ren amamiya (maruki's ending) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flightpen) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
personavelvetroomdr2024-02-02 02:51 pm
flightpen) wrote in personavelvetroomdr2024-02-02 02:51 pm
all your mother's weaves and your father's threads
Ren hasn't seen the Velvet Room in a while.
There was at time when he was in here every week, fusing Personas to Caroline's acerbic commentary or listening to Yaldabaoth mutter ominous words of praise. It was different in January, like a lot of things, but the point is that it's gone now. He's not even sure Lavenza and Igor survived what happened.
And yet here he is, in what's recognizably the Velvet Room. But it's changed. It's not a prison anymore, even though this would be the best time for it; Ren's heart is in chains. What was it Akechi said to him? Your heart is free. Maybe back then.
Never mind that. Igor, if it is Igor, is unforthcoming. Make bonds—as if Ren can make bonds when people can't even have a meaningful conversation. He'll be returned to the moment he left—as if he wants to go there. His friends are happy, Akechi is alive, and Ren, like Maruki himself, stands outside the world. When he tries to press, Igor gets cryptic and nonsensical, and that's so fucking familiar lately that Ren doesn't bother to keep trying.
You might find him in the following situations:
1: the rockrose and the thistle will whistle as you moan
Maruki has left him alone, mostly. God's favorite. As far as Ren can figure, it's because he knows perfectly damn well that Ren finds his reality repulsive, and he wants Ren to accept it on his own. The implication there is that Maruki also knows deep down that people aren't themselves once he changes their cognition, but that's not a surprise. Maruki talks a big game, but on some level he must know what he's doing. Surely.
Anyway, like we were saying, he's left Ren mostly alone. But he loses time, comes back to himself with the coffee cold or the sun at a different angle or an awful TV show at the end of its saccharine episode. And although he never remembers feeling what preceded it, he knows. Too much despair, too much bleak hopelessness, and Maruki turns him off like a lightbulb until it's gone again. Can't accept the new world if he's too depressed. The stupid self-defeating hypocrisy of it is annoying as hell—is he meant to accept the new reality of his own accord or isn't he? But there was a time when it would've pissed him off a lot more.
He stands in front of Igor's desk, in a place he doesn't recognize, unsure where he is or what's going to happen to him, or where his friends are, or whether this is a new stage of Maruki's reality or something entirely different, and despair swallows him whole. He waits to be shut down.
And waits. And waits, saturated in misery like he hasn't in weeks. For a split second he almost finds himself grateful to Maruki for taking it away, but he flinches back from going down that road. Like this, frozen, waiting to blink and find that his legs hurt from standing too long, he's barely aware of his surroundings.
2: all the pins inside your fretted head and your muttered whens and hows
Having pulled himself together (and not lost any time, as far as he can tell?), Ren decides that the obvious first stop is the conspicuous board that stands in the strange Velvet Room. It doesn't look... Velvet Room-y. It looks like it was brought in from outside, and as he scans its bizarre contents, he realizes he's right.
The business about Akechis and Rens being fated to be together makes him feel a little sick, so he skims it quickly and moves on. Demons, vampires, okay, that's... he'll deal with that when he has to. But as he reads the list of Akechi codenames, his eyes land on one in particular. In the middle of the corvids and the predators, there's Sparrow.
The description leaves him without any doubt. His stomach sinks. Is Akechi okay? Can he even survive in a place like this? How is Ren going to find him?
3: you gently gift it to me 'cause you've no clue how to sew
In a first, helpless attempt to locate his Akechi (different enough from other Akechis, apparently, to be identified on sight... well, that's true enough), Ren decides to head into Tokyo and go looking for places Akechi still enjoys. Kichijoji is an obvious one, with the jazz bar and Inokashira Park and his apartment, the location of which he kept behind his lips the entire time Ren knew him, only to immediately invite him over in February. But instead of taking the train, Ren walks. Travel is strangely quick, and it gives him time to look at the cognitions, which the board claimed were eerie.
The board wasn't wrong. They don't even seem like the brainwashed people Ren is used to—cognitions is definitely the better term. At least the people back home have some variability in how they act, and at least they have some kind of mild reaction if you inconvenience them. Ren steps in front of them once or twice, sticks out his leg to trip one of them even, and they don't even frown at him.
Maruki's reality is still new. Maybe this is where everyone is going to end up; automatons, puppets, walking around like video game NPCs. His skin crawls. He stands to the side of a busy road in Shibuya and watches, stomach churning.
[[ooc: This is the Ren frompheasantboy's universe.]]
There was at time when he was in here every week, fusing Personas to Caroline's acerbic commentary or listening to Yaldabaoth mutter ominous words of praise. It was different in January, like a lot of things, but the point is that it's gone now. He's not even sure Lavenza and Igor survived what happened.
And yet here he is, in what's recognizably the Velvet Room. But it's changed. It's not a prison anymore, even though this would be the best time for it; Ren's heart is in chains. What was it Akechi said to him? Your heart is free. Maybe back then.
Never mind that. Igor, if it is Igor, is unforthcoming. Make bonds—as if Ren can make bonds when people can't even have a meaningful conversation. He'll be returned to the moment he left—as if he wants to go there. His friends are happy, Akechi is alive, and Ren, like Maruki himself, stands outside the world. When he tries to press, Igor gets cryptic and nonsensical, and that's so fucking familiar lately that Ren doesn't bother to keep trying.
You might find him in the following situations:
1: the rockrose and the thistle will whistle as you moan
Maruki has left him alone, mostly. God's favorite. As far as Ren can figure, it's because he knows perfectly damn well that Ren finds his reality repulsive, and he wants Ren to accept it on his own. The implication there is that Maruki also knows deep down that people aren't themselves once he changes their cognition, but that's not a surprise. Maruki talks a big game, but on some level he must know what he's doing. Surely.
Anyway, like we were saying, he's left Ren mostly alone. But he loses time, comes back to himself with the coffee cold or the sun at a different angle or an awful TV show at the end of its saccharine episode. And although he never remembers feeling what preceded it, he knows. Too much despair, too much bleak hopelessness, and Maruki turns him off like a lightbulb until it's gone again. Can't accept the new world if he's too depressed. The stupid self-defeating hypocrisy of it is annoying as hell—is he meant to accept the new reality of his own accord or isn't he? But there was a time when it would've pissed him off a lot more.
He stands in front of Igor's desk, in a place he doesn't recognize, unsure where he is or what's going to happen to him, or where his friends are, or whether this is a new stage of Maruki's reality or something entirely different, and despair swallows him whole. He waits to be shut down.
And waits. And waits, saturated in misery like he hasn't in weeks. For a split second he almost finds himself grateful to Maruki for taking it away, but he flinches back from going down that road. Like this, frozen, waiting to blink and find that his legs hurt from standing too long, he's barely aware of his surroundings.
2: all the pins inside your fretted head and your muttered whens and hows
Having pulled himself together (and not lost any time, as far as he can tell?), Ren decides that the obvious first stop is the conspicuous board that stands in the strange Velvet Room. It doesn't look... Velvet Room-y. It looks like it was brought in from outside, and as he scans its bizarre contents, he realizes he's right.
The business about Akechis and Rens being fated to be together makes him feel a little sick, so he skims it quickly and moves on. Demons, vampires, okay, that's... he'll deal with that when he has to. But as he reads the list of Akechi codenames, his eyes land on one in particular. In the middle of the corvids and the predators, there's Sparrow.
The description leaves him without any doubt. His stomach sinks. Is Akechi okay? Can he even survive in a place like this? How is Ren going to find him?
3: you gently gift it to me 'cause you've no clue how to sew
In a first, helpless attempt to locate his Akechi (different enough from other Akechis, apparently, to be identified on sight... well, that's true enough), Ren decides to head into Tokyo and go looking for places Akechi still enjoys. Kichijoji is an obvious one, with the jazz bar and Inokashira Park and his apartment, the location of which he kept behind his lips the entire time Ren knew him, only to immediately invite him over in February. But instead of taking the train, Ren walks. Travel is strangely quick, and it gives him time to look at the cognitions, which the board claimed were eerie.
The board wasn't wrong. They don't even seem like the brainwashed people Ren is used to—cognitions is definitely the better term. At least the people back home have some variability in how they act, and at least they have some kind of mild reaction if you inconvenience them. Ren steps in front of them once or twice, sticks out his leg to trip one of them even, and they don't even frown at him.
Maruki's reality is still new. Maybe this is where everyone is going to end up; automatons, puppets, walking around like video game NPCs. His skin crawls. He stands to the side of a busy road in Shibuya and watches, stomach churning.
[[ooc: This is the Ren from
pheasantboy's universe.]]
no subject
Didn't just give up? Well, maybe not, maybe he was threatened into it, but the effect is the same in the end. So does it matter? His voice fades.
no subject
"I didn't mean it as an accusation," Ann says. "More of just...an observation." Not a comment on what he did, but on what he's doing. Ann can understand the choice he made, sincerely--but if he's so miserable with the outcome, she's not sure why he's still living in it? It's antithetical, to her. She's not going to say it aloud, though; she's pretty sure he's been beat up enough.
no subject
...oh. Actually, no, it's obvious, isn't it.
Too much pain, and he loses time. He thought Maruki didn't like it when he got too mad, either, but he only sometimes loses time due to anger, and if he never remembers having a single rebellious thought—
He laughs humorlessly under his breath. "I didn't give up," he tells Ann grimly, because she's there and because she's helped him figure it out, kind of. "He just. Turns me off. When I think about trying to confront him. Same way he does when I get sad. Until now, I just kind of figured I'd never thought about it for some reason."
no subject
She speaks without thinking: "If I could, I'd kill him for you." She really, really means it, because what the fuck. She can't blame Ren for making the choice he did--ask a traumatised teenager something fucked up like that on a deadline and it's a 50/50 they'll give you a bad answer--and apparently she can't blame him for letting things stay as they are, either. "Does anyone else here know about that?" At the very least, this information should make Ren's time here a little less...hostile. He really seems like he needs support, not scorn, actually.
no subject
In answer to her question, he shakes his head. "I just noticed now. At home it's like—if I start to get really sad, I blink, and time's passed, and I don't feel as bad anymore, right. So, okay, Maruki doesn't want me too depressed, whatever."
Whatever is not an accurate summary of how he feels about it, and it shows in his face.
"But then sometimes I get mad and it happens, so I thought he doesn't want me mad, either, but it's. Not consistent? Like, sometimes I'll be really pissed off and I don't lose time, but sometimes I'll just get a little annoyed and then an hour's gone. And I couldn't figure out why until now, because I couldn't. Think about fighting back against Maruki, even just to realize I was losing time when I thought about it. I thought it just now and it was like. Like stretching a muscle you haven't used in ages. If that makes sense? I don't know. I think I'm rambling. Sorry."
The talking is helping him put his thoughts in order, but this poor Ann doesn't deserve to bear the brunt of it.
no subject
She frowns, thinking. "If you're asking me...it sounds like Maruki is scared of you. Not just of the idea that you could fight back and wrest control from him...but scared of what you represent. Because as long as you're not happy, everything he's created is a lie, and he knows it."
Cynically, Ann wonders how long it would have taken for Maruki to decide that Akira needed more of a permanent fix. Sure, he apparently wants him to be 'happy,' but given the weighing of one individual against his dreaming masses...eventually, something would have to give.
no subject
He doesn't even know how to end the sentence. Maruki is a lot of things. "We're kind of in the same situation," he says instead. He wouldn't have dared to say that to her before, but maybe now that she's less hostile, she'll understand? "I mean. You're not the one who fucked everything up." He lets out a breath. Almost, it could be a self-deprecating laugh, but it doesn't quite get there. "But. You remember stuff no one else does. No one else knows what's going on. It's just you." He hesitates, gathering the shreds of his courage. "So, um. I can listen too. If you want."
She probably doesn't want that. She probably has other people here she'd rather confide in, who don't remind her of the guy who did this to her. But he can't not make the offer, after she said what she did. And he misses being there for people. No one needs him in Maruki's reality. It's such a selfish thing to get upset over, given everything else, but that doesn't stop him.
no subject
"Thank you," Ann says, genuinely. "I'll definitely keep that in mind...even if there are people here who don't think I'm crazy for saying I'm a time traveler, the list of people who get it are way smaller."
She doesn't really know how to touch the first part of what he said, because Maruki is clearly a hot button issue, but... "Here, put yourself in my contacts." She holds out her phone. "That way, if we ever want to chat, it's easy for us to reach each other. Even if it's not easy to meet in person."
no subject
"Yeah," he says. "Text me whenever." It's weird to say that and mean it; at home, he dreads getting texts.
no subject
(she saves his number under the contact '):')