Halloween is coming up, and I am once again feeling a bit. Idk. Sad? Embarrassed? Guilty? All of it? That I don't plan on wearing a costume for it

My students have seemed disappointed about it (one of them even joked that it's because I'm boring, which stung even though she meant nothing by it) and I kind of like. Wish I was into it? But even though wearing a costume sounds fun in theory, it just pokes at too much stuff for me.

What would I be? How would I cope with feeling like my costume looks bad (bc it's not perfect) or the feeling that I look very stupid (which I'm sure they wouldn't think) ? How would I deal with the logistics—if I put it on at home it'll be impractical on my bike. If I bring it to school, how do I decide when to change into and out of it? And then, how do I deal with potentially being on pictures? Etc. Etc.

So instead I'll be boring Mr. Matt and deal with the embarrassment of being the only one who doesn't participate because I feel too embarrassed about participating, and the wistfulness that comes from wanting to join the social activity but not knowing how to do it Correctly and not doing anything in order to avoid a bad grade in Being Social.

I've been thinking. Do the original phantom thieves exist in the p5x timeline, or is this an alternate universe where they didn't? I feel like someone would have mentioned them at this point, or Closer would probably bring up his they're like those "other guys" (the PTs). Unless the whole team is dense and didn't notice them when they were doing the whole thing.

That, or this is the Maruki universe? I haven't played Royal, but I'm gonna assume his whole thing was like, giving you what you wanted the most or making you happy no matter how many laws of the universe he broke, such as raising the dead. Unless that was all a sort of simulation of sorts. That being said, if you get everything you want, wouldn't that mean you'd have no desire for anything else? Though considering the Palace owners, that isn't really the case. Maybe.

Another thought I've had is that this takes place in one of the bad endings of P5X, probably the one where you sold out the crew and joined with Jablo...Jabloldbrka....the cup fella. I can't put it into words since I've never seen it because I'd be too sad practically betraying everyone, but maybe it works? Since we don't know Joker's role in the story despite seeing him in the previous trailer, maybe he's going to be working against us?

Ah, yes, the bad end theories! Both post-Maruki bad end and post-original P5 bad end have been suggested as possibly being where P5X is set on this blog before, and it's always fun to come back to those after we get some new info, so thanks for bringing them up again!

In Maruki's case, he was absolutely trying to create everyone's "ideal" worlds without trauma, so it would stand to reason that people would have no desires left if everything's "ideal" for them. I could definitely see Maruki smoothing over the involvement/actions of the Phantom Thieves to keep people from questioning his world too much- in fact, this comes up at least a bit in P5R as, if I recall correctly, at least one of the Phantom Thieves doesn't seem to quite remember what brought them all together as friends in the first place- which could explain your point about the Wonder Squad never so much as referencing the original Phantom Thieves so far in P5X.

I think the biggest hitches here would be: 1) There'd have to be more to it to result in all traces of the Phantom Thieves, as real-world people, being completely erased as far as we've seen so far, including things like the rebrandings (Big Burger, no Leblanc or Crossroads, etc), because Maruki wouldn't have done that at least as we saw him in Royal, and 2) It would suggest something's gone wrong with his "ideal" world, as people are having desires again- both our main characters, and people with warped desires that form their own Palaces or even just a Mementos Shadow. But neither of those are insurmountable obstacles to this theory!

In Yaldabaoth's case, specifically making the deal with him, it does track that people would lack desires, as the point was control, conformity, and essentially locking everyone into Mementos to think the same way, unable to act for themselves (ie, desire something). The fact that the deal with him would allow Joker to continue acting as a phantom thief (and possibly joined by the other original Phantom Thieves as well, though that's unclear or even unlikely if I'm remembering right) would also explain how the Metaverse still exists, and how there are still Palace rulers. If the other Phantom Thieves are gone, locked inside the Velvet Room, it could also explain why traces of them in the real world have vanished, which works out nicely! I don't think there are actually any major points against this theory right now.

These "post-bad end" theories are fascinating to me, because I'd really love either of them to be true, but I'd also be kind of surprised if Atlus let them make Joker be an antagonist, haha. I just... keep expecting something in P5X canon to disprove them, and instead they just... seem to keep clicking into place better???

Anyway, on the other hand, there's always the alternate universe theory, like you also mentioned. This one would be a good way for P5X to tell its story and have similarities to P5, while still being able to get away with any discrepancies, because it's an alternate universe so of course things are a little different! Since it's so flexible, it's a pretty good fallback theory at the moment, as it'd be hard to contradict unless something directly from P5 canon shows up to prove it's actually the same universe, haha.