this is the masterlist post for soryuu sensei hakuji, a kny au where akaza defects from muzan early, starts a dojo to honour his past, and canon happens in modern times!
ON HIATUS.
the main inspirations for this are smoke and mirrors by emilieee and demon's choice by lairMorbidon so do give those fics a read if you haven't already bc they! are! so! good!!!
here’s the finished fanart!!! Genuinely so much fun to do, i love this story so much and will def draw more sometime later
The colours did get away from me a bit at the end w the lighting, but im not unhappy with it ❤️🧡
OH MMMYYYY GODDD WHAAAATTTTT LOOK AT HIM! LOOK AT HIMMMM woah the boots have flames on them and red soles too that's so cool 😭💖💖 his compression shirt and cargo pants are everything to me.
i havent actually done him in full colour before either, i hope i dont mind if i steal the boots thing a little omg. :'))
thank you so much for the fanart ahh it means the world!!! 🙏💖💘💓💕💞🔥🔥❄️
hii!! again about your soryu trainer akaza comic, since i think he covers his markings, PLEASSEE tell me akaza still has his pink hair, it’s adorable
(also heres some of my fanart progress for my fav scene in your comic 🩷)
HI OMG THEY LOOK AMAZINGGGGG LOOK AT KYOU AHHHHHH HE'S SO COOL 🔥🔥🔥💖💖💖
and yes akaza still has his pink hair! :) pink hair, yellow irises (but regular white sclera instead of his demonically cracked blue ones), and his three criminal marking bands on his forearms!
A little curiosity I have about Hakuji from the comic
let’s go ksksks.
How does he act when he’s jealous? Like, if another guy or girl tried to flirt with Rengoku, how would he react?
I picture him making a face and getting all grumpy!
oooh this is a hard one cuz im not sure we actually ever see akaza get jealous in canon? so it's hard for me to extrapolate lol. the closest we get is seeing how much he wants his spot as upper two back, but even then, he's not jealous of douma per se, he just wants that title back as (second) strongest.
i guess with that line of thinking, he would make a face and be grumpy, but less out of jealousy and more out of a self-perceived inadequacy: instead of lashing out and being grumpy at whoever's flirting with kyo, he'll turn it all inward and work three times as hard to be the one kyo looks at.
like, he's jealous but not in an externally competitive way, and the pouty faces he makes will be moreso when he's by himself and doesnt realize kyo's actually (and has always been) looking at him haha. :')
also he'd probably want to be a good role model to his students, and still remembers how the soyama well got poisoned out of jealousy, so i really don't think he'd be the type to lash out at whoever's making him jealous. i really do think it would mostly just affect him and make him work harder at whatever he perceives he might be lacking.
all that to say, he prob wouldn't get jealous in the traditional sense, but he might end up thinking "that person is better at flirting than i am, which is why they swayed kyojuro's attention" and then he'll proceed to fluster kyojuro and stress him out for like two whole weeks by trying a whole host of different come-ons and flirting techniques to get his attention back. 😂 like kyo's attention was ever anywhere else. 🙄
i won't be able to participate the rest of the week but i thought i'd plug the event with an update that technically meets the day 1 prompt "firsts", since this is the first time in this comic kyo clearly refers to hakuji with his name, instead of just his pronouns or "demon" :')) even if it's just in kyo's thoughts, it counts aha.
if ur only hearing about akaren week now, dw! u can post after the day, and theyll be reblogging up to two weeks after the week is over. have fun yall! and rip shinjuro ig 😂
I found your comic about Hakuji-sensei super interesting, but I got curious about Hakuji himself.
Is his personality more like Akaza’s, or does it also have traits of Hakuji? Like, is he Hakuji with his memories, but with Akaza’s personality?
I also thought it was really cool that he likes Rengoku! But since he remembers his past, how does his relationship with Koyuki work?
heya, anon! :) my name is rei btw aha. i almost thought this was gonna be spam because of your greeting. 🥲🥲 but hello! happy to say hi.
yeah, i think it's accurate to say he's hakuji with his memories, but with akaza's personality.
re: his relationship with koyuki, it follows canon so they were romantic and set to be married, but she and keizo are unfortunately still very dead. i'll probably hint at it here and there if i ever get that far, but there was angst, we just find hakuji in modern day having mostly dealt with it already. he's got a commissioned portrait of them and his father up in his dojo office. :) he poked and prodded yushiro till he painted it and was very annoying and fussy about it the whole time hahaha, mostly to tease yushiro. (hakuji cried when it was done tho.)
now i could just leave it at that, but i suppose i want to delve into my answer to the first part of ur ask a little further bc i find the comparison of akaza's and hakuji's personalities and traits interesting.
deeper analysis under the cut!
the thing with akaza's personality is that there is an energy and spiritedness to it when he's confronted with something that intrigues him (ie. a good fight, like with rengoku and giyuu), but otherwise he's actually quite stoic and even annoyed (ie. hangin' with douma and the other kizuki during that one meeting we see).
hakuji, we see, is very dedicated to his loved ones and cares deeply about being strong enough to protect them. he prides himself in being able to take on burdens so the people he loves don't have to, and the faith that comes with that sort of dedication comes so naturally to him that it doesn't occur to him that that sort of devotion might be out of the ordinary.
his father chose suicide because he knew his son would continue stealing for his sake: it seemingly never once occurs to hakuji that it might be a fruitless endeavour to steal money for food and medicine for a man so clearly on his death bed, because that man is his father and he is still alive, so hakuji will naturally continue to fight and do everything he can for that man to get better. similarly, koyuki doesn't believe she'll ever get better, and it stands out starkly for her when hakuji doesn't even question that she'll be able to make it another year.
i'm bringing this up because regarding the question of whether or not the hakuji in my comic has a personality more like akaza's, or if he also has traits of hakuji, i do think that even in canon, akaza has some of hakuji's traits, and that you can also see some akaza traits in the memories we get of hakuji. akaza is very purposefully a bastardized version of hakuji, and that only works because we can still see a little bit of hakuji in the demon that muzan turned him into. that's part of what makes akaza as a character such a tragedy.
akaza's energy and spiritedness is the same energy and spiritedness that hakuji put into rebelling agains the magistrates that were "punishing" (torturing) him for stealing. hakuji's devotion to his loved ones is the same devotion akaza puts into getting stronger, even though he doesn't remember why he wants to. akaza's general attitude with douma is the same as hakuji's in the early days of keizo having found him, lost after the death of his father. hakuji training himself to juggle as he spends time at koyuki's bedside, and training in soryuu with keizo in his free hours, is the same sort of dedicated pursuit akaza puts into honing his strength.
my hakuji is admittedly crack-y (and this is definitely on purpose because i started this comic wanting it to be light-hearted and funny), but he's based in the idea that an akaza with his memories returned can still retain that same energy and spiritedness he as hakuji had in his youth, if he knew it was possible to be that way.
muzan manipulating him by taking his memories was evil, of course, but there's something hopeful to the idea that akaza gets his memories back, honours his memories and all the pain and grief that come along with them, and still manages to return to the bright energy that his demon self carried with him whenever he found someone strong to fight. the demon he was when he was unburdened by his grief ended up unknowingly so, so similar to keizo in personality, even if his motivations were twisted by muzan.
(i'm also saying that a hakuji who grew up with a healthy father and enough food that he didn't have to steal would have grown up to be as cheerful as akaza is during a good fight. like, he's so happy when he comes home to his sick father with food and medicine! imagine if he could be that happy about more normal things a child should be happy about... brb crying again.)
anyways! yes, my hakuji's personality is more like akaza's except with hakuji's memories, but that characterization isn't actually coming from nowhere: it's stemming from the idea that an akaza who gets his memories back early and with enough time to come to terms with everything that's happened to him will come out the other side just as cheerful as his demon self used to be, if only because he wants to carry on keizo's legacy in this respect as well. if hakuji makes peace with his grief and remembers how happy his demon self had been without that grief, i think he might heal enough to try to get back a similar sort of happiness--it's just a more nuanced and informed happiness now, which makes it that much more precious.
and also, well, fighting strong people is fun! he should be able to enjoy that lol. it's just that, unlike akaza, that isn't the only thing hakuji cares about. :')
I've been dragged into the demon slayer fandom. My friends made me binge the show to watch Infinity Castle. I am obsessed, and I wanted to say I really, really loved your Akaza comic you've been drawing/writing. He's a lil guy (he did those things but free him anyways) and I love him!
i'm really glad you like the comic! 🥰 he IS a lil guy!!! drawing his eyelashes are my favourite thing lol.
surprise! it's an update :) to celebrate hakuji's actual backstory being animated hehe. i thought they spent a good amount of time on it, so i was a happy camper leaving the theatre. hope yall liked it too!
hello! long time, no post. 😅 sorry there's no actual update, but i figured this blog deserves an actual hiatus notice.
i haven't abandoned this, but any updates i may be able to give will be sporadic at best. as a compromise, i decided to post this comic on ao3 as well, so you can subscribe if you're interested! that way you can be emailed if this updates.
it's based on "the night parade of a hundred demons", where a whole bunch of supernatural creatures parade into the real world. it's pretty iconic imagery to me, and the two most immediate examples i have of it being referenced is jjk's s2 op2 and the bridge crossing scene in spirited away.
other fun facts: the moon in the back is a waxing moon (one of the translations for kizuki/upper moon) and is visually inspired by botw's blood moon; hantengu is holding gyokko's vase lol; the character on their lamps is the one that denotes their being an upper moon, so they all have it in their eye as well.
i did some page art, and also the cover so check it out!!! they also let me hint at renkaza too so u can bet that's our fave flame hashira's hand right there 🥰❄️🔥
it's a fully digital zine and you can pre-order a bundle from the link below. hope u grab one!
i hope this isn't terribly gauche of me when i haven't updated this comic in forever (soz yall the burnout has been bad) but! the kizuki zine is on sale and i'm pretty excited about it!
i did the cover, and also a page art piece with a teeny tiny hint of renkaza. please consider grabbing one before pre-orders close dec 20!
I love your art. You’re really talented. I’m really sorry that your stuff isn’t working for you. I just had this thought: during the training arc Hakuji should totally work with demon slayers on what to do if they’re disarmed and he should simulate what fighting a demon is like by scaring the crap out of them. And then maybe he’s caught flirting with Kyojuro? Just a thought. You’re awesome.
haha thank you, im glad you're enjoying! and yeah actually some of that is in the plans already. 🫡 i've got a bullet point that hakuji uses his demon form to help train the hashira and kyo mb gets kind of flustered about it LOL. alas, the training arc is far, far off in the future. 🥲 hopefully we get there!
I just wanted to invade your ask box to say: omg? this is the au ever? like, it has renkaza, it has emails, it has swords, basically everything a good story needs! i read it several times over the course of under an hour and definitely will be keeping tabs on it like it’s my favorite fanfic. Hope you’re doing well and working on the comics at your own pace, i know it’s no easy task to make them lol!
hi! thank you so much im glad you like it! 😭🙏💖 im really happy to hear you say so, and to see all the love this has been getting despite the sudden hiatus.
speaking of, im also really grateful for your patience. 🥲 this month has been kind of a shitshow in terms of creative projects; my tablet suddenly bricked and then i got sold the wrong tablet so i had to exhange my new stuff, and i had a bunch of other deadlines pushed back as a result. plus i lost my template and brushes for this webcomic so ive had to rebuild some stuff. 😅
im almost done catching up, after which i'll at least finish this "arc" (i think there's about three strips left?) and then i'l prob take another break to properly plan the entertainment district stuff, cuz i realized i'm prob gonna move it away from the red light district. idk how yet tho; my ideas have included maid cafe (so inotanzen can still go "undercover"), daki being some sort of popular influencer who organizes fan meets where people lowkey go missing, or she could even be an idol who only does night-time shows (and can u imagine if muzan had douma run some sort of agency and daki's one of his most popular products? hmmm will think more!).
tl;dr - thank you so much for all the support and patience! hopefully see yall in the first week of august. 🥲
hey yall, running late with this week as well. my ipad died so everything got pushed back while i tried to solve this. and yes i did lose all my procreate wips lol. 🥲
i suppose this post can serve as a reminder to back your things up aha. hoping to post the next strip first week of july latest!
EDIT: first week of july was a garbage fire. will try my best to get this out when i can, prob in the next two weeks, but can't confirm anything for now bc of some unforseen stuff taking precedence. 😅 thanks for ur patience!
hey yall this isn't ssh-related but i wanted to let you know ✨️i'm doing some pieces for this zine✨️ so if you like the upper moons, please do consider keeping it on your radar! :) we're all workin' hard! 💪
