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[pancakeboy]

[Text him! Or do whatever, I'm not the police, and neither is he, thank God. Just specify if you want the more-fun-but-less-stable pre-11/20 guy or the grumpy third semester/postcanon guy. Pancake only for VRDR guys please, he's not third semester yet]

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[pancakeboy]

[Again, he stares at the message. Aspen deserves his vengeance. He hasn't even met "Aspen"; fuck him too. It's just...

The truth swells to a knot in his throat; it blurs his vision. Loki's words ring in his ears, from his awakening all those years ago: make the world you wish to see!]

Speaking of those differences, and as far as Aspen goes: there's a strong likelihood that Shido is aware of his identity and plans. I've now heard that from multiple sources.

[She probably knows him well enough to know he's melting down, behind his terse message.]

[rosemaudite]

[Magpie deserves his as well. And Crow, and all the rest of them who have suffered for Shido's actions or lack thereof. What they can each make that look like is very different.]



Interesting.

That may change the calculus. Thank you. [He certainly didn't have to share that tidbit.]

[pancakeboy]

I should hope it will.

[He blinks quickly, trying to straighten himself out, shoving everything down into the depths. There are whole worlds inside that "interesting" of hers.]

It's a shame your powers are so limited. I was thinking they might change the calculus, too. For example, if you could have your father confess without anyone's knowledge, that would dislodge several things.

But other things suggest it would be wholly ineffective. Are you aware of the presence of a false god in Mementos?

[rosemaudite]

There is a lot one can do with





No. No, I was not.

[pancakeboy]

[Ah.] I shouldn't worry too much. Neither was I.

To summarise: at least three of our associates report having encountered it. It plays a "game" with chosen pieces, usually myself and Ren. It grants us our Persona power to that end. It seems it's usually defeated - that is, as long as I'm incompetent enough that Ren survives. [And how, how, how he hates that.] Crow reported a similar being in Inaba when he was younger, which gave him his power. Quite the pattern forming.

The reason I mention it now is that it seems that god may control the public. One of us ultimately exposed Shido. The things he'd done, the person he was. A juicier scandal you couldn't hope to find. He was met with nothing but indifference. Suspicious indifference.

All this leads me to believe your father may not be allowed to confess. Or if he is, it will do nothing.

[rosemaudite]

I see.

That definitely changes the calculus, as well as what may be necessary beyond phase two.

[pancakeboy]

[You have to admire it—the ability to hear the unheard-of, and accept it with just a "hm". Akechi prides himself on it, but something tells him Rose has the edge.]

On top of that, I'm keeping several chickens in my apartment. I feed them several times a day with secretions from a tame viper, that breathes rainbows and frost.

Are you quite impossible to shock?

[rosemaudite]

Who said I wasn't shocked? When you grow up being told that 'emotional outbursts' are unladylike, you get very good at covering it up very quickly. [In that sense, the Metaverse was a godsend - she has license to be a sadistic terror. It's a benefit, not a drawback.]

It's quite a bit to take in, to be sure. It doesn't entirely surprise me that Shido may be aware one of his 'dalliances' has come back to haunt him - it's not as though you take after him in the looks department, after all - but it is useful information, even if I won't be the one deciding exactly what to do with it.

The god business... is something else entirely, but I have no reason to disbelieve you. It's possible my presence on this side of the 'board' has already changed things, but otherwise I don't know what to make of it yet.

[She's going to have to talk to Aspen to draw any true conclusions.]

You'll have to let me know how your chicken husbandry progresses. :)

[pancakeboy]

Truthfully, I can think of nothing I'd rather do less than keep chickens. Talk about literal shit work. Even here, there are eggs in the shops - not that I know one end of an egg from the other.

[Kidding. But really, he doesn't know what to do with an egg. He is ... glad, though, somewhere he's not accustomed to being glad, that she doesn't think he looks like Shido; he often finds himself glancing quickly away from the mirror.]

The long and the short of it is that far more is happening than we know. I thought I was in control, within the limits I know you understand, but all along it seems I was in the dark. [Eating shit, he does not say.] Without an understanding of these hidden players, of course we were always doomed to fail.

[rosemaudite]

I've hardly had the opportunity to learn to cook myself, if for different reasons.

[He doesn't take after Shido. Which means he must look a great deal like his mother, and Haru doubts that Shido is so unobservant that he wouldn't eventually draw the connection, even if he doesn't care about what it means.]

If there's a benefit to this place, then it's that we have these pieces of information now, and a little time to figure out what to do with them.