I feel like when people compare Akechi to Light Yagami, they fundamentally misunderstand his character. Their similarities really end at their designs, and Light is the kind of person Akechi would despise. Light Yagami lives a pretty privileged life at the start of Death Note. He has a stable home, with two parents and a sister who care about him. He's a successful student. There isn't really inherent tragedy to his life. The whole reason he starts using the Death Note is a mix of curiosity and a jaded worldview, and when it works it empowers him, very quickly goes to his head, as he believes he is one who can be a god of a "new world" once the shock of his initial kills wears off. While his first kill was to help someone, that altruism didn't last. He is in charge of his choices, while Ryuk mostly vibes and maybe eggs him on a little. Fundamentally, Light has something Akechi lacks: agency, and a comfortable life he took for granted. Meanwhile, Akechi is someone who lived on the bottom rung of Japanese society. His very existence is shameful there, between his mother being a sex worker, his status as an illegitimate/"throw away" child, and his mother's suicide. Years languishing in a foster system that is notoriously inhumane, in a country where 90% of the adoptions are grown men for inheritance and patriarchal reasons, while very few children in the system find permanent homes. When Akechi awakens his power, he approaches Shido not because he wants to kill people but for a stupid revenge plan cooked up by a traumatized child who's been nudged along by a malevolent god. He wants to build Shido up so that at the height of his power, he can expose him for the monster he really is, while another part of him genuinely wants to be useful to Shido, as Cogkechi later calls out. His feelings are a mess of contradictions, and so it's no surprise that Shido was able to mold him into his assassin at only 15 years old. It's also worth noting that Akechi only approaches Shido with his ability to cause psychotic breakdowns. Shido is the one who teaches and instructs him to do shutdowns. He's still complicit, very sunk cost with his revenge plan, but as I spoke of here, even if he wanted to quit, he couldn't alone. Shido's cleaner and control of the law and ability to effortlessly turn him in would render the Metaverse his only safe haven. I think people look at 11/20 Akechi and Akechi in the early parts of the engine room and assume that's just his "true self," when in reality it's another mask. Royal makes it very clear because in Rank 7, he outright warns Joker of what's to come via a pool metaphor and offers an out (though he's MUCH happier if you don't take it/stick to your principles), and in Rank 8, he goes on that big "I hate you" speech... while Sunset Bridge is playing. Y'know, the song that plays at the end of most confidants to reaffirm bonds. So when he smiles as he shoots what he assumes to be Joker, that doesn't mean he's genuinely happy. More likely, he's an emotional clusterfuck, given he also is disoriented enough to namedrop "Shido-san" over the phone, and in the subsequent meeting with Shido, tells him not to kill the Phantom Thieves and that Morgana is "just a cat." Yes, he says they'll make them fear for the rest of their lives, but remember, he's talking to Shido. The things he says are likely all incredibly calculated to sound appealing to Shido. And when you consider that he planned to utterly destroy Shido's reputation after the election, the "delay" makes even more sense.

Later, Akechi goes on about how the people he induced shutdowns on were deserving of their fates, but I don't think he believes it so much as it's the only way he could convince himself that it was worth it, and given how much society failed him, and given how many of the people he targeted were likely rivals/competitors or rich fucks, I think he'd be less inclined to assume good faith. Kunikazu Okumura was not an innocent little victim, after all. He was one of the people who requested breakdowns and shutdowns the most. I think Akechi enjoyed killing him not because of how it'd hurt Haru, but because of catharsis. Because Okumura is just as monstrous as Shido, so why should he feel remorse? However, I don't believe he feels the same about Wakaba, as when he discusses her with Shido, he mentions how her fate was because she refused to willingly work for him. It's another justification, but I personally think Wakaba's death was the most painful for him because he was effectively making Futaba just like him. That's why I think his reaction to Sae threatening Sojiro's custody was genuine. Anyway, evil grinning Akechi is just another mask, as I said. Keep in mind, this is someone who laments not meeting Joker years ago, someone who Morgana outright points out is lying about his hatred. And that's the thing. Light Yagami, while a really fascinating character, is not someone who had all this childhood suffering or lack of agency. He does not regret his actions in the slightest and goes down due to his own hubris in both the anime and the manga. While you can argue that Ryuk set him up by dropping the Death Note, Light was the one who picked it up and chose to use it. Any nudging from Ryuk didn't coerce Light into doing it because Light seized the opportunity. No, if Light Yagami is like anyone in Persona 5, it's Masayoshi Shido, not Goro Akechi. Both believe they are god/god's chosen, that they are the ones who will reshape the world to their ideals, and to be frank, both use and abuse women to serve their own purposes. Goro Akechi goes down sacrificing himself for the Thieves and pleading with them to stop his father and again in Maruki's reality when he refuses to let Joker accept a gilded prison of a world for his sake when he knows better than anyone what it's like to have no true freedom. If you max his confidant, you see him in the postcredits, leaving his survival entirely possible, and I think it works because at the end of the day, Akechi was meant to be a victim and a foil. Light is a villain protagonist and a cautionary tale. Though its his POV we follow, he isn't someone we're meant to root for, but I definitely don't think enjoying the character is a bad thing at all. He's really interesting! I just think that a lot of the Akechi and Light comparisons are surface level at best.

Average Mishima interaction

"... well, was there anything about the bento you didn't like? so i can fix it for next time?" "there won't BE a next time."

Aren’t you tired of being nice? Don’t you want to go ape shit?

- Personas, during an awakening

Futaba Sakura

“A young intern whose mother was a pokemon researcher! She mainly works remotely from her dad's cafe, but she's dead set on someday being able to visit her mother's lab. She's great with pokemon, with her umbreon providing comfort from darkness.”

Tumblr Top Ships Bracket - Round 1 Side 1

This poll is a celebration of fandom and fandom history; we're aware that there are certain issues with many of the listed pairings and sources, but they are a part of that history. Please do not take this as an endorsement, and refrain from harassment.

Ayo?? 🤨🏳️‍🌈❓❓

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Isako Toriumi from Persona 3 x Sadayo Kawakami from Persona 5 vs Elias Bouchard x Peter Lukas from The Magnus Archives

Propaganda for Isako x Sadayo:

there's a comic about them where Sadayo is a sexy maid for hire and Isako is figuring out that she's gay and just have you seen the comic aaaah fail teacher yuri

Propaganda for Elias x Peter:

Take one glance at the big boy man audio, they literally talk like a divorced couple. we all know peter is elias’s sugar daddy, whats more to love in the eye guy x lonely guy

what a silly character

20 but just like a rare pair best-friendship you don’t see enough hype for?

Akekita akekita akekita akekita-

but also just sumire and akechi as well. theres quite a bit of royal trio poly, but i think just akechi and sumire could be interesting if done right.

for best friends? makoto and hifumi? i feel like they would get along.

22 for the character asks for Akechi and Futaba?

For Akechi, I like it when fics really show his internal struggles with redemption and the duality of subconsciously wanting love and praise from a person you hate and who has wronged you. I don't really like it when he gets flattened to either the tsundere or softboy character. Let him have the depth, let him be contradictory.

For Futaba, I haven't read any futaba-centric stuff, but I like it when her struggles are explored as well. Both her social anxiety and her anger with akechi. In quite a few shuake fics I've noticed that her very understandable hatred of Akechi isn't given merit. I think some people have the tendency of writing her like either a) she is willing to treat the whole murdered mom thing as water under the bridge in just two sentences or b) shes treated as a girl in the way of the ship because of her objections. I don't like either of those handlings of her character in regards to Akechi. She deserves to be able to say "no I won't forgive you" and have that be respected, or to have a fully fleshed out reconciliation with Akechi where they work through this shit together.

Greetings, Shuake Squad! It's once again time to fill out the form and throw your ideas and opinions at us! Twitter Mod and I are happy to be back again for this year's Shuake Week!

The form will remain open for two weeks, so get those prompts in and tell us what you're interested in seeing this year!

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Bonus question from me, specifically:

dying from anticipation 👀👀👀

(pictured: everyone getting ready to pounce on the form)

Making memes out of my headcanons, part 3, swinging bats at hornets nests edition!

hey i appreciate that you posted the crumbl recipes. i tried the sugar recipe and no matter what i do the frosting will not come together. ive been baking for 2 decades and this is the only frosting ive ever had do this. ive whipped the shit out of it for an hour, chilled it, warmed it to room temp, everything short of adding more ingredients. do you have any insight? im not trying to throw away like $50 of ingredients and have bald cookies for my party 😭

hi, i’m sorry to say but if you whipped the frosting recipe for an hour then it’s ruined. the recipe contains heavy whipping cream and if it was whipped that long its turned to butter and it likely separated due to that. and because it’s all mixed together you can’t really re-use it to attempt to fix it.

the recipe calls for approximately 5 minutes total of whipping time. sorry this happened, be sure you used room temperature butter and to scrape your bowl.

I kinda love all shuake fanarts but I think I can’t handle sad comics I mean I cried an ocean already for them I NEED AND CRAVE HAPPY ENDINGS. THE CUTE FLUFFY AND FLOWER AU. THE HAND HOLDING. THE SILLY FIGHTS. THE LITTLE KISSES