Persona Shitposting

(picks up microphone) goro akechi is hated very little for the character he is and moreso for the things he stands for.

part of the reason goro akechi is such a vilified character despite being a very common anime trope of young/child hitmen/villains is because he's heavily gay-coded in a series that, to this day, is heavily homophobic and transphobic, and has many homophobic and transphobic fans. if goro was a woman or was written as straight, he would be just as popular and loved as any other character of his trope, something that has been literally stated by those who actively hate goro (yes, i have screenshots for that).

furthermore, smt fans (and really, anime fans in general) seem to have very little to no grasp on how abuse works, or even outright hate abused characters for not being the buff, womanizing 'man's man' of the week cishet men look for in anime. this is why shido, his abuser, is also seen as not at fault - and, furthermore, why rapist-murderer adachi is so popular among goro haters despite ALSO not having a good motivation for murder.

finally, in a more specific example, goro is the only character in persona 5 who actively wishes to ruin his abuser - this doesn't make him a bad person, it makes him a survivor. that's how we feel, oftentimes, and that anger never really goes away. this does tie in to my second point, but generally speaking i feel its telling that NONE of the other thieves are vilified for their anger - not ryuji or ann, who wished to kill kamoshida. not yusuke, who, in a fit of anger, wished misfortune on madarame. not haru, who openly sympathizes with goro for his anger at how the world has treated him. only goro, the strongest gay-coded character and the only one to harbor such a strong anger (and a well-deserved one, at that.)

this all stems from the inherent lack of understanding of abuse victims, and, paratially, the cishetmormativity of anime fans that, to this day, runs rampant. welcome to my ted FUCKING talk

Sojiro’s not even here to defend himself

Whe he-

When-

Here's the problem with people asking, "Why couldn't Akechi just quit?" First and foremost, he's only powerful in the Metaverse. Shido controls the law. Shido controls the police. Shido has his cleaner. The very moment Akechi signed on with Shido as a fifteen year old, he was trapped, chained, and any moment of rebellion would turn him into a fugitive if he was lucky. Second, even if he quit, who would he turn to back then? He had no allies and started off as a fifteen year old who had probably been booted out of the system (IIRC, you are left to your own devices once you hit 15 in Japan if you don't have an existing guardian). Sure, he could run away and hide in Mementos, but he'd basically be left to hide from the law without any means to protect himself and without any allies to turn to. He could make connections, maybe, but when society had repeatedly crushed his spirit and treated him like shit, he had no reason to believe it'd work. By the time he met Joker, someone who was willing to just be around him, listen, and just let him be at least a little more true to himself, it was too late because he had blood on his hands, was going to have to turn against the Thieves and thus Joker, and it was all a "sacrifice" he would have to make for a plan that was never going to work. A plan made by a broken fifteen year old who had nothing but a false god's "blessings" to give him even a semblance of power in a world where he had been nothing but powerless. And to ignore this aspect of Goro Akechi is to ignore the message the game was trying to convey the entire time. The Phantom Thieves acknowledge his role as a victim- Shido's greatest victim, in fact. They do so without condoning what he did, but also with an understanding that any one of them could have become him. Akechi is a foil to the Thieves in the truest sense, a combination of the individual themes each Phantom Thief represents, stripped of the unity that allowed them each to find power and comradery.

And the greatest tragedy is that the game was rigged against him from the start. He was always chosen to be an agent of chaos by Yaldabaoth, to be alone, angry, and carve a path of destruction. But at one point, he was a traumatized child in a society that condemned him for the circumstances of his birth, which he could not control.

unwanted child [ sticker sheet ]

Things I’ve seen people call 2/2

- shuake day

- your boyfriend is actually dead day

- Akechi euthanasia day

- gay christmas

- small potatoes day

- big day for annoying people

in spirit of finally reaching the third semester in my p5r playthrough, you may have these

I like yusuke, he's cool ;)

sweeter poisons

raison d’etre + sushi = profit

待ち合わせ

hello everyone i drew goro akechi today