After A Blue Moon, The Yusuke Chapter Of Blackened Masks Has Dropped!

After a blue moon, the yusuke chapter of blackened masks has dropped!

Summary: blackened masks is a one-shot series exploring various AUs where each of the individual phantom thieves take akechi's place as the instigator of the mental shutdowns and yalbabaoth's champion. while the end results might be the same, the paths they take however are not...

Content warnings: this chapter specifically contains major character death, referenced suicide, and referenced abuse

Watching episode 3 and 4 back to back was a fun experience today fnsjkafsdajd

I will say I love and want to love Yuri so so much. I think he can be a very complex character and the show recognizes his depth. His love for his sister is Unbearably Like That but in a way that obnoxious trait vs his details paints a very genuine character.

Him mentioning the journalist potentially doing this for his family and then scrapping it in his notes is such a compelling detail. It shows that Yuri can have sympathy for others despite his rigid black and white thinking, and it's when other people care for family much like how he cares for family. That's something he can relate to.

And I think that pause he has, that question mark he includes, is because for a moment he was considering how radical someone would be for family. How radical he could be/is for his family. Because family is a helluva motivator. If theres anyone to go to insane lengths for, its someone you have that connection with.

There was a moment of relating. Of wanting a safer country for your family to live in. And relating to the enemy, especially in a very strict authoritarian regime like this, is terrifying and probably dangerous.

Yuri's notes are meticulous. And I have no idea what he replaced that line with/if it was replaced with anything at all. With his meticulous notes it would make sense to include any hint of what is motivating the suspect, including the fact that it's motivated by family. There's really not a way for it to harm Yuri if included. His reputation is already solidified as a hardworker and ruthless, even if he or anyone else made passing sympathy, it likely wouldn't change anything.

But he didn't. And I wonder how much of why he didn't is because he was afraid of giving voice to the fact that your love for your family can play a part in radicalizing you. Because acknowledging that outloud means staring the elephant in the room in the eyes. It is no secret everything he does is for Yor, including being in the secret police. And he'd have to consider if he's gone too far just like the journalist did.

xiao is a man ruined by jealousy.

he spends a lot of his time simply watching not only you, but how you react with everyone around you. he follows you around (from a distance, of course, he'd never let himself get too close) to just... observe. he can't help but note down every single little detail of how you interact with anyone who isn't him. his heart aches whenever he realizes he'd never make you smile or laugh in the ways others do. he's far too creepy to make you feel safe in his arms. he's too guilt-ridden to ever hold a conversation with you. and he knows, deep down, that he could never make you happy, atleast not like this, not with how he naturally acts.

and yet he is fueled by desperation, the need to make you feel like others do. he thinks about all the things you like and all the things he is not. he thinks about how he could change for you but he was never great at putting on an act. he digs and digs, looking through everything he can to find a bit of someone else's personality to sew into himself even if the pattern doesn't belong to him.

sometimes he finds himself looking at himself in the mirror as he pretends to be more cheery or give more than just dead-panned answers in conversation. sometimes he mimics the voice and tone of someone you frequently talk to. other times he tries out different makeup styles to try to emulate the look of someone else. all the time he is unsatisfied. he can't pretend to be someone you would like, let alone love, and it drives him insane, pushing him closer and closer to the edge (and he was never that far from it to begin with).

xiao wants to be the best. he wants to be the one who steals your heart, who makes your eyes crinkle at the edge from laughter, who makes you smile so big your cheeks hurt. he wants to be so good you never think of anyone else, and you especially don't think about the long lists of faults he has. but he can't be, not when you have so many points of reference as to what the 'best' could be. if he took you away from everyone else, maybe then the fiery licks of jealousy wouldn't burn up his insides. if you had only him, he'd have no competition, no one to try to mimic, no one who'd get in the way between you and him, who'd serve as a constant reminder of what you deserve and how xiao could be better. if you had no one but him, he'd automatically be the best, right?

right?

he hopes that, in atleast one universe, even if he has to create it himself, he's the 'best'.

(＾་།＾)♡ Yuri Briar

Goro and Akiren's names meaning

So, I've been going through a website for Japanese baby names with their written Kanji meanings too, for a future Akeshu post. and this also required me to visit the Megami Tensei Wiki of our boys to look at what their names mean and---

Akiren and Goro's parents had very different thought processes of importance when naming their newborns and it shows.

(no offense to any Japanese born with the name Goro, spelt with the same Kanji as P5's Goro, I just find this funny. This is purely making fun of a fictional character)

If you're on team Ren Amamiya for P5 Protagonist's name. You already probably know "Amamiya" means "Rain Palace". But what about "Ren"?

The Amamiya's named their son "蓮/Ren", which means "Lotus".

A Lotus flower is a symbol of purity, or "Strength, Resilience, or Rebirth".

For team "Akira Kurusu"

Kurusu means "Chestnut Grove". "Su" = "Nest" or "Grove", "Kuru" = "to come"

"Akira" spelt like this 暁

Means: "Daybreak" or "Dawn", or any form of "bright"

hey, maybe the Kurusu"s named their son after the time he was born.

and then there's Akechi----

The Surname 明智/Akechi (apparently read as "Meichi"??), is an uncommon spelling and means "Wisdom and Sagacity"

That's nice, fitting. Nothing wrong with that.

Now what about Pancake-boi"s first name?

Goro

Depending on what text characters you use, "Go" can mean "five" or "I, my, me, myself".

"Ro" means "Son, or Young Man"

the Kanjis for Goro"s name is indeed 吾郎

吾/Go = I, My, Me, Myself

郎/Ro = Son, Young Man.

MamaKechi really just named her newborn "My Son".

Alternate spelling with a diffferent "Go" Kanji, isn't any better

五 and 伍 = Go (the characters can also be read as Itsu-tsu, or Kumi) translate as "Five", so alternatively he would be named "Fifth Son", which wouldn't make too much sense on Mother's part because Goro is an only child on her side.

On Shido's end though, given his interaction with Women, who knows how many One Night Stand or One Sided Encounters that ended in children being born he's had at this point. Goro could be "Unintentional Half Child" number 5 or higher for all we know. But MamaKechi wouldn't know that.

Point is, why is the P5 fandom only roasting this man for his infamous "Delicious Pancakes" screw up, but not taking advantage of the endless potential of his first name meaning "My Son"?

Because, me personally, I find that hilarious. Oh, if the Phantom Thieves learned that they could tease him mercilessly to the point he drops the Goro entirely when introducing himself to new people.

the possibilities are endless!

Extra: His name being a nod to Kogoro Akechi, a fictional Detective isn't any better. "Kogoro" uses the "Fifth Son" Kanjis, with "Ko" meaning "Small, Tiny, Little". Inspired by a Detective from a mystery novel or not, his namesake inspiration could be translated as meaning "Tiny fifth son"

why everybody is wrong about the unlock date for akechi's rank 6 (and why it matters)

So It Is Known that Akechi's rank 6 unlocks on 9/3, right? That's the first day he'll show up in Leblanc to go to the bathhouse and tell you about his sad backstory (again). That is his unlock date. R...ight?

Game says no.

This is the function that (usually) tests Akechi's rank 6 time lock, SUB_COOP_TIME_[L]OCK6(). What does it do? It sets a bit, 0x1 831, if we fail the check. Which we will unfailingly do on every single day within a specified date range. And what is that range?

That range is between 4/1 and 8/28.

Read that again. Not 9/2, the day before 9/3. 8/28.

The same 8/28 we all know and love for, uh, some reasons:

That's right. The reason Akechi's confidant is locked until 9/3, the reason he has not one but two "let me tell you about my backstory" events inside of a week, is that one triggers the other.

Akechi shows up at Leblanc on 8/28. He finds a listening ear, and a shoulder to cry on—because, remember, we're smack in the middle of Akechi Hate Month:

This kid, who is so desperate for attention and approval that he's become a mass-murderer over it, is now in the middle of a public hate storm. And on 8/28, you listen to him. You make him welcome. You accept him for who he is—at least, for a little part of who he is.

And so he comes back less than a week later. On 9/3.

if he unlocks on 8/29, why 9/3?

Akechi's availability is often quite limited. Between 8/28 and 9/3, he's only available on one day, 8/30—though if you're already at rank 5, you can't do anything with him then.

Why doesn't he come to Leblanc on 8/30?

The Leblanc field (areas in P5 are technically known as fields) calls a very long, very unedifying function called NPC_FLAG_SELECTOR(), to see which NPCs it should load when. In short? It does this by testing the day of the week.

GET_DAYOFWEEK() returns a number between 0 (Sunday) and 6 (Saturday). So, because Akechi will only come to Leblanc if GET_DAYOFWEEK() returns 6, Akechi will only ever come to Leblanc on Saturdays.

And the first Saturday after 8/29? It is, of course, 9/3.

why does this matter?

Does this change anything? In practical terms, no. Akechi is still always going to be inaccessible for rank 6 until 9/3. But does it confirm anything about him? Well, yeah.

Akechi's rank 7 unlock really is on 11/2, the morning he tells you "I was working last night, so I'm tired today"—that time lock terminates on 11/1. His skill checks (Knowledge and Charm) are all exactly what you think. He even has a hidden lock for rank 8 (still called a time lock by the code) which verifies that he's currently a team member and won't let you proceed otherwise; that, too, acts exactly as you'd expect.

It's rank 6 which turns out to have this secret, to truly be as closely connected to 8/28 as it always appeared. Akechi comes to Leblanc in his hour of need, and he finds something—and then, the next day, he wants more.

And so he comes back—the very next evening he can get away to spend time in Yongen-jaya.

(Incidentally, I'm pretty sure Akechi lives in Kichijoji, and this kind of backs that up. It's the sort of super-trendy place he'd make a show of liking, and in fairness, he clearly does like it. He can only come to Yongen on Saturday nights because it's a lot of travel, close to an hour each way in the early evenings. But Kichijoji? He can hang out there far more often—because it's right on his doorstep.)

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (2023/12/26)—first posted.