History Fanfic / StartAgain

** Yosuke painting a portal to the Metaverse is very similar to how [[VideoGame/Persona2 the Demon Painter painted a door to the Velvet Room]].

** [[spoiler: Wakaba]] has Hypatia, an ancient Egyptian philosopher, for their Persona.

* LesserOfTwoEvils: Madarame. His neglect and plagiarism of Yusuke and his other students is unquestionably cruel and unfair, but compared to the other problems the Phantom Thieves have to deal with, which include a renegade Metaverse assassin, a violent sexual predator, a mob boss, the sociopathic leader of a GovernmentConspiracy, and [[spoiler:Hifumi's mother]], [[AdaptationalVillainy whose toxic behavior is rapidly escalating]] due to [[ButterflyOgDoom Yusuke's accidental actions causing changes in the timeline]], his cruelty is at least stable and predictable, and Yusuke's own actions have butterflied away the worst of the damage. Therefore, dealing with him is fairly low on the Phantom Thieves' to-do list.

''[[https://archiveofourown.org/series/914673 Start Again]]'' is a ''VideoGame/Persona5'' PeggySue SeriesFic by [[https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scedasticity/pseuds/Scedasticity Scedasticity]], having each of the Phantom Thieves trying to fix the future on their own without any way of knowing if all of their comrades remember. This leads to several cases of ForWantOfANail that turn several important things on their heads. It will, of course, contain spoilers for the main game.

* LesserOfTwoEvils: Madarame. His neglect and plagiarism of Yusuke and his other students is unquestionably cruel and unfair, but compared to the other problems the Phantom Thieves have to deal with, which include a renegade Metaverse assassin, a violent sexual predator, a mob boss, the sociopathic leader of a GovernmentConspiracy, and [[spoiler:Hifumi's mother]], [[AdaptationalVillainy whose toxic behavior is rapidly escalating]] due to [[ForWantOfANail Yusuke's accidental actions causing changes in the timeline]], his cruelty is at least stable and predictable, and Yusuke's own actions have butterflied away the worst of the damage. Therefore, dealing with him is fairly low on the Phantom Thieves' to-do list.

* ForWantOfANail: Or more accurately, for want of ''many'' nails:
** Haru uses Goro to acquire the [=MetaNav=] app and convinces him to work with her and Makoto in exchange for information. Not only does she steal her father's heart when his twisted desires were starting (keeping him from joining the Conspiracy), [[spoiler:but she also stops Goro from joining the Conspiracy as well, deciding their assistance was better]].
** Thanks to Haru's suggestion, Akechi learns how to gain more Personas.
** Futaba is warned about the threat towards her mother by a note from Morgana (and her own half-memories) and bugs Wakaba's phone just in case. [[spoiler:Without Goro]], the Conspiracy tries to kill Wakaba through the real world and frame it as an overdose, only for Futaba to overhear the confrontation and tell Sojiro, who rushes to Wakaba and gets her into the hospital in time. [[spoiler:This ultimately results in Wakaba surviving, and joining the Thieves as Archive.]]
** [[spoiler:Without either Goro's powers or Wakaba's cognitive psience research, the Conspiracy attempts to learn to use Mementos by tossing teenagers into the other world, with Shujin Academy as one of their sources. This directly leads to Shiho and Mishima gaining their own Personas, and the complicit Principal Kobayakawa undergoing a change of heart]]. In addition, [[spoiler:without a mental shutdown-inducing assassin, the Conspiracy has to use more mundane methods of dealing with their targets. It's mentioned in passing that a politician who originally died of a mental shutdown was instead killed in a 'car accident'.]]
** The Thieves setting Sae on the path to investigate corruption in her workplace leads to [[spoiler:Makoto being attacked by Kaneshiro.]] The Thieves' response to that ends in [[spoiler:Kaneshiro getting arrested over a year early.]]
** Hifumi actually standing up to her mother (repeatedly) leads to the woman going from a Mementos denizen to a Palace ruler.

* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Actually averted with [[spoiler:Akechi]] and the members of the original Phantom Thieves (Haru, Futaba, Yusuke, Makoto) who remember the old timeline. While there is some occasional abrasiveness, it has nothing to do with Akechi's actions from the original timeline, and they are mostly able to cooperate and coordinate with each other without problems. Futaba outright states that she doesn't hold Future Evil Akechi's actions against the new timeline Goro, and Goro himself regards "Future Evil Akechi" [[FutureMeScaresMe with contempt and considers him a psycho]].

* PartyScattering: A variant. The Phantom Thieves are sent back to the past in Tokyo (with the exception of Akira, who would be in his home town), but they arrive at different moments in the past.

* AscendedExtra: Hifumi, Shiho, Mishima, [[spoiler:and Wakaba]] all become Phantom Thieves.

* UnwittingTestSubject: [[spoiler:The Conspiracy has been drugging high school students and sending them into the Mementos. Of course, one of their potential subjects ends up being Ryuji]].

* LesserOfTwoEvils: Madarame. His neglect and plagiarism of Yusuke and his other students is unquestionably cruel and unfair, but compared to the other problems the Phantom Thieves have to deal with, which include a renegade Metaverse assassin, a violent sexual predator, a mob boss, the sociopathic leader of a GovernmentConspiracy, and [[spoiler:Hifumi's mother]], [[AdaptationalVillainy whose toxic behavior is rapidly escalating]] due to [[ForWantOfANail Yusuke's accidental actions causing changes in the timeline]], his cruelty is at least stable and predictable. Therefore, dealing with him is fairly low on the Phantom Thieves' to-do list.

%%* UncannyValley: InUniverse, Madarame finds Yusuke's self-portrait of himself (which he based off his cognitive self from Madarame's Palace) as a painting deeply unsettling due to its resemblance to how he himself sees Yusuke as a means of profit. He even refuses to plagiarize it and tells Yusuke that it's personal to the latter and should keep it hidden in his room.

* AdaptationalIntelligence: Ryuji displays this in his story. He is still somewhat brash in nature (and fully aware of it), but when he discovers that he is thrust back into the past in November (before starting Shujin) without the other members of the Phantom Thieves to support or even contact, he starts thinking and planning things out more carefully, and also tries to be as discreet as possible so that he can try and save Shiho and Ann from Kamoshida while minimizing negative attention to himself. Ryuji's mother compliments him on his maturity with regards to how he's approaching the problem of Kamoshida, and Futaba is shocked that Ryuji has known since November and managed to avoid telling anyone else.