Persona V: Reversing the Wheel of Fate is an Alternate Universe/Peggy Sue Fan Fiction. It contains elements from Persona 5: Royal as well as Persona 5 Strikers.
The original author is RainthelingeringSentiment. After Chapter 30, Rain retired from fan fiction and gave his stories to younger cousin CaptainBluestheProtoBreakman. Starting in Chapter 48, Blues took a break from writing, and his sister VioletTheCutieReaper took over the story. At present, she is the main writer.
Ren Amamiya, leader of the Phantom Thieves, dies at Goro Akechi's hands in the interrogation room. In a brief limbo, the butterfly that had encouraged him from the beginning prods the unshakeable sense of justice in his heart, and he seizes upon it before awakening on the train to Yongen-Jaya at the beginning of his probation.
Not your typical time travel fic, as Joker's memories of the past are dormant and rarely surface; the only ones aware of the time travel are the Thieves' Shadows/Personas and their confidants' Shadows/Personas, and they don't seem particularly inclined to explain. Lots of pairings, many of them unusual.
It can be found on FanFiction.Net
and Archive of Our Own. note
Tropes contained in Persona V: Reversing the Wheel of Fate:
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Zenkichi Hasegawa makes an appearance as Sae’s partner sometime after the Kamoshida arc, more than a year earlier than his first appearance in Strikers.
- Adaptational Intelligence: The Phantom Thieves' jaded outlook makes them more aware of false statements due to their history with Kamoshida, giving them a reason to not trust Madarame.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Sojiro, for whatever reason, is a lot warmer from the outset. Possibly due to his Shadow's influence, but that's yet to be seen.
- Adaptational Villainy: In canon, Kamoshida constantly abused students verbally, physically, and sexually and is all but confirmed to have raped Shiho, and never faces any consequences for it. Here? He's extorted sexual favors from plenty of others, including Shiho's mother, and he tried to have Ren killed.
- All-Loving Hero: A cornerstone of Ren's character is that he's always someone that can be relied on, something that he refuses to abandon even after Shido retaliates and strips him of everything.
- Ascended Extra: Shiho becomes Lioness, the fifth Phantom Thief, and it's all but stated that Hifumi will be one as well in the future.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: The Pixie that becomes Ren's first additional Persona joins him after he goes out of his way to ensure that she gets healed from Ann torturing her.
- Big Damn Heroes: Frequent.
- When Kamoshida is about to rape Shiho, Morgana claws at his face to give her the opening to run (along with Ren pulling the fire alarm).
- When Shiho falls off the roof, Haru arrives to help Ann and Ryuji pull her back up.
- In a flashback, when a group of thugs was going to attack Sumire in Ren's hometown, he shows up and they immediately back off.
- Bonus Dungeon: It's confirmed that there will be one of these at some point. It’s heavily implied that it's Akane Hasegawa's Palace, with said character working alongside their Shadow.
- The Cameo: During the Madarame arc, there happens to be a girl saved by Makoto and Eiko known as Tsubasa Oribe
- Cruel to Be Kind: The protagonists' Shadows push this trope to the breaking point, better resembling The Corrupter. What they're trying to do with their constant taunts and insults is coerce their other selves into standing up to them and Awakening to their dormant power. But as in Persona 4, it's extremely hard to face yourself, and the more that their true selves deny them, the more hostile the Shadows become. The most extreme examples thus far are Shiho's shadow forcing her suicide attempt when she was about to step down and Yusuke's shadow ruining his latest picture that Madarame was going to plagiarize.
- Driven to Suicide: Shiho's Shadow actively encourages this of her, to the point of yanking her off the roof when she's about to accept Ann talking her down.
- Dumbass Has a Point: As harsh as Ryuji was, he made a very good point that Haru shouldn’t hide the fact that she had a shadow the whole time, especially since Shiho’s nearly forced her to commit suicide.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Aside from his parents, the one whose betrayal hurt Ren the most was that of his first girlfriend, Sumire Yoshizawa. She reveals in Chapter 29 that her parents forced her to do it, with a threat that something bad would happen to her father if she refused.
- Healing Factor: Persona users heal supernaturally quickly from injuries, even in the real world.
- In Spite of a Nail: Played straight twice, then subverted at the last minute: Ren's memory of the future past is sparse, but he sees enough of Shiho's erstwhile fate that he assigns Morgana to shadow Shiho, which allows him to save her from Kamoshida's attempted rape. But she's still Driven to Suicide from the attempt. Ann and Ryuji head to the roof, and they manage to talk her down from jumping. But her Shadow yanks her over the edge. Ann manages to catch her, and Ryuji and Haru catch Ann.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique:
- Flashbacks to the old timeline show this in Ren’s interrogation after getting captured. His only response is endless snark.
- This also happened after Shido had him arrested: they beat him badly for telling the truth and not confessing, and he held out long enough that Shido changed tactics and threatened his parents and girlfriend into being false witnesses against him instead.
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Les Yay: Three of the confirmed pairings are Haru Okumura with Hifumi Togo, Futaba Sakura with Sumire Yoshizawa, and Sae Niijima with Tae Takemi.- Yukari and Mitsuru are mentioned to have gotten married and now live together in New York.
- Kotone and Aigis are mentioned to have been in a relationship and Aigis is still haunted by Kotone's death many years later.
- Like Brother and Sister: Ann feels this way about Ren as of Chapter 29.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Shiho and Ann. They think of each other as soulmates, yet not in a romantic way.
- Made of Iron: To a lesser extent than normal, but this applies to any Persona user.
- Misplaced Retribution: After Sumire asks Ren to see her, he tears into her over her abandoning him, and brings up things she has no memory of doing thanks to Maruki's treatment of her. Doing this sends her into breakdown, and her father later admits that while Ren's anger was justified, it was directed at the wrong person. Sumire shouldn't have been the one to get berated, her parents should have after forcing Sumire to do that.
- The Mourning After: Even many years later Aigis is still haunted by Kotone's death and deeply misses her.
- Mythology Gag: In this story Ren's mother and the female Persona 3 protagonist are sisters. Ren's mother's name is Minako which was one of the more popular fan nicknames for the FeMC before the stage play adaptation revealed that her canonical name is Kotone.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: In-between chapters 27 and 28, Ren goes into a screaming rant after meeting Shido at the Wilton Hotel.
- Parental Betrayal: Much to Ren's heartbreak, after spending his whole life being a good, upstanding defender, his parents refused to believe his side of the story when he assaulted Shido. Later subverted; one phone call from his mother is enough for Ren to realize something may be up, and for the readers to glean that Shido made them do it...and they're still in his grasp.
- Perspective Flip: In Chapter 29, while Ren is telling Ann about the betrayal by his parents and his girlfriend, Sumire is telling the rest of the Thieves her side of the story: that she was forced into it because her father was threatened and she wanted nothing more than to comfort Ren. It broke her heart as much as it broke his.
- Pet the Dog: For the barest instant in Chapter 20, Kunikazu Okumura shows a spark of happiness that his daughter has had friends over to their house; the cold businessman hasn't fully abandoned his love for Haru.
- Related in the Adaptation: In this story Ren is the nephew of Kotone Shiomi, the female Persona 3 protagonist.
- Shipping: Lots of it, and the plans changed several times even before the author changed. The only one that's been there from the beginning is Ryuji/Ann.
- Ship Sinking: The original author first planned to ship Yusuke with Futaba. Then they made the plans for the two of them more ambiguous. When Blues took over, he decided not to pair Yusuke with anyone, figuring that art was the only true love of his life. However, as of late, Yusuke would be currently paired with Mishima.
- Unstoppable Rage: Ann is so livid after barely saving Shiho from her attempted suicide that she Awakens to Carmen outside of the Metaverse, leaving her in a berserk rage, and she immediately heads for Kamoshida's Palace to murder his Shadow. She nearly incinerates Ryuji and Ren for getting in her way before Shiho manages to calm her down.
