#its like 'hello telegram from 5 decades ago! i brought my stereotypes!'

[tumblunni]

I finally got yusuke and makoto aaaa I am so happy Goddammit I wanna spend every day hugging the new best party members! But also I kinda wanna punch atlus for getting EVEN WORSE about the homophobia and transphobia seriously Its like every persona gets worse??? Its so fucked up cos persona 2 actually had a canonical gay romance and at the same time p3 and p4 came out we had digital devil saga with its unparalleled respectful portrayal of intersex and nonbinary characters. Like seriously how many writing teams work in the smt crew?? Were the open minded ones all fired midway through the PlayStation 2 era?? WHAT HAPPENED. How can a company even go backwards so much?? God its like... If both things are indeed written by the same groups of people then its like 'hey this game is MORE MAINSTREAM so we'd better throw lgbtq fans under the bus to try and get more popular lol' :p So yeah anyway there's these really friggin 1960s scare campaign level caricatured gay NPCs. They only exist in the red light district cos lol of course, and they only exist to be jokes about how you literally should not ever talk with or make eye contact with gay men because they will rape you. This is the 'funny' ending to the red light district side quest. Ryuji literally just WALKS PAST a gay couple and they suddenly decide to grab and rape him??? And its 'funny'??? Just cos they're drawn as ugly stereotypes and they talk like 'ooo darling u r so naughty always going for the underage straight boys ooo lol we're gonna convert you'. And then your protagonist is given no option but to let ryuji be dragged off and sexually harassed??? He didn't even do anything to 'comically' deserve this 'punishment', its not even funny within it's own narrative! And you just see him again the next day and he's like 'ha ha lol u left me to get raped, what a funny man you are' and its NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN?? just brushed away that he managed to escape them so its no big deal. And then these rapist stereotype NPCs continue to exist in that area forever so I can never be free of them ever time I wanna go to the damn fortune teller shop... Oh and the bartender is also a negative stereotype of trans women, she's drawn in the same cliché 'ugly style' they gave the fat schoolgirl in p4 and she has facial hair and a 'comical' masculine voice. And like.. God... I thought at least she escaped the worst of it cos she never gets any lines of dialogue in this side quest, but now random social links are mentioning her and like SERIOUSLY MISHIMA LEAVE HER ALONE! 'Oh man that interview with that reporter was awful cos the bartender was 'a drag queen' and I felt like 'he' was gonna rape me even though we barely even made eye contact' JUST STOP. GAME, PLEASE STOP. And UUUUUUGH all the 'lol it looks like a gay option but haha it will never be an option' teasing in yusuke's friendship scenes! There's none of that usual 'oh lol ur reading too much into it, he's totally straight' NO THE WRITERS FUCKIN KNOW WHAT THEY DID. You literally have one scene where the two of you get mistaken for a gay couple in the park and the passers by are all 'oh well nowadays people are kinky like that' as if its something lewd, and somehow its meant to be funny??? Its been a huge eye opener to me... I don't even think atlus is intentionally queerbaiting now, I was giving them too much credit to think they were actually trying to appeal to the queer market! I just think all the huge amounts of teasing a gay option is meant to be A JOKE to them. They think that people will laugh their heads off at merely mentioning that gay people exist, and everyone would ~obviously~ be totes grossed out and know that everyone is really straight. Why wouldn't they be! They're so straight that you can say they're gay and its a funny funny joke! Those silly queer folks taking it seriously! Those silly very large portion of our audience! Silly how persona 4 became so popular in that market! Silly how we're so fucking desperate we'll even buy something only vaguely teasing representation in a really insulting way! And silly how I've got so used to it that I'm already feeling like 'oh people will think I'm not a real fan if I criticize this, I'd better keep my mouth shut'... Gahhhhhhh YOU LITERALLY HAVE PEOPLE SAYING YUSUKE IS MY GAY OPTION THATS HOW MUCH THIS DUMB RECURRING 'JOKE' HAS ASCENDED INTO ABSURDITY HA HA LETS JUST STATE THAT GAY PEOPLE EXIST MAYBE YOU CAN DATE THIS CHARACTER BUT NOPE WHAT A FUNNY WHAT A PUNCHLINE WHAT A MINIMUM EFFORT FUCKING MESS ... gah sorry I'm shutting up now Anyway I like yusuke a lot and I really fucking wish he was an option. Or at least they wouldn't outright mock me for wanting it. Also Ann x makoto is already hitting me hard and she's barely been in the party for five seconds. They just had a really heartwarming side plot of going from enemies to best friends and they have so much in common and all the boys are constantly being perverted assholes to Ann so she needs to end up with someone better. Seriously this game even goes out of its way yo have like a month long 'joke' of yusuke being mistaken for perving on ann when he's actually not interested in her and doesn't even know what he did wrong! Somehow even the one boy who isn't hitting on her has to somehow hit on her???? And ha ha 'comedy' equals 'hey Ann you have to strip naked in front of a stranger that we all think is a rapist, it is The Only Way'. Fucking glad yusuke turned out to not be that awful, but still it made me so uncomfortable geez... Did the whole Palace in like two days just to get it over with... ... Okay NOW I am done complaining! This is also why I love finally getting another female character, and one that doesn't have to wear a super sexualized battle outfit and do stupid poses that seem completely out of character. Seriously Ann freaks out and tries to cover her chest the first time she transforms, and she just has to.. Deal with it?? And the phantom thief uniforms are meant to be based on your soul so why is it even possible for someone to not be comfortable wearing it? Is it meant to be some kind of stupid 'lol she is repressed and secretly she wants to dress sexy even if she says she doesn't' sort of thing...? Wouldn't have been uncomfortable if she actually seemed like she chose the damn boob suit :P Okay Okay NOW I am done I just had to get out all my complaints cos a lot of this game made me very happy and I hate how some very small scenes have so much impact they threaten to ruin that :P Also I REALLY WANT TO DATE YUSUKE Fuck u game for suggesting I date him if you ain't gonna deliver KEEP YO MOUTH SHUT *goes back to sitting grumpily in a swan boat*