actualMemelord

And it not being socially acceptable to talk about your own childhood is super alienating. Sometimes people want to know why, and any answer you can give them is going to be off putting.

One of them said something like, "it doesn't bother me that [Friend] was in residential mental health treatment, I just wish they wouldn't talk about it ALL the time".

The other replied, "Well, that was all of last year for them. So when they say 'when I was in treatment,' it's like when you say 'last year'."

Let's try some nonverbal communication.

happy belated birthday blue rat

Yes please play this 12 year-old game. Sorry you can't play the first part of it because it was so bad they rebooted the whole thing and dropped a dragon nuke on the planet and caused planetary ecological changes. They will still reference that, sorry. Yes the entire base story is considered okish, please play for a 60 hours to get to the first expansion. It is actually worth it trust me I know it sounds wild, but it will rip your heart out several times. Some of the best writing in the entire game is in an optional job quest storyline where you pick up a greatsword and get asked by your own internal pain why you don't just go mad.

There are bunnies on the moon, the dragons are aliens, you optionally travel through time and space to catch a fish, you have a cook-off and alpaca catching competition to determine a nation's ruler, the guy who basically invented advanced gun technology keeps stealing old advanced weaponry to tinker with and no one is stopping him for some reason, Estinien is there (it makes sense in context), the catholic elves are so messed there are LEVELS to that shit (everyone should do the Scholasticate quests! :D), one of your foes won't fucking stay dead and goes to extreme lengths just to have a punching match with you, depression is a bird, one old tired man just wants a nap but also funded an entire theater company, if you do an option storyline of fights you can find a sentient plush chocobo and his world-ending superweapon bug pal just in the world map, you have an entire WWE cagematch fight series, gundam references!, there's Evangelion crossover!(soon), there's Nier crossover!, the gods of the world form Voltron, a man shackles himself to an ancient database tower to pull you to another world.

I sound like a crazy person but that's not even all of it! It's a major time sink I really don't blame people for not playing it. But if you've at all considered it give it a go, there's a free trial that keeps getting expanded so you can play 5/6 of the 10 year story that just wrapped up for free. You've probably seen the meme.

Give it a shot. This game actually literally saved my life.

If the Scions got persona’s, what would their persona’s be? Their main element? And maybe their code name?

Ahhh yes! That's a bit of a tricky one because we'd need to consider the nature of their potential Awakenings contextually and which part of the collective unconscious the Personas would be drawing their shape from. Would it be based on cultural images from Earth or Hydaelyn?

But I do at least have a pretty good idea for G'raha! If in some scenario he was able to awaken in exactly the same way the Phantom Thieves did... His Persona would be Noah! Like the biblical figure! A literary / mythological character to fit in with the rest of the P5 cast, and it doubles as a cheeky reference to the Nominated Observers of Artifacts Historical and also the Archmagus hehe. ;)

Get it? Because he was the savior / leader to the people of Norvrandt after the world-devastating Flood (of Light)? Get it?? Heehee...

As for a code name... Would he be alright with using "Exarch" again, do you think, or would that be a bit uncomfortable? :P

And what makes this worse is JOKER HAS NO OPTION TO ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT IT.... this poor boy doesn't even consider the possibility that someone actually cares to hear about His problems :(

And unlike the P3 + P4 protagonists' Social Links, all of Joker's Confidants are first initiated through the framework of a deal— I'll do this for you, and you do this for me. Even among his friends! He clearly cannot conceive of a reality in which he's anything more than A Thing To Be Used, and its heartbreaking!

...And so, naturally, I ramped it up with extra trauma reinforcing that idea in his brain even harder haha! Because as we see in FFXIV, via the Dark Knight quests + Fray, frustration at being used as an errand boy / a tool / a weapon is a canon simmering resentment in the Warrior of Light's brain. Joker Persona 5 is somehow almost perfect as the FFXIV main character, with the right set-up! ...And that's why I started this fic lol

While I'm at it, here's another sneaky bit of characterization from the game that I worked in:

"Don't look at me like that"

and his speech about moral relativism

(Spoilers for Shadowbringers i guess)

So. What if Kris Dreemur is in a similar situation to the WoD in Shadowbringers? It makes sense: 1. Kris and the WoD both absorb something that will or IS destroying the world. 2. Kris is possibly constantly on the brink of losing themselves because of the Dark Fountains. (where as in Shadowbringers the WoD can contain more than one Lightwarden is because they've got more capacity, and (spoilers btw) Still nearly dies from it.) 3. Kris most likely doesn't have an outlet for the Dark Fountains, and it might be that they're reusing the same darkness over and over because they seal it away every time the same way. 4. They both end up exploring alternate worlds, that are still very similar to their own.