all your mother's weaves and your father's threads

[flightpen]

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 from pheasantboy's universe.]]

Comments

[fogbornphantom]

"I did, yes." Crow sits beside him, crossing his legs. "But I understand that this is all a sensitive subject for you."

[flightpen]

"No, I mean. Usually people don't..." Then again, he's not in Maruki's reality anymore. Apparently.

[fogbornphantom]

"...They don't notice your distress?" That's... deeply concerning. So deeply concerning that he almost stares as the realization sinks in.

[flightpen]

"Uh. Pretty much." He shifts uncomfortably under Akechi's stare. "I think it's just that it's not very... perfect reality. To see someone upset."

[fogbornphantom]

"Fucking Maruki." There's a familiar snarl, a more typical growl. "If he truly cared, he would not amplify your suffering by ostracizing your experiences."

[flightpen]

"I mean, when it gets really bad, he kinda. Shuts me off for a while. So he's not.... actively trying to make me suffer. I think?" He tugs nervously at the end of his sleeve. "I think he just wants me to decide it sucks to have, like. Actual emotions. When everyone else gets to be like Sparrow. 'cause if I agree with him for real and not because I was blackmailed, he'll have been right all along."

[fogbornphantom]

"Oh, yes, because obviously true happiness comes from an inability to experience any emotions whatsoever. What a novel idea!" He throws up his hands, his voice carrying an edge it lacked before. "Just because he wants to escape his own pain doesn't mean he has a right to project his idea of what's right onto everyone else. That he put so much responsibility on your shoulders and didn't even leave the people with any lasting agency shows that he never truly had everyone's best interest at heart. He just wanted a pretty little dollhouse."

[flightpen]

Ren just watches him, wide-eyed, not frightened but astonished enough that he can't find words. He tries not to focus too hard on the harshness in Akechi's voice, and the memories it calls up.

[fogbornphantom]

"...Apologies if I overstepped." And there he is, back to that softer tone. Gone is the growl. Gone is the righteous anger. It's as if he's a balloon that was just freshly popped and all the hot air escaped.

[flightpen]

"No, I don't—sorry, I just—um." Fuck, can you say a sentence sometime this year, Amamiya. "I haven't seen anyone get mad in a while, and..." His voice gets a little smaller. "And you don't like me much? So I was surprised. That's all. I don't mind."

[fogbornphantom]

"I never said I dislike you." Quite the assumption there, Ren. "I believe the end result of your decision is obviously not ideal, but I can at least acknowledge that your hand was forced by a manipulative madman."

[flightpen]

Yeah, well, usually people don't just tell you if they dislike you. Ren decides it's pointless to say so, though. "That's pretty diplomatic."

[fogbornphantom]

He shrugs, heaving a small sigh. "I outgrew my ruthless revenge phase when I was thirteen."

[flightpen]

"Thirteen...?" He frowns. "Isn't that the kid that wrote the board?"

[fogbornphantom]

"He's me, yes." Crow pauses. "Well, he's my past self, rather. I'm sure that you'll run into him at some point or another. He's rather nosy and determined to find the true deciding factor between Akiras and Rens."

[flightpen]

"You think we're dumbasses, right? Rens, I mean."

Kinda hard to argue with.

[fogbornphantom]

"Not literally. Raven took my words out of context, ignoring the irony and tonal inflections." He shakes his head. Honestly, it's all so absurd. "When I said 'dumbass energy,' I meant purely in a hyperbolic sense. Moments of silly tomfoolery like meowing in the classroom to cover for Morgana."

[flightpen]

Ren can't remember the last silly tomfoolery he engaged in. "And Akiras are serious?" he asks, instead of saying that.

[fogbornphantom]

"That was Raven's initial theory, in the sense that he believed Akiras had a more cool and collected vibe, but an encounter with another Akira at the Halloween Party challenged that preconception." So, ultimately, Crow waves it off. "At this point, I suspect it's less a matter of personal traits and more of a coin toss."

[flightpen]

"Why aren't we all the same? Like. If we're all the same person. Why are we different?" Also, why does he have two names? But no one seems to know the answer to that one.

[fogbornphantom]

"Well, I think one key facet is experience. There are worlds where I lead the Phantom Thieves and you work under Shido. Or there are worlds like mine where we both lead the Phantom Thieves together." He looks down, resting his hands on his thighs. "Circumstances can yield great changes. There's even a world where my mother still lives, perhaps even more..."

[flightpen]

"I work under Shido? Why the hell would I do that?"

Akechi leading the Phantom Thieves... sure is an image. What would they even be like with him as their leader?

[fogbornphantom]

"Tragic circumstances outside your control, in the cases I've encountered. It's not my place to share their stories, but I can say that it's never a choice made in a healthy state of mind, whether it's a version of me or someone else entirely." His hands roll into tight fists, and his posture stiffens. "It seems like a near constant that someone ends up under Shido's control in the Metaverse, the false god Yaldabaoth usurps Igor, and the Phantom Thieves arise. The specifics may differ greatly, such as how my world lacks the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns and Wakaba Isshiki still lives, or how Rose is a Haru whose father thrust her into the Metaverse, giving her a much harsher outlook."