idr if you've talked abt this b4 cuz its been months since we've talked smt1 but... thots on an au where all the heroes knew eachother b4 the apocalypse?
this got rambly and im not sure if i wrote what you wanted but here this is
To start I’m already half convinced they knew each other pre-game, if only bc of their proximity. Kazuya and Takeshi lived in the same neighborhood I think? Im pretty sure. And Yuji was dating the girl living next to Kazuya so they probably crossed paths at least once, and isn’t impossible that takeshi crossed paths with yuji at least once. SO they’ve seen each other, and from there it might not be a stretch to say they know of each other, at least vaguely.
I don’t think it would take too much for them to know each other. Kazuya and takeshi have a lot of similarities, from geographic proximity, both living on social margins (takeshi bullied, kazuya ignored) and both with semi-similar home lives (both have single parents, no siblings (that I know of)). It would take a lot of effort on both their parts, mostly takeshi deciding to not see an offer of friendship as condescension or pity, so maybe he’d have to initiate. But they could be friends, if only in that ‘we have no one else to be with and I mostly tolerate you’ kind of way some schools friendships are formed.
Yuji I have a harder time seeing with them both on the basis of familiarity, just bc what little we know about him doesn’t seem to intersect with their own pasts much. He has both parents seems pretty well off and is into music possibly because his parents are. But there have been friendships based on less, and he seems amicable enough in game, working with Kazuya to escape the hospital and jumping in to help Takeshi with Ozawa. I don’t imagine itd take too much more than a conversation or two with Kazuya while he’s out walking Pascal for them to start forming a connection.
And hey I can just make this even more ficcy and just imagine that Yuji has a seemingly cushy life but is being pushed into things out of expectation rather than because he wants it, or maybe his relationship with his parents actually has some serious rough patches, idk. Maybe with his dad, since every other party member has dad issues.
(Yuji and Takeshi mostly tolerate each other via both being friends with Kazuya, and when hanging out with him can stay civil, and later on even friendly. They don’t really hang out with just the two of them though because then it descends into fighting real quick).
(No Yuka here unfortunately bc I don’t think its ever mentioned what Yuka did before heading the resistance faction, besides, being psychic, somewhere.)
I also like to imagine this increasingly intricate scenario as being a semi-long standing thing rather than something formed a year or two pre-game, so maybe they first got to know each other in like mid middle school. So they have middle school until the summer after high school (I imagine them as 18-ish to make the game also a metaphor for entering adulthood and the lack of guidance and choices that that brings) to get to know each other, hanging out after school or at arcades or studying together or whatever it was Japanese teenage boys did in 199X.
And bc Im a sap I like to think that the time together ifluences them, at least a little bit. Takeshi gets a bit less angry, because he has people to talk to and who look out for him and he doesn’t feel so alone. Kazuya leans to be more assertive, both from encouragement and from having to step up several times and make sure their group stays cohesive. Yuji learns to, idk, tolerate people with different viewpoints? There are very obvious rough patches, especially as they get older, but the friendship is a positive force in their lives overall.
SO finally the game happens. Pre time skip, most everything goes the same. Demons still happen, Kazuya’s mom still dies, Yuka still shows up, bombs still fall. The differences are small; Kazuya has his friends and not strangers to comfort him after she dies, so maybe he bounces back from that a bit better. The group isn’t as quick to go their separate ways, if they ever do, and maybe all of them try to find and rescue Yuji’s girlfriend (and im not sure how this would affect Kazuya’s relationship with Yuka? Ok maybe he splits off to help her but Takeshi sticks with Yuji when he goes off to find his girlfriend, which would be a pretty big moment of character growth for him)
Bombs still fall, they still get kicked to the Diamond Realm (I almost said velvet room what), and they all get dropped 30 years into the future.
SO the thing im torn about most here is whether their preexisting bonds would change their groups very-bad-end
On the one hand, I like to think that their bonds would change a few things. They’d still go their separate ways, bc Takeshi, for all that their friendship shores up his confidence and self esteem, is still insecure when it comes to Ozawa and wouldn’t pass up a chance to gain the upper hand and fuse with a demon to kill him. He might still leave bc he sympathizes with the gaean faction more than the others and still believes that being able to stand alone is true strength. Yuji would still die and get reincarnated bc, he’d still die protecting Kazuya bc he’s a good friend like that.
So that all happens. But maybe the friendship is the key difference that prevents things from descending into a bloodbath at the Cathedral. Takeshi still doesn’t want to rejoin Kazuya (assuming he’s going canon neutral route), but he remembers their days together, how Kazuya helped him when he felt completely alone in the world, and can’t bring himself to hurt or kill him, at least not then (or their past makes him even more insecure bc he thinks Kazuya thought he was weak but this is the happy scenario so we aren’t going there)
Yuji I’m not sure, since its implied (I think anyway) that he came back altered, so there might not be anything that could be done in the past to make sure he stayed someone they could reason with? But this is best end so maybe their past together is just strong enough to sway him from Messian control.
So there isn’t a death fight in the Cathedral maybe, but they’d still believe very strongly in their own factions, and probably just push the conflict farther down the road. In a way I feel its inevitable, and when the clashes finally happen they’ll be all the more painful for everything they’ve shared.