Fanfic / The Many Quirks of Phantom Thievery

The Many Quirks of Phantom Thievery is an Alternate Universe Persona 5 fanfic written by PsychicBeagle. Initially comprised of several one-shots that depict the interactions of the Phantom Thieves in and out of the Metaverse, it has since evolved into a retelling of the game's plot, with a few Fix Fic elements to alter several contentious story beats and some newly introduced changes as well.

The author has since made two other fanfics which take place in the same world: The Many Quirks of Girlfriend Thievery, which focuses on Makoto and Haru's blossoming relationship, and The Many Quirks of Investigation Teamery, which applies the main fic's premise to the Investigation Team of Persona 4 and has its own page here.

Future projects announced in reviews and Author's Notes include The Many Quirks of SEESery, applying the premise to SEES from Persona 3; incorporating the two PQ games as the Grand Finale to the Quirksverse series; and possibly incorporating Persona 5 Strikers, Persona 4: Arena, and Persona 4: Arena Ultimax.

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This series contains examples of the following tropes:

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Makoto suffers a brief Heroic BSoD in her sister's Palace after stumbling across Sae's cognition of her, though it's not until Girlfriend Thievery that we get a complete picture. Cognitive Makoto is a soulless version of the real thing in a revealing, gaudy golden dress; an obedient doll to be dressed up and put on display, Sae's distorted vision of helping her achieve "success".
• Adaptation Distillation: Many of the actual combat scenes save for a few original to this story are glossed over in favor of portraying character interactions outside of fighting.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Futaba has "Bug", an old nickname that Sojiro and Wakaba used for her. Akira adopts it pretty quickly as her older brother figure.
  • Akira himself has "Kiki", based on stories told by his mother Akari.
• And the Adventure Continues: Wanting to prevent another Yaldabaoth usurpation of the Velvet Room, Akira strikes a deal with Igor to coordinate past Wild Cards and Persona users as backup for any future Persona teams, with Yu signing soon after. Even 10 years later, the Phantom Thieves still continue to operate together alongside the Investigation Team, with no signs of slowing down their battles against whatever crazed deity that gets in their way.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Akira’s parents, only mentioned in canon, are fully fleshed out here.
    • His mother Akari Kurusu loves him dearly, maintains contact during his probation, and visits him in Tokyo a couple of times; she’s a struggling single mother who dealt with depression in the past, but she’s a very strong woman.
    • However, his father, Hibitai Yonada, is the source of all of Akari’s issues for leaving her when she became pregnant. From the moment Futaba finds out how deeply the issues run, she uses her powers to track him down so the Thieves can go after him in Mementos. She finally finds him at the end of Chapter 46, and it turns out that he’s a conscienceless con man; Akari was neither his first victim nor his last.
  • Futaba’s childhood friend Kana and Ann’s best friend (and crush) Shiho get a little more limelight as well.
• Asshole Victim: Sugimura, Haru's fiancé. While all the Phantom Thieves' victims count, he notably doesn't get any on-screen comeuppance in the game for his abusive relationship with Haru beyond the Thieves defeating a Cognitive version of him in Okumura's Palace. This time, he ends up castigating Haru in front of Okumura Foods' vice-president, who immediately terminates their arrangement. Also, by Akira's advice, Makoto harnesses her Persona abilities in the real world, using Johanna's Frei skills to hit Sugimura with 200 rads worth of radiation, enough to cause cancer that can still be treated; she quickly threatens to increase the dosage to a more fatal amount if he continued to harass Haru.
• Bait-and-Switch: After Akira scares Futaba and Kana in the haunted house, he admits that he's expecting Ryuji to come along soon, and Futaba tells him to expect a startle-punch in the nose. True to her words, Ryuji walks out of the house scared out of his wits and Akira walks out with a bloody nose... but Yusuke is the one with sore knuckles.
• Back for the Finale: Kunikazu Okumura isn't killed by Black Mask, but the ordeal leaves him in a coma. After his Shadow is met and freed from the depths of Mementos, he awakens and assists Joker's Confidants in getting some armaments to him during the final battle with Yaldabaoth.
• Battle Couple: Makoto and Haru after the latter awakens her Persona and joins the Thieves. The two of them share enough kisses in the real world, but in the Metaverse, not only do they keep up the love, even Anat and Milady are seen sharing a kiss after they've finished reducing the enemy Shadows to dust.
• Becoming the Mask: During Akechi's time with the Phantom Thieves as Crow before the mission in Sae's Palace, his inner monologue clearly shows him being sucked into their antics and the idea of abandoning his mission crosses his mind... but he ultimately sticks with his plan.
• Berserk Button: Akira is visibly enraged when he finds a room in Futaba's Palace with a hanging noose representing her desire to die, as it reminds him of his own mother's suicide attempt.
• Black Knight: The aesthetic of Thaddeus, Sojiro's Persona. Sojiro also dons this as his thief garb, though visibly more dented.
• Big Damn Heroes: In Yaldabaoth's new world, Mishima was about to be cut down by one of his angels. Athena, Sae's Persona, destroys the angel and heals Mishima.
• The Cameo:
  • In a chapter of Girlfriend Thievery, Makoto suffers a Near-Death Experience taking out the Reaper in Mementos, and ends up being rescued by Makoto Yuki/Minato Arisato from the Sea of Souls.
  • Later chapters show members of the Investigation Team.
    • Naoto catching the fallen documents during Shido's confession (and later using it to get Akira fully exonerated), and her later appearing during Yaldabaoth's attack in assistance of Akira's mother, his Confidants, Sae, and President Okumura.
    • During Akira's prison stay, he gets a visit from a certain Officer Satonaka.
    • And of course, the entire Team meets the Phantoms at the Amagi Inn while the latter were on vacation during the last chapter.
• Car Fu: Makoto's habit of using Johanna to literally run over enemy Shadows a.k.a. the "Battering Ram." Akira wholeheartedly endorses this tactic, and Haru joins in personally later down the line.
• Cardboard Prison: Joker could easily escape from prison with his Persona powers. He only stays because by doing so, the police will not pursue his friends. Learning that his friends are working to get him out legally further encourages him to bear with it until they pull through.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Lampshaded and discussed in Chapter 21:
  Haru: You're all very… casual for having just been in a fight.
  Yusuke: (shrugs, reloading his gun) It was an event the first two, perhaps twenty times. Now, it is simply Tuesday.
  Ann: This job doesn’t have any water coolers, so we have to work in the smalltalk wherever we can, you know?
  Haru: I see, a way to maintain team morale.
• Celibate Hero:
  • Akira. He identifies as asexual, and while he has no problem acting a bit flirtatiously - especially in his "Aka-chan" persona, he doesn't have any intention of pursuing romantic relationships.
  • Yusuke later identifies himself as "graysexual", according to Ann and Futaba, during a round of Truth or Dare.
• Censored for Comedy:
  • In a way, courtesy of Futaba rewriting cognition. While in Okumura's Palace, while cruising across the vacuum tunnels, Akira spouts out a lot of "censor" words thanks to her.
  • Later, while infiltrating Sae's Palace, Akechi is subject to this after annoying Futaba's once too many. At Ryuji's query, she can substitute Crow's words for all sorts of food items, including pancakes.
• Code Name:
  • As per Phantom Thief tradition, Sojiro gets one, and he chooses Boss.
  • During the operation to tail Akechi as he tries to pick up dirt on Akira, some of Akira's Confidants get theirs, too. Lead Lord for Shinya, General for Hifumi, and Soothsayer for Chihaya, with Futaba serving as Cuckoo's Nest/Mother Cuckoo.
• The Corrupter: Yaldabaoth's efforts at this extend as far as impersonating a Persona. As Loki, the Demiurge acts as the devil on Akechi's shoulder, encouraging and enforcing his worst tendencies while suppressing Akechi's more heroic true Persona, Robin Hood.
• Covert Pervert: Akira apparently has no problem with Makoto and Haru making out on his bed, as they always wash the sheets afterward. But it's "averted" since Akira's asexual.
• Deadpan Snarker: Let's just say that Akira very much earns his "Joker" codename here. Borders on Stepford Snarker at times, as a way of coping with his own inner troubles.
• Disgusting Public Toilet: Apparently, Untouchable has one of these, and Iwai doesn't get it cleaned because 1) he finds it disgusting, 2) he fears Akira would quit on the spot if he tasked the kid with it, and 3) to save on the water bill by scaring people away from using it. That's just smart business.
• Driven to Suicide: Akari Kurusu tried to hang herself after her husband abandoned them, but Akira was there to get her down. This is his main drive to be a hero, and this has continued to haunt him.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The author admits to this in the comments on Chapter 60 of Investigation Teamery:
  Psyby: Hoo boy... Yeah, how I write these stories has shifted focus more than a little. If you look at PT-ery's description, it says it's "just a bunch of cool shorts ideas." That was roughly true for the first twenty chapters or so, barring Futaba's extended awakening and Sojiro's part in it. I had some tiny plot divergences sprinkled in to flavor the thing, but for the most part, it was focused on fun vignettes.
  
  Then Akechi happened. Once he appeared and all of the Thieves were present, I decided to extend the focus in order to give his character the story it deserved. Like I said until I was blue in the face back then, Akechi's a good character, but P5 fumbled in demonstrating him, leading to a lot of division in how people felt about him. I took up the torch, and from there, everything around him took on a lot more detail in longer chunks of story.
  
  By the time we got here, to Investigation Teamery, I had fully embraced that longer-verse form of writing, particularly since I've been doing a Thing with Yu from pretty much the beginning. IT-ery is all modeled on the style of writing I adopted from about chapter 20 of PT-ery onwards, and I imagine I'll be sticking with it for the remainder of my Persona work. So, yes, Early Installment Weirdness indeed.
• Engineered Public Confession:
  • In Chapter 6, Akira corners a trio of sexual predators tailing him and Makoto this way. His terms: walk away, forget this happened, and don't bother the ladies in the area, or else the video he's caught goes to the cops. Also, he's sent it to all his friends, with instructions to report it for him should he go missing, so no jumping him later to take it back. They decide to take him on right now instead, but he manages to beat them with a chain, Morgana, and a model gun. In Chapter 54, it turns out that he sent the video anyway, and when one of the thugs he put in prison tries to kill Okumura, he stops him, terrifyingly.
  • Later on, Sugimura marches into Leblanc to cuss out Haru for cheating on her with Makoto and calls her a dyke in public... not noticing that Vice-President Takakura of Okumura Foods is present in the café, who immediately decides that a business relationship with Sugimura is not in the company's best interests.
• Enemy Without: Courtesy of Akechi forcibly tearing off Joker's mask as opposed to Joker doing it himself, he inadvertently severs the ties between Akira and Arsene, allowing the latter to lash out at the "Detective Prince" with nothing to hold him back. Thankfully, his friends were able to pull him back to Akira before he could murder Akechi, and he calmed down after fusing once more.
• Fainting Seer: More than once, Chihaya the fortune teller has had readings that left her babbling cryptic prophecies and then passing out.
• Fastball Special: Dealing with Cognitive Wakaba in Futaba's Palace this time around involves Joker shooting himself at the sphinx with the ballista to get the drop on her.
• Fighting Your Friend: The confrontation with fake Igor in the Velvet Room has him command Arsene (who was truthfully a fake created by Yaldabaoth) against Akira and Robin Hood. Subverted, though: Arsene was just acting; he may have been Yaldabaoth's creation, but the Trickster's influence overpowered the God of Control's.
• For Want Of A Nail: The following changes occur that diverge from canon.
  • Because Akira actually talks with Morgana about his usefulness issues, the whole subplot where he briefly ditches them doesn't occur.
  • Haru joins the group earlier courtesy of Makoto getting attracted to her, though she starts out as a Secret-Keeper. She shortly joins the team when the time comes to target her father.
  • Sojiro is not only let in on the loop sooner (it "helps" that he got accidentally sucked into Futaba's Palace), he also becomes a Persona-user (Thaddeus).
  • Akira's mother comes over and also becomes a Secret-Keeper.
  • Shadow Okumura doesn't get assassinated by Akechi thanks to the Phantoms' intervention. Almost averted when Akechi gets to land a shot (with a real bullet, rendering Dia skills useless against healing them) even as he was pulled out of reach by a rocket. To prevent a real-world assassination after that, Kunikazu was then transferred to a hospital (the shot resulted in him passing out) and under protection courtesy of Yoshida pulling some strings, though he's still left in a coma.
  • Thankfully averted even when Akira passes out from the drugs before he can make the deal with Sae, since Arsene was there to do it in his stead.
  • Sae visits her Palace to confront her Shadow, and by the end of it gains the Persona Athena, and it's distinct in that she doesn't get a Thief outfit due to the method she gets it (i.e. the same way the Investigation Team sans Yu got theirs).
  • Sadly averted in regards to Akechi's fate. And this time, we read what happens on the other side, and he explicitly dies.
  • In place of the drama of seemingly losing Ryuji and the girls beating his ass after leaving the Palace on the lifeboat he secured, with the power of cognition, he was able to manifest his own ship for everyone instead, though he admits it's because his Seiten Taisei used to be Captain Kidd.
  • Another aversion: despite Shido working with the Phantom Thieves to help confess his crimes, the grip from the Conspiracy and Yaldabaoth is too tight. The TV Stations either don't believe his confession or fear that a lynch mob will come down on them.

• Foreshadowing: During one of Chihaya's readings while Ohya was observing her, one fortune revealed the following cards: The Fool, Chariot, Magician, Lovers, Emperor, Priestess, Hermit, Hierophant, and Empress. At first glance, you'd recognize the Arcanas representing each of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts... and Sojiro's right between Futaba's and Haru's. And there's also the vision that she experienced as she turned the next card (Justice in reverse) that resulted in her passing out.
• Give Me a Sword: Midway through the final battle, a crate full of new, more powerful cognitive weapons are launched all the way to where the Thieves are battling Yaldabaoth, Iwai's best work, paid for by President Okumura, launched by Shinya's pinpoint accuracy.
• Gone Horribly Right: Akechi succeeds in tearing off Joker's mask - but this only frees Arsene, the embodiment of Akira's rage, to attack him without Akira's no-killing conscience holding him back.
• Groin Attack: Futaba delivers one to the Shadow of Akira's deadbeat father, who made Akari a struggling single mother and Akira a Heroic Bastard.
• Group Hug: Or "Operation Hug a Lug" as Futaba puts it. Ryuji, Ann, Futaba, Yusuke, and Morgana give one to Akira after he admits his insecurities and hidden desire to lash out at the world for the hurt it had caused him.
• Heroic Bastard: In this continuity, Akira is one of these. And apparently, so is Futaba.
• Heroic BSoD: Even after stealing Kamoshida's Treasure, Akira, Ann, and Ryuji all have trouble sleeping the following night from the leftover trauma the whole ordeal has put them through. On a more positive spin, this all allows them to bare themselves to each other when Ann calls for a sleepover at her place, leading to the formal formation of the Phantom Thieves in this continuity and the solidification of their bond.
• Hollywood Atheist: Akechi, due to his terrible childhood, not helped by his mother fervently and futilely praying to Him. As far as he's concerned, God is utterly useless when it mattered at best and a more horrid con artist than Shido at worst.
• Honey Trap: To get one of the letters of recommendation in Shido's Palace, Makoto dresses in a swimsuit to get his attention, allowing Haru and her grenade launcher to get the drop on him.
• Human Ladder: The Phantom Thieves form a couple to vandalize the massive statues in Kamoshida and Madarame's Palaces.
• I Call It "Vera": Sojiro has an old rifle he calls Ebony, which he breaks out come the Heist on Shido's Palace. Futaba was surprised that he managed to hide that from her until now.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Shinya's shooting skills prove really useful in taking out Yaldabaoth's forces attacking him, Kaoru, Iwai, and Hifumi before the rest of the Confidants, Akari, and Sae join up with them.
• In Love with Your Carnage: The first time Haru awakens Milady and practically dismembers Cognitive Sugimura with her axe single-handedly - while still retaining her fluffy personality - the Phantom Thieves are in awe. Makoto is so enthralled that she's completely catatonic.
• Incompatible Orientation: Discussed a bit in that while Akira is pretty comfortable in his asexuality and the other Thieves accept it as part of their strong friendships with him, Ann does note that Akira is pretty much "the perfect boyfriend" and would be perfectly willing to date him alongside Shiho, owing to his strong cooking skills, supportive nature and willingness to physically defend anyone in a tight pinch. Akira's no exception to this as well; he singles out Makoto as the one teammate he'd be willing to date because of her similarly strong personality... in addition to enjoying the possiblity of flustering her at any given notice.
• Innocently Insensitive: To Ryuji, making cat jokes about Morgana is on the same level as Morgana making monkey jokes about him, but to Morgana, it's poking fun at his lack of humanity the same way poking fun about Ryuji's bum leg would be. Once Morgana makes that clear, Ryuji apologizes and stops the cat jokes.
• Intoxication Ensues: The antidote to the experimental truth serum given to him leaves Akira more than a little loopy for a while after.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Akira is asexual, but he admits to the other thieves that if any of them wanted to pursue a relationship with him, he’d probably say yes for this reason. Ann, for her part, does like him that way, second only to Shiho, but knowing that he'd say yes for this reason, she feels like she would be manipulating him for asking him.
• Like Brother and Sister: Akira and Futaba. Both actively refer to each other as brother and sister later in the story to drive home how much they treat each other like family.
• Lower-Deck Episode: A few chapters feature only the Confidants, the last one of them featuring them surviving the changed world mandated by Yaldabaoth with help from Sae (as a Persona-user), Akari, and a guest star appearance from Naoto.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: When the story's climax has the Metaverse merging into the real world, many of Akira's Confidants take up arms to defend against Yaldabaoth's attacks. Akari Kurusu, for her part, goes full Rambo with her son's entire stash of weaponry.
• Magical Profanity Filter: While in the Metaverse, Futaba can use her Persona's hacking powers to replace the words her teammates say with other words. She uses this as a Gag Censor - though she can apply it to any word, and not just swearing.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: During the Phantom Thieves' theme park trip, it's arranged for the Tunnel of Love to be shut down for Makoto and Haru to share an intimate moment inside it. And later, Ann and Shiho have a moment too.
• Mama Bear: Akari Kurusu says it best, with a dash of Extremely Protective Child for mutual feeling:
  Akari: Let me put it like this. If someone puts a Kurusu in the ground, they had best be prepared to put the other in jail if they plan on living to brag about it.
• Mathematician's Answer:
  Futaba: Sojiro, Mona, and me were listening in. It's a unanimous yes on our end. Also, he says to watch your language.
  Akira: Sojiro, Mona, or you?
  Futaba: Yes.
• Mid-Battle Tea Break: Akira and Haru have one of these (with coffee) whilst keeping Mara out with Tetrakarn. Once he manages to break through, the latter responds by chopping the demon to bits before resuming the break.
• My Defense Need Not Protect Me Forever: Shido is wailing on Sojiro/Boss and cracking his aegis bit by bit. Then his opponent reveals he was buying time for Joker to unlock Robin Hood as a Persona and the tables quickly turn.
• Mythology Gag: While Makoto is tailing Akira into a bookstore, among his purchases are (besides Konosuba) a yellow one featuring a group of teens solving supernatural crimes in a foggy small town with the aid of an amusement park bear suit. It also has a video game version. Crosses over into Recursive Fiction when characters from Persona 4 start making appearances.
• Nightmare Sequence: At the start of the chapter Lost, Akechi suffers one of these.
• Official Couple: Makoto and Haru, so much so that one of the main spin-offs focuses exclusively on their relationship.
• Papa Wolf: Sojiro is dragged into the heist for Futaba's heart, eventually gaining his own Persona in the process.
  • When news came of Akira's "suicide", since he was kept in the dark on the details of the plan in order to not look suspicious to Akechi, Sojiro was all but ready to head into Sae's Palace and wreak vengeance. And when he heard Sae at the door before he opened it to see Akira with her, he was planning to drag her with him to the SIU Headquarters and show her how corrupt she'd become.
  • He also joins the Phantom Thieves as a semi-formal member near the end of the Shido arc.
  • Played for Laughs when Futaba jokingly declares that she "loves" her "big brother" Akira. He quickly panics and asks her to shut up, stating that Sojiro would kill him if he did anything to Futaba.
• Perspective Flip: After nulling the arrangements between Sugimura and Okumura Foods, Makoto still isn't satisfied, so she pursues him as Queen and uses her magic to irradiate him. In Chapter 25 of the main work, the perspective centers on Sugimura to underline him finally getting his dues. In Chapter 9 of Girlfriend Thievery, however, we see it from Makoto's perspective: she hadn't planned to give him cancer, she had planned to kill him before she caught herself. For all the poise she shows Sugimura, she enters My God, What Have I Done? territory and requires both Akira and Haru to talk her down from her guilt.
• Pull the Thread: During when Igor is demanding that Caroline and Justine execute Akira for failing his mission, Justine asks her master to do one thing first: show her the Compendium's entry on Loki. Igor immediately gets defensive, but Justine already knows what she'd see: a winged humanoid that looks nothing like Akechi's Persona, which clues her in that something has changed the Persona into something different.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Arsene manifesting through Akira gives Sae an in-depth look at what her Palace says about her corrupt mentality and how much Akira despises people like that - but it's also Akira that keeps him from doing anything rash.
• Red Baron: At least according to Shido's Shadow, Sojiro used to be called Deadeye Sakura back when he worked for Isshiki's lab (though he reportedly never killed anyone; just made sure they "never walked back into the lab on their own two feet"). The politician had even tried and failed to bribe him out of working for her once.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As Makoto first notices, the Phantom Thieves calling on a bit of their Personas in the real world cause their eyes to flash red. This also extends to when they invoke their Personas' actual powers in the real world.
• Running Gag: The Phantom Thieves' instinct to deface something while in a Palace. Doesn't actually matter in the end since the Palaces get destroyed when a Treasure is stolen, but all the founding members (except Mona) get a kick out of it the most. Not even the pyramid is exempt, but it's more of a heartwarming message given whose Palace it is.
• Secret-Keeper: Because Haru is introduced to the team way earlier as Makoto's girlfriend, she eventually becomes this when they reveal themselves as the Phantom Thieves to protect her from Sugimura, at least before she attains her own Persona.
  • Akari, Akira's mother, joins the fold after revealing she already has an idea of what's going on. Though it's not until a heart to heart with her son where his powers accidentally manifest that she's confided to.
  • As of the Delinquents in Destinyland chapter, Shiho and Kana^note Futaba's friend only mentioned in her Confidant route are let in on the loop as well, having been able to figure out the pattern for themselves.
• Serial Escalation: Akira and Haru bench-pressing other people.
  • Haru goes from just bench-pressing Makoto, to bench-pressing Makoto while she bench-presses Futaba.
  • Akira goes from bench-pressing a reluctant Ryuji, to bench-pressing a burly prisoner while in jail, to bench-pressing nearly every prisoner in the cellblock at once.
• Shout-Out:
  • There are several subtle references to the same source regarding Sojiro and his new Persona Thaddeus. Firstly, he helps manage the group's hangout and retreat as the Team Dad. Secondly, both Thaddeus and his rebel's outfit are Black (or rather "Dark") Knights. Lastly, Thaddeus's name is a reference to Franchise/Batman's quintessential Battle Butler, Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth.
  • In Chapter 27, a bodybuilder asks Akira what Haru’s secret is when he sees her bench-pressing Makoto. Akira answers, “Pushups, sit-ups, and plenty of juice.”
  • While exploring a haunted mansion attraction with Futaba, Kana laments not having played "that Freddy's game" sooner to help prepare for this.
  • Supposedly, there's a Jacksepticeye joke during the evolution of Sojiro's Persona to Osiris (which he only reveals later) as he says, "The Boss is back."
  • Futaba and Akira do a little Star Wars reference after the former claimed the fourth letter of introduction to the Medjed impersonators. A little Squick ensues when the two realize Futaba just called Akira Master after he called her Padawan. Sojiro tells his daughter to never do it again. An earlier one might have occurred with Haru's confrontation of her father's collaborator when she levitated the slot machines in the casino area.
  • During a game of Truth or Dare, Akira "bribes" Futaba's to joining in on Makoto and Haru's dare with a Limited Edition gold-plated Phoenix Zord model kit.
  • During the confrontation with Akechi at Shido's Palace, Skull calls him a "two bit Agent 47".
• Slumber Party:
  • The original members of the Phantom Thieves have one after Kamoshida's change of heart, trying to come to terms with the events.
  • The Phantoms have one at the Niijima residence (by this point, Sae is in on the loop and has granted permission). There's the usual fare such as Truth or Dare, though Spin the Bottle was skipped due to three of their members in a relationship (all the girls sans Futaba) and one being Everyone's Baby Sister (Futaba).
• Stating the Simple Solution: After the Phantom Thief Human Ladder used to deface Kamoshida's statue, Ryuji notices Morgana on the rafters above and comments it would've been easier to rappel down from them.
• Unusual Euphemism: Futaba using the phrase "Damp ham sandwich" to refer to an aroused Makoto (which is most times around Haru).
• Victor Gains Loser's Powers: The Thieves' final confrontation with Akechi has Joker steal his Crow mask right off his face. Later on, Joker brings it to Caroline and Justine, and with their help, he is able to communicate with the remnants of Akechi's psyche and obtain Robin Hood as his own Persona.
• What a Drag: Black Mask clashes with the Phantom Thieves at the end of completing Okumura's Palace, and in the middle of the scuffle, Joker uses Arsene's chains to shackle Black Mask to one of the spaceships, seconds before launch. You can guess what happens next.
• What You Are in the Dark:
  • When Akira first awakened Arsene, he had Cognitive Kamoshida trapped behind bars, and both himself and Arsene were fully willing to kill him right then and there. However, when they heard Ryuji in trouble, Akira immediately broke off to save him. Even later, after beating Kamoshida's Shadow, Akira and Arsene were fully expecting Ann to kill him herself, and when she chose to spare him instead, they argued for quite a while afterward trying to make sense of it.
  • Admitting this to Akechi after they beat him in the depths of Shido's Palace also cements the not so different idea between them, as well as cementing Akira's lesson that they're stronger than Akechi because they control their rage and fight for the betterment of the downtrodden, instead of Akechi letting his rage and desire for revenge control him.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: As part of his late-night shift at Crossroads, Akira learns to pull off dressing like a girl too well, even using his new identity as "Aka-chan" to mess with Ryuji and Ohya at different times. He eventually manages to get the most of the team (except Ryuji, Futaba, and Sojiro) to adopt crossdressing personalities as well, leading to the creation of "Andre", "Harumi", and "Mako". Morgana is also forced into a Hello Kitty-esque dress, and he doesn't enjoy it a single bit. Yu has no problem indulging in this as well, making him bond with Akira real quick. Akira even uses it to keep tabs on Akechi, as not even the so-called "Detective Prince" can recognize his rival Disguised in Drag.
• X Called; They Want Their Y Back: When Futaba's thief costume is revealed, Skull makes this joke:
  TRON called, they want their fashion sense back!
• Your Mind Makes It Real: The Phantom Thieves learn that they can use some of their Persona abilities in the real world to varying degrees. Akira himself is able to manifest his Joker attire when confronted by his mother. By the end of the fic, Morgana can even turn into his vehicle form in the real world.

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