royal should have ended like this btw

Day 7: Alternate Universe

“Would you rather I take that for you? You’re all friends, right?”

I love the complexities of the false ending. There’s a lot of debate as to whether it’s a “good” ending or a “bad” ending, but one thing’s certain—it’s an alternate universe that undermines all of the struggles the heroes went through.

maruki doodles

Azathoth using his tentacles on Arsene and Robin Hood as they both giggle and feel their clothes being taken away.

//P5R Spoilers

Almost perfect✨🐙🧃

Oh goodness who remembers these

Satanael Defeats The God Of Control in Persona 5 Royal (2019)

So I was thinking about Maruki (as I do 23 hours and 48 minutes a day, leaving 10 minutes for existential dread and 2 for sleep) and I was reminded of that Robert Caro quote (shout out to Lindsay Ellis' Game of Thrones videos), 'Power doesn't always corrupt, but it always reveals', to paraphrase, the idea that there are such people who are incorruptible and those we believe in power who've let it control them didn't need much corrupting to begin with.

I think about all the people who've wronged Maruki like the robbers, the guy who pulled all funding from Maruki's research etc. And how the very notion of revenge never even occurred to him, he had god-like power to rewrite their lives but, because Maruki was always a good person going about his quest wrong, he didn't let the power get to him because therr was nothing there to get.

[ID: a fully rendered digital comic featuring various characters from persona 5 royal narrated by Azathoth. Panel 1 & 2: A birds-eye view of Takuto Maruki visiting Rumi in a hospital. Azazoth says "I have a deep fondness for human desires. When they fulfil their desires," the statement finishes in the next panel, "then I, too, feel a great sense of fulfilment." with a close-up shot of Maruki placing his fist near to Rumi's, both grasping one of Azazoth's tendrils. A third tendril lies in between their hands as if to separate them. 3: A speech bubble against a black background shouts "But there are far too many limitations on my ability to do that here!!" 4 & 5: Sumire Yoshizawa ties up her hair with a ribbon as it says "Once a wish is granted, it vanishes." During a scene where Goro Akechi and Joker happily hang out in the Jazz Jin, it says "Or by fulfilling the desires of one person," above Joker, then "it becomes impossible to fulfil the desires of another." above Akechi. 6: Azathoth's skeleton glows inside Maruki's silhouette, as well as the tendrils wrapping around his arms. During this, it says "That's why I want to swallow the entire world. If I can do that, then within me," 7: It finishes, "I can fulfil your desires for all eternity." End ID]

Azathoth's stake.

or: I redrew a page from dunmeshi and set it in the third semester. sorry the low quality I have no idea what happened here 😭

og page below. MAJOR dungeon meshi spoilers if you wanna avoid that

[ID: a page from the dungeon meshi manga narrated by The Winged Lion.

Panel 1: A panel showing a person looking at a bookshelf, a person caressing their skin, and a person preaching to a crowd. The Winged Lion says "I have a deep fondness for human desires. When they fulfill (sic) their desires, then I, too, feel a sense of fulfillment (sic). I want to grant the desires of every human in the entire world."

2: He shouts "But there are far too many limitations on my ability to do that here!!l

3 & 4: Over Thistle's unconscious form, he says "Once someone's wish is granted, then it vanishes..." Over Mithrun holding his partner's cheek in front of a heartbroken witness, he finishes "Or by fulfilling (sic) the desires of one person... It becomes impossible to fulfill (sic) the desires of another."

5: The Winged Lion mimics the motion of eating something between his fingers as he says "That's why I want to swallow the entire world. If I can do that, then within me... I can fulfill (sic) your desires for all eternity."

End ID]

if I had a nickel for every reality warping doctor with a Persona who was based on Lovecraftian gods I’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice

Violet: Well I can’t say I SHOULD’T have it.

Crow: Whoever issued this has MAJOR issues of his own

i promise this was going to be a really serious and beautiful image. i promise

I swear to god my thoughts on Azathoth after playing Royal can consist of:

Me: Azathoth is creepy and sus sometimes!

Also me after playing Royal: Hehe, goofy eldritch squid go brrrr...

I am not kidding here! XD

Months later and yeah I'm still totally on the "Azathoth is totally not a real Persona and is 100% Nyarlathotep back on his bullshit" headcanon train. Azathoth actually being a Nyarly completely solves the "Persona users can't have palaces" dilemma, his methods (seemingly give people what they want to lure them into inaction and complacency) line up well, and the design aesthetics (especially those grasping black with electric blue/green hands....) are close enough for me! Nyarly loves playing fake persona, and I'm glad he got to have some fun in P5R.

This will never be touched on in future games or be proven canon, but *I* will always know in my heart of hearts that I'm 100% correct LOLLL

a deal with the devil

rating: T

characters: Takuto Maruki, Azathoth, Rumi (mentioned), Sumire Yoshizawa | Kasumi Yoshizawa (mentioned)

tags: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Cognitive Dissonance, Emotional Manipulation, Azathoth is a parasite, Maruki is its unwitting host, post-Rumi hospital scene, pre-Royal timeline, Sumire counseling scene, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm(very briefly) - Freeform, Vomiting(also very briefly), you ever realize you made a deal with an eldritch being to save the love of your life and now it won’t go away, the Takuto Maruki experience

In his grief, Takuto Maruki screamed into the void for help. He wasn’t prepared for it to answer.

Or: Takuto Maruki awakens to his power and initially rejects it, not realizing the parasite who gave it to him wasn’t going away that easily.

—

“What did I do? Oh god, what did I do?” He sank his hands into his hair and curled into himself as much as the cramped interior of the car would allow. “That voice, it had to be that voice, I mean I couldn’t—how could I—”

That voice. It felt as though it came from inside of him, though it certainly wasn’t his own. He was so desperate to help her he latched onto it, not knowing whether it was demon or angel or something different altogether. But now that he was faced with its consequences, he feared that he gave into something dangerous.

My initial impression of Maruki's persona Azathoth was that Azathoth did not suit Maruki, the persona was far too sinister for such a kind man even as misguided as he was. So I started thinking about it and the more I thought about it the more odd and out of place it seemed. As noted by others there are several peculiarities with Maruki’s persona: Unlike all other palace rulers, Maruki has a palace and a persona, “Not only can it use its powers from within the real world, it is extremely unstable when used to do so, as seen in its ability to cause memory loss and cognitive dissonance as drawbacks to its powers. It also displays an initiative and sentience somewhat separate from Maruki's” (the megaten wiki). That last part is of particular notability, that Azathoth seems to display a will independent of Maruki’s along with its appearance and Maruki’s strange awakening, makes me speculate that Azathoth‘s manifestation was the result of Nyarlathotep’s meddling.

Maruki’s persona awakening was also unusual in a number of ways. Leading up to his awakening Maruki started hearing Azathoth’s voice and had worsening headaches. For all the other P5 persona users they only heard their personas’ voices during the awakening, not before, implying something else was talking to Maruki or that Azathoth was forming abnormally, and separate from Maruki. For the other awakenings (with some variations) we see the awakening happens because the character resolves to do something, after great pain a mask manifests, the character’s eyes turn yellow, and when that mask is ripped off the persona and metaverse outfit manifest. None of this happens for Maruki, instead the sky turns red, the metaverse starts bleeding into reality because of the Demiurge, and Maruki just turns around and Azathoth is there. For Maruki's persona awakening there is no resolve, no yellow eyes (shadow self merging with the real person), and no mask at this point. Additionally this awakening is happening in reality instead of in the Metaverse (the closer to reality you get in the collective unconscious the harder it is to manifest a persona). Which all supports that it wasn’t Maruki that awakened Azathoth, but something else.

As noted by others many parts of Persona 5 seem reminiscent of or call back to Persona 2. In all 3 games rumors are a recurring motif that play a large part in the game, greatly affecting the main cast, and late in the games rumors/what people believe start replacing reality. Various similarities between the main cast include a party member with complicated feelings of admiration and abandonment by their father who has an older sibling working in the justice system, girls facing simultaneous social ostracization and fetishization for being mixed race, mysterious trickster Jokers, rival characters who are antagonists but also party members, lots of daddy issues.

Unlike most of the other personas in P5 Azathoth is particularly creepy looking containing none of the usually recognizable human features, and instead having a gold cross with human brain and spine entwined in tentacles. Now Futaba’s inhuman personas look like alien spaceships because she feels alienated and separate from other people, but why would good boy and very social Maruki’s persona look like... that? What Azathoth does look like is something wrong, something reminiscent of Nyarlathotep's appearances in the Persona 2 duology. Azathoth’s black tentacles with blue/green accents remind me of Nyarlathotep’s appearances in the Persona 2 games where they also were a mess of black tentacles with blue/green accents. Like Nyarlathotep, Azathoth is also deity out of H. P. Lovecraft‘s Cthulhu Mythos, but not only that, Azathoth is the progenitor of Nyarlathotep making a direct connection between them in the Persona universe.

Now it could be argued that Azathoth’s spoken lines are because of Maruki’s internal conflict but think about what Azathoth says, it is pushing Maruki to make choices that lead to a worse outcome and a distorted world. Along with how strange a persona Azathoth is and all the above connections to Persona 2 and Nyarlathotep, I find Azathoth to be very suspicious. And yet Maruki took Azathoth, merged him with the palace treasure, and in Morgana’s words “evolved” Azathoth into Adam Kadmon. In the transformation animation Azathoth’s tentacles form muscles and organs (mesoderm) around the gold central nervous system and then the whole thing is wrapped in a gold skin. Adam Kadmon follows the trend in ultimate personas where the initial one is a fictional character and the ultimate is an actual mythological figure. So Maruki (despite whatever Azathoth really was) managed to make his persona real when he combined it with his reason for doing everything (the treasure).