time loop thoughtz

god i have. a lot of thoughts about ng+ time loops in general. in relation to this post tho i specifically have Some Thoughts about Akira going through the loops trying to figure out why he's stuck there, how to get out, etc and also having to contend with Akechi dying every time but also like…the inevitable emotional cycles that come with watching the same guy die over and over.

✧ "Who is more unlucky here? The one who will die every time but never remember? Or the one who will live every time and always remember?" –> "Me. I'm the more unlucky one. What's this dude's fucking problem" –> "What's MY fucking problem? Why does this keep happening to me? Why doesn't anyone else remember? Why can't I escape this? Why does Akechi have to die every time??" –> "What's this dude's FUCKING problem–"

✧ does it count as a parasocial relationship if you know the guy irl and also it's based on the weird sense of kinship that comes with being doomed to repeatedly live through the same year over and over while he's doomed to die every time. hand in hand they are BOTH doomed baybee

✧ You know how Akechi is often portrayed as having Death Note-esque internal monologues when interacting with Akira? That but Akira is having his own wildly different internal monologue that sounds a lot like "okay you shit idiot. what's it gonna take to keep you from dying"

✧ The rest of the Thieves are surprised when Akira doesn't seem to react to Akechi's death, but they figure he's trying to keep it together for the sake of the mission. Truly tho Akira is mentally cussing Akechi out and lamenting the fact they're gonna have to fight god again soon. rip lawboy you would've loved fighting ol' yaldy

✧ Futaba hacks Akira's phone (for enrichment) and sees his most recent google search "is it bad to stop feeling bad after the 15th time you watch the same person die or are you allowed to start getting annoyed about it" – maybe he's going through something similar to what she went through w/ her mom? She starts prodding him about his past, but it doesn't really get her anywhere…

(If u want to get even more into Game-Based Reality Nonsense u could even say that Futaba can't find anything on Akira aside from his criminal record. No hospital records, no school info, no nothing. It's like the guy didn't even exist before the day he got arrested. Akira might not have any answers either, which, u know, doesn't help with the mental strain caused by being stuck in a time loop. Does he even exist outside of the loop? If the loop ended, would he disappear with it? etc etc)

✧ At the beginning of each loop, Akira makes a list of things that might break the time loop, updating it as needed. "Akechi survives" is at the top of the list every time bc it's one of the only things that never happens.

✧ Akira just generally having a slightly shorter temper w/ Akechi bc truly. How do u go through this sort of ordeal w/o wanting to rattle him like a maraca after a point. He won't hesitate to call Akechi cringe when the guy leans too heavily on his Pleasant Lawboy™ persona.

They wind up sparring in Mementos more frequently bc this Akira is more willing to entertain Akechi's bloodlust; fighting is a good outlet for Akira's own frustrations. Akechi keeps getting more and more annoyed each time tho bc why tf can this attic trash keep up with him? How is he predicting Akechi's attacks so well? (Akechi's going to start spitting fire if he ever finds out Akira has been holding back during their fights lmao. Akira can easily trounce him in 1v1 since like…3 loops ago?)

✧ Akira spending so much time annoyed and even furious w/ Akechi for not having enough self-preservation to survive even one loop only to ultimately circle right back into The Guilt + Sorrow bc god, all this time and he still can't figure out how to keep this fuckhead alive?

And it IS guilt Akira feels, unfortunately. Makoto and Futaba were both antagonistic towards the Phantom Thieves at first, too. Just spending some time with them was enough to reveal how getting screwed over by adults guided their actions; it doesn't absolve them of threatening the group, but it makes them easier to forgive.

Akira wonders, sometimes, if he's too quick to forgive Akechi. He's killed people, and he claims to be perfectly okay with being a murderer so long as it means he can reach his goals. But Akechi is a liar all the way down, too, because a cold-hearted killer wouldn't sacrifice himself for his enemies. He wouldn't give up his only shot at vengeance so easily after going through years of hell to achieve it. Yet Akechi still dies in that boiler room every time. Akechi never truly hates Akira, and Akira can't quite bring himself to ever truly hate Akechi, either.

But then Akira sees Akechi alive and well and smiling for the camera in the next loop, and he gets the abrupt urge to lay the guy out.

✧ "I want you to live. I also never want to see you again."

✧ And all of this is w/o getting into P5R's third semester hijinks. Akira thinking he's finally escaped the time loop only to realize that something Worse is happening now.

And Akechi is still there, because of fucking course he is–

[thieves-in-the-palace]

love not keeping up with video game news bc it means whenever I actually catch wind of something it’s all brand-new and shiny to me. what do you MEAN the new Velvet Room is an aquarium

[thieves-in-the-palace]

anyway congrats to test_size for escaping unused asset purgatory!

never thought you’d see the light of day girlie