Akiren - Blog Posts

Ah yes peak "Is life even real" commentary from our resident sleep deprived abstract thinkers

[Leblanc at 4AM]

Yusuke: Nothing is on fire. Fire is on other things.

Ren: …?

Yusuke: Apologies. Did I wake you-?

Ren, sitting up: Firetrucks are actually watertrucks.

Yusuke: And most of the stars we see are dead.

Ren: Did the gods make humans? Or did humans make the gods?

Yusuke: Is it too early or too late to have a crisis.

I really liked Miside ok... so I merged my two hyperfixations into one mb guys (might be part 1 cuz... u can draw even more different akekis im not gonna lose my chance lol)

dont mind that his face changes on every drawing lmao

At last, the time has come... Questions that must be answered overwhelm my head, but... It has to be dealt with.

We've come to an end at last! The longest chapter by far, so I hope you'll enjoy it!

Here are a few extras I did for this one as well~

U can have a little shuake sketch as a treat~

U can check out other chapter covers here:

First | Second | Third | Fourth | Fifth | Sixth | Seventh | Eighth

You know... Maybe having a family isn't so bad, eh, Goro? (I hope u'll enjoy ur read!)

I'm not too proud of this one, but hey, it still means that the 7th chapter is out! Also bonus little illustration (that gave my drawing tablet a screen burn which is the reason I finished the illustration only today)

Thank you everyone for supporting my art, it means a lot to me! (and thanks to everyone who voted on that shuake poll lmao)

U can check out other chapter covers here:

First | Second | Third | Fourth | Fifth | Sixth | Eighth | Ninth

old idea: persona 5 fish au theme

akiren has like a whale shark persona since ‘looks menacing, but is actually ok”

akechi as a tiger shark cause looks cool ig but all sharks are cool

if they go through the persona transformation I guess then akiren would be an killer whale (cause in packs and stuff, also real ferocious)

offscreen idea: mishima as a remora

but yeah fish 🐋🦈🐠🐟🐬🐳

click for better qyal

Gay ass

One day I'll expand more on the idea of Persona Flower Child Au but it's Spy x Family.

One day,,,,

I agree with this completely, but I want to add some things. I think something that I've seen people not realize is that in this framework Maruki has no care for the dead. He never cared about Kasumi, or about the sibling's bond with each other, because if he did he could have just brought Kasumi back or tried even a little bit to understand the underlying truth behind Sumire's grief stricken warped perception of her late sister. Instead, Maruki facilitates what she claims she wants, which is to become this warped perception of her sister. To match the strength she idolized. It's the same with Akechi. Akechi's wishes don't matter, Maruki wants to repay Ren for unintentionally giving him the key to accomplishing his goals, and to an extent he sees himself in Ren. Just like how Maruki didn't attempt to understand the truth behind the bond of the Yoshizawa siblings, he didn't attempt to understand the bond between Ren and Akechi. It's not enough that Akechi is alive and """"happy"""" with Ren, they had a unique dynamic fueled by their experiences, and Maruki's shallow understanding of them and what they "want" could never accurately replicate it. He thinks sanding off Akechi's jaded worldview and trauma will make him easier to love, and we know that's not true. Not to Ren. Akechi's autonomy is not granted to him because it would in Maruki's eyes, defeat the purpose of bringing him back as the perfect companion he thinks Ren always wanted but could never have.

This is a big reason why I have problems with people who claim to love shuake but also believe Maruki is right or prefer the bad ending narrative wise. It's feeding into the same toxicity Maruki does. Maruki doesn't value Akechi individually, he is only present as a ghostly giftwrapped puppet for Ren to love. People tend to fall into the trap that Maruki's reality provides, and that's that "look at this character you have grown attached to. Don't you want them happy?" So they are forced to deal with the cognitive dissonance of safe comfort for the character, or what the character would want. Anyone who claims to love Akechi and Ren together but prefers the bad ending doesn't actually care about the bond they have. It's because they play as Ren and they want his "happiness".

Adding onto this because I've yapped for this long so I might as well, I could apply this to any of the other thieves as well. Someone might spend the entire game wishing for Ann to be happy with Shiho, and then when Maruki provides that of course they would consider accepting the deal. But they seem to forget that the only reason they became attached to Ann in the first place is because of the experiences she went through in the course of the game. The Ann they grew to love is NOT the Ann that has Shiho in Maruki's reality. It's an important distinction to make.

forever thinking about royal’s bad ending. my thing with it is that maruki doesn’t necessarily give anyone what they want most, he gives them what’s most appropriate for them to want within a maruki-approved framework. iirc there’s a really interesting text sequence in the game where he just straight up changes someone’s career because they’re not “good” at it, regardless of whether that’s what they actually want. why struggle at all? ever? right?

and so ultimately i don’t think goro akechi’s greatest wish is necessarily ren. i think it’s a wish for sure, but his greatest wish is his own agency. despite any regrets he has and the fact that shido and yaldabaoth treated him like a pawn, he's generally pretty adamant about owning his choices and their consequences. he doesn't want that erased. and instead, you end up with pleasant boy™ if you take maruki’s deal. maybe maruki (incorrectly) thinks sanding off all of akechi’s rough edges will make him easier for ren to love. but the crux of it is really that maruki has to essentially lobotomize him to preserve the illusion of his perfect reality, because their ideologies are so diametrically opposed that akechi would spend every waking moment fighting back.

this isn’t to undermine ren’s importance to akechi btw — he explicitly acknowledges that he wishes they had met earlier, and there are countless moments throughout their confidant that underscore how much it means to him that they mirror each other so well. he absolutely does want more time with ren, just not under these circumstances.

and that’s also what makes ren’s choice on 2/2 doubly devastating. he knows that either way he loses akechi. and if he takes maruki’s deal, he loses him knowing that his last moments with the real akechi involved the two of them being unforgivably out of sync.