@moldygreenblue (tumblr why are you always like this? ;w; lemme tag)Â
I believe I went off on her a little before (outside her dungeon, x) Anyway Futabaâs there for a number of reasons:
 I hate her dungeon, her shadow, just her whole arc from a lore perspective. The rules are broken....no...shattered for her, not just P5â˛s rules but previous gamesâ rules. (I think I mentioned it in these posts x, x, x, btw these are all pre Royal.....Atlus probs saw a post about it and was like âwe need to add doubts in Royal maybe now itâll make sense!â srry boo but she says itâs no her mom and her cognition should reflect that right away you still messed up, also too little too late).
Iâm pretty sure I remember talking about how I do no think she is a good representation of mental illness, she basically is cured with the âpower of friendshipâ after a week (of being conscious), and they only use her lingering issues when they need it for plot reasons (on top of the fact iirc the writing between main story and CoOp is contradictory, iirc sheâs like âMC youâre the one who saved me! I can only go out if Iâm with YOU!â and then the next day of one of my playthroughs Yusuke literally picks her up and sheâs like âoh Iâm fine now, and itâs thanks to EVERYONE!â and itâs just....pandering for a romance in that CoOp). It pisses me off sheâs the rep for mental illness.Â
She takes up too much screen time, and it feels like a lot of actual issues/obstacles we could just....overcome is instead made so we NEED to use her (Iâm looking at you dungeon 3 of PQ2, you can suck it, Fuuka shouldâve been the focus, literally makes no sense for Futaba to be the focus????)Â
Ties into point 1 but still deserves itâs own point. I hate how sheâs like âTHEY STOLE MY HEART! THEY CHANGED MY COGNITION!â but....we didnât.......we literally didnât. Did we help/save her with our intervention? Yes, but itâs not cause it was supernatural, we just showed up for her. Did WE solve her issue supernaturally.....no....not really, we didnât get a chance (remember how....there was no treasure! oOo yeah we go into her Palace, but thatâs not really changing her, itâs us going in irl and being like âyo ya gotta go outside! get that sunny D!â than us screwing with her dungeon). She solved it herself, Yaldy gave her the app, she ran into her Shadow, she accepted her Shadow, she solved it on her own. Not only is it a straight up lie, and conflating someone changing their mind/âheartâ with the PT way of changing hearts (as well as the fact you know....we didnât change her cognition, she did), but it also reduces her own involvement in her own healing process and overcoming the obstacle herself. We were just the spark, the rest of the flame emerged from Futaba. Like listen, the IRL stuff we did was important, but when it came down to the wire, it was her own memory and faith in herself and her mom that helped her confront herself and her false memories (because yâknow...she couldnât hear us). And it pisses me off that the writers would take something important to a character and her message, away for some bullshit reason.
I dunno some times she acted like an ass and it was just annoying, I already had Makoto/Yusuke/Goro/MC(even Mona/Ryu at times, to otherâs not each other, obvie they do it to each other) kinda getting away(or have gotten away) with that without much reprimanding. (and tbh, anything that could possibly be redeemable, is either nonexistent, or overshadowed by the fact sheâs mostly just there for her be connected to a literal mother of a plot device, no her hacking isnât needed you have superpowers and another world WHY do you need to rely on her????literally states in the first dungeon you canât use a phone camera in the metaverse even, but for some reason a laptop is fully working?????I know one is part of the phone and the other is a comp but itâs our only tech we know/can relate back to, so what does it mean Atlus? Is the comp allowed but the phone isnât? Why? Just explain. Hereâs one I just made up for you: Phone has to have the app open at all times in the metaverse! Or, actually no tech works well in the Metaverse, which means no laptop, one or the other choose please)
Oh she kinda screws us over, until we joined we didnât have any connections to doing anything illegal. Yeah she throws that out the window. I mean we can always sell her out, but we are her enablers/accomplices.
Someone I know who was studying hacking at the time (for their work) was like âsheâs kind of pulling that shit outta her ass.â And it hurt them to watch any of her scenes play out (I think the wire tap was the one thing she got a pass on tho). It doesnât help itâs not really explained enough (so they can see if itâs plausible). To them itâs cringe, to me it shows convenience for the story (obvie I care more about how it hinders the story skadlfj;alfj and if itâs like they say, it annoys me even more).Â
Spinoff wise I hate how she tries to grope Anne and Makoto in P5D, and I hate how she takes up a shit load of screen time in PQ2 (I donât care Hikari is a shut in, gdi Fuuka earned that spotlight in dungeon 3, it makes no sense why Futaba would do it, hell Fuuka shouldâve been chiming in due to her knowing what itâs like to be bullied, same with Rise iirc she was also bullied, like god damn, PQ2 really went âWeâre gonna give all the screen time to P5 kids even tho they wonât really do jack shit with most of it, and just have P3/4 kids chime in enough to remember they existâ)Â
Basically I donât like what she brings to the table, esp since the game makes us rely on her. She doesnât spark the exact same amount of rage that Makoto does (tho if you saw me my last playthrough during Futabaâs dungeon Iâd say itâs pretty close), but it does feel insulting from a long time fan/lore fiend/just a freaking viewer trying to consume the medium thatâs seeing thereâs some toxic stuff in her writing (and I donât mean âtoxicâ I mean âitâs really bad to freaking think that friends will fix your mental health, it wonât, and itâs unfair to you and your friends to even think of putting that onto themâ bad levels of thinking).Â
I also find sheâs a wasted opportunity, such as âoh what if we solved this mental illness with supernatural means? what could possibly go wrong? Esp with how drastic the change is for other people weâve done it to! :Dâ *cough* *cough* If only they figured out thatâd be kinda interesting *cough**cough* Oh mean what a violet coughing fit, I mean violent.... >.> *in a bad canadian accent* I really need soome air eh?..........8U ANYWAY, the biggest role she serves (besides spotlight stealing to justify having a hacker), is a connection to her mom and showcasing that even âgood peopleâ can have palaces.....sadly the latter seems to fall on deaf ears on even fans of this game.....and the writers/characters. So uhhhh good job failing at the latter (for awhile at least), and uhhh....we could just NOT have the former! I think the gov could be shady without them also getting in on supernatural stuff but thatâs just me. 030