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#the entire time i was watching the movie souyo was just running around in my brain like goddamn
kitamars · 2 years
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so i watched Cars (2006) the other day. you know the drill
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souyo angst - post-true ending
y’all the souyo tag has been more active than I’ve seen it in a long time (I think cause of the PC release) which makes me happier than I can measure. I’ve loved persona 4 ever since 8th grade and souyo really is my favorite ship of all time. in celebration, here’s a bunch of angst headcanons I’ve been holding onto for 5 years, specifically related to the izanami battle/true ending. (they’re actually not necessarily souyo-specific, but since I ship souyo they kinda have that overall vibe)
- do y’all really think yu narukami is just gonna come away from that battle with izanami/being trapped in a time loop illusion for an untold period of time and NOT bring any trauma with him? cause I don’t
- specifically, he can’t get rid of a horrible, nagging thought that follows him even after the IT celebrates their victory - what if this is all still part of izanami’s illusion? izanami could have just nested an illusion inside of an illusion, and that way, she can defeat him without him even knowing it
- which would mean, of course, that his friends are all still dead and he’s just living it up with a bunch of illusions. his friends sacrificed themselves for him, while he gets to live out his summer days in peace surrounded by a perfect simulation.
- that thought is terrifying to him, and it only grows over time. there’s the horror of nothing being real and his friends being dead, compounded with the guilt of having abandoned them and the helplessness of never being able to know the truth. he has the cold realization one night that he’ll never again know for certain that the world he’s living in is the real one.
- but he tries to keep it to himself and act like he normally does. after all, if he can’t ever know for sure, why worry about it? this world is probably the real one - his friends seem normal, time keeps flowing like it usually does, and even the velvet room seems the same as it was before
- as hard as he tries, his doubts and fears are really impacting his mental health, which eventually affects the way he acts. it’s subtle, but the others eventually notice it - yosuke does first, since he knows yu the best.
- he notices that whenever there’s a silence, yu will stare off into space with a strained and even slightly fearful expression. he’s worried, but he just tries to be there for his partner like normal, figuring he’ll talk to him if he needs someone to rely on
- rise notices the dark circles under his eyes and asks about them, to which yu nonchalantly responds that his part time work keeps him a little busy. chie notices that he doesn’t seem to have as much fun when they work out or watch movies, and yukiko notices the way he starts withdrawing from conversations until he’s standing at the edge of the group, even quieter than normal.
- teddie and kanji don’t notice anything on their own, but eventually those who have started to get worried bring it up with the rest of the group. naoto, of course, has noticed everything, but nothing in yu’s behavior has indicated it’s anything worse than blues about leaving inaba or stress from work
- yu, for his part, realizes that his friends probably know something’s up, but every day he feels less and less motivated to tell them what’s actually wrong. after all, what would he even say - I’m afraid all of you are illusions, and my real friends are already dead? 
- plus, there’s the fact that saying his fears out loud would somehow make them feel more real. so instead, he tries to ignore them, and only spirals more
- he starts feeling really scared when he finds himself having the occasional violent thought toward his own friends - if the real yosuke’s dead, why should this illusion get to live? how dare an illusion pretend to be his best friend?
(more specific headcanons/fic ideas under the cut)
- imo, the possibilities for this headcanon are endless. you can take your hurt/comfort as far as you want it to go (personally, I love projecting my mental illness onto fictional characters so full depression/anxiety is definitely on the table), and the timeframe means any fics could be set either before or after he leaves inaba
- personally, I think it could be interesting if he returns to the TV world, perhaps to look for answers or just to blow off some steam, and finds out his shadow’s gotten loose again. which would ofc mean that now he’s trapped in the TV world with no persona, a shadow that for sure wants to kill him, and a dungeon of his own forming around him
- (btw, I know the TV world changes after the fight with izanami, but I think since it still exists and the IT still has personas, they can still have shadows as well)
- this would be an interesting way for the IT to find out what’s really been happening. they would notice yu missing and eventually check the TV world, whereupon they would find an entire dungeon and see yu’s shadow for the first time.
- the dungeon, I think, would have a lot of different elements - recurring rooms from dojima’s house to represent the time loop he was trapped in, an origami version of inaba to represent how everything seems fake, etc.
- as for his shadow, since I love to go full angst, I think it would be absolutely vicious. it represents the nagging belief that everything’s fake, his hatred toward himself for “abandoning” his friends and living a happy lie, and his hatred toward the IT for being illusions meant to replace his dead friends
- as a result, it would try to kill yu almost immediately after manifesting and attack the IT on sight. this would be particularly devastating for yosuke - he only found out that saki hated him (x to doubt, I’m still not convinced she actually didn’t like him but that’s another post) through her shadow, so being immediately attacked by yu’s shadow would be heartbreaking
- yu’s shadow wouldn’t feel any need to explain itself to an illusion, so it would just silently and violently attack him with a look of pure hatred. which would be a confirmation of his worst fear, that yu secretly doesn’t think of him as a partner or an equal, and in fact doesn’t even think of him as a friend.
- but of course he would soldier on, determined to save yu even in light of his “true” feelings. the rest of the IT would also bring up the fact that they don’t know the full story yet, and there could be a reasonable explanation for why yu’s shadow is so violent
- since I love to make my favorite characters suffer, I also like to headcanon that eventually yu would let his shadow kill him. or at least almost kill him, since the IT busts down the door before it’s too late, but at that point he’s unconscious and in no shape to accept or reject his shadow
- (he didn’t accept it before even though he knew he should because he didn’t want to accept his violent urges toward himself and especially toward his friends)
- so basically the IT just has to grab yu and run. I was thinking this headcanon through and my brain was like ‘why not throw in some extra souyo angst,’ so a barely conscious yu might pull a reverse uno card on yosuke and sacrifice himself to protect him, unwilling to let his friend sacrifice himself again
- which would ofc make things even worse for yosuke. aside from the obvious, there’s the confusion arising from the fact that yu’s shadow tried to kill him, but yu himself was willing to sacrifice his life for him
- either way, I think yu would be barely alive by the time they make it out of the TV world. from there it’s just a matter of him recuperating enough to go back in and accept his shadow, which is complicated by the fact that essentially being split in half across two dimensions is definitely not healthy.
- there’s plenty of angst in the recovery process, but this post is already super long and I wanna get into some of my other thoughts
- just a quick aside, I think as a perhaps less angsty headcanon yu might just be extra averse to yosuke sacrificing himself after they win against izanami, especially in the animated version where I think only yosuke sacrifices himself instead of all of their friends
- so the next time yosuke tries to sacrifice himself for yu he’d get an earful, maybe even accompanied by a breakdown where yosuke realizes how badly he scared his partner during the fight with izanami
- anyway, I also have a fun night in the woods-type idea relating to this - after yu leaves inaba, nothing seems real to him to the point that it actively breaks down his mental health
- it’s only when he returns to inaba or is with someone from inaba that the world doesn’t just look like a grayscale mesh of unsubstantial shapes
- which could lead to something interesting if yosuke (or your yu narukami pairing of choice) comes to visit him at his college dorm and finds it an absolute mess or barely decorated at all with a depressed yu inside, or if yu drops out of college entirely to return to inaba, baffling his friends and family because he was at a really good college and had a great future ahead of him, or if he returns to inaba and is terrified to find that sometimes it’s in grayscale too, or-
- the point is I’ve thought a lot about this and I love both persona 4 and night in the woods so I think it’s fun
- there’s also plenty of potential for yu to just break down and tell his friends what’s wrong in the real world before he leaves inaba, which could make for a great hurt/comfort oneshot
- all in all, I think yu would have definitely been traumatized by living in a time loop for who knows how long and there’s a lot of potential there. (don’t ask me about what I think would happen if margaret hadn’t gotten him out of the time loop cause that’s an even longer even darker post. or maybe do ask me)
anyway, I know the souyo fandom probably still isn’t exactly popping off but I hope anyone who finds this post enjoys it!
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skye-maxwell · 4 years
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Mostly You
Persona 4 | Souyo | Third year, pre-relationship | Rated F for Fluff
Happy birthday, @livefreeordie13! You are my friend, and I like you a lot! \o/
For prompt #6: “I think about you all the time.”
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It was Yosuke’s turn to call him today, so Souji sat on the floor of his bedroom, patiently folding paper cranes while he waited. 
They had spoken to each other on the phone nearly every day since Souji had left Inaba, and Souji was grateful that Yosuke always seemed eager to hear from him. Even if it was just a quick call after school on his way to Junes, or while he was drifting off to sleep after a long day—Yosuke made time for Souji, and that meant the world to him.
The ringtone Souji had specifically assigned to Yosuke started playing, and Souji smiled, like he always did. It was a song Yosuke had shared with him to cheer him up when things had been at their worst, and now Souji knew every word and every note of the track. 
“Hey, Yosuke,” Souji greeted warmly, putting his phone on speaker and setting it on his desk so he could keep folding. 
“Hey, Partner!” Yosuke said happily, and Souji smiled again. He would never get tired of that enthusiasm. “What are you up to?” 
“Cranes.”
“Haha, again? Are you trying to set a world record for ‘most paper cranes folded’ or something?” 
“No, but now that you say that, it sounds pretty good. I think that’ll be my goal now.” 
Instead of dismissing the joke like Souji expected him to, Yosuke said, “Well, if anyone can do it, it’s you. I believe in you, Partner!” 
“Thank you,” Souji said dumbly, becoming flustered for a moment before he could think of a better reply. “If I do break the record, you’ll be the first one I invite to the party.”
“The party?” 
“Yeah, to celebrate my success.” 
“Oh man, a party thrown by you? I can see it now. It’s gonna be a total rager,” Yosuke laughed.   
“Of course. It’ll be the most enraged of ragers.”
“That doesn’t even make sense!” 
“Honestly, it would probably just end up being you and me sitting in a room drinking something like, not even alcoholic, and we would try to clink our glasses together and probably spill lemonade everywhere—”
“When did it turn into lemonade?”
“—and then you’d be all ‘Congrats, Partner,’ and yeah, that would probably be it.” 
Souji expected Yosuke to laugh at the image he had created, or to call it lame and throw out ideas for an actual rager… 
“I mean, as long as I’m there with you, I’m down for whatever.” 
Souji dropped his paper crane. 
Why? Souji mentally asked Yosuke, picking his crane back up off the floor. Why must you say such cute things?
Not about to say anything remotely like that out loud, Souji asked, “So what are you doing right now?”
Not seeming to notice the abrupt change of subject, Yosuke answered, “I’m doing homework! Kind of.” 
“Are you just doodling in the margins?” 
“Not just the margins, Partner—the whole paper! Because, you know, there’s no notes on the page…” 
Souji sighed. “Do I need to hang up so you can get your homework done?”
“No! No no no! Please don’t hang up! I’ll actually do it later, I promise!”
“Calm down, I’m not actually gonna hang up on you.” 
“Okay, good.”
“That does remind me, though… Lately I’ve been daydreaming in class a lot. Sometimes I’ll just completely space out, and by the time I space back in, I realize I haven’t been paying attention for an entire lecture.” 
“For real? Did my bad habits rub off on you?”
“Why do you sound like that? What are you doing now?”
“Finished drawing. Balancing a pencil on my nose. Crap! I dropped it. Anyways, you’re supposed to be the good student between the two of us, man! We can’t both be slacking off!” 
“Sorry, Yosuke.”
Before Souji could say anything else, Yosuke suddenly asked, “What do you think about?” 
“Hm?”
“When you’re daydreaming all that time—what are you thinking about?”
“Well… I think about last year a lot, and how I wish I was still there with everyone, and I think about recipes I want to make, and movies I want to see, and what I want to do after high school, and… you. Mostly you, actually,” Souji accidentally admitted. 
“Me? What about me?” 
Now that Souji had let the cat peek its head out of the bag, he wasn’t entirely sure he would be able to keep the rest of it in the bag for much longer. 
“I think about all the crazy and terrible and amazing times we had together last year, and how I wish was still there with you. I think about recipes I want to make for you to try, and the faces you’ll make when you’re eating them. I think about movies I want to see, whether or not you would like them, the discussions we would have after we watched them together… I think about how badly I want to do whatever it takes to have more of you in my life after I finish this stupid third year… Yeah, all the time. I think about you all the time.”
“Partner, that’s… um, unexpected. I’m sure someone like you has better things to think about than me.”
Souji shook his head. “No. I don’t. Not more important than you, no.” 
“You’re exaggerating, right? To make me feel good?” 
“I’m not. Does it make you feel good?”
“Well, yeah, sure it does. Being on someone’s mind makes me feel special, y’know? Especially your mind.”
“You seem surprised, Yosuke. You really don’t have any idea how important you are to me, do you?” 
“I guess not? I don't know, it’s just… hard to believe. Do you know why I always make sure we talk to each other like this? I mean, obviously I don’t want you to be lonely, and I want to make sure you’re doing okay, but also like, I just don’t want you to forget me.”
Souji scoffed, immediately covering his mouth afterwards because he definitely hadn’t meant to do that, even if what Yosuke had said was completely ludicrous. 
Forget you? With the amount of running around you do in my mind, how on earth could I possibly forget you? 
Souji quickly tried to find a way to convey that sentiment to Yosuke in a less creepy way. 
“The only way I could ever forget you is if I had a major head injury, like blunt force trauma, and I forgot everything… or, if I, you know, died.” 
“Partner! Don’t say shit like that!” 
“My problem isn’t forgetting you; my problem is remembering you too much. Seriously, it’s constant. But actually, yeah, no, I don’t want to think of you any less, not really…”
“Heh, is this what it feels like to be flattered? You’re really something else, Partner. Oh hey, I’ve gotta go; my mom’s calling me for dinner.”
“Okay,” Souji sighed, feeling like he had sort of just poured his heart out (in a subtle yet super vulnerable and embarrassing way?), and yet the conversation had not come anywhere close to a satisfying resolution. “Tell her I said hi.” 
“Will do! She’ll be thrilled, haha. She’s actually trying out one of the recipes you left her, so I’ll let you know how it goes. Don’t worry though; it’s definitely not gonna be as good as when you make it.” 
Souji rediscovered his smile, happy that Yosuke would be thinking about him after he hung up—comparing his mother’s cooking against Souji’s own while he ate, remembering the times Souji had made the dish for him, coming up with an evaluation to share with Souji after the meal was done… 
“Your loyalty is appreciated.” 
“All right, Partner, thanks for talking to me.”
“Yosuke? I’m sorry if anything I said was too weird.” 
“All you ever say is weird stuff, man. I’m used to it.” 
“Pfft, okay, bye.” 
“Talk to you later!” 
Yosuke hung up, and Souji finished off the crane he was working on, setting the red paper bird on his desk in a row with several other red cranes. He took a photo and sent it off to Yosuke with the caption: “It’s like your shirt.” 
Satisfied with that, Souji stood up so he could go make his own dinner, but a text from Yosuke stopped him in his tracks. 
Instead of a reply about his picture, he opened up an unexpected picture from Yosuke. 
It was of his notebook, the one he had been doodling in at the beginning of their conversation. 
The first thing that caught his eye was a big-headed (chibi?) doodle of himself (the distinct bowl cut was a dead giveaway) in the middle of the page, holding his sword and wearing his TV World glasses. He also appeared to be on fire? Or maybe that was a representation of Persona power? 
Whatever it was, it was adorable.
Souji’s gaze flitted across the full page, his breaths growing more shallow as he took it all in: Izanagi and Jiraiya doing cool(?) action poses next to each other, a bento box that looked very much like the ones Souji used to prepare for Yosuke every day, a half-melted snowman wearing Souji’s grey scarf and Nanako’s Loveline hat, a Mega Beef Bowl from Aiya’s and stick figure versions of all their friends drowning in it… 
It took Souji a minute to realize it, but every single doodle across the page was somehow related to himself, and the memories he and Yosuke shared together. 
In the bottom corner of the page, one doodle was squeezed in that must have been the last one Yosuke drew. It was the two of them standing side-by-side in front of a house (but it didn’t look like any house that Souji recognized?) with their arms around each other’s shoulders. They were wearing big happy faces, and one of Yosuke’s arms was in the air, as if he was waving. 
The circular sun with squiggly rays coming out of it was in the sky above them, smiling and wearing sunglasses, ironically. There was a thing in front of the house that Souji didn’t recognize at first until he saw the bike next to it; it was a half-pipe. 
Then Souji squinted at another part of the doodle and zoomed in on the image, not quite believing his eyes.
In the front window of the house, there was a cat peeking through, big and fluffy just like Souji liked. 
Was that supposed to be… their house? 
“No way,” Souji whispered to himself.
Then he scrolled down to the caption and completely lost his breath. 
“I think of you too.” 
And with that, Souji’s fate was sealed—he was going to be thinking about Yosuke—his Partner who he was in love with (who thought about him too!)—nonstop for the rest of his life. 
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