Interesting! I always forget the game uses the plural “Personas” or “Persona” to mean a plural. If it’s the former, then yeah, Goro’s outright saying he was given one of them.

I don’t have many headcanons for Ren or Shuake, but I can try!

Ren comes from an upper middle class home in a rural town and is an only child/late in life baby. His parents work in military intelligence, which adds to his sore spot and insistence on reforming the country and its corrupt government.

He took dance lessons as a kid (thus why he’s so skilled at it in P5D) and was in the drama club before he got expelled.

He’s always wanted a cat but was never allowed to have one, which is why he spoils Mona rotten and doesn’t mind carrying him around everywhere (plus he’s glad for the friendly company. It helps clear his mind from all the gossip people say about him).

He was raised to be mostly independent/self-reliant, never being a nuisance for others, which gave him this pathological need to help others at the expense of himself.

He’s a Pisces and his birthday is March 15th (ides of March, dundundun). His compatibility with Gemini Goro is a good.

He is extremely gay.

Shuake headcanons... I wrote some in this post the other day about healthy possessive behavior (one of my fave tropes). I can try to come up with some more.

Goro recognized Ren and company at the TV studio because he’d seen them in Madarame’s Palace. He didn’t know what they sounded like, thus his “pancake” slip up.

Alternatively, if you want to imagine him as a disaster gay, he was too distracted by Ren and let that mistake slip.

Mona knows exactly why Ren doesn’t tell the others about his contact with Goro (they’re gay, Harold), and Mona’s trust and lack of judgement is a tremendous relief to Ren--and Goro, since Mona actually talks to Ren when Goro’s around him in Kichijoji.

Ren does tell Ann though, because of course he does. He was there for her when she was vulnerable and terrified, and Ann trusts him more than any other boy in the group. Their support for each other is unconditional.

They have sprawling, seemingly endless conversations. They’ll start on a topic in the cafe or Jazz Jin, part ways, text each other about it when they get home, then continue the discussion the day after. They never really say goodbye in their conversations because technically their talks don’t end. At the most they’ll say goodnight/see you later (Goro does this more than Ren, as Goro likes to let Ren know that this discussion isn’t over, not yet).

Once Ren finds out that Goro once took dance lessons (as well as cooking classes), he insists that they dance together. Well, more like dance off-together. Competitively so. Goro thinks he’s ridiculous but won’t back down from the challenge.

Ann becomes the judge. She always calls it a tie just to watch them grumble.

Ren. Really. Really. Does not care. That he killed Okumura. He’s hurt that Goro went through with the Interrogation Room plot, but gets over that pretty fast since he knows Goro was trapped and his hands forced--and that he, Ren, read Goro’s cries for help and did nothing to answer them. They’re both guilty in betraying each other; that kind of trickery is one of the foundational elements of their relationship. They’re both guilty, and they both know it, and they both refuse to let the other get away with it (re: don’t like losing).

Ren also just doesn’t care about Goro’s murders in general, sorry not sorry.

Ren sends Goro texts and photos after he heads back home, and doesn’t really stop to think why they never come back with an error message.

Maruki and Shido are meant to be mirrors of each other, with Shido being honest about his selfishness for taking over Japan, and Maruki deluding himself and others into believing his goals are for everyone’s benefit. Goro is to Shido as Ren is to Maruki--they are both boys kept under their thumb and unwillingly dragged into these men’s machinations. Please recognize this.

You have to advance Maruki’s Confidant in order to secure the third semester--which means that, like Goro was to Shido, the player has no choice but to get involved with this man because the devs wanted you to see the mirrored themes in their behavior and further sympathize with Goro’s position.

it’s just a camera angle switch with the meta purpose of representing hope and holding onto the promise. having ren choose to keep the promise is a meta way of reflecting the player’s desire to see goro again, so the camera angle adjusts so we can see goro walk by the train. it’s quite literally the devs going, “if you want to see goro again, you will.”

I fucks with this so hard and yes it absolutely works and I want to see it happens.