Pre-Game Timeline

[promiselisting]

I have been struggling to put together an exact timeline of the events in the two years prior to the game. So I'm. Going to put together all the hints we get from dialogue to try to... I dunno. Something. This is very rough and not fancily designed or anything. Maybe I'll get there eventually.

P5 Spoilers are a given.

Italicized dates are factual/confirmable (technically the 20XX=2016 isn't confirmed but it's what we're going with in Melodies so w/e). Others are headcanon/inference

August 21, 2014 - Wakaba Isshiki's death

February 19, 2015 - Futaba's 14th birthday

August 21, 2015 - First anniversary of Wakaba's death

February 19th, 2016 - Futaba's 15th birthday

April 9, 2016 - The start of the timeline for Persona 5. Joker arrives in Tokyo for his probation

August 21, 2016 - MedJed Deadline for the Purge, 2nd anniversary of Wakaba's death, Futaba fully wakes up from her Palace excursion and leaves Sojiro's house for the first time in months.


Vaguer timeframes:

• It's really hard to tell at what point exactly Sojiro got custody of Futaba but it's looking like it was somewhere in the timeframe of her 14th birthday??? Possibly sooner? She was clearly there by summer 2015 (Sojiro is able to comment on how she dealt poorly with the summer heat then) and it was definitely before she finished school too, because she mentions Sojiro doing stuff like making bento for her for field trips and such. However, depending which year she finished school in, if it's 2015 that gives like a less-than-six-month timeframe that she spent with her relatives before Sojiro picked her up which seems really short.
  
• Late Winter/Early Spring 2015 (2016???) - Futaba finishes middle school
  
  • Japanese school systems start their school years in early April and end in March-ish.
    
  • At one point she and Sojiro talk about how she finished middle school "last year," which I'm assuming meant the year before 2016, because otherwise she would have been wrapping up middle school right around the same time/not too long before Joker was arriving, and it's implied she's been a shut-in for much longer than that. The neighbors don't even realize there's a second person living at Sojiro's house.
    
  • The only major flaw here is this would put her a year ahead most of her peers, since she's the same age as a typical high school first year in canon/a year younger than the second year students. Given her intelligence level though, it's not impossible.
    
  • Alternately, considering there is around a month long break between the end of the previous and the start of the new school year, it's possible???? Maybe Sojiro drove her to school? It would mean she wasn't as visible around the neighborhood perhaps, and he would've done it for her I think.

Comments

Random misc. headcanons

[promiselisting]

I personally headcanon that the Isshiki family, overall, was very very traditional. Which unfortunately in Japanese society, means very sexist, and not in Wakaba's favor.

• This would have accentuated Youji Isshiki's jealousy of his sister once his metaverse shit got kicked off, because not only was she very successful and intelligent, she was able to be so with very little support from their parents, compared to himself.
  
• I've also headcanoned that Wakaba and Futaba were not particularly close with the rest of their family at all, given that Futaba and Sojiro barely mention them at all, and only in the context of their abuse. Not to mention that they seem to have no trouble or doubts about villifying Futaba for her mother's death, and Sojiro seems much more able to see how much Wakaba adored her daughter. A traditional family's disapproval of a single mother raising a child on her own with no trace of the father anywhere would certainly explain a lot of this.
  
• Also from what Argent said, being seen as a fatherless bastard child in general is a HUGE GIGANTIC SHAME in Japanese society with a massive amount of stigma attached, so if Wakaba's parents/extended family had seen Futaba that way (whether everyone else did or not), that would have made shit worse for her, poor kid.

Until someone can actually show me the line of dialogue/interview/etc. that Futaba's hair is actually black, her hair is naturally that color. Although I tend to lean more towards the character model color, which seems to imply more Weasley-reddish and even seems more red-brown in shade, as opposed to NEON ORANGE that's in the cutscenes

I also headcanon that the lab that Wakaba worked for was either the Kirijo Group or the Nanjo Group. Because really, what other groups do we know of that would take Metaverse research that seriously? Probably the latter, given the P4A/AU stuff seems to imply pretty heavily that Mitsuru would be trying to keep an eye on shit like this going on in her own backyard; also VG pointed out that the Kirijo group seems to be focused more in the Tatsumi Port Island area. I am currently basically adopting this as my headcanon until canon actually says something to disprove it d('-'d) Give me P5 Arena, Atlus. You fools. You cowards.

cw: suicidal inclinations/ideation
A lot of the stuff in the wikis claims that Futaba was suicidal and I think that while there's a grain of truth there the issue is more complex than that. She did think she deserved to die yeah, and her cognition clearly displayed that she thought she was going to die trapped in Sojiro's house. But there's some conflicting ideas there, it honestly feels like? Like the implications that she knew and was acting on the truth the whole time but couldn't consciously acknowledge it (searching for her mother's research, especially). I dunno.

So overall my ultimate headcanon is that she'd reached a point with her hallucinations/tormented memories that was similar to Shiho had with Kamoshida - she didn't want to die. But she was reaching her breaking point and would have done anything to stop it. Points in this headcanon's favor: she does mention, right before going into her palace, that she "can't take this anymore." Thankfully, unlike Shiho, the Phantom Thieves were an option she could turn to first.

WAKABA'S CURRY RECIPE

[promiselisting]

When you cook curry the game gives you all kinds of info about ingredients in curry (the curry's version of Sojiro's tips about coffee beans) and since the recipe Sojiro teaches the protag is Wakaba's recipe I'm assuming these are the ingredients she uses. SO. I'M RECORDING THE INGREDIENTS AS I GET THEM.

So far:

• Apple (grated, shaved)
  
• Honey
  
• Yogurt
  
• Steak sauce
  
• Chocolate (very tiny amounts)
  
• Coffee (instant/powdered, not too much, add slowly)