hear me out: if somehow joker could manifest a palace even after the metaverse’s disappearance and his greatest wish in maruki’s reality was for goro to be alive so they could have a healthy rivalry, then, hypothetically, goro could be alive in his palace,

wakaba was able to appear in Futaba’s palace albeit briefly, and even if that might’ve been a cognitive version, imagine the possibilities. akira finally being able to indulge in a healthy rivalry without worrying about the reality being fake and the Goro’s he’s with manipulated.

Akira’s distorted desires being about literally all of his previous trauma + the real effect of not being able to access the Metaverse anymore. there he was finally able to show his true self, not hiding behind glasses in order to seem kind and non-threatening. even while-

leaving Tokyo he couldn’t help but see joker in his reflection, and now he’s having difficulty sorting through all his different masks and personalities he had to use around different people. eventually he kind of just becomes hollow because he doesn’t know who he is anymore-

without having the Metaverse and his personas to help him express himself. I’m not sure what his palace would be, but it would be somewhere where he’s reliving the experiences of the past year as a different person but never as his actual self, akira kurusu. just as joker-

wearing different masks. didnt mean for this to get long but yeah

a popular idea seems to be a theatre palace, and it fits but at the same time it also works for the ideas I have for goro? but imagine. Joker running all of the performances of events that happened throughout the game, all the way from his transfer to shujin until the thirdsem-

he plays with the cognitive versions of the other characters, who all start out the same but once he finishes their social links they praise him and love him for who he presented himself to them as. aka he has a different mask for everyone if that makes sense.

but since he is doing frequent shows with little to no breaks, he gradually just gets more and more tired and frantic and is having more difficulty performing well as the show goes on. but the show MUST go on. there’s no stopping. and when he does get the chance to-

get off stage, he’s confused and wants to go back right away because on his own he just doesn’t know who he is.

okay okay I need to sleep now feel free to add more ideas idk