#shadow nagisa

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leaked concept art for shadow nagisa kamishiro for p5x. source: just trust me on this one

i've been thinking about this au all week. i might write something about it so just some concept notes

his palace is titled 'ark of patience', following one of the seven virtues instead of the deadly sins. after all, he will repeat everything for as long as it takes to get things right.

nagisa's shadow takes after the captain of a large ship. its wreck is a mystery, but it's rumored to have been caused by its own captain.

in an effort to start over again, shadow nagisa is aiming to destroy himself and take everyone else with him. this kind of relies on my guessings as to how the—hypothetical—time travel thing works; when nagisa dies, or is given the option to go back after fucking up bad enough.

palace is filled with mostly non-hostile cognitions of people he's met. they're all ghosts, though, and are memories of past lifetimes.

nagisa himself ends up hospitalized, kind of like tomoko did, and has lost all of his desires. he's kind of at war with himself-- he wants it all to stop and to start again, but he desperately wants to keep fighting, too.

shadow nagisa's treasure is his heart, which manifests later as the pocket watch above. the butterflies on his gun are stolen from janosik's concept art, which i figured were meant to be similar in concept to "the butterfly effect". very fitting for a gun, imo

the larger parts of his design (re: the coat & his hat) are taken from janosik, too. he might not be there anymore, but he's still in nagisa's heart, somewhere.

shadow nagisa himself isn't often hostile, even if he very clearly does not want the phantom thieves anywhere near him. you can find him around the ship, staring at the wandering ghosts of his friends and mumbling about how he remembers the specific moment in time they're stuck in, and if it was worth it for him to leave them behind.

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this is abt a kinda old post of urs but i was wondering abt the nagisa palace thingy that u mentioned a while ago 👀👀👀👀 if u havent finished writing it u totally should 👀👀👀👀

i've written a few fics about it before (you can find them here), and i'm in the process of writing, the intro i guess? i'm so glad people are interested in this au, so here's a short snippet from it 😊

The Shadow bearing his own face continued to walk forward. Leisurely, slowly, with all the time in the world and in no rush to put a bullet through his own skull. Nagisa pushed himself further into the panel behind him, until the metal dug into his back harsh enough to sting. 

“You’re… you’re supposed to be…” Nagisa swallowed. Me, he thought, the words trapped in his throat, heavy and unsure. The Shadow was supposed to be him. And yet... this was...

Nagisa's hands scrambled for purchase against the panel behind him, fingers knocking into buttons and levers and switches and nothing that would save him. The gun ahead of him did not waver.

“I am you,” it said. It steadied its hands, the barrel pointed between Nagisa’s eyes. “You know just as much as I do that this is how it's meant to end.” 

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5.0 leaks

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back in the shadow nagisa dungeon

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tried to style match the official holiday arts for the game but lost my steam halfway through

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What sort of gimmicks do you think Shadow Nagisa's palace would have? Like how Akashi's palace had the mind control and robots section and Shimotsuna having the ants and the gun switching mechanism.

oh, this is a great question!! i've thought a lot about it, actually!! nothing super conclusive, because i really love theorycrafting and making up mechanics and puzzles like this (and id love to hear what other people have to say too!!), but i do think there would definitely be some time related puzzles involved. theres actually two i initially first thought of; reoccuring rooms or floors is one, where they repeat indefinitely and are all completely identical to each other, save for some minor differences, and they would repeat and repeat until you find your way out. it would serve as a stage for information gathering puzzles and possibly story related segments, as it relates to the second idea i had; parts of the palace where, upon entering, some of the PT's lose their thieves attire. for example, if the PT's were to enter one of these rooms, say, closer and luce would revert back to motoha and shoki. it isnt that they no longer have their personas, but that these rooms exist outside of "real" time, and inside, those thieves weren't real phantom thieves in the time period the room is set in. i think itd be a cool setting for challenge bosses and story related segments.

i had a brief moment where i considered parts of the ark existing in states before the crash or after a successful attempt at destroying his heart but im not sure how those would work... there are also others (i havent even mentioned the palace is meant to be horror themed...) but i think im keeping those a secret for now 🤭🤭 though i will say exploration would have a lot of actual sneaking involved. hiding, stealth segments, walking along rafters and narrow ridges... its less of a typical palace and more like the boat equivalent of a large empty house. it is a grave, after all ❤️

[addoves]

Hi, sorry, same anon that asked the last ask on here. First please dont feel its self indulgent, if anything I'm the one feeling a bit selfish literally scouring your tumblr for fanart and your concepts of shadow nagisa. Seeing the fandom grow from barren to people who post interesting ideas and interpretations was one of the things that brought me back to p5x after a long break. If I may ask a few questions about the nagisa's palace, could the phantom idols be mini bosses that the main squad has to face, with nagisa's cognition of them either hating nagisa for their repeated deaths or being sort of like ghost pirates that haunt the ship? Would Shadow Nagisa have some sort of persona switching mechanic like the Velvet room attendant bosses?

i'm so glad!! the fandom is really small, but i absolutely love seeing what everyone is coming up with, so i understand your position... i love talking about this AU too so more will come eventually.!!!

i love answering questions too, so of course you can ask! i didn't actually consider the cognitive thieves hating him, but that's such a good idea, especially considering how guiltridden he is... as it is, the cognitive thieves are probably the same if not more forgiving than in the real world. nagisa knows full well - to his own anger, really - that they would forgive him instantly if he were to ever tell them about how he's failed them. they're very protective of him, but he feels really guilty about it, so his shadow is always just observing from afar or has locked himself away in his quarters.

i could very easily imagine them being antagonistic towards the real thieves though... maybe the severity of it on a case by case basis. like, i could easily see cognitions of masaki, seiji, leo, or yukimi, etc being very defensive for example, whereas others like tomoko, miyu, or chizuko, etc would probably want to encourage outside help, since they know they can't do anything for him, otherwise something would have already changed. some of the cognitions are very out of the way - kira is always in the infirmiry, for example, or kiyoshi in the library - so their behavior would be up to how you'd approach them as well... the actual average shadow on the Ark is really hostile though, since its basically their 'grave'.

shadow nagisa's attacks are actually kind of similar! though he typically resorts to just fighting with his bare hands LOL... he has a knife he stole from the real nagisa, and his gun, the bullets able to change elemental affinity based on nagisa's own whims. shadow nagisa is actually pretty defenseless, and its by design, but he's also very volatile and viscious when he doesn't get what he wants, even if he doesn't actually have any real intent to hurt anyone. heres a snippet from a fic i haven't published yet:

He stretched out his wrist, circling it as he fixed the sleeve of his shirt. “You’re right,” he said. The breathlessness of his voice made them all step back, shivers running up and down Shun’s spine. “None of you have it in you to kill me. But I can make you.”

Before either of them could even think about what that meant, Nagisa was running forward, boots slamming against the ground with enough force to launch himself at the three of them. 

Fucking hell, he was fast. Shun couldn’t even blink; he barely had the chance to shove Motoha to the side before Nagisa was slashing at the two of them with a knife he had dug out from his boot. It dug into the handle of Shun’s axe, just as he was able to whip it out to stop the knife from literally killing him. 

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pls tell me that shadow nagisa’s cognition of lufel on his ship is like a parrot or something lol

thats brilliant. thats hilarious. you guys are so much better at this than me.

the (current) PTs don't exist on the ark, though! there are cognitions of nagisa's synergies and side quests - just the people he meets, really, im sure you could find a lot of nameless, faceless people who know him, too - but the PTD's don't exist on the ark at all. not as cognitions, and not as enemies. those cognitions represent nagisa's wish to save them (hence the boat being called an 'ark'), but he's also aware the PT's have the power to save themselves. them not being included as cognitions is more of a self loathing thing; its not that he wishes he never met them, but he wishes they'd never gotten involved with him. he's terrified for their lives, and knows, inevitably, that the ark will crash. he will start over. he's lost hope of finding land. its a mercy that they are not trapped in his grave with him.